It's Time for Action, Not for Play || Nick

Nick rarely slept peacefully anymore. In fact were it not for his recent trip to a certain cafe and its owner’s Quirk, he might have forgotten what a ‘peaceful rest’ even was.

Sadly, he was not currently at the cafe or under the influence of Nemuri’s sand. He was already somewhat awake, owing to his restlessness and his dreams plagued by the sound of screams and an encroaching darkness he could never escape. He lay in the purgatory between ‘asleep’ and ‘awake’, eyes fixed to the wall and his mind hazy.

Then suddenly the door to his room flew open and something was shaking him. If he had been more awake he would likely have sprang straight into the offensive and donned his armour to strike whatever it was that was shaking him, but in his unfocused state all he did was try to shove the whatever-it-was away.

“...What?” He rubbed his bleary eyes. It took a moment or two, but his vision stopped wavering and focused on Nari’s small form. On top of him. He tilted his head to the side. “Do you want to have another go at it or something?”

It had been a little while since their mishap, but if she wanted to go again he was certainly not one to complain, even if it was a bit out of nowhere. It would at least make a nice distraction from his current feelings, as their first incident had. He reached up to grab her - but his hands did not make it before she said something about business to take care of and that they had to go. His arms dropped abruptly. His expression was now a confused, annoyed frown.

“What business?” he demanded. Even so, he sloped out of bed and swapped his pyjamas for his usual disguise’s plain clothes (he did not care about changing in front of her, considering what they had previously done). He reached for one of his wigs - the blonde one - and pulled it on. “This better be good.”

Nick paused at her words about the mutant group with his trousers halfway up his legs.

Of course. He was not surprised; in fact he should have seen it coming and felt stupid that he had not. Was the entire reason the mutants had been driven to live in the sewers not the prejudice they had faced on the surface? Naturally once some Quirkless bastard had gotten wind of a group of mutants living in Nari’s old house they had seen fit to drive them out. He and Nari should have been more prepared for this outcome.

It made his blood boil. His hands trembled from rage as he pulled the rest of his clothes on. The Quirkless still thought the world belonged to them. They still believed the Quirked were lesser beings they could treat how they wanted when in truth it was the other way around.

As Nari returned, Nick’s back was as straight as a poker, his eyes colder than Arctic ice and his glare full of paralysing hatred for the world and the weaklings that inhabited it. All thoughts of another mishap had, for the time being, left his mind.

“I hear you,” he said. “Let’s find the Quirkless piece of shit that did this and make them pay.”

Nick had expected to find the house in a state of chaos, though even so it was quite a sorry sight.

For a brief second his heart seized upon spotting police cars nearby, but then he remembered he was in disguise and forced himself to take calming breaths.

Nari’s reaction, on the other hand, was something else entirely. He had been staying with Nari for some time now, but never in his life had he expected he would ever see her cry.

He supposed it made sense that she would react so strongly, given that this house had been hers and what had happened to her father. He had no idea what to do about her reaction, however. He was left standing there for a good moment or two, staring gormlessly. Finally, he found it within himself to move again, but all he did was dip his head and murmur;

“I’m sorry.”

His words felt hollow and empty. ‘Sorry’ was hardly going to bring back her old house, was it? No. The real way to make this right was to find the bastard who did it and string them up. It was the only way.

He stepped closer to Nari. After a brief hesitation, he attempted to rest a hand on her shoulder with a surprising level of gentleness for someone such as him. “We’ll find whoever did this and make an example of them.”

He recognised a familiar face amongst the gaggle of mutant Quirkers gathered by the firemen: a young teen with the head and legs of a horse. “There’s Ikki. He won’t recognise me like this, and I’d rather not explain to him who I actually am in front of the authorities, so perhaps you could ask him who did this?”

Nick may have committed many a questionable, morally dubious action in his time, especially recently, but despite it all he was still a human deep down, and he actually, genuinely felt bad for Nari. She had lied to him initially about her ability to speak, true, but she had come clean eventually and opened her home to his desperate arse when nothing had required her to. (She had also opened certain other things to him, though that was not quite as important in that moment in time).

Yet he had little idea what he could say or do to comfort her, even though he found himself wanting to. Beyond finding and killing whoever did this, of course. That seemed as though it was the only thing they could do.

Instead of saying anything he stood silently behind Nari and listened to Ikki the horse-boy explain to her everything that had happened from his perspective. So, it was the pole-shaped mutant who had seen the perpetrator? Nick scanned the area for the pole-man and picked him out quite easily, given how odd he looked even for a mutant Quirker. He was stood talking to a mutant who’s entire body was covered in eyes.

The pole-man noticed Nick approaching and looked surprised for a second before his eyes dangerously narrowed.

“What the hell are you doing here, pretty-boy?” he demanded gruffly.

Nick chose to ignore his hostility. “I heard Ikki say you saw who did this. Did you see what direction they went in?”

The pole-man shrugged and gestured to an alley to the right of them. “They looked like they headed off that way, but good luck finding ‘em now.”

Nick pondered things for a moment: he was quite sure an area full of warehouses lay in that direction. He wandered back over to Nari. “The pole man says they went that way, which leads to some old warehouses I believe. They might have gone there to hide ‘til the authorities leave. That’d be my guess.”

It was not a whole lot to go on, but what else did they have?

Nick continued to stand there like a complete idiot, which was certainly how he felt. He looked away when Nari let the tearful Ikki hug her.

“Nari, I…” His mouth closed.

Stop it. She has to be strong in her response to this. If she’s not strong, she’s not worth your time. The same goes for the other mutants here. All of them should be ready to fight back.

Finally Nari spoke to him again, giving him her own ideas for how to catch the perpetrator. His mind went back to the bomb diffusion exercise he had partaken in at Yuuei. What an absolute disaster that had been; the brainless slattern he had been paired with had refused to listen to any of his suggestions and because of her complete inability to cooperate with him they had failed. The failure somehow still managed to sting him even all these months later when so much else had happened.

Nari was different, though, he reminded himself. Nari was not being a condescending bitch about her plans. He also liked Nari considerably more than that whore, which helped a great deal.

“Alright,” he said. “We’ll go with that. How do you want to do this, though?” He eyed the mutant group. “And I expect you lot to help us here.”

“Alright.”

Nick shrugged his shoulders. If Nari thought it would work, then he supposed they might as well see if it would. He enjoyed her company enough to allow this.

He cringed hard and visibly at the thought of going back to the sewers, however, for reasons he thought should be quite obvious. He was fortunate to have avoided catching some horrible disease the previous instance. The smell, the filth, the damp, and did he mention the smell? The mere thought of the place made his stomach turn.

“Ugh. You know, given you’re also a mutation-type they’d probably be more likely to listen to you. If you explain to them that we’re trying to catch someone who hurt their friends then they will be willing to comply with your plan, I imagine.”

He considered asking Nari to go down and talk to the mutants by herself, but he supposed that would be cowardly. With a heavy, tired sigh, he sloped off in the direction of the manhole that had brought them to the mutant group the first time.

When he reached it, he hesitated before moving it aside.

What the hell even is my life?

Trying not to groan, he began to climb down once more into the foul-smelling darkness.

Nick had barely clambered down an inch when the smell made him want to gag. The only remotely good thing to come out of the entire awful mess of a situation was the fact Nari climbed down after him, so at least the view was nice. (‘Shameless’ did not really begin to cover it, especially for someone like Nick who had never been taught what boundaries were).

Christ, I can’t even see what I’m stepping in down here. This better be worth it or I swear to God...

What greeted them in the rancid depths was a rag-tag gaggle of freaks all huddled together around a burning rubbish pile. A woman covered in thick grey hair like a Yeti, a man with a neck as long as a giraffe’s, another man whose hands were crab claws and a purple-skinned, horned girl no older than seven were the ones he could make out best in the dim light, but many more lurked in the shadows.

These were the ones who had been too reluctant to go to the surface when Nari had offered them hospitality before. Nick wondered if there was any point in reaching out to them, since they had clearly shown their cowardice the first time. Still, he hung back and allowed Nari to speak.

Well, ‘speak’. It would be nothing short of a miracle if any of them were able to read her note in the darkness. A few of them crept closer, though, including all of the mutants he had identified initially.

“You’re good at this,” Nick observed to Nari.

“Ikki, is this true?” the long-necked man asked their horse friend.

“I wouldn’t come back for nothing,” Ikki said. “Please, you have to trust these two. We would really appreciate your help!”

The long-necked man looked back at the other mutants. The mutants murmured amongst themselves for what felt like forever, until finally the long-necked man looked at Nari and nodded.

“Alright,” he said. “Let’s go to the surface, and then you can tell us what exactly it is you want to do.”

Thank God, Nick thought as he turned and made his way back for the ladder to the surface. I couldn’t stand being down here any longer…