Day 1. Moving Day and Quirk Demonstrations
Shock and Awe The spring sun peeked over the horizon and shed its light over the city of Musutafu. It was the dawn of the second year of UA's history, and with it came the second round of young men and women seeking to become part of the very first generation of legally operating Heroes. For our Heroes-in-training, it was the start of perhaps the most challenging experience of their life. A seemingly impossible task stood before them; to change the hearts and minds of a society that shunned them, to stop the seemingly inevitable surging crime wave, to find their own image of a Hero.
Any hopes of the first day turning out peacefully were extinguished by the shouting at the front gates. The protest this year was smaller than the last, but it was steadily increasing in volume and intensity. They threw things, screamed things, horrible things, but they were mostly impotent thanks to the diligent assistance of the riot police and a few ex-vigilantes turned teachers. The entire Quirkless student body of the school's former incarnation was able to enter via the front gates, completely unharassed- an angry mob in their own right. Although they exuded more of an air of malcontent than the frothing hatred of the vocal majority outside. The entrance of the former students through the front gate was a small ruse- a distraction to the new Hero students making their ingress via the side entrance. UA security and a few teachers had their hands full dealing with the crowd control, but thanks to the planning of their principal and teachers the students would be able to move safely onto campus where they would stay for the majority of the next three years.
The acceptance letters they had all received gave them specific instructions to send their belongings ahead of them to be left in their future dormitories, and to report to the side entrance with a student pass where they would be greeted by staff members and carted off to their orientation as a group. All the students had to do was make it there alive.
A chill filled the air that morning. As they made their way to campus the sounds of the protest became more and more clear. Men and women from all walks of life, angry at the percieved preferential treatment of the Quirked and the in-progress takeover of the school. But while their words were filled with hatred, there was certainly an underlying tone of fear in their voices. Quirks, to them, were associated with violent crime, destroyed dreams, lost loved ones,
villains. The image of a hero was not yet present in their hearts and minds, it was only a pipe dream perpetuated by old comic books.
âFreaks go home! Freaks go home!â
âQuirks donât belong here!â
âLeave policing to the humans!â
The strange sight of a man in a space suit waited to greet his class at the agreed entrance. Clicks and whirring could be heard with every slight movement he made. While his helmet hid away his face an led display on the visor expressed emotion through various simple images. While quite an underground vigilante with no real following, students that followed the news about such characters may have recognized his iconic suit, out of which he had never been seen. This was Spacenaut, known by no other name.
'|âĄâżâĄ|'
Spacenaut was joined by a uniquely dressed man, a pair of glasses reflecting the sunlight and hiding his eyes. His hand was at his ear, and he seemed to be directing those who were holding the barricade. This man was a vigilante in his own right, though far less underground; he was old school to say the slightest. Death Glare was his alias, and he was the type of vigilante that the cops really hated. Leaving criminals with broken bones, taking lethal force if necessary, even evading arrest. As a result, it took a lot of convincing to get him pardoned. Death Glare, also known as Shigeki Higashi, had proven too useful for the new hero school scheme to just be tossed in prison, and now he was seemingly taking charge of this operation.
A man in a black suit with a red undershirt and white-trimmed black tie approached the other two men, polishing his glasses and placing them on his face once again. An identification tag hung from his breast pocket. Though obscure in its detailing, it indicated that he was an employee of a rather potent government agency.
"Well gentlemen, I'm not going to lie. It's quite an ugly scene out front," spake the man with neatly cut hair, "I called the boys-in-blue as soon as I could, but they took some time to get here. Have either of you seen Sensei recently?"
Death Glare tilted up his chin with a snicker, apparently finding the man's understatement amusing. Ugly was a word for it, but so was "uncomfortable" and that just didn't have the impact necessary.
"Nope, I've been busy handling this the best I can. Hopefully, the cops give me a hand, but I've had a bad history when it comes to the police."
Spacenaut didn't audibly respond, instead he seemed to be ignoring the topic entirely and focusing on watching the path for students. He didn't want to think about the protest.
The man in glasses took the silence from the armored figure as a response all its own, "Right. Sorry. I should have known better. So let's, oh, what was the phrase, mold some minds? Yes?"
Death Glare adjusted his glasses with a gloved hand. "Molding young minds huh? Not in
my job description but I'll help us get to that point."
"A bit of rhetoric, Shigeki," the suited man replied, his tone a bit more rigid and cold, where once it had at least a touch of excitement.
Coming up from the grounds proper, dressed in clean and respectable dress clothing and looking irate at that fact, the mustached face of McCoy expressed in full what he did not or could not say. The protesters were an eyesore and McCoy wanted to take care of them personally, but he had been told not to cause a scene. Arms across his chest, he spat into the dirt.
"All I's sayun wus dat a phew brokun bones'd clear em out."
"Yes, Mister McCoy," the suited man replied, but in flat-toned English this time, "But we can't afford the law-suits and criminal charges to be brought against you or the school. These resources are far too valuable, as my colleague keeps reminding me," the man added rather uncomfortably as he adjusted his tie and neckline.
"Ah but das a load a piss. Wuts we teechin dese kids by nots dealin wiff our own problums." McCoy grumbled, scowling further but thankfully heeding the words. If it weren't for his promise to behave this would have been a different scene.
Stoically silent, Spacenaut remained vigilant in his watch for the encroaching class of students. 1-A, for the next year, would be his responsibility. A careful eye might have spotted one of his armored hands forming into a fist during their chat, but it had passed. His duty was here, the protest was being handled.
There the odd trio would await them. A supposedly content astronaut with a friendly outward demeanor, a government suit, and possibly the largest and most brutish foreigner anyone had ever laid their eyes upon.
"Welcome to UA, young Heroes."