from The Changing
horror//crack//fluff ?
A shiny red box with a perfect gold bow. Too perfect. It would almost seem normal, but there's just something not quite right about it. There's a faint green glow emanating from the seams of the wrapping paper. You're afraid to touch it. It's like this box has too many fingers.
from the prompt "that can't be right..."
wc: 1806
DEC24 14:22
There's something not right about your instructors running exams up to the day before Christmas Eve. It's not like it was your class's fault that you were all taken by aliens last year, but you need to "make up for lost time" regardless.
It's close to Christmas so you knew the mall would be packed before you got here. However, you didn't expect it to be this busy. So much for the death of malls you're always hearing about. Pushing through the crowd, you make your way towards a directory. "YOU ARE HERE" says the star, somewhere far from where you need to be. You step back and resign yourself to the crowded walk to the other side.
Thinking back through the rough list you came up with, you try to think about backup stores in case you don't find everything at the first stop. Then, something catches your eye: two of Santa's elves are sitting in a dry water fountain in the middle of the atrium.
It's probably nothing. You've been over sensitive to any slight differences in everyday life after what happened last year. That's normal, you were told, it would be weird not to feel that way. These things were probably always happening and now you're seeing them because you're looking for something that's wrong. You were also told not to dwell on it too much, the feelings will pass and dull with time.
You try not to notice, but some days are harder than others. It doesn't matter, you tell yourself, The Light isn't an issue anymore. They took care of it — you need to trust that the pro heroes know what they're doing and carry on with life. Quietly.
Still, you can't help but notice. Mall Santa's aren't exactly known for their accuracy, but there's something not right about the whole set-up. It's like Santa, his elves, and the oversized gingerbread house and tree behind him all figuratively have too many fingers.
You don't have time to work through it before you see something even more concerning: the league of villains. They're dressed in what they probably assumed was civilian attire, but missed the mark entirely. Everyone else seems too busy with their shopping and holiday festivities to notice, but you do. For better or worse, you notice everything now.
They pause for a moment before you make eye contact with their leader. His red eyes widen before he waves the others to leave. Spinner, who you recognize, lingers a moment longer than the others before following.
So, you tail them.
You probably don't have to do this, but feel like you should. The whole situation is complicated. They saved you, you remember that much from when you woke up. They also threatened your class your first year and almost killed you. Now, you're not really sure what to think. Regardless, you should still check up on them and see what they're doing here.
Out of the crowd and through a side door painted the same color as the wall, you're suddenly in a much darker more industrial hallway.
With the knowledge you're not far behind, they split in multiple directions. So, you pick one at random and start sprinting. The hallway comes to an abrupt stop around a corner with a locked door. You recognize the blue hair and red eyes from before. If you were smart, you would keep your distance given what you know if his quirk. But, if you were smart you wouldn't have followed them back here in the first place.
"What are you guys doing here?" you demand, cornering Tomura Shigaraki. Not taking more chances, you grab his wrists and press them into the wall over his shoulders.
"What does it look like," he groans, not bothering to push himself free. You know he could, you've seen how misleadingly strong he is. So why isn't he? "Christmas shopping," he clarifies in such a flat voice that you know he came up with that excuse in advance.
"Oh yeah?," you ask, "then where are your bags?"
Before he has a chance to answer, footsteps approach behind you. Spinner stops as he rounds the corner, staring.
"Uh, I didn't realize—" he pauses, looking over the two of you. "I can come back if I'm interrupting — whatever this is."
It's in this moment that you realize the position you're in. Pressing his hands into the wall with one of your knees resting on the locked door between his legs. Your face hovers a breath away from his. If you don't know better, you'd have assumptions too.
"W—what? No," you exclaim, jumping back. Shigaraki laughs. Did he realize this the whole time? Probably not, most of the villains you've met aren't the best with social cues. "I—uh," you stutter.
"y/n, that's your name, right?" asks Spinner. You nod. "You noticed something weird in the Santa area too, right?"
"Yeah," you say, immediately discounting your opinion. "It's probably nothing though, I always notice things like that everywhere now."
"I don't think it was," Spinner replies, "and I need your help."
Coming back to it, you let yourself notice a bit more now. "That's not right… The star — it's in the middle of the tree. Who does that?"
"I thought so too," replies Spinner. "And the windows of the gingerbread house are off — the door goes right through the middle of one."
A tall woman who you know from the files you've seen as Magne nods. Shigaraki adds, "are the gifts they're giving out glowing?"
"What do you mean?" you ask, trying to get a better view.
"Look, look at the seams. It's like there's light coming out of the edges."
He's right. The gifts, while immaculately wrapped, do seem to be emitting light from inside. This isn't good.
Spinner is already on his phone, trying to get ahold of someone. Whoever it is doesn't seem to be answering. He shakes his head when the others look at him, but continues to try.
"We've done this before, we can do it again," Shigaraki says with sudden confidence. You didn't get it before, but you can see why they follow him.
"Who has a pocket full of rubber ducks they're hiding," jokes one you know from the news as Dabi.
"I'll find something," says another man with a mask covering his face. He runs off before anyone can say anything.
"Now, we divide up. We need to cover all of the exits — don't let anyone out with a gift," says Shigaraki. They divide up into their own groups and split up to cover all of the exits seen on the directory. They're certainly efficient.
"You're with me," grumbles Shigaraki. He turns to walk away, not waiting for you. Unsure what else to do, you go with him.
Here you are, a hero course student following the lead of a known villain just because he told you to. It's all you can do though, you're in over your head and you're starting to panic. With all the classes you've taken and research you did on your own, you barely understand the situation. And, without any previous success in this area, you admittedly don't know what to do. So, you follow the villain and hope he has a better plan.
"mall infiltrated," you text your class's group chat. "someone tell a hero." It's not like you have a heroes number in your phone, but some of them do. Your phone buzzes like crazy in your pocket, but there's no time to check. You're at the exit already.
"Give me that," Shigaraki says, yanking a well-wrapped gift from someone's hands.
"Hey," they exclaim. He pulls the paper back slightly, ripping the side open and revealing a promotional calendar.
"Fine," he groans shoving it back into the customer's hands. "That's an awful gift though."
"So you're just—just taking them?" you ask.
"Yep," he replies, grabbing another. "We're past the point of being polite, it would be rude not to."
Noted.
"Hi, excuse me," you say to a customer passing with a massive wrapped box. "I'm a local hero student and we're just, uh can I see your receipt for that? It's for safety reasons."
"Oh, we didn't buy this, we got it from Santa!" the mother exclaims with her child beaming at her side.
"I'll need you to leave it here, it's a matter of security. I hope you understand!" you take the gift, hiding it behind the trash can. The customers are, for obvious reasons, very upset.
"I'm telling the HPSC about this!" she yells, pulling her child out the door with her. You watch Shigaraki decay a gift bag from across the hall, letting a stuffed Pikachu drop to the floor. It makes you wonder how long it will be before the police show up.
Fortunately, a few of the villains arrive before then (words you never thought you'd say.)
"What took you so long?" demands Shigaraki, yanking one of the trash bags from the masked man's hands.
"I had to fight mall security. And, it's almost Christmas — everywhere is running low on crap like this," he says, plucking a rubber chicken from the bag. "I couldn't find very many ducks, but this is everything else rubbery in the place."
"Hmm, that works. We'll split up again, take the other bag to Spinner on the other side and we'll all meet in the middle," he tells the man before gesturing for you to follow him.
"Compress is usually fast, it's surprising this is all there was left in here," he says, tossing a line of them over the perimeter. Then you move to the next exit.
At each stop, you gain more villains to help spread the toys. Everyone splits off in more directions, but you stick with Shigaraki as instructed. You expected him to be a bit rough around the edges, but going this far out of his way to help everyone is a surprise to you. You didn't realize any of them cared this much about anyone.
"That should be it," he says, breathing a sigh of relief. "Those heroes you texted earlier will be here soon, so we need to take off." You consider pointing out that you didn't actually text any heroes, just hero students, but the result is the same.
"Thank you for your help Shigaraki," you say cordially.
He laughs, "it's fine. And call me Tomura."
Thank you, Tomura. And all of you," you call out to them as they rush out the door, carefully stepping over the line of toys and shoes.
You lean back into the wall, waiting for the heroes to arrive. Shortly after, a bright red car drives slowly through the parking lot. As it passes you, you notice a child in the back seat holding a glowing green gift.
You wake up to the smell of saline. Everything around you is white but it’s all so dark and dull. The longer you stare, the more you can make out.
This is a hospital room. You’re in a hospital.
How did you get here?
You want to stand up, but your limbs weigh heavily into the bed. Not worth it, you decide, not yet.
Everything in you knows you should be worried, that the next person who walks through the door could be The Light, taking you back to live a life of passive comfort forever. One where you make no choices and never have to form your own thoughts. You should be concerned, but you just don’t have it in you. You’re so tired.
Faintly, you hear a noise outside. You recognize those voices.
Your friends are laughing in the hallway. It’s actually them.
Everything is okay.
user: UNKNOWN
MAY00 00:00
In a stadium on the other side of the country, a smokey man leads the lighting crew. There’s something ominous in his green glowing eyes, but everyone is too busy to notice.
“It’ll be a packed one tonight, eh?” one of the workers asks.
“Yeah, sold out show,” responds another.
“Well, better make it a good one then.” The two disappear to their spots for the night.
Meanwhile, the man takes his own place, patiently waiting for the show to start.
Three minutes into the headliner, he flips the breakers – cutting the power to the whole stadium.
There’s something not right at UA high school and quite a few of those somethings are crowding out of the classrooms and into the hallway. Their toothy smiles are too big for their faces as they investigate, it makes Spinner’s skin crawl. Then, they turn on their flashlights.
In an instant, it turns into something closer to a game of tag than anything else. After cornering a green haired girl who leaps completely over him and runs down the hall to avoid the balloons, Spinner has to admit – this is kind of fun. Dabi also seems to be enjoying this part, putting most of his efforts into terrorizing one with red and white hair.
Chasing the students goes quickly, they manage to get them all crowded into the janitor’s closet in less than twenty minutes. Recovery Girl finishes checking the last of the rooms for stragglers.
Now it’s just time to join them.
With a few extension cords, Recovery Girl plugs in huge spotlights for everyone to carry. She swings open the door and barges in.
Spinner expects the weightlessness this time, bracing himself.
In what should be a tight fit, they once more discover that the space isn’t what it seems from the outside. This one is larger. Again, it takes a while for their eyes to adjust but the green glow seems to fade a bit the longer they point their own bulbs at it.
Unfortunately, the room isn’t the only thing that’s larger – The Light itself has more of a presence. It flickers slightly at the interruption, but what they’ve brought in is not enough to drown it out. Dabi abandons his spotlight on what seems to be the floor, using his quirk instead. The blue flames push the light back further, but there’s still more to go. Spinner wracks his brain for ideas. There was nothing in the hallway that could help. There probably aren’t spare lights lying around the classrooms, at least not at this point. Then it hits him.
Pressing off the swaying ground, he runs his hands along the barely visible wall, pulling himself back towards the door.
“It has to be somewhere around here,” he mumbles, frantically searching. Meanwhile, everyone’s movements begin to slow from being in here for so long. The thick air envelops them like a nice soft pillow. How long have they been in here anyways? It’s impossible to know for sure, nothing makes sense in this place.
Finally, Spinner finds the switch – flipping on the overhead lights. It’s just enough to push the light back to a flicker and, like before, it slowly goes out.
Without the alien presence, the room shrinks back to its normal size and spits them all out.
A pile of cocoons fill the hallway with the League of Villains crawling out from underneath.
“Eww,” says Dabi. Toga nods in agreement.
“I’ll be calling their families now, they can take it from here,” Recovery Girl says, turning off the flashlights taped to her shoulders. “Now’s a good time to take off. Thanks for your help.”
“Thank you,” says Spinner, as they turn to leave the school.
It’ll be a long time before any of them have a desire to return to UA high. They leave promptly, happy to be rid of The Light in their lives for good.
There’s something not right at UA high school and, of all people, the League of Villains are here to save the day.
Begrudgingly.
Recovery Girl leads the way, with Spinner close behind. The others trudge along after them, complaining about the effort and asking when they get to go home. Their vision is still fairly dimmed, but they’re able to see enough that they aren’t at risk of tripping over anything.
Recovery Girl scans her keycard, opening the gate. They pass over the row of rubber ducks surrounding campus and into a place most humans wouldn’t dare venture.
In the past month, UA campus has changed a lot. With the light sucking up all of the water and life from everything, the once green fields and trees have become dry and barren. There are no birds, bugs, or even snails in sight. It’s eerie.
The group approach the school building as quietly as possible, with the occasional squeak of rain boots and balloons. Spinner notices the extra ring of rubber ducks around the building.
When they get inside, they break into groups as planned.
Everything feels off. The air is still in a way devoid of life. Spinner has never felt like he belonged at UA, but right now it feels like the building itself would spit him out if it could. On top of that, the walls are lined with graffiti he can’t read.
⋏⍜⏁⊑⟟⋏☌ ⋔⏃⏁⏁⟒⍀⌇ ⏚⎍⏁ ⏁⊑⟒ ⌰⟟☌⊑⏁
“Nothing matters but the light,” translates Tomura. Spinner wonders how much information he retained from the experience, not that it's helpful yet when none of them want to talk about it.
Everyone goes the direction they were instructed to – filling the ends of hallways and areas around specific doors with as many balloons as possible until the only pathway through leads to the glowing janitor’s closet. They meet up again in the middle of the hallway.
There’s something not right in the League of Villains headquarters, but it’s better than it has been all week. The bathroom line has been long all morning as each of the league members wakes up and immediately wants to wash the cocoon residue off themselves. Spinner has been running loads of laundry non-stop, trying to keep fresh towels around.
Unfortunately after that, they mostly just lay around. Some combination of difficulty re-adjusting to gravity and massively low motivation left them all depressed and lethargic. No one has expended any amount of energy unless it’s absolutely necessary. Recovery Girl arrived, as planned, and tried to give them a pep talk. She explained the mission, planned it all out, and dumped an extra box of flashlights, rubber ducks, rain boots in varying sizes, and balloons on the table. She must have gotten up early to search them all out.
“I don’t want to,” Tomura grumbles, hanging over the arm of the couch.
“Can someone else do it?” asks Twice. He’s laying on the floor with a swirly straw hovering over his face; the other end of it dipped into a jug of water. Occasionally, he takes sips from it like a hamster, avoiding any extra movement.
“There’s no one else to ask. The longer we wait, the stronger it could get,” Recovery Girl reminds everyone. She seems more like a war general than a school nurse, but single handedly fighting off an alien invasion will do that to a person. “Besides, now is the best time for you to go – you’ve all adapted to being around The Light so you’ll be well suited for the mission.”
“And we can’t just like, get The Light to do it for us?” asks Toga tiredly.
“No. Trust me, if there was anyone else I could ask, I would. But if you don't help, The Light wins again and it'll take over the whole world if given the chance.”
“Ughhhh fine,” Dabi grumbles, “but I am not wearing that.”
Spinner stops making a third pot of coffee to check his outfit as Dabi’s finger points in his direction. It’s not that bad. He even coordinated the colors of his balloons to match the bright red rain boots today.
