Hero and Villain have been rivals for years, and both have recently gained a mentor to train them to be better fighters and ultimately best the other.
After an embarrassing loss against Villain, Hero returns home, where Mentor spends half the night patching up Hero and giving them pointers on how to improve. In the morning, Mentor cooks them breakfast, takes them shopping for new training gear, and resumes their training at Hero’s pace.
After their win, Villain goes to their room and wraps up their injuries. There’s a knock on the door, and Mentor pokes their head into the room. “Did you win?” Mentor asks. “Yeah.” “Good. More training at 6 a.m. sharp,” Mentor says before leaving.
After a series of wins for Villain, who has grown increasingly obnoxious during their battles, Hero finally defeats them. Mentor takes Hero out to dinner, and they get their favorite dessert. Hero is glad to have finally wiped the prideful smirk off of Villain’s face.
Villain, left unconscious at the scene, is dragged home by Mentor. When they wake up the next day, their body aches and they can hardly move. “Time for training,” Mentor says. When Villain doesn’t immediately get up, Mentor slaps them on the face. “Time for training,” they growl.
When Hero and Villain face off again, Hero notices a change in Villain. The arrogance is gone, replaced with something more hostile, more violent. Their battles had been more of a contest before, but now, it feels more like a death match. Villain doesn’t hold back his attacks, but Hero still manages to defeat them; their training has been going really well.
“HOW COULD YOU LOSE AGAIN?!” Mentor screams at Villain, who only just woke up, who can barely even see out of their swollen eyes. Their leg still throbs from Hero’s attack. “Get out of bed. Time for training.” After a brutal training session that lasts the rest of the day, Mentor hauls Villain back to their room. “Don’t you dare lose again,” they say and stomp away.
The next battle arrives, and the air is heavier. Both Mentors are present, glaring at each other across the way. Hero can’t even believe what they’re seeing. Villain looks awful—bruises under their eyes, thinner, limping. Did their leg not heal yet? But Villain doesn’t hesitate at all, just wordlessly and relentlessly attacks Hero. Hero considers stopping the battle, but hardly even has time to breathe as Villain is fighting so aggressively.
As Villain tires themselves out, they only become more desperate. They can’t lose again. Their face is contorted in pain—they can’t even run—so Villain decides to play a dirty trick, followed by a lethal strike. Hero dodges and sends Villain flying with their own attack. Villain lands crumpled on the ground, moaning in pain.
Hero starts marching over to Villain, ready to give them a piece of their mind, but Villain’s Mentor reaches them first. And kicks Villain square in the stomach. Then the face, the ribs, the legs—a horrific barrage of kicks while Mentor yells, “I. Told. You. Not. To. Lose!” Villain cries out as each blow rocks them, hands feebly attempting to ward off the kicks.
Hero can’t bear to watch. They hate Villain, but seeing them beaten when they’re already down is too much. Too far. Hero runs up and shoves Villain’s Mentor away. “Stop!” Thankfully, Mentor seems done with their tirade, giving Hero a condescending sneer instead. “Congratulations, Hero. I’ll see you next time with a better apprentice. And, I’ll win,” Villain’s Mentor says, then walks away.
When Hero turns back to Villain, they see their own Mentor on the ground beside Villain, speaking softly to them while they gently comb over their injuries. “It’s okay. I just want to see where you’re hurt.” When it’s clear that Villain is too injured to care for themselves, Mentor picks them up and carries them home in their arms.
Villain wakes up in an unfamiliar bed, the delicious smell of breakfast food making their stomach rumble. Someone has bandaged all their wounds, and though Villain is sore, they don’t feel half bad considering all the damage they’d taken. They start wondering if it’s all a dream until there’s a knock on the door, and Hero and Hero’s Mentor walk through the door. There are three plates stacked with hot food in their hands, and one of them is offered to Villain. “Breakfast?” Mentor asks.
Whumpee has a rival in life. Could be at work, school, or elsewhere.
Whumpee and Rival would never admit it, but they both live off the competition. It’s so engrained in their daily lives and mindsets that you would think they are on the way to a rivals to lovers situation.
But somewhere along the line, Whumpee experienced a traumatic with another whumper. Maybe an abduction or something. They are released or escaped back to their daily life and are completely shaken with bruises and a broken mind.
The rival doesn’t quite catch on at the beginning and accidentally makes Whumpee’s life miserable. The rival was just doing things they were normally doing but now it seems like full on bullying.
At some point they notice that Whumpee is not reciprocating. They try something really mean to get Whumpee’s attention but instead find a wound. Rival is horrified and wants to get to the bottom of what happened to whumpee
I can also see this fitting well into a hero villain type story
A doesn’t have anyone who they can rely on. They don’t have any friends, and any family they have is too distant to ask for help.
A never considered their loneliness a real problem until one day, they ended up in the hospital with some pretty serious injuries. They can’t afford to extend their stay very long, so as soon as they’re given the approval to leave, they want to do so immediately—but due to the nature of their injuries (maybe something to the legs or minor to the head that would hinder their ability to move), A can’t exactly make it home on their own.
They give the hospital a few emergency contacts to try calling, most of which are family they haven’t spoken to in forever or mere acquaintances who probably don’t care about them enough to help. A begins to lose hope…because there’s only one person left who can realistically make it. B.
A and B never got along, ever. Some weird, drawn-out rivalry between them that they each swear only exists because the other started it, yet they find it impossible to get along. A only has their contact information to send them the occasional nasty, sarcastic text.
Begrudgingly, because they really just want to go home and have exhausted every other option, A gives the hospital B’s number to try. They know that B will probably just laugh and hang up, but they’re just so tired and their injuries ache and they just wanna get home so they can change into fresh clothes and sleep in their own bed.
They were shocked when the nurse told them that B was on their way.
A had to rationalize for a moment. They were probably coming over to laugh at them or something. They’d laugh, probably sneak a few pictures, too. There wouldn’t be an ounce of empathy in their body. But at the very least, A could go home.
It takes B about 25 minutes to get there (seriously, couldn’t they have gotten here any faster?) and when they enter A’s room, they’re stuck staring at each other for a few moments.
“Wow,” B starts, “you look way worse than I thought you would.”
A wants to bite back at them, but now that they look closer, there’s no enjoyment on B’s face at seeing A’s condition. There’s not exactly sympathy, either…if A could describe it as one thing, it was pity.
They wanted to hate being pitied, but honestly, it’s the closest they’ve ever gotten to someone actually being worried about them.
“Whatever,” A muttered. “I just wanna go home.”
They leave the hospital room and eventually make it outside (with more help from B than A was willing to admit), and with some struggle, they were able to slowly maneuver A into the car without aggravating any of their injuries.
The ride is slow and painfully quiet. A can’t tell whether B is keeping the radio off to spite them with the awkwardness, or maybe it was busted, or maybe they were so focused on driving that they didn’t even notice the tension. No matter the answer, it pissed A off.
“So.” B’s voice quickly snapped them back. “What the hell happened to you?”
A just scoffed, though there was none of their usual energy behind it. “None of your business.”
“Fair enough.” They were so nonchalant about it, that also began to piss A off. “Then, you mind explaining why I was the one you decided to call? I thought you had, like, way more friends than me or whatever it was.”
Oh. It was probably something stupid they’d lied about during the heat of an argument. B actually remembered that shit?
“Oh, yeah, that.” A paused, probably for too long. “I tried them. They didn’t, uh, answer.”
“Not one of them answered.”
“Yeah.”
“Out of every single one of your friends.”
“Um.” A faced away from B, even though B definitely wasn’t looking at them. If their hand wasn’t stuck in this cast, they’d definitely be fidgeting like crazy. “Yeah, uh…no, actually. I, uh, lied. About…that.”
“Hm.”
It didn’t sound like B was surprised at all.
“I really did try everyone else in my contacts, though. They were all busy, or it was just…inconvenient, I guess.”
“Sounds to me like you need new friends.”
Something leaped in A’s chest when they heard B say that, and their head quickly turned to face them, though B was focused on the road. “You…think so?”
“Yeah,” B said with a nod. “Because this is an inconvenience to me, too, but here I am suffering anyway.”
And there goes that. “You ass!” A shouted, much to B’s amusement. “I actually thought we were having a moment—oh, you’re so lucky I’m stuck like this, or I’d…”
“You’d…?”
Another prolonged silence, and A just silently dropped back into their seat.
Even then…B was kinda right. A had other people, people they tolerated way more than B, and people who didn’t seem annoyed by everything they said. Yet it had been B who showed up to help.
…No. That didn’t mean anything. In fact, that said more about B than themselves. It meant weakness. B had a weak spot! They weren’t so tough, and deep down, they actually did…
…Wait a second.
“Hold on,” A cut in, sitting up as they watched out the window. “You passed my complex. It was back there.”
“I know.”
They turned back towards B. “I wanna go home.”
It was almost pathetic how whiny and tired they sounded, but right now, A didn’t care. Something seemed to flash across B’s face, but for A’s own sanity they chose to ignore it.
“So, I was thinking about just dumping you off at home,” B began. “And that’s what I was gonna do. But honestly, looking at you again, you definitely can’t fend for yourself right now—“
“Don’t word it like that.”
“—and I don’t want you calling me in the middle of the night to come over because you got your shirt stuck over your head or something. So, until you look like you got hit by…maybe a motorcycle instead of a truck, you’re staying with me.”
…Oh.
A blinked up at B, who just kept their eyes on the road the whole time. After a few seconds of silence (which felt weirdly comfortable now. A was probably too tired to feel awkward), they settled back into their seat again.
They thought about it again, and A couldn’t help the small smile that spread across their face.
“Good to know that you do care about me.”
“Just shut up before I leave you in a cardboard box on the street.”
