1 year anniversary of my fic Triggered Awakening! Holy shit, I never thought I’d still be working on this, or that it would have gotten so long. The next chapter will go up tonight, and I should be finished in a few months (maybe sooner if I get back to a chapter per week, but no promises).
Chapter 1: Prologue
“…..an!”
Why was that voice so familiar? He could feel his body trying to move; his eyes trying to open in response.
He watched the flames he held so dear pour out of his core and slowly move down his arms. As if they didn’t want to leave him just yet.
“Wa.. .p!”
Wasn’t that…. that was Deku!
Bright flashes of color surrounded him before being split off into their own fights.
A horde of monsters, each requiring several soldiers to take down. Never mind their leader. He had known that their small group would be the ones in charge of clearing the way, but for a brief second, he wondered how much damage the six of them could do. But only for a second and then cursed at himself for such a pathetic thought.
They’d give those bastards hell.
“Plea..!”
There was something wet hitting his face. Katsuki fought harder, each drop making him more determined to regain consciousness. He had to know if Deku was alright. Hell, he was even worried about those shitty extras.
(They weren’t really extras anymore; hadn’t been for a long time.)
Had they won?
“….!””………..ine!”
He wasn’t aware of the warm arms holding him until something tried to rip them away. The desperation to not lose, to not have that familiar warmth taken, was finally enough for Katsuki to move his hand. Barely forming a grip, but holding on all the same.
“Ka…an!”
Their twin swords, aiming to finally take back their home.
How could cold hands burn so much? His body was on fire. It felt like his explosions had turned on him. Detonating inside his body as he refused to drop his sword. He looked beside him at Deku, who almost did lose his grip. But he refused to give up, wearing his stubbornness as armor.
“Please ..ake up… Kacchan…”
The tears that had temporarily stopped with his small movement started back up. As if he was laying outside in a storm.
“I’m going to be your Guardian when we grow up - the strongest ever! So it doesn’t matter what weak Quirk you get because I’ll be there to protect you!
“But what if –“
“Fuck ‘what ifs’!”
“Kacchan! You aren’t supposed to say that word!
“So what? You’re being ridiculous! I’ll protect you, so it doesn’t matter what those extras think. And you can do all that boring stuff kings do so everyone is safe.”
“It’s not boring! It’s important!”
“There’s no fighting involved. It’s boring.”
“…You promise?”
“Of course, you stupid Deku.”
For anyone interested, here’s the link to the next chapter:
This was the 'final' version of the world map (sorry my handwriting is so messy here; and yes, this is a really ugly 'map', I know - I just needed a simple version to visualize where stuff was, etc.) although there were still changes to who was where. But the locations were set. This was completely based off of the typical 'Zelda' map/ domains (though, that's probably really obvious).
Additional Notes/ changes (major spoilers for the main fic):
.All the locations are (as can be seen on the map) the romaji versions of Japanese words, descriptions, and verbs. Because I have no imagination when it comes to naming places.
. Best Jeanist was supposed to be the 2nd Champion (in Shuurai/ snowy mountains) but was switched with Ryuku. He was also supposed to have a minor 'mentor' role with Bakugou here (to match the manga) but Denki's character ended up being the focus.
. I'm pretty sure originally I had the group meeting FatGum before he died; that changed
.There was a brief time when Ochako was going to get her quirk
. It might be hard to believe, but there was a lot more minor/side character death planned (Tokoyami, Toru, Amajiki - for example). Yeah, I was in a not-bright place when I started the outline. The beginning of the fic kind of shows that I think (with Shoji in particular).
.Eri! Eri was originally at U.A. and the source of the time-freezing barrier. And it was 70-30 if she faded away after the barrier fell or lived and stayed with the group. I also thought about bringing Chisaki as an opponent near All Might's sword but once Eri was scrapped there was no need for him. So the pro-hero Guardian was created (a bit last minute, actually) and Iida was the main enemy.
. All Might and Toshinori were separate characters.
.The battle at Housou was supposed to be a high point for the group, showing how they could work together.
. Bakugou being stabbed by Himiko - I knew I wanted Bk to get hurt protecting Deku somehow and lead to U.A. (both as a parallel to Link taking a hit for Zelda in BotW (when she activated her powers for the first time - this was also back when Deku did have a quick and it would have been activated then) and to the war in the manga with Shigaraki stabbing BK) but where, when, and how just kinda... happened
.Shigaraki wasn't planned to be taken over by AfO. He was also never planned to have the slight heel-face turn at the end.
.Trigger Jewels were originally going to shatter upon use, not 'melt'/ merge into the person
.The Trigger Jewels were always based on the manga's Trigger drug. And the 'Old World' was always planned to be the 'modern' BNHA universe, but the timeline and how the original All Might + Champions vs. AfO, how many trigger jewels, etc. - basically how the background came together as one thing was a mess.
.So much with Momo. She was always a main character, but lots of her scenes weren't outlined in detail.
.One or two flashbacks to the strain between Izuku and his mother were taken out. Those might end up in SoC.
.Mei was just going to be a researcher at Kakure and not mentioned more than that.
.Kendo and Monoma - not planned at all. When I realized I needed some researchers... basically I just picked two characters who hadn't been used yet and ta-da.
.Another unexpected character was Magne. She was only supposed to be a generic member of the League (like in the manga) that was one of multiple members who kidnapped people for the experiments - really, she was picked because I'd used up the other members (Compress was the one who pretended to be a guard and almost stole the Musutafu's trigger jewel eight yrs before the rest of the story). Every scene past that one mention of her being the one to kidnap Tokoyami wasn't planned, never mind her 'mentor' relationship with Ochako and Himiko. But she ended up becoming a proxy? (that's probably not the right word) for how people in the league weren't ' pure evil'. Spinner, on the other hand, was planned to have a bigger role.
.Nomu - all were either based off manga ones (the winged one in Ippin) or were other characters (Kamui Woods, Death Arms, Setsuna (1B), vine girl from 1B, Power Loader, Mineta... more that I can't remember off the top of my head) so I could use their quirks. If a character (especially class 1B) didn't come up in the story, there's a high chance they were one of the 'failure' experiments. I'm annoyed I forgot about Edgeshot. There was one exception that was just a generic, but that's it (the female one in the castle attack).
.Nejire's fight with the Death Arms Nomu (and the resulting team-up with Shouto). Unplanned.
.Fuyumi wasn't going to have such a big role. Instead, she became... not a main character exactly, but she definitely got her own unplanned arc
.Hawks was supposed to do more. But I guess moving in the background actually suits him.
.Jiro was going to have her Quirk.
.There were two 'endings' regarding quirks after the final battle. One was that the main characters all permanently lost their quirks (and the remaining shards in the world would have broken so no more quirks for anyone after a while). The second was that everyone in the world was exposed to Trigger from the impact of the fight, so quirks would then be mostly universal in the future. I ended up going with the main characters still having their quirks, but much, much weaker versions, and... how that affected the rest of the population is still undecided (leaning more towards option 2).
.BK and Dk's misunderstandings... by arceus, those two could be a pain in the ass to write and figure out. I was always worried that their conflicts would seem too scripted or silly.
.Himiko and Jin surviving
.Ocahko was originally going to be part of the group again before the final fight (or maybe have not left in the first place), but by then she was in Houseki, and DK and the others wouldn't have trusted her anyway.
.How dark the first half of the final battle ended up. That was... yeah. I almost changed the rating to M for violence with that chapter (though, given some of the current shit in the manga it wasn't that much worse)
.The final battle was going to just be Deku vs. Shigaraki but after seeing Dk & BK team up in Heroes Rising, I changed stuff so they were fighting together.
. The length. This came up in the chapter notes all the damn time because IT WASN'T SUPPOSED TO BE 40 FUCKING CHAPTERS AND 309K WORDS
Technically, I'm keeping the series open because 1 - I have a very tiny number of possible ideas for a sequel, and 2 - Snippets of Consciousness is still ongoing. The latter though is going to be very, very slow on updates. It's a combination of being a bit burned out with the AU, having other projects that I'm more excited about, and (I know this sounds bad) a lack of interest from outside. But I do have a list of chapters for SoC.... someday.
End thoughts? I'd never written something this long or complicated before. Never did this much work on outlining a story. And there were lots of times I was tempted to just say 'fuck it!' and give up. But I'm glad that I finished it and overall... I think I'm pretty happy with how the work turned out.
A few more horrible 'drawings' for the world.
An Archive of Our Own, a project of the
Organization for Transformative Works
So, um, between the final battle kicking my ass and all the shit this month, I won't have chapter 39 of Triggered Awakening ready for tomorrow. So the new date is next Friday (6-3-22). I'm really sorry.
Alright, so I Iost a couple of days last week due to some depression and a migraine, meaning I’m going to have to delay the next chapter of Triggered Awakening until next week. I don’t even have a preview so… cat picture?
