Greetings Stranger (Nick)

Nick had barely been at this military event for an hour and already he was being followed. Was his disguise that bad? The blonde wig was a bit on the flimsy side, he would admit, and the pencil moustache had maybe been too much. He thought he had done a good job remembering to conceal his unusual red eyes behind blue contacts and fake glasses, however.

Still, somehow there was a girl following him. He had noticed her from the corner of his eye and thought he maybe recognised her from somewhere, and had figured she was following him after wandering up and down for a minute or two and she did the same. He cursed a thousand times in his head.

He finally stopped and resisted a heavy, angry sigh. It just was not fair. He could not get away with anything. He waited a second or two to calm himself and then slowly turned around. He pretended to glance about with interest at his surroundings before noticing her and raising his (also fake) eyebrows curiously.

“Would myself be able to help you, miss?” he asked as politely as he could in his deliberately broken Japanese.

On the inside, though, he clenched. He did know this girl. This was the annoying individual who had pestered him about his then-classmate Niso of all people. Shit shit shit. Had she recognised him? They had only interacted once, but even so he felt his heartbeat accelerate. Hopefully she did not have a Quirk that could detect such a thing.

No, he told himself. No way could she have recognised him in disguise after such a minimal conversation. The only reason he remembered her was his immense paranoia coupled with his lack of social interaction. Even so, his heart would not still.

It seemed she did not recognise Nick – or perhaps she did and was pretending she did not to see if he let his guard down? While he smiled on the outside, on the inside he remained painfully tense.

Stop being so paranoid, a voice in his mind barked at the rest of him. What would she even do if she recognised you? She doesn’t know anything about you or the things you’ve done!

He calmed down ever so slightly at the realisation she did not know the more unpleasant facts about him and his deeds, but even so his skin crawled right off his body at the thought of letting this irritating young woman ‘tag along’ with him. He wanted that about as much as he wanted to have all his limbs chopped off and then his body thrown into a bottomless gorge. It took every drop of his willpower not to grimace or visibly cringe.

He would indulge her, he decided with great reluctance; just one training exercise with her would be enough to satisfy her curiosity about him, surely. Then she could bugger off and bother someone, literally anyone else.

“This is happy by me,” he lied. He quickly looked around for anything to do so he could get this over with as fast as possible. He saw something that made his eyes widen with genuine interest. It looked like a wrestling arena or a boxing arena of some kind. A couple of well-built soldiers both male and female were loitering around it.

“Myself think we could spar there,” he said, pointing to it. “You interested are?”

She raised a good point, though Nick was loathe to admit it: were they allowed to use their Quirks or not? The outcome of the spar would vary wildly depending on this, considering these were highly-trained professionals and not braindead street thugs; even someone as prideful as Nick knew the difference in challenge there.

“Let us ask yes,” he said.

He almost became indignant at her remark about him not looking like much of a fighter before remembering he was not his usual self. He took a breath to calm himself again.

“Myself grew up in tough town,” he said, playing it off with a light shrug. “Know how to handle, do not worry.”

He made his way over, not bothering to glance behind to check if she followed. Knowing his luck, he knew she would. He spotted a man at a table with a sign up sheet in front of him beside the arena. This man raised his head as he approached.

“Hi there,” the man said, though he did not make any effort to smile. His face suggested to Nick he wanted to be anywhere else, and Nick knew the feeling. “You want to spar, right? It’s two-on-two, so if that lady’s with you she’ll fight one of our girls while you fight one of our guys.” He gestured to Nick’s annoying new ‘friend’.

“We use Quirks yes?” Nick asked.

“Yeah, that’s the idea,” the man replied. “You Quirked up against some of our best hand-to-hand specialists.”

Well, that outright confirmed these were far more than common thugs. It was an excellent chance for him to hone his Quirk some more, so perhaps this was not a complete waste, he realised.

“Alright, myself will do it,” he said. “Name is Sam Turner.”

Nick had not expected this girl to know English. Well, they had spoken Japanese when they had interacted before, so switching to English would not give him away, surely?

“London,” he replied at her question of where he was from. He always told people he was from London when they asked about him, even when not pretending to be Sam Turner. Most non-English folk did not know of any place in England besides London anyway.

Then she held her hand out to him for a shake. On the inside, Nick groaned. How he loathed physical contact, especially with someone so – dodgy. With titanic regret, he took her hand and shook it. He deserved an Oscar for managing to add a smile.

“It’s a pleasure to meet you too, Meiko!” he said in English now. “And I most certainy am!”

In reality it was quite the opposite of a pleasure. He was grateful for an opportunity to truly test his Quirk, but why did it have to be alongside this girl? He still had no idea what the hell she had actually wanted Niso for, and though he had told himself he did not care at the time, seeing her again made him wonder.

It would have to wait, however. The man at the desk disappeared and reappeared with special protective headgear, vests, arm-pads and knee-pads. Nick put his on, praying the headgear would not mess with his wig. This done, he climbed into the arena.

Christ. Waiting for him there was a towering pile of muscles that looked like he had jumped right out of a fighting game. Definitely a step up from a common thug. The beefy mountain he was not sure was fully human saw the look on his face and grinned.

“Get ready for an ass-kicking, freaks!” he declared.

The man who had signed them up approached the arena and stopped by its side.

“Okay,” he said. “This is just a simple quick spar. No need to get too serious with each other. You’ve only got one minute.”

Not much of an explanation, Nick thought, thoroughly unimpressed. The man who had signed them up really seemed indifferent to life in general. He took ‘not caring’ to an entirely new level.

The advertisement for steroids he had been placed against drew his attention again with an almost comical knuckle crack.

“Let’s go!” he boomed in an explosive voice before he charged at Nick like a rhinoceros.

Nick did not even get chance to dodge. The fist that collided with him sent him crashing down in a second. Lights flashed before his eyes as even more unbelievable pain erupted through him from his body. It took him what felt like an eternity to regain clarity in his mind, at which point it dawned on him the beefcake had kicked him while he was down. Why the hell did the man from the table not react to that? Surely that was not allowed? He glanced to where the table man had stood by the arena, only to find he was no longer there. What?

Rough hands suddenly seized Nick and hauled him into the air before the ground slammed into him full force. He swore he coughed blood. So much for ‘no need to get serious’.

He managed to push himself up slightly with intense effort. He did not exactly have a choice here if he wanted to get out of this without any broken bones; he had to use his Quirk. The growth on his back bulged and spat out the black biological fluid that quickly took the shape of his armour. New strength flooded through him and gave him the boost he needed to propel back onto his feet, which was enough to give the beefy mountain pause.

“Huh?” remarked the beefy mountain. “What’re you supposed to be, some kinda bug-man?”

He did not wait for an answer before he rushed at Nick again. With his enhanced body, Nick found it easier to jump to the side and avoid his foe. He wasted no time launching into a counterattack, fists flying like meteors, but the steroid abuser managed to duck and weave away from them all.

Shit, this guy’s good enough to dodge me even when I’m transformed? Nick cried out in his head, grimacing behind his biological mask with eyes wide.

The muscled up lunatic Nick had been placed against was not merely ‘sparring’, that much was obvious. His partner, the man fighting Meiko, did not seem to care either.

Nick’s body hurt as though he had been run over by a steamroller. That he could stay standing and balanced was nothing short of a miracle. He gave up his assault and sprang back with his arms raised in a defensive posture, anticipating another charge, but instead his opponent stood there and grinned his gleaming sadistic grin.

“How do you like that, freakazoid?” the man laughed. “Even with your stupid powers, you’re just pathetic!”

He was so busy gloating he did not notice Meiko tossing his partner his way. The two collided, Meiko’s opponent falling to the ground and Nick’s opponent staggering and almost doing the same.

Nick seized his opponent by the front of his vest with one hand. A fraction of a second later, his other fist buried itself in the man’s face.

“I…”

Again.

“Am not…”

Again.

“Pathetic!”

He released the man as his final blow impacted with enough mighty force to knock even such a behemoth on his backside. Nick lunged at him and rained down a furious flurry of fists like a man possessed.

Punch after punch after punch after punch. Nick’s barrage was beyond relentless. How dare this Quirkless nobody look down on him. He had no idea what Nick had been through or who Nick was. Well, Nick would certainly show him. No one called him weak. Not anymore.

Of all things, it was Meiko’s voice that broke through Nick’s rage storm and brought him back to reality by reminding him that he was 'Sam'. He looked down at the man beneath him and was hit with a wave of panic. No. Shit. He could not kill him. Not here. Not when surrounded by the freaking military.

With great difficultly, Nick was somehow able to peel himself away from his opponent. He rose onto his feet and staggered back as though in a daze.

Even more miraculous was the fact his opponent was still conscious. There were some swelling bruises on the man’s face, but it was still able to twist into a glare of pure venomous hatred that rivalled Nick’s own. The man tried to get up again, but slumped back down.

Christ, and he called me a freak, Nick thought. He honestly wondered if the man had a durability Quirk and just did not realise it.

He slid down onto his backside. His armour returned to its liquid-like state and receded back into the growth. His heartbeat pounded faster than he had ever felt it. Shit, how the hell did he get himself out of the fact he had lost control here?