Not So Different (Nick + Nari)

Nick wanted to vomit and he had not even gone down there yet. Every inch of his body and soul cringed at the mere thought of doing so.

The horse-boy seemed to pick up on Nick’s discomfort.

“I know it’s not the best,” he said. “But it works for us. The fact no one ever goes down there is kinda the point.”

Nick let out a long, weary sigh.

“Of course,” he grumbled. “Let’s just get this over with.”

With great reluctance, he climbed down after the horse-boy. They emerged into a surprisingly spacious tunnel. A river of sewage ran to the right of the raised part they walked on. The walls were lit by a series of square lights. The smell though, the smell; even though Nick had anticipated it he still had to choke back his sick. He had done a lot of awful, humiliating things since he had come to Japan, but this was definitely up there.

The horse-boy did not take them far, thank every deity ever, only a little way down the tunnel. What met them was a dismal sight of a group loitering around aimlessly in the depths. All of them were mutant Quirkers. A person whose body was literally a four metre long metal pole with eyes, a mouth and spindly, cartoony metal limbs slumped against the wall. A man with two heads, one shaven and one wild and overgrown, stood warming himself against a man who was made of flickering fire and unable to wear clothes because of this, his eyes nothing more than holes in the flames. A hulking woman with a body coated in shaggy white hair like a yeti slept on some flattened cardboard boxes. Many more lurked around, glimpses of insectoid eyes, wings and talons just visible in the dim light.

Nick understood. These were the Quirkers considered too deformed, too monstrous to be accepted by society. So, they had rejected the society that rejected them and grouped together in a place where they would not be bothered by anyone. It was just a shame said place was a filthy, stinking, disease-ridden pit.

He was not surprised, however. As much as he wished he could have been.

“I’ve heard of situations like this before,” he quietly said to Nari. “It’s not as uncommon as you’d think. They found a huge Quirker-colony in an old subway tunnel in Boston, I think it was…”

Everywhere around the world was the same. It made his fists clench.

“This is why we need to take this world from the Quirkless,” he growled.

He looked up again as several of the mutant-Quirkers approached them. One of them was the two-headed guy, whose heads were both darkly scowling.

“Who the hell’s this, Ikki?” demanded one head, pointing a finger at Nick.

“He doesn’t look like he belongs here at all!” added the second head.

Nick balked at this harder than he had balked at anything in a while.

“I’m one of you!” he snapped.

“Hey, I recognise that uniform,” said the pole-man. “He’s one of the kids at that fancy new school that’s meant to turn Quirkers into real superheroes or some shit. Of course they only let the pretty ones in. Wouldn’t look good for them if they let in the likes of us, would it? Y’know, the real freaks.”

“Guys, stop!” cried the horse-boy, who Nick assumed was named Ikki. “These are the people who saved me!”

Nick’s immense amount of pride made him loathe to admit it, but a part of him was grateful Nari stepped in. What the hell was these mutants’ problem? They were all Quirkers. Creating further divisions amongst themselves was not going help them gain a greater place in society.

The two-headed guy, the pole-man and several of the grumpier others backed off at Nari’s note. Nick grit his teeth. Why in God’s name had he agreed to come down to this rotten, filthy, stinking hellhole? Whatever Ikki had wanted to give them better have been damn good. Somehow Nick doubted it would be worth it, however…

Ikki suddenly reappeared, startling Nick most embarrassingly, for he had not even noticed Ikki had gone.

“Here,” said the horse, holding out two pocket-sized cloth bags that were full of money. “It’s not much, but it’s all we can afford to spare.”

“You could have simply given us this on the surface,” Nick grumbled. Being brought down into the disease-ridden depths and confronted had not left him feeling particularly tactful.

Ikki self-consciously rubbed the back of his neck. “I know, but I – I wanted people to see you. I wanted to show them I wasn’t making stuff up and there really are people up there who care about us still. Everyone here is so beaten down and broken.”

That was easy to believe. A simple one second glance around was enough to see. Despair hung in the air almost as thick as the smell.

“They shouldn’t live like this,” Nick remarked quietly-but-darkly to Nari. “They have the ability to fight for a place on the surface. It’s better to fight for what you believe in than to not fight at all.”

Nick watched Nari give her money back and supposed he should do the same, though truthfully he was uncertain how to react to such a situation. He read Nari’s note and was silent for a moment, more and more lines forming on his forehead as he became even more uncomfortable than he already was.

“There should be somewhere up there for them to take,” he said quietly to her. “Anywhere’s better than here.”

All the mutants needed was a push. They were at the starting line; someone just needed to pull the trigger. And if Nick truly wanted to become a beacon for the Quirked, then he realised he needed to be that someone.

He looked back up the mutants, fists clenching and a fire suddenly erupting in his eyes. Seeing the mutants like this ignited the rage within him he felt towards the Quirkless.

“Is this really how you want to be?” he cried loud enough to draw the attention of every mutant there, his voice echoing off the sewer walls. “Wallowing in your own pathetic misery until you finally die?”

“What did you say?” snarled the pole-man, starting towards Nick, but a couple of other mutants lunged at him and held him back.

“You are better than this,” Nick went on. “All of you are. We were all given gifts, and that’s why they’re afraid of us. That’s why they want us to believe we are less than them, that we are accidents, when the truth is we are the next step in humanity’s evolution and they know. They know we have greater potential than they do. We just need to embrace it! If you won’t use your gifts, then you deserve to rot here! But if you really want to make a difference for yourselves, you’ll go up to the surface and fight for it!”

Truthfully, Nick had no idea if any of the words he had said were any good at all. They had just come out all on their own, stoked by the fire of rage inside him. As he calmed down he looked at the faces in front of him, deep down almost afraid of what the reaction might be. He prayed he had not just made himself out to be a complete fool…

“I agree with him!” declared a new voice, which belonged to a mutant who looked like an upright cockroach the size of a ten-year-old child, though her voice was clearly an adult’s. “I can’t stand living down here any longer! I’d rather be arrested than rot in this place!”

“I do too, but where can we go?” asked another mutant, one with numerous eyes dotted all over his skin. “There isn’t anywhere!”

Several other mutants joined in, voicing their agreement and confusion over what exactly could be done about their situation. There were several who seemed reluctant to do anything, however, one or two murmurs about the danger of causing trouble on the surface joining the mix. Ikki the horse-boy glanced around, biting his lip uneasily. His concerned gaze came to rest on Nari.

“You’re a mutant too, right?” he asked her. “And you live up there? Do you know anywhere else we could go?”

“They might all listen to you more than me,” Nick said quietly. “You’re one of them.”

Nick was relieved Nari knew a place. He was not sure what he would have said if she had not, nor how the mutants might have responded.

The mutants all glanced between each other for a few moments, murmuring as they tried to reach a consensus on what to do.

“Sounds good enough to me,” the eyeball covered mutant piped up loud enough for Nick and Nari to hear.

“It’s like I said,” added the cockroach. “Anywhere’s better than this literal shithole.”

Nick found it somewhat amusing that a cockroach would be the most vocal about their current unsanitary conditions, of all the kinds of mutant she could have been. He realised his amusement was showing in a smirk that he quickly dropped, but thankfully the mutants were too deep in discussion to notice.

At last, the mutants quieted down and Ikki the horse-boy stepped towards Nari.

“It’s fine,” he said. “We’ll do what we can with it, if you’ll lead us there.”

“I don’t like this,” came another new voice, which belonged to a female mutant with a long, thick elephant-like trunk that reached her knees in the place of a nose. “So many of us together in a group is bound to attract attention. The wrong kind.”

“Then you can stay down here in Disease Land!” barked the cockroach. “But I’m done with this place!”

The majority of mutants moved closer to Nick and Nari, however there were several who hung back in reluctance, including the woman with the elephant’s trunk.

“It seems not all of them are willing to take the risk,” Nick observed. He snorted dismissively. “Weaklings. They can stay here, then. Let’s go to this place of yours.”

He turned and briskly left the sewer behind. As he emerged he inhaled the fresh clean air of the surface in great big gulps as though he had been submerged in water until the brink of drowning. God, any longer down there and he might have vomited. He had never craved a bath more in his life.

A bath was unfortunately going to have to wait, though. Ikki the horse-boy, the pole-man, the two-headed guy, the cockroach and the man covered in eyeballs emerged after him, followed by many other mutants. They were indeed a strange-looking group. Nick hoped wherever Nari wanted to take them would not be too far away as he waited for her to catch up.

Despite the mutants’ fears, they were fortunate not to run into any hassle on the way to Nari’s secret treasure. Nick was grateful for that. While he greatly enjoyed getting to pummel Quirkless scum, it was growing late. Yuuei really would be sending out a search party if he stayed away much longer, he knew.

Nari brought them to a dilapidated four-storey house that was far from anything Nick would call a ‘treasure’. The way the mutants were looking at it, though, it might as well have been Buckingham Palace. Ikki seemed on the verge of joyful tears as Nari patted his head.

“Thank you so much!” he cried. “We’ll never forget you for this. Seriously, if you ever need anything, just call us. It doesn’t matter what it is. We’re forever in your debt!”

He galloped up to the doorway while calling for the other mutants to follow him, though he need not have bothered as they already were.

“I still don’t like you,” the pole-man huffed at Nick. “I’m just here to protect everyone else.”

He sloped off after the rest before Nick could answer. Nick’s eyes narrowed as he scowled. Why the hell did the pole-man still have a problem? They were all on the same side, and had he not gotten that across with his speech to them? He needed to work on his speeches a bit, it seemed. Though a part of him also just wanted to punch the pole-man…

He refrained, however, and let out a tired sigh.

“It seems coffee will have to wait ‘til another day,” he said to Nari. “I should really be getting back to school.”

He wondered vaguely what her connection to the old house was, but he supposed that too would have to wait until another day. He hesitated for a second – should he ask her for a contact number or something? He was far from a social person, but spending time with her had turned out to feel oddly okay, even if it had not been in the best circumstances.

That, and they both shared a small mutant militia now. Ikki had said the mutants were in their debt and would do anything: Nick intended to hold them to that, one day. “Do you have a mobile number?” It felt strange to ask such a thing. He had never asked anyone for their number before…