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lieslovefantasy · 4 months ago

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The Cat That Ate the Canary: Chapter 1

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Kassidy Bate is the younger sister to Cathleen Bate, America’s Number One Pro-Hero. Unlike eighty percent of the population, however, Kassidy Bate was born Quirkless. Rendered powerless in a society filled with top heroes ready to put away evil-doers. That fact alone wasn’t going to stop her from wanting to transfer to the top hero school in Japan. So what if she was deemed Quirkless by the doctors? Kassidy would prove to her future classmates that she deserved to be there, much like they did. If she puts her mind to it, she would probably be the first Quirkless Pro-Hero – in both the States and Japan! Her classmates in middle school bullied her relentlessly for her childish dream. A Quirkless nobody transferring to the most prestigious hero high school in Japan?

“You don’t even have a Quirk! They wouldn’t accept a Quirkless freak like you.”

“You should just give up!”

In reality, Kassidy did possess a Quirk, but nobody knew about it. Nobody except for All For One.

Over breakfast one morning, Kassidy had eventually gathered the courage to tell her older sister, Cathleen, and it took the Pro by surprise. She raises an eyebrow and brings her mug to her lips, taking a sip. “You want to transfer to U.A. High School? Even after what happened?”

Kassidy bites her lip and stares down at her plate, remembering vividly the incident that occurred while staring at the remaining bit of her blueberry pancakes. She didn’t remember much about the incident itself, just what she was told by her sister and All Might.

“Yeah, just because I got kidnapped by some villain doesn’t mean I should let him put a bad taste in my mouth because of it. I’m willing to-.”

“He’s not just ‘some villain’, Kass,” Cathleen interjects her little sister. “He’s the most wanted criminal in Japan. If it was some low-life thug, I would say otherwise. However, this is All For One we’re dealing with. My answer is no. I won’t have that scare again.”

The elder sat her mug back down and got up from the table. Kassidy shot up out of her seat and began taking both of their dishes to the kitchen sink for rinsing. “But All Might will be there! He could watch over me! Besides, I heard the teachers there are all Pro-Heros, so I would be totally safe.”

Kassidy sets the dishes in the sink and turns to Cathleen, hugging her. “I know that All For One is a big, bad, scary villain, but I need to become the best hero there is to defeat those big bad scary villains.”

Her sister brings her arms up to gently wrap around Kassidy’s head, “But, kid. Let’s face it – you don’t even have a Quirk.”

Kassidy sighs into her sister’s chest, “I still want to give it a shot. I need to prove to my classmates here that I made it into the top hero academy in Japan.” She lifts her head and meets her sister’s gaze with a pleading look of her own. “Besiiiiides, I kinda already said I would be applying.”

Kassidy wriggles out of her sister’s arms and holds herself at arms-length. “Please,” she begs, tears brimming her blue eyes, “you have to let me give this a shot. I don’t want to live my high school years or the rest of my life full of regrets.”

“For your safety, please…”

Cathleen examines Kassidy’s eyes one last time, behind them they plead with everything she had and hold a glimmer of… fear?

She shakes the thought out of her head and sighs, “Fine. You win this time, but if you don’t get accepted into U.A. High School, you’ll continue regular high school here in the States. You hear me?”

Kassidy jumped with joy, “Yes! Thank you so much, Big Sis!”

“Hey,” Cathleen grabbed Kassidy’s arm, making sure she could get her point across. “These upcoming months aren’t going to be easy. I’m not going to go easy on you just because you’re my little sister. I’ll treat you like you’re one of my soldiers.”

Kassidy looked up at her older sister, determination in her eyes as she nodded, “Bring your worst.”

And with that, the entrance exams were here. It had been a long and strenuous ten months of training her sister’s body. Not knowing what the exam had in store, Cathleen had wanted to give her little sister the best fighting chance and in doing so, put Kassidy through the toughest training course the regime had to offer. Being the overprotective big sister Kassidy often deems her, Cathleen wanted to mentally push her past her breaking point to ensure that she could deal with physical pain and mental strain that came with being a Pro-Hero. Not just any Pro-Hero, but the best Pro out there – one that makes Cathleen feel good about hanging up her cape. On the other hand, there was the worry that a quirk wouldn’t develop. Yes, there were cases of quirks developing later in life, but for the eighty percent of the population that had supernatural abilities, these powers had shown up by the time they were four. And according to the varying doctor’s research, the chances of Kassidy’s quirk being delayed are, at best, five percent.

Additionally to physically building her body, Kassidy’s quick-thinking and reflexes were put to the test as well. Cathleen asked her best team of men in hand-to-hand combat fighters to beat her to a pulp, to break her down, and then to build her back up stronger than before. After school everyday, Kassidy would come home and complete her homework before heading off to run a five mile run to the training grounds. There, she would be given a set of exercises to complete in an allotted amount of time. The exercises were difficult for her untrained body at first, but over the course of ten months, the exercises became easier. After those became easier, Cathleen told her men to start training Kassidy on her reflexes. At first, Kassidy learned to box, to understand the basics of fighting hand-to-hand. Then after, she was put in the ring with someone who had a Quirk.

The morning of the exams was a chaotic one. Having flown in the day before, Kassidy hadn’t really had the time she needed to get herself ready for the next day’s events. Her morning alarm sounded off thirty minutes later than she had originally set it and if it weren’t for her accompanying guardian knocking on her hotel door, she would have fallen back asleep.

Quickly, Kassidy ushered her inside and drooled at the sight. “Iced coffee and a muffin? Fuuuck yeah! I didn’t set my alarm early enough, so I’ll have to hurry, but I’ll get ready. What time is the exam?”

The guardian looked at her phone, “Nine in the morning. Considering it’s currently seven-thirty-eight and you have to take a thirty minute train ride to the school, that gives you roughly an hour to get ready. Fifty-two minutes precisely.”

Kassidy relaxed a bit and took a sip of her iced coffee. “Mmm… salted caramel. Thank you, by the way. Anyways, I’m going to go take a shower and head out.”

And with that brief conversation, Kassidy was finally out the door of the hotel and heading up to the entrance exams for U.A. High School. This is it, she was finally here in Japan, going to take on one of the hardest entrance exams this country has to offer. With a less than one percent acceptance rate into the hero course, Kassidy was beginning to feel waves of anxiety wash over her as she walked to the train station and took a seat. She needs to get accepted into the hero course.

On the train ride to the exam, Kassidy’s phone buzzed. Taking it out from her pocket, she glanced down at her screen and froze in her spot. It was a text message from him.

Unknown: Pass the exam or else…

Kassidy’s phone was shaking in her hands as she read the text over again. The text was a simple one, but the threat was ominent. She doesn’t know who the messages came from, but one thing was for certain – there was a clear connection to All For One and they knew about the threats he made to Kassidy. Her mind was running a mile a minute with gruesome thoughts of what would happen if she couldn’t pass the exams. The thoughts of “what if”- No. These texts would serve as a constant reminder of what she’s fighting to protect. Who it is she’s fighting to protect.

The train ride was a quiet and boring one, but Kassidy eventually made it to the auditorium where the orientation was being held. Outside the doors was a piece of paper everyone seemed to be picking up. Looking at it as she walked by, Kassidy thought it looked like it held important information about the exam. She picked it up and made her way into the back of the auditorium. Once everyone had been seated, the lights dimmed and a spotlight was casted on a blonde with hair defying gravity and speakers around his neck.

“Who the-”

“WELCOME TO TODAY’S LIVE PERFORMANCE!!” the blonde screams, almost blasting everybody’s eardrums. “EVERYBODY SAY “HEY”!!”

Silence fills the auditorium, but the blonde continues, unfazed. “Well, that’s cool, my examinee listeners! I’m here to present the guidelines of your practical exam! Are you ready?!”

Silence again fills the auditorium until Kassidy hears someone mumbling down below her. Considering it was dark, she couldn’t make out who it was, but the guy next to him looked like an angry blonde who couldn’t care any less about what the presenter had to say.

“This is how the test will go, my listeners!” The screen behind the man lit up, displaying their current location plus paths to the seven different testing locations. “You’ll be experiencing ten-minute long “mock cityscape maneuvers”!! Bring along whatever you want! After this presentation, you’ll each head to your assigned testing location!!”

“Geez… would it kill this guy to be quiet for once?” Kassidy mentally rolls her eyes, already annoyed with the faculty of the high school. “He doesn’t need to yell.”

The screen behind the presenter changes and now displays three robots and the same presenter in a video game designed city. “Each site is filled with three kinds of faux villains. Points are awarded for defeating each according to their respective difficulty levels. Use your Quirks to disable the faux villains and earn points! That’s your goal, listeners!! Of course, playing the antihero and attacking other examinees is prohibited.”

A guy sitting in the bottom rows of the auditorium raises his hand, “Sir, may I ask a question?! There appear to be no fewer than four varieties of faux villain on this handout. Such a blatant error, if it is one, is highly unbecoming for U.A., Japan’s top academy. We’re all here today in the hopes of being molded into model heroes!!”

Kassidy yawns, “What the hell is this guy’s deal? Is he always this uptight about things? It’s probably just an error, chill out.”

The same guy turns around and points in the same direction as the two guys Kassidy noticed earlier. “And you with the green hair. You’ve been muttering this whole time, it’s distracting.”

“Alright, Examinee 7111,” the presenter addresses the male to calm him down. “Nice catch! Thanks! But the fourth faux villain variety gets you zero points. He’s more like an obstacle you need to avoid at all costs!!”

Examinee 7111 bows a full ninety degrees while apologizing, which causes Kassidy to scoff, “Whoa, a bit much there…”

After the presentation finishes up, Kassidy looks down at her examination card in hand to see she’s headed to testing center B. As everyone boards the buses that are designated en route to their assigned testing centers, Kassidy wonders if she’ll meet the robotic boy or the muttering mess from earlier. She finds an empty seat and stares out at the trees that dot her view.

“These people must have amazing Quirks, but here I am with whatever Quirk that All For One villain gave me. I don’t even know what it is! Since Sis has been psychically training my body non-stop for the past ten months, it hasn’t had time to work with the Quirk at all. I still-.”

Kassidy is pulled from her thoughts when the bus stops, signaling the bus’s arrival and the beginning of the exam. Sweat starts to pool in her palms as she gets up from the seats, the realization of what responsibility rests on her shoulders weighs on her mind heavily. Everyone from the bus is now piled outside in front of the gates to the faux city of the exam. Kassidy sees the robotic boy and the muttering mess from earlier and inwardly groans.

“Oh, well. Now is not the time to focus on them. I need to focus on what the regime taught me. Deep breath in for the count of four and out for the count of four. Now focus, focus, focus!”

And before Kassidy knew it, the buzzer had sounded, signaling the start of the ten-minute long practical exam. She rushes through the gates with everyone and sees that some of the kid’s are already fighting one- and two-pointers. Panicking, she looks around for anything that might be of use to her and sees a piece of scrap metal from one of the robots. As Kassidy is running over to pick it up, she sees her shadow taken over by a robot. With no time to think, she grabs the sheet of scrap metal and runs underneath the robot. Kassidy catches sight of another student nearby and sprints up to them, jumping onto their shoulder at the last possible moment. Using the kid as a stepping stone, Kassidy reeled back her scrap piece of metal and dug it into the shoulder of the robot. The robot deactivated and she hopped down from the now useless hunk of metal.

Kassidy wastes no time in gathering points. Many of her robots she took down looked much like her first victory. Run. Jump. Deactivate. Repeat. Kassidy had tossed her scrap sheet of metal, testing it out for another one she had seen when the ground beneath her shook. Just up above her, was the zero-pointer the presenter had told them not to worry about.

The zero-pointer has everyone running the opposite direction, but Kassidy doesn’t have time to think of running away. She’s attacking this damned robot head on!

“Even if this thing is worth nothing, it’s not here just for decor.”

She has the scrap piece of metal and is charging towards the robot when out of the corner of her eye Kassidy notices someone caught in the rubble. A girl with a bobbed cut has caught her leg in some of the fallen debris. Without hesitating, Kassidy rushes over to the girl, dropping the sheet of metal next to her.

“Thank you for helping me,” the girl breathes out. “I wasn’t even paying attention to my-.”

“How much can you move your leg?” Kassidy skips the niceties .

The bob haired girl dismisses the question with her own, “What’s your Quirk? Maybe you can help me out of this.”

Kassidy hesitates before replying, “I don’t have one.”

The bob cut girl panics, “You don’t have a Quirk?! What the-.”

A shadow is cast over the two girls and a wave of fear washed over them both. Kassidy and the bob cut girl see the foot of the robot closing in on them, causing the latter to wriggle her leg from underneath even faster.

“C’mon. Think. What would a Pro do?!”

Seeing the robot’s foot move in closer, Kassidy acts without hesitation. She hops on top of the fallen debris and jumps into the air, reeling her fist back to hit the robot. Heaviness overcomes her and a new surge of energy is coursing through her.

“GET AWAY FROM US!!” Kassidy’s fist collides with the robot’s foot and sends her flying back against the wall of a nearby building. The blast of the punch had enough power to knock the debris off the trapped girl, allowing her to climb on top of a fallen piece of rubble. On the verge of passing out, Kassidy nearly misses the kid with green hair falling from the sky. She tried to lift herself back to her feet, but the attempts were useless. Consciousness slowly starts slipping away from Kassidy and a sharp pain takes over her mind. She hears a voice echo that the exams were over and with that news, she allows herself to fully slip into the comforting void.

In the watch room above, the teachers all look over a green, holographic list. A few of the teachers watch the clean up crew down below, analyzing the damage the children left behind.

“Wow,” one of the teachers’ sultry voices broke the silence. “The scores for the practical are out and our first place winner has zero rescue points, but seventy-seven in villain points.”

Another voice adds on, this one a rich baritone, “In the second half, when the other examinees were slowing down, he just kept going at it! That kid is a real ace!”

The woman with the sultry voice adds on to the teacher with a rich baritone voice, “On the opposite end, the guy in seventh place holds sixty points in rescue, but none in villainy. He’s not the first one to take out the zero-pointer in one shot like that.”

“And what about that American that took the exam? It looks like she tied with our seventh place winner. Isn’t she Star and Stripe’s younger sister, All Might?” The baritone voice directed his attention to his colleague climbing his way up the stairs to meet his other teachers

The older man smiled fondly, “Sorry I’m late, guys. Traffic was backed up real bad.” All Might walks up to the scoreboard, eyeing the results. “Yeah. Kassidy Bate is the younger sister to Star and Stripe, my former apprentice. She’s Quirkless, but she was adamant about applying. And it looks like she did quite well!!”

“Quirkless you say?” the woman raises an eyebrow and questions All Might. “I think you need to get your eyes checked, All Might. She and that boy knocked out that zero-pointer to save that girl. Present Mic, can you replay the zero-pointer scene from earlier?”

The blonde teacher presses a few buttons on the switchboard before the recording from the exam is played on the screen. All the teachers watched as the events from earlier were replayed - as Kassidy reeled her fist back to hit the robot’s foot, creating a sizable hole in the piece of metal and as the green haired kid punched the robot in the face, falling to the ground shortly after,

“She and that green haired kid totally knocked that zero-pointer out, yo!!” Present Mic exclaimed, throwing his head back and a fist into the air. His eyes fall onto his colleagues with a serious glint in his eyes. “Are you sure she doesn’t have a Quirk?”

A man with black hair and a scarf around his neck walked up behind the presenter, “Mic, bring up her file. I want to see it.”

The blonde, pressed a few buttons and brought up Kassidy’s file. There, shocking every teacher in the watchtower, was Kassidy’s file. The file had a picture of her latest high school picture along with the basic information the school needed for the exam. However, the detail that shocked the teachers was her Quirk, or lack thereof. Right next to it read ‘N/A’ in big, bold lettering.

“Who would’ve thought,” Present Mic turned around in his chair to face the other teachers. “That a couple of late bloomers would’ve become our top ten performers?!”

All Might and the black haired man look down at the zero-pointer that still needs to be cleaned up. “This is going to be an interesting year, Kassidy Bate.”

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