Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

“ENDEAVOR!”

The scared man jumped toward his father. Blue flames poured off his arm, burning his arm. On the ground, Enji Todoroki stared at his oldest son, his face unrecognizable. Next to him, his youngest, Shoto, screamed for him to do something. Enji could barely hear, as all his focus was on Dabi. Enji could feel his world crumbling, watching as his son fell toward him.

Enji felt the wind rush next to him as Shoto jumped to protect his friends. The maniacal smile on Dabi’s face only grew wider. He raised his hand out in front of him before shouting,

“PROMINENCE BURN!”

The heroes on the ground braced for impact, but it never came. The heroes looked up in horror as a dark portal opened in the sky, sucking all the flames into it. Shoto watched as his screaming brother was pulled into the portal. Before he could react, he felt a tug on his clothes. Shoto looked to the ground to see his father reach out before he was pulled in as well.

The last thing he heard was his father shouting his name when the portal closed, and everything went dark.

---

Shoto’s vision cleared as he blinked awake. He only had a moment to get his bearings before he was blasted into a rock wall. He yelled as his back hit the wall. He slid to the ground, spitting some blood out of his mouth.

He looked up to see Dabi, still covered in blue flames standing over him. He grabbed Shoto by the hair and yanked his head up. “I wonder how the old man feels, after seeing his masterpiece taken away,” He rasped, putting his other hand around Shoto’s neck.

“And I wonder how he will feel when I drag his masterpiece’s corpse back to him,”

Dabi began to burn Shoto’s neck, smiling at the choking sounds his brother was making. Suddenly, Shoto’s hand grabbed Touya’s. “I won’t go down that easily,” He choked out. Shoto used his right hand to create a wall of ice that knocked Dabi back. Shoto tried to stand, but the pain in his body was too much.

“Shit,” Shoto winced, putting his hand on his stomach. He pulled himself up and slowly moved along the cave wall. He could hear the ice crackling behind him as Touya burned through it.

"I need to move," Shouto muttered, bringing his left hand up to his stomach. He lit his flames ablaze and cauterized the wound on his stomach. The pain in his stomach was still prominent, but now he could move. He quickly made his way through the cave. Despite the quietness he encountered, someone else had definitely been there. The bullet holes in the rock were enough for him to be sure. But there was something else too. While he ran, he saw metal structures, strange flags, and decommissioned robots.

Shouto stopped to look at one of the robots. It was oddly colored, but vaguely humanoid. The way it was crumpled on the flood looked as though the robot was not decommissioned, but had been asleep for a long time. Shouto leaned down to investigate further but was knocked off his feet by a large heat wave.

"Oh little Shouto, perhaps dear old Dad didn't teach you enough about your right side," Dabi said. "Well after all, he was always more obsessed with flames," Shouto looked up to see his brother covered in blue fire. That crazed smile still decorated his face. "I heard you didn't use your flames for years!" Dabi laughed before blasting Shouto with more fire.

Shouto rolled along the ground, feeling the sharp rocks tear at his skin. Shouto looked up to see Dabi reeling his smoking hand back, preparing for another attack. Shouto slams his bleeding right hand on the ground creating a small wall of ice. Dabi's blast melted the ice almost instantly, but Shout was able to crawl away before he was burned.

"Oh if only Dad could see you know," Dabi sighed as he stalked over to Shouto. Shouto looked up at his older brother. He could smell the burning flesh radiating off him.
The smile finally disappears from Dabi's face. "You are not worthy of being my replacement," Dabi sneers before kicking Shouto in the face. The satisfying crack of Shouto's nose makes Dabi sigh. Dabi kicks him again making Shouto roll across the floor.

Shouto coughs out some blood and tears leak out of his eyes at the pain. Shouto tries to stand, but the pain becomes unbearable.

"Fight back, fight back!" Shouto's mind screams, but he could bearly move. He could only feel blood pour out of his nose, and the sharp stapping him his chest. Shouto could only lie limp as Dabi picks him up by the collar. Souto looks at Dabi's blue eyes. Behind them, he could only see rage.

"Please, Touya," he says. His voice was pleading, but he didn't know for what.

Dabi's gaze hardens, but he reaches up and gently pushes Shouto's red hair off his scar. His fingers lightly press it then he brings his hand down.

"Oh Shouto," he says, "Touya is dead,"

Flames suddenly burst out of Dabi's hand flinging Shouto up to the cave ceiling. The pressure cracks the rock, but Dabi keeps pushing. Shouto screams out at the pain when suddenly the ceiling breaks behind him. Shouto soars out of the cave with Dabis lingering flames propelling him. The last sensation he remembers was landing in the bitter cold and the sight of a large ship flying overhead.

Chapter Text

Dabi stared up at the cracked ceiling. The hole he blasted his brother through was slightly melted from the heat of his flames, but something else was falling from the outside.

Snow.

How could it be snowing? It was May, and as far as he knew, there were no heroes that were capable of making snowfall.

"Does Shigaraki have a snow quirk?" Dabi wondered. It would explain the snowflakes falling into the cave. Dabi shrugged it off and continued moving through the cave. He had to find Shouto's body. Hopefully, it wouldn't be too disfigured; he needed his father to recognize his failed masterpiece.

As Dabi moved through the cave, he became more and more confused. Someone, or something, definatly had been here before him. Their were metal structures, flags with strange symbols, and most disturbing of all, weapons. Well more spcifically, guns. Dabi had never seen guns like these before. The brown material that they were made of was foreign to him, and they had spikes along the barrel. Dabi picked one up and examined it.

The gun was odd. It seemed not made for a human. However, Dabi shrugged off and kept moving. After awhile, Dabi knew he was completly lost within the cave. It seemed to go on and on for eternity. He began to get more and more frusterated.

"AAGGGGH" Dabi screamed pushing over a box. He screamed again then burned the box to ash.

"I was so close, I was so fucking close!" He yelled. Dabi screamed again, and again, and again. He released his flames on everything in the cavern. He threw things around watching them smash into the wall. The smell of burning flesh filled his nostrals, but he didn't care. He continued on his rampage, until finally he collaped against a wall.

Breathing heavily, he wiped bloody tears off his face. It had been awhile since he cried this hard. He wasn't even sure why he was crying. Was it because he was lost? Or was it because his plan had most likely failed. It didn't matter, all the mattered was that he was going to miss the downfall of his father.

Dabi pulled himself together and stood up. He began to walk through the cave again but quickly stopped. He heard screams and shouts from down the cooridor, and they were moving toward him; quickly.

At first, he thought it was civilians. Who else would be screaming at a time like this. However, as the screams got closer and closer he realized something was wrong.

Those screams weren't human.

Dabi prepared himself, lighting his blueflames ablaze. He saw shadows in the hallway become larger, the screams grew even louder until, all of a sudden, they stopped. Lowering his hands slightly, dabi took a step forward. The gravel beneath his shoe was the only sound he heard.

Before he could take another step, a figure lunged at him from out of no where. He was knocked to the ground smacking his head in the process. Dabi cried out in pain, looking up at his attacker. His attacker swung swords at him, and Dabi rolled quickly out of the way. He quickly got to his knees and blasted his attacker with flames. The attackers purple cloak quickly caught fire.

Before he could burn the thing again, blue projectiles fly past Dabi. He looked back at the corridor to see two more things firing guns at him. Dabi quickly created a wall of flames at the door. He could hear screams at the door, but he ignored it.

He stalked over to his previous attacker who had now abandoned their cloak. Now without the cloak, Dabi could see what exactly attack him.

And it shocked him to his core.

The thing had four arms, each holding swords. Its face was similar to that of an insect, and it had a dark grey exoskeleton. Despite losing it's cloak, it did not seem bothered by the fire.

The thing lunged at Dabi again, reering it's swords back. Dabi dodged quickly and turned around to counter attack, but the thing was gone again. Dabi whipped around looking for his adversary. He could hear chittering, but he couldn't see it.

"Come out, you coward," He mummbled, not know if it could even understand him. Dabi lit his hand ablaze again. He suddenly sensed a presence behind him. Dabi turned around and shot a ball of fire out of his hand. He heard a loud scream, and the thing suddenly appeared slumped agains the wall. Dabi quickly walked over to it. The thing growled at him, but Dabi just scoffed.

Dabi began to burn the thing. He could smell the thing cooking within it's exoskeleton. The thing let out one final scream before it fell limp.

Dabi let out a breath. The fire at the door had dissapated as well as the other two creatures from before. He could hear their chittering growing faint. He lit himself a blaze and began running after the creatures.

Dabi ran through the cave, blasting his fire at the fleeing creatures. They always ducked around corners faster than he could attack, ducking and weaving when they couldn't. Dabi grew frusterated and let out more and more fire. The creatures just kept scurrying away. Eventually, the chase lead them out of the cave.

The second Dabi could see the outside of the cave, he stopped. Something was terribly wrong.

The harsh wind hit him like a truck, burning his skin with it's bitter cold. Everything was covered in snow. He would have belived he was in Antarctica if it wasn't for the huge metal structures poking out of the ice. He shivered and tried to light himself on fire, but the wind quickly blew it out.

Dabi was shocked. He tried to light his flames again and again, but they would quickly get snuffed out by the cold. Even in the winter time, Dabi could still create huge fires and cremate humans easily.

So where on earth was he?

Dabi shuffled out of the cave, his feet sinking into the snow. He was not dressed for this weather. He shivered again from the cold. Dabi didn't get far from the cave before he heard that familier scream again. He looked up a hill to see the creatures staring down at him.

This time however, they had a leader. The largest of the pack raised a fist into the air. Then they started firing at him. Dabi leaped for cover behind a rock, but not before a shot hit him. He groaned in pain from not only the shot, but the feeling of being electecuted. He pressed on the wound with his hand, but found it wasn't bleeding. Whatever hit him must had been so hot it caused a burn.

Suddenly something heavy hit the ground up the hill. Dabi peeked out to see a large machine had landed on the hill. Dabi's eyes widened. The machine definatly built for war. The thing was covered in weapons and had eight red eyes that were focused on him.

Dabi had only a second to run when he saw it's gun preparing to fire. He ran out from behind the rock hearing it get blasted to peices only a moment later. The creatures were right on his tail as he continued to run through the snow. At one point he turned around and blasted the machine with the hottest fire he could muster. The flames weren't even blue, and could only manage a measly red flame.

Dabi let his hands fall and look up in horror at the machine. The chittering of the creatures turned into creepy laughs. He felt his impending doom, but he wouldn't go down easily. These creatures were nothing to him, he's deafeated worse and will deafeat greater. He attempted to light himself again, hotter this time.

"You're gonna have to try harder than that to kill me!" He yelled, letting a smile cross his face. The creatures readyed their weapons, pointing them directly at him. He prepared himself as well, raising his body temperature more and more until he almost couldn't bear it. "You are not worthy of my time" He said to the leader.

The leader screamed at Dabi pulling it's own gun out. Dabi thrust his hand out releasing his flames on the large creature. The creature thrust it's hand out as well and a wall of ice busrt out of the ground. Dabi let his smile grow. Ice was nothing to his blue flame. He focused all his fire on the ice. He eventually stopped, smirking because he knew he would be a ble to beat these creatures.

His smile quickly faded to shock seeing the ice still standing strong as ever. His blue flame had done nothing. Dabi heard the evil laugh of the leader as the ice wall disapear on it's command. He heard it shout and order and the machine fired.

Dabi went flying off his feet landing on his back. Dabi felt pain through his whole body, esspecially in the wound from earlier. Dabi squeezed his eyes shut from the pain and tried to pull himself up, but couldn't. He saw a shadow over him and opened his eyes. The leader stood over him. The leader streched out it's hand and Dabi watched as it began to be covered in frost.

Suddenly, Dabi felt burning cold all over his body. He looked at his hand to see it being covered in ice. He tried to heat himself, but the burning got even worse. He couldn't move and the burning got worse. He screamed in pain and felt to world going quiet.

Time seemed to freeze around him. Was he truly going to die here? He didn't get to complete his plan, or see his father's broken face when he brought him Shouto. Where was Shouto anyway? Lost in the cold of this place, buried under the snow perhaps. Or maybe he survived and dragged himself to safety.

Dabi took one final glance at the creature, accepting his fate. But before his face was covered in ice, a gunshot rang out. Dabi saw the leader get knocked back for a moment before it exploded with a burst of yellow flames. The ice around Dabi cracked and then shattered. He quickly sat up, but groans in pain. He sees a pair of boots run by.

"Jinju, check on that guy!" A feminine voice yells as more shots ring out.

Looks over to see a woman fighting the creatures with relative ease. He watches her flip between adversarys, throwing knives, and shooting them. She gets shot several times, but brushes it off like it's nothing. He watches her take down each creature until she gets to the giant machine.

"I really don't like brigs," She states before pulling out several knives. The brig begins firing at her, but she dodges all the blasts before leaping into the air. She spins mid air throwing all the knives at once. The knives catch fire midair, piercing the brig. The brig falls back and explodes.

The woman lands gracfully on her feet, and then brushes herself off. "Didn't think the Fallen were gonna be so pissy today," She says walking back over to Dabi.

Dabi stared at the woman who was putting her gun on her back. Her blue cloak fluttered in the wind as she resheathed her knives. "Jinju how's he looking" She said.

"I have never seen so much scar tissue on a person before," A robotic voice rings out. Dabi looks down to see a small drone-like device scaning his chest. He quickly smacks it away, and watches it soar through the air. "Hey! Don't smack me!" The drone says flying back over.

"Jinju, chill. He's probably super freaked out right now," the woman states. She reaches her hand out to him. "Can you stand?" She asks. Dabi just continued to stare at her in shock. "What the fuck are you?" He managed to say.

It was the woman's turn to be confused. "I'm a guardian?" She say's more like a quesion than a statement. "You know, wielders of the light, protectors of the last city? How hard did you hit your head?" She asks before gently feeling the back of his skull.

Dabi swipes her hand away and pulls himself to his feet. The woman stood eye to eye with him. "Jinju, let the tower know that we are going to need medical when we arrive back at the tower," The woman said to the drone, who was apparently named Jinju.

Dabi took a deep breath of cold air, feeling stabbing pain in he wound. "Who are you? Where am I? What the hell were those things?" Dabi let off rapid fire questions at the woman, who's brows only furrowed at each question. she eventually put her hands up in a defensive motion.

"Whoa, whoa, slow down. I'll answer your questions once we check your head out back in the city. For now let's just get you to safety," She stated. Dabi narrowed his eyes at her. "Your not gonna put me in prison the second we get back to the city," He said menacingly.

"You're a refugee, not a criminal, so no I'm not gonna put you in jail. Not that I even have that authority anyway," She mummbles the last part. "Anyway, my shhip is just over that ridge," She says pointing to the cliffs in the distance. "Think you can make it there?"

Dabi just nods, still processing her last words. "This woman must be an idiot," He thinks to himself. How did she not know who he was? He was one of the most wanted criminals in the world, his face plastered on TV a everywhere.

"Ummm, I never caught your name," Dabi says.

"That's cause I never threw it,"

Dabi gives her a annoyed look, and the woman laughs.

"Just kidding you. My name is Anastasia Bray, but you can just call me Ana," She say. "And what about you?"

"Right now, I'm going by Dabi,"

"Well Dabi, it's nice to meet you. Now let's get you home,"

Chapter Text

Of all the things Dabi thought he would see today, a spaceship was not one of them. But there, on a ridge, stood a large silver ship.

"She may be a bit old, but she's worth the pain," Ana said as she marched ahead. The wind was beginning to pick up now, and the trench coat Dabi wore was doing nothing to combat the cold. Ana looked back at Dabi,, who was struggling to climb up the hill. She held her hand up, and the drone appeared in her hand.

"Jinju, get the ship up and running and put the heater on full blast," The drone seemed to nod before disappearing. Dabi looked up the saw the ship begin to power up, watching as the ship slowly raised off the ground. 'Is she gonna leave me here?' Dabi wondered. His question was quickly answered when he felt an arm wrap around his middle and steady him.

"Don't worry, I got you," Ana said beside him. She half carried him up the rest of the hill until they were under the ship. "Jinju, transmit us up,"

As soon as she finished her sentence, Dabi felt himself pull apart. It wasn't unpleasant, but it was odd. In the blink of an eye, he was inside the ship. Warmth washed over him as he collapsed into a seat. Ana sat down across from him, pulling a first aid kit out of thin air.

"Jinju set a course for the city," She said as she opened the kit. Dabi felt the ship move as it took off into the sky. "Where the hell are you taking me?!" He yelled at the woman across from him. She was unbothered by his outburst and continued to dig through the kit. "I'm taking you to the last city, the only safe place left in the Sol system," She said matter-a-factly, taking out a strip of gauze. "Lift your shirt,"

Dabi smacked the gauze out of her hand before standing up, ignoring the stabbing pain in his stomach. He grabbed the woman by the throat and lifted her.

"Listen to me, hero," he sneered, "I know what you are trying to do, and it's not going to work. Now, you are going to take me back to Jaku City, or I will slowly burn you until you are nothing but mere dust under my shoe," Dabi says, lighting his hand. Ana glances at his hand and then back at his face.

"Could you put me down before I have to do something I don't want to," Ana says. Dabi feels something poke at his side. He looks down and sees a knife held up against his skin. "And... no one would find your body in the vacuum of space," she shrugs. Dabi slowly put her down but still kept his blue flame lit.

"You aren't a real hero," Dabi spats at her. "Heroes don't kill people," The woman's face morphs into annoyance. She huffs and moves to sit in the cockpit of the ship. "Clearly, you know nothing about heroes," She says.

"You have no idea how many I've killed for the sake of humanity," She says, staring out the window. "So why don't you shut up about things you know nothing about,"

Dabi stares at the woman in shock. Was she a vigilante or a rouge hero? Her quirk screams hero, especially after seeing her easily take down the creatures back there. Where ever 'there' was.

"Where the hell were we?" Dabi asks the woman.

"The Asterion Abyss on Europa,"

"Hah, hilarious," He laughs. "Don't lie to me; where the fuck were we," Dabi says, moving to the seat behind her in the cockpit.

"I'm not lying, we were on Europa," she say, flicking some switches on the controls. "Why are you acting like you know nothing?"

"How the hell were we on Europa? We have barely even been to the moon!" Dabi has become very annoyed at Ana's blatant lying. Whatever the hell is going on it must be part of some sick joke to make him look stupid before he is locked up for life. Dabi opened his mouth to question the woman again, but Ana beat him.

"You may want to put your seat belt on; this may get a little bumpy," She says, taking the controls in her hands.

Dabi feels the ship slow down as something begins to appear out of the dark. Dabi stared forward, then rubbed his eyes a few times. He must be dreaming because there was no way this could be real.

"Is that-"

"Earth? Yep," Ana said, laughing at his reaction.

"This can't be real," Dabi says in shock.

Ana just smiled and glided the ship into the clouds. The ship smoothly sailed through the air, and Dabi watched the fluffy white clouds through the ship's window.

"Tower to Lost Legend, how you holdin' up in there," A voice suddenly spoke through the intercom.

"Lost Legend to Tower, I'm holding up just fine. Requesting a landing zone," Ana replied.

"You got it; anything else I can get for you, Ana?" The voice asks.

"Yeah, could I get medical? Found a lightless, and he's pretty banged up," Ana says, looking back at Dabi.

"Damn, a lightless that far out? Glad he's still alive. I'll get medical down here ASAP," The voice on the other end begins to yell orders. The voice is feminine, with a heavy American accent. 'Are we in America?' Dabi wonders.

"Thanks Amanda, we'll transmit to the courtyard, over and out," Ana says. She then points to the window. "This is always my favorite part of coming home,"

Dabi watches out the window as light peeks out from behind the clouds. It gets brighter and brighter until he can barely see. Then is a sudden flash, the light is gone,, and his mouth drops. Below them was the largest city Dabi had ever seen. The city was surrounded by massive walls with huge turrets stationed at their top. The city was beautiful, but the most stunning part was the many ships that hovered over the town.

"Wow," He uttered.

Ana just smiled. "Yep, this never gets old,"

The ship turned and flew around the city's edge before stopping at the top of one of the wall's towers. Dabi felt himself tear apart and then rematerialize. Dabi blinked and looked around. The tower where they transmitted to was bustling with life. Dabi hadn't been in such a busy place in a long time.

Ana walk ahead before turning around. She spread her arms before smiling and saying, "Welcome to the tower,"

---

The onslaught of heroes Dabi expected as he walked through the tower was strangely absent. He got lots of strange looks, but no one rushed at him, quirks blazing, to arrest him. He decided it was a good thing and shoved his hands into his pockets.

Many people greeted Ana as she strolled through the tower. A blue man in a hooded robe greeted her, as well as a blue android who was polishing a large gun. Ana just greeted everyone the same. They eventually reached the med bay, where Dabi was quickly whisked away to have his wounds tended to.

A young woman with pale blue skin quickly closed the wound on his stomach. She even resewed his scars back to his healthy skin and handed him many ointments that would "help with their prominent appearance". He decided to throw them out as soon as he could.

Ana dragged him to an open-air elevator that quickly took them down a few stories. Dabi followed her to a large office where a man in bulky armor awaited them.

The man turned around and studied Dabi for a moment. He eventually sighed and walked around the desk.

"Commander, this is the lightless I found on Europa," Ana says, her tone much more professional. The commander nods before speaking. "Hello, You must be Dabi. It is a pleasure to meet you. I am Zavala, commander Vanguard of the last city," He says while sticking out his hand. Dabi quickly took it and shook his hand for a moment.

"Now you may be wondering why the vanguard commander is having a personal meeting with you," Zavala started.

"Not particularly; I assume you do this for every wanted criminal your heroes bring to you," Dabi says nonchalantly. Dabi leans against one of the pillars in the room. The commander chuckles at his answer before sitting down at his desk.

"Whatever you had to do on Europa to survive is none of our concern. I am more concerned about the power Ana observed you using on Europa," Dabi's ears perk up at this.

"I have never seen the light used by a lightless before, nor have I seen it used in such a way," Dabi furrows his brows at this. Why the hell was this guy calling his quirk 'light'?

"Have you never heard of a quirk before?" He says. "Your lacky was using her fire quirk on those creatures back on Europa, and also, you seem to be in charge of this hero agency or whatever. So tell me, commander, why are you acting like you know nothing about me?" Dabi yells, slamming his hands down on the desk.

Zavala raises himself from his chair, looking Dabi directly in the eye. His stare reminds him of Endeavors but with more concern laced in. Zavala eventually breaks eye contact before turning around and looking out the large window.

"Do you know nothing about the Traveler?" The man says quietly.

"No, I got sucked into a portal a few hours ago,"

Zavala continues to look out the window.

"Its arrival changed us forever. Humanity was thrust into a golden age. Human lifespan tripled; cities were built on Mars and Venus. Moons and Planets terraformed before our very eyes. It was a time of miracles,"

Zaval turned around, his gaze darkened.

"But the Traveler had an enemy, and soon that enemy found us. Our golden age soon turned to the Collapse. Humanity was run to the brink of extinction, and in the Traveler's dying breath, it created the ghosts," He says, gesturing to the small drone that appeared in his hand.

"The ghosts were sent to the cosmos to find their Guardians. They would infuse their bodies with light to create warriors to combat the Darkness within our system," Zavala put his fists on the desk. "It has been four hundred years since the collapse, and we are still fighting for our home,"

Dabi was speechless. Four hundred years? This is why no one knew of him. His father and Shigaraki, Toga, Spinner, and everyone he knew must be long dead by now. But one question remained.

"If it's been four hundred years, why do you know nothing of quirks? Shouldn't the entire population have one by now?"

"I'm not sure what a quirk is," Zavala says. "Is that what you have been calling your power?"

"Wha-" Dabi starts before stopping. The look on Zavala's face tells him the answer to his question already. Quirks don't exist, nor have they ever been here. Dabi leans back on his chair. He runs a hand down his face. The realization slowly dawns on him; everything he ever knew never existed.

"I think I need a few minutes," Dabi eventually says.

"Of course, I figured you would need time to adjust. I have already arranged for you to stay with one of our resting guardians," Zavala gestures to the door which Ana opens.

"She and her fireteam are on a break from service due to an..." Zavala pauses and looks out the window. "unexpected ending to a recent mission,"

"I wouldn't call it unexpected, commander," A woman behind them says.

"I would call it unfortunate," Dabi turns to see a woman with bluish skin and short blue hair standing respectfully.

"At ease Marvela," Zavala says. Marvela's stance loosens as she makes her way to another chair in the office.

"Dabi, this is one of my titans, Marvela. She is the leader of fireteam RZ4971 otherwise know as..."

"Rez! The most accomplished fireteam in all of Sol," Marvela says excitedly. Behind them, Dabi could hear Ana chuckle as the door opens then shuts, indicating her departure.

Zavala clears his throat and gives Marvela a stern look. "As I was saying, Marvela will be housing you and debriefing you on everything you may have questions about,"

Dabi nods, knowing the commander has left no room for discussion.

Zavala stands up, with Dabi and Marvela following suit.

"Now that that is sorted out, I have other matters I need to attend to. Good day to the both of you," Zavala says as the two exit the office.

Marvela turns to Dabi with a large grin.

"Come on, scar face, my apartment awaits," She said suddenly,, grabbing his arm. Her grip was nearly bone-crushing. Dabi yelped in pain, and she quickly let go.

"Sorry, I sometimes forget my own strength," She chuckles as if she didn't almost break his arm. She marches on ahead, and Dabi follows behind.

Dabi finally got a good look at the woman. Despite her large sweatshirt, he could tell this woman was extremely buff. She had a similar height and build as his old man. Despite her build, she was a very pretty woman. She reminded him a little of Curious, the noisy reporter Toga murdered in Deika City.

They continued to walk through the tower. Dabi looked at everyone they passed and grew more and more weirded out. Nearly everyone was wearing armor of sorts. He saw multicolored androids walking with blue people. He saw the same creatures that attacked him back on Europa conversing with workers of some sort. And he nearly ran into a giant creature with coarse skin dressed in blue armor.

Dabi was defiantly more than confused.

"Here we are!" Marvela suddenly said, standing in front of a small apartment complex. She quickly punches a code into the gate, which swings open. They walked up a few flights of stairs and stopped in front of a black door with a very faded welcome mat.

She opened the door and flicked on some lights. One thing became clear very quickly about this woman; she was not one to be messed with. Firearms covered nearly every surface of the apartment. They were in various stages of completion, as many of the guns were ripped apart. Marvela grimaced at the state of the room and kicked some parts to the side of the room, making a path for them to walk through.

"Sorry about the mess; I told Rowan to clean," She huffs in annoyance. Dabi just looked around the room at all the different firearms. Dabi had never seen so many guns in his entire life. He picks up a diamond-shaped barrel with a strange symbol on the end.

"Careful," Marvela says while cleaning off the countertop. "That's a shotgun,"

Dabi quickly dropped the gun back on the table. "Why the hell do you have a shotgun on your kitchen table!?" He practically yells.

Marvela just laughs. "You should see the rocket launcher in my room,"

Dabi rolled his eyes to hide the fact he is scared. Dabi hadn't felt nervous in a long time. He was always the most powerful in the room, able to cremate anyone who stood in his way, but these people? These people were dangerous.

Ana had taken down the creatures with complete ease. The creatures that nearly killed him back on Europa. Marvela had enough weapons in her apartment to arm a small army. Who knows what other powers she could be hiding as well?

Dabi just stood in the kitchen in silence as Marvela finished picking up the apartment. She returned to the kitchen and began to dig out a few pots and pans from some cabinets.

"The guest room is down the hall on the left. Rowan left some clothes out for you to change your dirty clothes. Also, feel free to take a shower; you still have a lot of crap on you," She says as she clicks on the stove.

Dabi quickly turned around and speed-walked down the hall where he found the aforementioned room.

Dabi turned the knob and opened the door. The room was surprisingly clean compared to the rest of the apartment. On the bed was a white tee shirt and black pants. Dabi quickly stripped and walked into the connected bathroom. It had been a while since he had a real shower, so he took his time cleaning himself. It was defiantly easier to clean now that his scars were connected correctly to his healthy skin.

Once he finished his shower, he stopped to look at himself in the mirror. Dabi always hated how he looked. His eyes were too much like his father's. His hair was too much like his mother's. And his scars... his scars reminded him he would never be good enough. His quirk would one day kill him, burning him out from the inside.

Dabi tore his gaze from the mirror and returned to the bedroom. He quickly slipped on the clothes he was given. The material was odd. It was nothing like any clothes he had worn before. It was comfortable enough, so Dabi shrugged it off and left the room.

Walking toward the kitchen, he could hear Marvela talking to someone. The robotic voice told him she was talking to her drone.

"I'm just saying there is something off about him," The drone said.

"Oh hush Griffin, everything that is different is off to you," Marvela says.

Dabi stops walking and stands in the doorway to the kitchen. He decides to listen to their conversation.

"I know, but after our last mission..." The drone pauses.

Marvela holds out her hand and the drone flies over and hovers just above her fingers.

"Griffin, I know you are still upset about what happened. Believe me, I am too, but this guy needs our help," Marvela turns back to the pot on the stove giving it a stir.

"And you and I both know we could use a distraction,"

Dabi finally clears his throat, making his presence known. The drone darts over to Dabi and begins to fly around his head, before hovering in front of his face. The drone's outer casing made it look like a pink squid.

"What the hell is this thing?" Dabi asks.

"I am a ghost, well more specifically, Marvela's ghost," It says in a chipper tone.

"His name is Griffin," Marvela says. "Also dinner is ready,"

Walks over to the small table near the kitchen, now free of its previous clutter minus the shotgun. Marvela brings him a bowl of steaming hot ramen noodles.

"Here," she says placing the bowl in front of him. "Eat,"

Dabi picks up the chopsticks and begins to eat the noodles. They were nothing fancy, but he was starving so he practically inhaled his food.

Marvela simply watched him eat until every last drop of his dinner was gone. Then she clasps her hands and leaned toward him.

"So, do you have any questions about the city?" She asks.

About a million questions flew through Dabi's head. Dabi didn't even know where to start. Even though Zavala gave him explanations earlier, nothing made any sense to him.

"Why did Ana say this was the last safe city?" He asks

Marvela sighs. "It's a long story."

Marvela gets up and walks over to a black cabinet in her living room. She opens it and pulls out a cube-shaped device and a bottle of whiskey. She sets the two down on the table and presses a small button on the top. The cube springs to life and a hologram of a small moon appears above the table.

"This is the traveler. It arrived in 2014 on the planet Mars. It terraformed the planet to the point where it was livable to humans. It eventually made its way toward Earth where our golden age began,"

Dabi waved his hand in the air. "Yah, yah, the commander guy told me all of this already. Then the collapse thing happened and the Traveler died. I want to know why humanity is almost extinct," Marvela chuckles at Dabi. She pours him a drink and slides it across the table. She picks up her own cup and takes a sip.

"When the darkness found us 400 years ago, it destroyed cities across the system. Billions of people were killed within seconds of its arrival. The Traveler fought back, but it wasn't enough to stop our impending doom. Eventually, the Traveler was able to push back the darkness, but it was too late. The Traveler then went dormant, but before it did, it created the ghosts,"

Griffin flew around the room at the mention of ghosts. He eventually settled above Marvela's hand. The little thing was quite expressive for not having a face. Marvela laughed at her ghost's antics.

"So what exactly does the ghost do?" Dabi questioned, narrowing his eyes at the squid-like thing.

"Well, when Griffin found me, he imbued me with light from the Traveler. The light gives me paracausal power. Specifically, I can control Arc energy," Marvela holds up her hand and Dabi watches a ball of blue lightning fill her palm. She quickly closes her hand and it snuffs out.

Dabi scoffs at the display. He's seen people with better lightning powers than her.

"I've seen better," He says.

"That was just a little bit of energy, dingbat,"

"Hey!" Dabi says sitting up in his chair. Marvela ignores him.

"Anyway, I should probably tell you that I'm dead,"

Dabi pauses. "The fuck you mean, your dead,"

"Well, I guess more specifically, I was dead," Marvela continues.

"Many times, 21,763 times to be precise," Griffin says from across the room.

Dabi was rendered speechless. Coming from a world where nearly everyone has power, he thought he had seen everything. But never in his life had he heard of someone who could come back from the dead. That was impossible, in every meaning of the word.

"How... Why... What?" Dabi stuttered out. "That's not possible," Dabi eventually says.

"Dabi, my powers are paracausal. They don't need to follow the laws of reality," She looks him dead in the eye. "I died my first death about 250 years ago, then Griffin found me and revived me. That is how I became a guardian."

Dabi sat back in his chair. He took another sip of his drink, the burn distracting him for a moment. This woman sitting in front of him, who walked, talked, and drank like him, was a living corpse. He just couldn't wrap his head around it.

"So how did the city end up here?" He says eventually, not so subtly changing topics. Marvela noticed but didn't say anything.

"Well, after the collapse, the Traveler settled here and went into dormancy. Survivors eventually made camp under it. The camp then grew into a town, which then grew into a city. Of course, it wasn't easy, but humanity was determined to keep their small territory safe,"

Dabi sat in silence still pondering everything Marvela told him. He still had many questions, but he didn't know what to ask next. Marvela took notice of his silence and stood up.

"I think that is enough for tonight," She says taking his bowl and cup. "Would you like to watch some Crucible?"

"I have no idea what that is," Dabi answers. Marvela curses under her breath. "Right of course you don't, but you'll love it!"

"No he won't," Griffin chimes in.

Marvela laughs and picks up the cubes from the table. She walks into her living room and places it on the coffee table. She clicks to button again and a large arena appears over the coffee table. Dabi could see dots moving around that he assumed were the players. Above the arena, a scoreboard shows points for two teams. Marvela clicks on one of the teams and some names drop down. She clicks on the name Rowan Star. The second she does, the hologram zooms to one of the dots. They could now clearly see the player, Dabi assumed Rowan, running around and ducking behind cover.

Dabi watches as the man slides behind a wall as a ball of energy flies past him. The second the ball hits the ground it explodes into a ball of purple energy. The person who threw the ball jumps over it and continues to run after Rowan. The two of them watch the chase between the two players until a loud voice rings out of the hologram.

"Only two players remain!"

Dabi then notices that all the names below the scoreboard had been crossed off.

"Fucking hell, this is tense," Marvela says next to him.

Dabi didn't even know what he was supposed to be watching for. He had to admit though, the game was rather intriguing. The two players chased each other through the arena until Rowan found himself cornered. He turned around with a gun drawn and stared down his opponent.

Dabi then realized the point of the game as three shots rang through the air. He nearly threw up as he saw Rowan's head explode from the gunshot. Blood and brain splattered across the wall behind him as his body fell to the ground. His opponent began to do a victory dance as the announcer congratulated the winning team.

Next to him, Marvela was laughing her ass off.

"Your friend just died, why the hell are you laughing!" He yelled at her. Marvela continued laughing, but pointed to the hologram. Dabi watched as a diamond-colored ghost appeared over his body. Dabi watched as Rowan's blown-up head, reappeared on his body. He then quickly sat up as if nothing had happened. He looked over at his opponent and stuck up his middle finger.

The projection then morphed into just the scoreboard. Dabi continued to stare in horror.

"Did he just...?" Dabi started

"Die? Yes." Griffin finished. "I never really enjoy The Crucible," The ghost shivers and floats back to the other side of the room.

Marvela eventually pulled herself together. "Priceless," She says before getting off the couch and turning off the hologram.

"It's getting pretty late, and you have had a hell of a day. You can sleep in the same room you got changed in," She says as she picks up the shotgun off the kitchen table.

"Do you need anything before you turn in for the night?" She asks.

Dabi ponders for a moment before sighing. "No, I'm fine. I just need some time to think,"

Marvela just nods and places the shotgun on the coffee table. "Well, I'll be in here if you need anything,"

Dabi watches her for a moment before heading down the hall.

"Night!" He hears Marvela yell after him.

He quickly opens the door and shut it before leaning his forehead against it. "Fuck," he mutters to himself. If Dabi could cry, he would. He didn't even know what to think anymore. It had become abundantly clear to him that he was nothing in this world. His powers were minuscule compared to the godlike power he saw from Ana and Rowan. He slide down the door and buried his face in his hand. He hadn't felt this useless since Shouto was born.

Shouto.

"Holy shit Shouto!" He says jumping to his feet.

Shouto was still stuck on Europa. Dabi immediately panicked and began pacing around the room. He quickly stopped his pacing after only a minute.

Why did he care? He wanted Shouto dead anyway, so why was he worrying about him? Dabi quickly shrugged off those thoughts and got in bed. He looked out the window at the city lights. Dabi sighed and looked away. Dabi thought about the league back home. Surprisingly he missed them, even Shigaraki.

Dabi eventually lays down and lets sleep overtake him.

Chapter Text

Drip

Drip

Drip

Shouto could hear the sound of water droplets before he could feel it. Little splashes on the side of his face began to ground him in his surroundings. He fluttered his eyes open but was met with blurry vision.

He tried to rub his eyes but found it difficult to move his arms, especially his left arm. He tried to lift it but was met with burning sensations up and down his body. He winced at the pain.

He was not used to being burned. He should be immune to being burned on his left side. If anything, he should be burned on his right side. He ran his right hand over his arm. The skin felt raw and swollen.

Shouto decided to worry about his burns later. He did have some first aid in his costume. He reached down to grab them, but they were gone. Well, his entire costume was gone.

Instead he was in poorly made underclothes. It defiantly did not fit him, but it was quite warm. Someone must have cut off the left sleeve based on the jagged seem. Shouto lifted himself and looked around the room he was in. His vision and mostly cleared up, but it was still a bit blurry.

The room was full of blankets and fabrics. It looked like a sleeping quarter for an army, but there were no beds. Shouto realized he was on the only cot in the room. Shouto swung his legs over the side of the bed. The second his feet hit the floor, Shouto realized something.

He was in a cave.

The dripping sound from earlier was water falling through the cave ceiling. Shouto shakes his head and then massages his temples. What happened earlier? It was hard to collect his thoughts because of how much his body ached. He was fighting Shigaraki with his father, Midoriya, and Bakugo then...

Oh right, Touya.

He and Touya were sucked through a portal into a cave very similar to this one. Then he was blasted through the ceiling and landed in... snow? 'That couldn't be right,' He thought to himself. Winter was over, so snow was out of the question.

Shouto racked his brain for any heroes that have snow or ice quirks that were fighting with him. His mind came up blank leaving him even more confused. Shouto stood up from the cot and walked over to the other beds.

From what he could tell, whoever saved him was not planning to stick around. Stuff was packed into bags, as well as cloaks laid out. On bag struck as peculiar to Shouto. He opened it only to find a plethora of weapons. Guns, knives, swords, and other weapons. They looked strangely familiar too.

Then it dawned on him; they were the same weapons he found in the cave while fighting Touya. He stepped back only to knock over a small glass on the floor. The second it hit the ground it shattered, causing echoes to ring out through the cave.

Shouto froze, listening for movement. Whoever owned this stuff must have surely heard him.

And that they did.

Shouto heard footsteps coming toward the room, along with faint chittering. It sounded as though a large insect was coming toward the room. Shouto walked toward the door and peeked around the corner. The moment he turned the corner he saw a tall creature staring back at him.

Neither of them moved, just stared at each other. Shouto wasn't sure what to think of this thing. I was about as tall as him with four bright blue eyes and a small tuff of purple hair on its head. It had a purple scarf around its neck, partially covering a respirator on it's mouth.

"Boy," It said suddenly, pointing a clawed finger at Shouto. It then looked at his injured arm. "Burn," It said pointing to his arm now.

"I fix," It said pointing to itself now.

Shouto's mouth just hung open at it. The way this thing talked was very odd. Besides its broken sentences, its voice was garbled. the creature suddenly grabbed Shouto's arm and pulled him through the cave. Shouto almost pulled his arm away, but the creature's grip wasn't threatening. It felt more like when Midoriya would drag him around UA's campus to show him a new move.

Eventually the two stopped in a large room with mats on the floor. The creature gestured to two of the mats and sat down. Shouto followed suit and sat cross-legged next to it.

"I Aklas," It said.

"Oh" Was all Shouto could say.

The creature stared expectantly at Shouto. "What you?" It asked.

"I'm Shouto Todoroki," He said. Aklas nodded at his answer.

"Sotu Toroki," Aklas tried to copy Shouto's words but failed.

Shouto found himself grinning a little at Aklas. The creature was amusing. It reminded him a bit of Midoriya.

"Midoriya," He suddenly said. Aklas chitters curiously at his sudden words, but Shouto ignores him. Midoriya was still fighting all those villains. Midoriya was already pretty messed up when he disappeared, but he could be so much worse now.

"How long was I asleep?" He asks Aklas.

"Long," It answers.

Shouto jumps to his feet. "I need to leave," he says while running toward the door. Behind him, he hears Aklas jump up too.

"No, hurt," It yells after him. Shouto runs through the cavern of the cave to the exit. He could see light and breaks into a sprint. He rounds the corner, but skids to a halt. In front of him was a group of creatures like Aklas.

"Wha-"

"The boy is awake," He hears a voice say. One of the creatures pushes its way to the front of the group. "My name is Priskis, let's get you some food,"

---

The creatures sat in silence around Shouto after he finished explaining what happened. He could tell most could not understand what he was saying, but Priskis, Aklas, and two others contemplated his words. Eventually, the Captain of the group, Barariks, spoke.

"We can take to city, he be safe there," he said in a low garbled tone. Aklas nodded along while he nursed Shouto's wounds. He smeared blue-colored gel up and down his arm, while he repeated words Shouto said.

"I agree with Barariks, but we can not get to the city without a jump ship," Priskis said. Shouto had learned that she was the elder of the group. She could speak his tongue with proficiency, unlike the others who could manage broken sentences.

Priskis stood up and hobbled over to Shouto leaning on her cane. She reached out and touched Shouto's cheek before moving up to hold a few strands of his hair. She studies him for a moment before hobbling back to her mat.

"When we found you, only your red side was frostbitten. Why?"

"Do you not know who I am?" He asks in return. Priskis simply shakes her head in return. He looks around the group for some form of recognition. Those that could understand him simply shook their heads.

"I know!" Aklas says next to him. "Sotu Toroki!"

Shouto sighs. "I'm Shouto Todoroki, son of Japan's number one hero, Endeavor," The creatures begin to chitter to each other in confusion. Shouto looked around the circle in confusion. "My quirk is half-hot half-cold, I go to UA High..." He trailed off when Priskis held up her hand.

"I apologize, but what is 'Japan'?" She asks.

"Japan is a country in Asia," He answers.

"What is Asia?" Priskis asks.

"A continent on Earth," He answers with confusion in his voice. "How do you not know where Asia is?"

"We never go to Earth," Barariks suddenly says. "Eliksni not welcome, they kill us," He says.

The group falls silent, as well as Aklas who had been softly repeating Shouto's words. He notices the tense air that had fallen onto the group. He could see Aklas shift uncomfortably from the corner of his eye.

"Who is killing you?" he whispers.

The group stays silent, no one wanting to speak. Shouto looks to Aklas who simply returns to tending to his wounds.

"You," A voice pipes up. The group turns to see another creature walk into the room. Its purple cape fluttered behind it as it walked up to Shouto.

Shouto looks up at the creature in confusion. "But I haven't killed anyone,"

The creature's eyes narrow, before one of its four arms reaches behind its back.

"I'll make sure of that," It says.

"Sorhis no!" Barariks shouts jumping to his feet. But he was too late. Sorhis pulls a gun out from behind its back and points it at Shouto.

However, right before Sorhis pulls the trigger, Shouto slams his right hand into the ground creating a wall of ice that smashes it into the wall. The group quickly falls into chaos with three other creatures pulling out knives and guns. Shouto stands up and lights his left hand. Aklas crawls away from the group in fear until he was behind a rock. Shouto notices his absence but ignores the guilt he felt in his chest.

The creatures continue to scream at him in a foreign language. Shouto prepare himself to engage when Barariks stands between him and the others. Priksis puts her hand on Shouto's right shoulder. He looks at her and she nods while holding her hand up. Barariks was shouting at the others who had let their weapons drop. Suddenly they heard a smashing sound and a thud against the rock.

Shouto looked to see Sorhis getting up from the ground. Its blue eyes were full of rage and looked around the room. Surprisingly it didn't walk toward Shouto, but instead marched around the corner and grabbed Aklas. It dragged him back toward the group and threw him on the ground. Sorhis then drew a sword and pointed at Aklas.

"You brought a Guardian to our crew!" It shouted at Aklas.

Aklas chittered nervously at Sorhis but was silenced when Sorhis put the tip of his sword against his chest.

"He will kill us all, without mercy," Sorhis spat at Aklas. "It will be your fault that he slaughters us,"

"The boy is not a guardian," Priskis hobbled across the room toward Sorhis. "He is simply a lost human,"

"Then explain why he is able to use both Solar and Stasis," Sorhis says, still pointing his sword at Aklas. Priskis places all four of her hands on her cane and turns to Shouto.

"Why don't we let him explain," She says gesturing to the confused boy standing behind her. The group shifts their attention to Shouto. He gulps, his mouth gone dry from the sudden push to the center of attention.

"I'm not sure what I need to explain?" He says in a confused tone.

"Explain power," Bararkis says, gesturing to the group to return to their mats. The group sits down, including Sorhis who sits across from Shouto. The glare in his eyes pierced Shouto. Aklas scurries back to his seat next to Shouto but doesn't look at him.

"Well, almost everyone on Earth is born with a special power called a quirk. I assume you all know this..." He trails off seeing the confused looks in the group's eyes. "Do you not know what quirks are?"

"Never go to Earth, no way to travel," Barariks says.

"Indeed," Priksis continues. "I have never heard of humans with special powers besides guardians,"

Shouto thinks for a moment. How have these creatures not heard of quirks before? They must have had some contact with humans outside of their group. That could only be possible if they had never met a human.

"Are you guys aliens?" He asks.

"Uh yah," Sorhis says in a snarky tone. "Do we look like humans to you?"

"No? Why would you ask that, you have four arms?" Shouto says. "So, if you are aliens, does that mean we aren't on Earth?"

"That is correct young one. As Barariks said before, we have no means of traveling to Earth. Our jump ship was destroyed by Eramis when we escaped. We have been stuck on Europa for three years now, with no hope of reaching the safety of the Great Machine," Priksis explains

Shouto was completely lost. Eramis? Jumpship? Great Machine? All of these things were foreign to him. These creatures, however, spoke about it as if they were discussing what they had for lunch yesterday. Suddenly Aklas places his hand on Shouto's shoulder.

Shouto looks at Aklas and notices the sadness in his many eyes.

"Stuck," He says. "No home,"

"I-" Shouto starts but couldn't finish. The weight of his situation begins to settle on him. He was stuck on the icy moon of Europa with no way to leave. He couldn't help his friends to defeat Shigaraki and Touya escaped from him.

Shouto didn't even realize he was crying until Aklas wiped his face with a cloth.

"I'm- I'm stuck too," He sniffed. "I have to get back to Earth to save my friends," He said.

The group shifted, looking to Barariks. He chittered to them while they listened. Once he stopped, Aklas pulled Shouto to his feet and lead him to the center of the group. One by one, each creature placed a hand on Shouto connecting them together. Then Barariks placed his hand on Shouto's forehead and recited something in his language.

Priksis walks over to the crew holding a purple cloak in two of her hands. Barariks steps back, and Priksis lays the cloak across Shouto's head and shoulders.

"What is happening?" He asks the older creature in front of him.

"Shouto Todoroki. Once a lost, now found," She says as the rest of the group steps back.

Barariks stands beside Priksis and nods his head at Shouto. The rest of the crew stands behind them, clapping their many hands and cheering.

"We the Eliksni of House Lost, welcome you to our crew," She says.

Shouto stands in shock as Aklas runs over and grips his arm. He stands silently as the crew rushes over and pats his head and shoulders. Shouto lets a small smile creep onto his face. He looks at Priksis who bows her head.

"Let's get you home,"

Chapter Text

The morning after Dabi fell through the portal, was interesting. He had woken up early to the smell of... coffee? It smelled similar but not quite right. Dabi shrugged it off because being on the run meant eating and drinking what you could.

Dabi closed his eyes again, trying to fall back asleep. He wanted to avoid dealing with the other league members so early. However, just a few minutes after he closes his eyes, a blue light shines through his eyelids. Dabi blinks his eyes open and tries to focus on the light.

"Oh dear, did I startle you?" A British voice suddenly says. Dabi stares at the drone in front of him. "I am terribly sorry about that; Rowan sent me to wake you up,"

"What?" Dabi says dumbly. He could not think as all his focus was on the floating robot. The drone's diamond shell spun as it listened to Dabi's stuttering. Eventually, Dabi was able to wake up enough to clear his mind.

"Where am I?" He asked as he swung his legs over the bed. Soft carpet met his feet as the drone gave its response.

"You are in Marvela and Rowan's guest bedroom." It states, floating around Dabi as he moves toward the door. "Do you not remember yesterday? Shall I run a diagnostic on your mental state to ensure no memory loss?" The drone flies in front of his face looking at him with concern, or as much concern as a robot can look.

"You scan me, I'll incinerate you," he grumbles. He continues down the hallway, and the memories of yesterday reappear in his head. He still could not wrap his brain around what happened. It was supposed to be the day he finally took his father down, the day his father finally looked at him. Instead, he and his replacement were sucked into a portal to Europa.

At first, he hoped this was just a bad dream, but now he is sure it's real. After all, the man he saw got his head blown off is brewing coffee in the kitchen. Well, brewing is the wrong term, Dabi decides as he watches the man pull out a small pile of blue cubes that he turns into coffee.

"Oh good, you're awake," The man says. "I apologize for the scare last night; I told Marvela not to show you that," he says, turning around with two mugs of coffee. He set them on the (now clean) kitchen table. He sits down and turns on the hologram cube, which projects a few screens with text he could not read. Dabi hesitates but then moves slowly to the kitchen table.

He sits and stares at the coffee. It looks like coffee and smells almost like coffee, but something is defiantly off. Probably the fact he made it from shiny blue cubes.

"What did you put in this?" Dabi asks in a threatening tone.

"Nothing. I didn't know how you took your coffee." The man answers while sipping his coffee.

Dabi narrows his eyes at the man sipping his coffee. He's seen the look in his eye before, from heroes. With his relaxed shoulders, and calm yet alert eyes, everything about this man screamed arrogant hero.

"Fool me once," Dabi says before launching a fireball at the man's head. The man quickly rolls out of his chair, avoiding most of the flame. Dabi blasts fire toward the man again, who takes the full heat of the explosion.

"I saw you putting poison in the coffee," Dabi tsks at the man's lack of carefulness. "You heroes are always so arrogant," Dabi lights his hand but freezes when he sees the man stand up.

His face and body were covered in severe burns, but that's not what Dabi was staring at. He watched as the man's skin sewed itself closed until not even a scar remained on him.

"Wow, that's some power you got there," he says casually, returning to the table. "Anyway, I didn't put any poison into the coffee. Do you want creme or sugar?"

Dabi watches in shock as the man pulls out more blue cubes that he puts into a bowl. He then taps something on his holograms, and the cubes turn into a small pile of sugar. The man begins to scoop the sugar into his coffee cup and type away at his hologram tablet.

"What the fuck?" Dabi finally says. The man pauses his typing. "Have you never seen Glimmer before?" He asks, not taking his eyes off" the tablet.

"No,"

"Ah, well, Glimmer is a type of currency that we can program into different necessities," He states.

"Huh," Dabi finally picks up the coffee and sips. "It tastes like coffee," He says, surprised.

"Good, it would be bad if it tasted like pickles. Sugar?"

Dabi scoffed at the man's obsession with his sugar. "Why not?" He says, holding out his mug.

---

Dabi sat with the man, who he learned was named Rowan, for a while, just sipping coffee. Eventually, they heard a loud slam from down the hall and slow footsteps. Rowan sighs and holds a finger up to his lips. Dabi quirks an eyebrow at the gesture but keeps his mouth shut. Marvela then makes an appearance in the kitchen.

Dabi hears coffee pouring into a mug and then sees the blue women pull out her chair at the table. She flops down and downs the entire cup of scalding liquid in one go and pours herself another one.

"Morning," Rowan finally says after she finishes her second cup. She grunts in return. "I have a mission today, so I won't return until late..."

"You don't need to rub it in my face," She snaps at Rowan.

Dabi blinks in surprise at Marvela. He didn't expect the bubbly women from yesterday to be this rude in the morning.

"It's nothing special, just some recon," He says carefully. "Maybe today you could finish rebuilding your Ikelos shotgun. I even moved it to your workbench,"

Marvela doesn't say anything but nods a little at the suggestion. Rowan places a hand on her forearm. "Yeah, I think I will do that," she mutters.

"Yeah, I think I will do that," she repeats. Dabi watches the interaction with curiosity. He studied Marvela's face and noticed her eyes were quite puffy, as if she didn't sleep at all last night. Dabi opens his mouth to say something but snaps it shut when Rowan side-eyes him.

The trio sits silently as they sip their coffee, and Rowan works on his tablet. A light mumbling by Marvela finally broke the silence.

"Hmm," Rowan says, turning off the tablet at turning to her.

"Where are you going?" She says slightly louder.

Rowan sighs. "Marvela, you know I can't tell you..."

Marvela slams her fist on the table, causing their mugs to rattle.

"Answer. Me." She says through gritted teeth. Dabi watches small bolts of lightning spark on her fists. Rowan notices it too and places his hand on her clenched fist, but she rips it away.

"Marvela, I-"

"Now!" She yells at him.

"The Dreaming City," He finally spills. "I have to see Petra about a Prison of Elders escapee,"

Silence falls around the table. The air was heavy with the rage that was radiating off of Marvela. Dabi watches her jaw clench, and her fists shake. She then grabs her mug and hurls it at Rowan's head.

It immediately shatters, knocking him to the ground. She then grabs Rowan's mug and throws it, the tablet, and her chair. The whole time she was screaming incoherently at Rowan. Dabi quickly gets up from his chair and slinks down the hall and away from the fight in the kitchen.

He enters his room and locks the door behind him. However, he stays by the door and listens to the duo still in the kitchen. The porcelain shattering had stopped, but Marvela's screaming had gotten louder. It was no longer raw anger screams. Mixed in were loud sobs and dry heaving.

"NO, DON'T GO" were the first clear words Dabi could hear. Dabi's eyes widened at the next few cries Marvela let out.

"PLEASE STAY"

"YOU'LL DIE,"

"ROWAN, PLEASE,"

Dabi listens as Marvela's desperate sobs quiet into soft cries. Eventually, he hears Rowan say something to Marvela and some shuffling in the kitchen. Two sets of footsteps walk down the hall and pass his room. A door opens and shuts, and it is silent for a moment.

After a few minutes, the door opens again.

"...okay? I'll send Cyndrac to check on you later. I love you, and I'll be back soon," He hears Rowan say down the hall. Dabi then hears him move down the hallway and stop outside his door.

Before Rowan could knock, Dabi rips the door open and grabs Rowan to drag him into the room. He slams the door shut and slams Rowan against it.

"What the fuck was that?" he asks, staring Rowan in the eyes.

"Please let me go," Rowan says calmly, prying Dabi's hand off his shirt.

Rowan walks over to the bed and sits on the edge. Rowan's ghost appears beside him and floats just above his shoulder.

"Marvela is sick. That's why she is not in combat. She didn't want you to know, but almost every night she has nightmares about something terrible that happened,"

Dabi chews at his cheek for a moment. "I guess that's what happens when you're a hero," Dabi says.

"Yeah, I guess so," Rowan sighs before standing up.

"I'm heading to the hangar. You may want to join me before Cyndrac arrives," Rowan says, opening the door.

Dabi almost declines, wanting to stay in his room. However, the look in Rowan's eye tells him it wasn't a suggestion. Dabi groans but stands up and follows Rowan out of the apartment.

Chapter Text

It had been hours since this morning's events, but Dabi was still shaken from it. Sure, he was used to fighting at meal times, but that was something else entirely. The way Marvela fought with Rowan wasn’t like the fights he sees in the league. Instead, it seemed more like she was attempting to keep Rowan from his mission.

Dabi sighed and looked out over the city. He had only been here for two days but could already tell this place would stick with him forever. For the first time in years, he felt at ease.

After he and Rowan left the apartment, they went to the hangar, where Dabi saw Rowan’s ship. To say Dabi was in awe was an understatement. The ship was something straight out of Star Wars.

Dabi ended up on the hangar's roof, watching ships come and go from the hangar all day. A blonde woman even brought him a bowl of ramen for lunch. Dabi then walked along the wall for the rest of the day until he found a quiet rooftop far away from the bustle of the tower.

There he settled down and watched the sunset. He decided it was the most beautiful sunset he had ever seen. He didn’t know what it was about it, maybe because he spent the whole day not running from heroes or thinking about his father.

“Shit,” He muttered, realizing his peace had been broken by the thought of his old man. ‘How did I go an entire day without thinking out him’ He thought. Just two days ago, he was exposing his father for all the pain he caused him, and now he went an entire day without worrying about it once.

Dabi watched as the sun disappeared behind the horizon and rested his head against the wall beside him. Despite the sun being fully set, the city was still full of life. Yells, chatter, and laughter echoed through the city. Dabi closed his eyes and just listened to it.

“It seems my spot has been taken,”

The sudden voice startles Dabi. He turns to see a hooded, blue skin man standing near the ledge. The man plops down next to Dabi and uncovers his head.

“I assume you must be Dabi,” He says, running a gloved hand through his hair.

Dabi nods curtly. “You’re the guy Rowan sent to ‘collect’ me,” He says back, rolling his eyes.

The man chuckles and rests his arms on his knees. Dabi turns his head to get a better look at the man.

He had a similar skin tone to Marvela but much darker hair. He wore silver and black armor with metallic feathers on his chest and arms. He also had a long black cloak that swayed in the light breeze. All in all, the armor was perfect for stealth.

“You some kinda underground hero?” He asks.

“Huh? What makes you think that?”

Dabi laughs. “It isn’t easy to sneak up on me. Plus, if I had access to fancy armor, I would wear something like that,” He gestures to the man’s armor, “to keep the cops off my back,”

The man ponders his words for a moment.

“I’m not sure what an underground hero is, but I do run many stealth missions for the vanguard,”

Dabi groans and runs his hands down his face.

“Are there really no pro heroes in this damn city?”

“What’s a pro hero?” The man asks.

Dabi stares at the man in mild shock. “How-“

“Crow! Incoming transmission from Rowan Star!” A chipper voice says. A shiny ghost appears in front of the man. He sighs and sends an apologetic look toward Dabi.

“Put him through Glint,”

The ghost’s eye flashes before projecting a small hologram of Rowan.

“Hey man, did you find Frankenstein's monster?” Rowan says before laughing.

“Yes, I found him. He’s sitting right next to me,” Crow says, pinching the bridge of his nose. “Did you need something, Rowan?”

“Huh? Oh yeah, Cyndrac just messaged me. She says dinner is ready at Marvela's apartment, and you two should head there,” He says. “Also, I will be back in about an hour, so be prepared for that,”

Crow nods and bids goodbye to Rowan before Glint shuts off the hologram. Crow then stands up and walks to the edge of the roof.

“Guess we are heading back now,” He says, peering over the edge. “Can you get down on your own?”

Dabi nods.

“Good, didn’t want to carry you,” He says before jumping off the edge.

Dabi ran to the roof's edge, shocked at the man’s sudden jump. He looked over the edge and watched as the man slid down the side of the building. He pushed off the wall just before he hit the ground and gracefully rolled midair before landing on his feet. He stood up, dusted himself off, and looked back at Dabi.

Dabi shook his head and backed up slightly. He then broke into a sprint and leaped off the roof. The wind rushed through Dabi’s white hair, and he summoned his blue flame. Right before he hit the ground, he sent out a wave of fire which slowed his fall enough to land safely next to Crow.

Crow nods at Dabi’s display. “Impressive. No wonder Zavala and Ikora have taken such an interest in you,”

Dabi tilts his head in confusion but decides to stay silent. The two then set off for the apartment where Cyndrac and Marvela await.

—-

When Crow opened the door, Dabi didn’t expect to be blasted with the scent of lemon surface cleaner. Dabi scrunched his face at the overwhelming smell but followed Crow in any way.

Upon reaching the top of the stairs, Dabi noticed a significant difference in Marvela’s apartment. It was completely spotless. Not a single speck of dust or stray hair on any surface. It was honestly freaky how clean the apartment was. The only thing out of place was a silver and teal robe neatly draped over a chair.

Dabi almost felt bad when he and Crow sat down on the couch. Crow pulled off in cloak, set it on the armrest, and began to file with a knife.

Only a moment later, the two heard voices from down the hall and footsteps approaching the living room. Marvela and another woman entered the room not long after.

“Dabi! Crow! Good to see you two!” Marvela says, bouncing toward the two of them. She was much more put together than the last few time Dabi had seen her. Her hair was styled correctly and cleaned. She also was wearing a short-sleeved pink button-down instead of the usual sweatshirt.

“Dabi, how was your day today?” Marvela asks as she sits down in the chair next to him.

“Fine,” He answers. Marvela groans dramatically at him. “Ugh, tell me about your day, please,” She says in a faux whiny tone.

“Marvela, don’t push him,” The other woman says. Dabi looks at the other woman, who smiles a little at him. “He’s had a long two days; let him talk when he wants to,” She says to the pouting Marvela.

“Fine, fine,” She says with a laugh.

The other woman chuckles at Marvela’s antics and sits beside Dabi.

“Apologies of Marvela. She’s had a rough day, and she’s starting to feel better,” The woman says. Suddenly the woman lets out a quiet gasp. “Oh my, where are my manners? My name is Cyndrac; it is a pleasure to meet you finally,”

“Dabi, but it seems you already know that,”

The woman sighs and rolls her eyes a little. “Yes, I think everyone in the tower knows who you are,”

Dabi’s eyes widen slightly. “What?” He says in a fearful tone

Cyndrac tilts her head at the response. “Ana and Marvela have trouble keeping things to themselves, so the news of a non-light bearer with powers spread quickly,” Cyndrac explains. “Is everything all right? You’ve gone quiet pale.”

Cyndrac reaches out and feels his forehead and cheeks. “You aren’t running a temperature, but you feel quite cold,” Cyndrac says worriedly. Marvela and Crow have now turned their attention to Dabi.

Despite all the attention, Dabi was not focused on what was happening around him. Instead, all he could focus on was the last sentence Cyndrac spoke. Everyone knew he was here. These immortal heroes all knew he was here. If even one knew of him or his father, he wouldn’t be able to escape.

However, when someone slapped him across the back of the head, Dabi was snapped from his thoughts.

“Marvela!” Cyndrac yelled at the tall woman hanging over the back of the couch.

“What? He’s awake now!” She yelled back. All three of the heroes looked at him expectantly. Dabi blinked a few times before speaking.

“I need to leave,” He says before standing up and running to the stairs. He heard the three follow him, yelling in confusion. Dabi nearly made it to the door when it flew open, revealing a man dressed in bulky white and gold armor.

Dabi skids to a halt, stopping a mere foot before the man. Dabi could only stare momentarily before Marvela slams into him, causing all three to crash onto the ground outside.

“Ow,” the man groans under neither the small dog pile.

“Are you guys good?” Asks Crow from the doorway. Marvela sends back a thumbs up as she clambers to her feet. “All good,” she says as she pulls the armored man to his feet.

The man takes off his helmet, revealing a laughing Rowan.

“That was not the greeting I expected,” He says as his helmet disappears. “But it’s nice to see all of you,”

Marvela launches herself onto Rowan. “Oh, it’s so good to see you!” She shouts as she hugs him.

“I told you I would be back,” He says, hugging her back.

Dabi watches the reunion for a second but quietly turns and sneaks toward the gate. He places his hand on the keypad, ready to melt it, when he hears Marvela shout.

“No you don’t Frankenstein!”

Dabi was then tackled to the ground by Marvela. He lit his body on fire to counter, but ice suddenly covered his body, snuffing out the flames. He attempted to melt it, but it was the same ice that he was attacked by on Europa.

Dabi was frozen for a second until it shattered and disappeared.

“I don’t understand why you keep trying to run away. We aren’t going to hurt you,”

He looked up to see Cyndrac standing over him with an icy hand stretched out.

“That’s what they all say before they stab you in the back,” He growls as he sits up.

Cyndrac looks at him sadly. “I swear on the Traveler, we will never purposefully hurt you,” She says, gesturing to the group behind her. “I swear,” She whispers just to him.

Dabi sits in shock for a moment at the sincerity of her words.
“Fine, I’ll stay,” He groans, knowing they wouldn’t take no for an answer. Marvela does a small victory dance while Crow and Rowan smile.

“But, if any of you attempt to betray me,” He says, looking at each person. “I will not hesitate to turn your bodies to ash,”

The group looks at each other and shrugs.

“Fine by me,” Marvela says before turning on her heel and returning to the apartment. The rest of the group bids good night and leaves until only Rowan and Dabi remain. They head into the apartment as well. They walk in silence until they reach the guest room.

“Just so you know,” Rowan starts. “Tomorrow morning, the Vanguard wants to test your abilities.”

“What?” Dabi snaps. “I’m not a lab rat,”

“No, no, no, of course not,” Rowan quickly says. “ They are just curious about the extent of your abilities. Nothing crazy or anything,”

Dabi nods at the clarification. Rowan then bids good night and heads off to his room. Dabi quickly changes into some pajamas left in the room and collapses, falling asleep almost instantly.

——

The following morning was quite hectic as Rowan quickly rushed Dabi out of the apartment before Marvela could wake up. He muttered something about her not being allowed to be at the arena but didn’t elaborate.

The two eventually settled in a small locker room below the arena. Dabi wore his usual trench coat and boots, but Rowan scoffed at the clothes.

“What the hell is this supposed to protect you from? It’s literally polyester!” He cried. He then shoved some clothes into Dabi’s hand and pushed him into a changing room.

Dabi quickly stripped and put on the armor Rowan gave him. It was simple and light but still felt sturdy. The vest was defiantly bulletproof, as well as the pants and boots. He looked in the small mirror and chuckled at how well he pulled off the look.

“You almost done in there?” Rowan calls

“Yeah,” He answers and pulls the curtain back. Rowan looks him up and down and nods before standing up from the bench. He has also donned his armor, though it is much bulkier than Dabi’s. They leave the locker room and stop in front of six circular platforms.

“Quick question,” Dabi says to Rowan, who had begun to mess with a keypad.

“Go for it,” he says as the platforms suddenly glow.

“Can this armor withstand extreme heat?” he asks, pulling at the material.

Rowan laughs. “That armor is built to withstand solar energy. Your fire isn’t going to leave a scratch on it,”
Rowan moves to one of the platforms and gestures for Dabi to join him. Once Dabi steps onto the platform, Rowan’s ghost appears above his hand.

“Beginning transmat,” She says. The platforms begin to glow brighter and let out a faint humming sound.

“Transmat is a go,” The ghost says. Dabi's vision suddenly gets very blurry before a bright light shines in his eyes. Dabi went to blink away the fogginess, but it was already gone. However, he was no longer on the platform but in a courtyard outside.

“Ah, the scarred man has arrived!” Someone with a thick Russian accent shouts.

Dabi turns around to see a small crowd looking at them. Dabi scans the crowd noticing Crow and Cyndrac conversing with two robots. He also notices the commander standing with a woman in a dark pink robe.

“Saint, I thought you were at Trials this weekend?” Rowan says as he greets the Russian man.

“Ah, yes, but it is not weekend!” Saint responds loudly as he claps Rowan on the back. “Plus, I could not miss this great test of strength,”

“Saint, I must remind you, this is not a test of strength. It is simply a way for the Vanguard to see what this young man can do,” The robed woman says as she walks up behind Saint.

“Hah, I like test of strength better!” Saint says with a hearty laugh. The woman rolls her eyes and smiles before turning her attention to Dabi.

“Hello, Dabi. I am Ikora Rey, the warlock vanguard. I look forward to learning more about your abilities,”

Dabi shakes her hand. “I don’t like authority,” He says with a smirk. However, Ikora just laughs and smiles.

“Well, I guess you will fit in nicely with the Rez fireteam,” She responds, looking back at the group. One of the robots was doing a funny dance while the others were laughing. “We are still getting the frames prepared for the tests, so please, feel free to join them for the time being,” She says, gesturing to the group.

Dabi nods and walks over to the fireteam. One of the robots notices and jumps off the ledge it is on.

“Well, well, well. If it isn’t the man of the hour,” It says in an Australian accent. The robot walks over and tries to high fives him. Dabi ignores it and looks at the odd crowd before him. Rowan seems to be the only human in the group. Crow and Cyndrac have blueish skin, and the others are colorful androids.

The green robot who just greeted him high-fives himself and puts an arm around him. Dabi quickly pushes him off and leans against the wall.

“Rude,” The green android mutters.

The silver-colored android claps its hands together. “Okay, so let's get introductions out of the way. I am Summer-9, warlock, sunsinger, Kingslayer, and the most amazing Exo you will ever meet,” She says with a flourish of her hands and bows. The green android bonks her on the head.

“Bruh, I’m still here,” He says.

“Did I stutter, Daz?” She says, putting her hands on her hips.

“Enough you two,” Cyndrac says, getting in between them. “Let's finish introductions before you start bitching with each other,”

The two look down in mild shame and mumble apologies—Cyndrac huffs and gestures to the green android to continue.

“Okay, I’m Daz-5, hunter, Kingslayer, caffeine addict, yada, yada, yada,” He explains, waving his hands. “Too much talk, not a lot of shoot. When does this thing start?”

“Patience, Daz,” Crow says as he messes with his knife. “Also, you’re not shooting anything,”

Daz begins whining to Crow about being bored while Cyndrac shakes her head. Dabi scratches his head and scrunches his eyes at the two androids. Cyndrac takes notice of Dabi’s facial expression.

“You look confused,” She says.

“Are they humans or robots?” He asks, pointing to Summer and Daz.

Daz and Summer share a glance before bursting into laughter.

“Hey, shut up!” Rowan shouts, smacking the two in the head. “What I tell you two?” He scolds the androids.

The three begin arguing while Cyndrac and Crow pull Dabi aside.

“Sorry about those two. They aren’t very mature.” Cyndrac starts. “Anyway, they are what we would call Exos. They were once humans whose brains were programmed into robotic bodies,” Cyndrac explains.

At that moment, Zavala and Ikora wave over Dabi and Cyndrac. Saint hands Cyndrac some monitor, which she hooks up to Dabi’s armor.

“This is just for us to be able to track your temperature since your abilities are flame-based,” Ikora says once Cyndrac hooks up the monitor.

“So, what do you want me to do here?” Dabi asks, tapping his foot impatiently.

“It is similar to what we call the crucible. We have frames set up around the arena, and you have five minutes to incapacitate them,” She explains as she presses a few buttons on her tablet. “However, they will fight back with non-lethal force,” She adds.

Suddenly, strong hands grab his shoulders and shake him slightly.

“This one here is a strong warrior! He will do great!” Saint’s Russian accent booms through the arena.

Ikora chuckles at Saint before looking to Zavala and nods.

“We will begin shortly. Everyone, please transmat to the viewing platform,” Zavala addresses the group. He then turns to Dabi.

“I look forward to seeing your skills,” He says with a faint smile before disappearing with Ikora and Saint.

Dabi turns to see Rez walking towards him.

“Good luck,” Crow says before he disappears.

Cyndrac squeezes his shoulder reassuringly and follows Crow. Daz punches his arm, followed by Summer, who winks at him and disappears as well.

Finally, Rowan walks up to Dabi.

“This is going to sound weird, but I think you need to hear this,” he starts. Dabi squints at him. “Nobody here thinks you’re a bad person, so please stop acting like it,”

Dabi’s eyes widen. “How-“

“Just a hunch,” Rowan cuts him off. “Anyway, do your best out there. I’m cheering for you.” He says, pumping his fist a little. Rowan then walks past him and disappears.

Dabi sighs and cracks his knuckles. He can feel the flames just below his skin, itching to emerge.

“The test will begin in 3…” Zavala’s voice rings out through the arena.

“2…” Dabi lets the blue fire cover his body. He flicks his eyes across the arena. He sees the frames dart onto the field and prepare themselves.

“1”

When Zavala utters one, Dabi unleashes his flames, covering the whole arena in blue fire. Dabi laughs psychotically and rushes forward, finally able to let loose.

—-

In a mildly desperate attempt to cool down after the test earlier that morning, Dabi met a shady man in the back corners of the tower. The man invited him to watch a game aboard his ship he called the Derelict. Dabi, having nothing better to do, agreed.

The game had already begun by the time Dabi arrived on the ship. The shady man, the Drifter, was making announcements into a microphone to the two teams playing. Dabi watched the large screen in the middle of the room with curiosity.

This game was different from The Crucible. Instead of fighting each other, the players were fighting large armored creatures. Dabi thought they looked like mean shell-less turtles.

Dabi watched in fascination at the different powers in play on the field. Blue lightning, towering ice, and scorching flames danced around the guardians. The way they tore through the enemies was effortless and almost beautiful. Dabi mentally notes to talk with one of the fire users for some pointers.

“Primeval up! Kill the envoys first!” Drifter suddenly yells into the microphone.

Dabi looks at the screen to see a large enemy in the center of the field. It looked like a giant robot with a galaxy color pallet. Dabi watches as the team swiftly takes down the envoys and turns their attention to the primeval.

Dabi notices the other team begin to scramble to catch up. One of the players breaks out into a sprint and jumps through a portal.

“Invader incoming; watch your back,” Drifter says into the microphone. The team with the Primeval scrambles behind cover, but it does them no good. The invader pulled out a brass gun and shot a player at point blank.

The player exploded in a blast of golden fire.

“That’s one down,” Drifter says.

The invader swiftly dodged oncoming fire in the air and threw a ball of lightning toward their opponents. The moment the ball hit the ground, it exploded into pulsing lightning that blasted two opponents apart.

“Three!” Drifter cheered. Dabi found himself silently cheering for the invader as well.

The invader chases the final player across the field. The player turns around and fires at the invader. They try to avoid it, but three shots strike, causing them to fall out of the sky.

“Shit,” Dabi says.

The player runs up to the invader with a knife drawn, ready to make the kill, but suddenly explodes in a blast of lightning.

The invader stands up, dusts themselves off, and transmits back to their arena.

“Woo! Your invader’s back, and they took down the whole team!” Drifter shouts into the microphone.

Dabi cracks a smile at the outcome of the invasion. The invader’s team had summoned their primeval and fought it with everything they had. Eventually, their primeval fell, and the team was declared the winner.

The teams began to transmit back to the viewing room. “Sometimes I forget she’s killed a god or two,” Drifter mumbles. Dabi side-eyes him but brushes it off.

The teams appear back in the viewing room, and Dabi watches as the team fist-bumps the invader that got four kills. They all file out of the room until only they are left.

“Awe, get up here, sista!” Drifter says as he leans against the railing. The invader walks over and climbs up the platform. She vaults over the bar and lands with a loud clang against the metal.
“That was some shooting out there,” Drifter says, clapping her shoulder.

“Thanks, but it was nothing,” A familiar voice says. The invader takes off her helmet to reveal Marvela. “Sunshot always got my back,” She says, brandishing the gun before her. “What do you think of the new look?”

Marvela does a spin to show off her armor. Dabi was quite impressed by the look of the armor. She looked like a futuristic knight with silver metal plating and blue fabric for just the right amount of color. The most interesting part was the shoulder pads, which had small spikes that blue lightning danced between.

Drifter let out a dry laugh. “You look like a hero to me,” he says.

Dabi narrows his eyes slightly at Drifter's comment. Marvela was not a hero; at least, he didn’t think she was. Dabi just watched her kill four people for the sake of a game. ‘Heroes don’t kill people, ’ he thought.

“Dabi!” Marvela’s voice shook him from his thoughts. “Did you hear what I said?”

“No, I wasn’t listening,”

Marvela laughs. “Well, I saw the results of this morning’s test, and I must say, that is some power you got in there,” She says, poking his chest.

Marvela pulls herself up onto the railing to sit. “You know how to use it?” She asks with a smirk.

“Of course I do,” Dabi says, crossing his arms.

“Good,” Marvela looks around the room. Dabi follows her gaze and notices that Drifter has left, leaving them alone.

“What do you say we,” she points to Dabi and then herself. “go on a mission,”

Dabi quirks his eyebrows. “What kind of mission?”

“A mission to retrieve something I lost,” She says. “I haven’t been able to find someone to go with me, and you seem capable,”

Dabi ponders the proposal. Clearly, this could be a trap, but Marvela isn’t a hero. Plus, having such a powerful ally could prove useful once he made it home.

“All right, I’ll join it,” He says.

Marvela jumps up and claps her hands. “Excellent! We leave it two weeks!”

Chapter Text

The last two weeks had been exhausting, to say the least. Marvela had Dabi training from sunup to sundown nearly every day. Dabi claimed he didn’t need training, as he knew how to use his quirk fine. Marvela laughed and punched him in the face. One trip to the med-bay later, Dabi was back on the training grounds, shooting targets with whatever weapon Marvela threw at him.

Dabi learned very quickly that Marvela did not follow typical heroic ideals. She saw violence as a form of sadistic pleasure, not unlike him, but she was different. He killed with purpose; she killed for fun. The way she spoke about her past missions even irked him slightly. She was a supposed hero in this reality, but she saw her body count as a score in a game.

Not that he would ever admit it to her, but he was excited about the mission.

The morning of, Marvela and Dabi snuck to the hangar and took off in Marvela’s ship. Dabi again wore the armor Rowan gifted him, but he opted for his black trench coat this time. Marvela was once again in her blue and silver armor.

“We will arrive shortly,” Marvela’s ghost, Griffin, announced. Dabi looked out the front window at the asteroid belt. Dabi scanned the environment, only seeing a barren wasteland.

“Where are we going again?” He asked.

“The Dreaming City”

Dabi recognized the name from the first morning he arrived. Marvela seemed terrified of the place but was now going to it willingly. Dabi looked down at the woman, who was calmly guiding the ship through the asteroids.

‘Everyone has their secrets,’ He thought.

“How the hell is there a city here? This is literally outer space,” He groans.

Marvela lets out a loud laugh. “The Dreaming City exists in both the material plane and the Ascendant plan,” She explains.

“What the hell does that mean?”

“No fucking clue. It’s how Petra Venj explained it when I reopened the city,”

Dabi rolled his eyes at the response. He started understanding why Daz referred to Marvela as a ‘crayon-eater.’

Eventually, Dabi noticed an odd warping above a relatively giant asteroid along with some purple mist.

“Prepare for entry,” Griffin’s voice rang out again. Dabi grabbed onto a bar as the ship dove into the warped area. Dabi squints at the sudden bright light as the ship leaves the warping.

They fly through the purplish clouds until they dissipate, revealing the city. Dabi swore he had never seen a place more beautiful—cliffs of lush green, shimmering crystals, and beautiful architecture. The entire picture was completed with the large tower that stood above the rest of the city.

“Close your mouth; you're going to let flies in,” remarks Marvela, snickering at Dabi’s reaction. Dabi snaps his mouth shut, not ever realizing he opened it.

Marvela glides the ship down, and the two transmit to the ground. Dabi stumbles slightly before looking at the view. They were in a mountainous location, full of paths and bridges. Dabi hears a revving sound behind him and turns.

“Hop on,” Marvela says from atop a levitating vehicle. A sparrow, if he remembered correctly.

“I’m not getting on that thing,” He says, looking at the dark blue vehicle.

“Fine, you can walk then,” She says. “But I can’t guarantee you’ll make it there alive,”

“Are you threatening me?”

“Nah, but the Scorn don’t tend to like humans,” She says while nodding to something behind him. Dabi turns around to see some creatures congregating on the bridge's other side. One of them turned around and saw the duo. It lifted its arm and let out a screech before firing its weapon.

Purple disks flew past Dabi as he ducked. He quickly raised a wall of fire to block the projectiles.

“That’s our cue!” Marvela shouted as she grabbed Dabi by the collar and plopped him behind her. “Hang on!” Marvela drove straight through Dabi’s flames and directly at the Scorn, who dove out of the way. One was not so lucky and got skewered by the sparrow.

“Ha, idiot,” Marvela says, turning left and driving over another bridge. More scorn began firing at them, causing Marvela to weave between the blasts. Dabi could feel himself getting nauseous. Marvela pulled back on one of the controls, causing the sparrow to skid, ramming a Scorn against the railing.

Suddenly, a purple disk shoots straight through the front of the sparrow. Flames burst out of the engine.

“Welp, time to abandon ship,” Marvela says, revving the engine. She pushes forward both hand controls, and the sparrow takes off. Dabi was momentarily relieved until he saw where they were heading.

“Marvela, turn!” He shouts, seeing the edge of an overlook rapidly approaching. Marvela ignores him and pushes the sparrow even faster. Dabi tries to jump off, but Marvela grabs his wrist.

The sparrow barrels through the railing and over the edge of the cliff. Dabi finds himself free-falling through the air before Marvela grabs him and kicks off the flaming sparrow. The sparrow collides with the cliff face and explodes on impact.

Dabi notices the ground rapidly approaching. He closes his eyes and braces for impact when he hears Marvela shout, “Griffin now!”

Suddenly, Marvela pulls Dabi behind her. A sparrow forms underneath them right before they hit the ground. Marvela pushes forward on the controls, and the sparrow takes off through a doorway.

Marvela weaves through hallways, hitting scorn as they pass them until she slows down and stops next to a giant hole.

Dabi quickly stumbles off and immediately throws up into a potted plant.

“Ew,” Marvela says, walking over to him. “What the plant ever do to you?”

Dabi grabs Marvela by the arm. “Never, ever, do that shit again,” He seethes.

Marvela purses her lips. “Noted,” She says insincerely.

“All right, follow me, please,” She says before jumping off a cliff. Dabi begrudgingly follows, using his flames to slow the fall. He follows Marvela into a small cave, stopping before a portal. The portal was similar to the one that brought him to this reality but slightly smaller.

Marvela steps through first, and Dabi quickly follows. They end up in a room with a giant statue of a woman. Marvela walks through the halls until they reach a central space.

“You should probably put on your helmet. I don’t want her thinking I brought some lightless on a mission.” Marvela says, handing him a helmet she summoned. Dabi slips it on his head, and a heads-up display shows how much ammo he has, along with a small radar.

The duo continue through the room and arrive at a room with a vast portal. Dabi immediately feels a shit in the air. Dark energy seeps out of the portal, causing breaks in reality all around them. Debris hand in the air around the portal ominously.

“You aren’t supposed to be here, Rivensbane,” A chilling voice cuts through the air. A woman with light blue skin and black robes steps out before the portal.

“I have reason to be here, Shuro Chi,” Marvela says. “I believe I can break the curse,”

“So do I, but the Ahamkara still plagues you,” Shuro Chi responds. “But I will not stop you,” She says and steps aside.

Marvela nods in thanks and steps towards the portal. Dabi steps up beside her. He could feel the tug of the portal on his body.

“You ready?” Marvela asks.

Dabi nods.

Marvela takes a deep breath and enters the portal. Dabi looks up at the mesmerizing swirls and follows Marvela into the darkness.

—-

Dabi sits on the steps of the large building and listens to the sounds of combat in the distance. They hadn’t been here long, but Dabi already felt overheated.

When the two arrived at the labyrinth, as Marvela called it, they were immediately assaulted by a swarm of enemies. Dabi could easily remove the smaller enemies with his flames, but the larger ones posed an issue. While Marvela fought with it, it turned toward Dabi and spit a wave of flames at him. The fire burned through his coat and singed his arms.

Marvela quickly took out a sword and sliced the enemy in half. It screamed before collapsing in on itself and disappearing. Marvela then rushed over to Dabi, who was desperately trying to put out the flames on his coat.

After that near disaster, Marvela went off into the Labyrinth alone. Griffin stayed with Dabi to help heal him.

Griffin floats around Dabi, using a scanner to heal his newer burns. “For someone who can wield fire, you have a lot of burn scars,” Griffin notes.

“Yeah, well, not everyone is born perfect,” Dabi mutters.

“Well, of course not,” Griffin says in a cheery tone. “I think you are very cool, though!”

Dabi chuckles at Griffin’s response. “Thanks,”

Griffin floats curiously around Dabi’s head. “Do you have difficulty cooling your body after you use your powers?” Griffin suddenly asks.

Dabi’s eyes widen slightly. “How did you know?”

Griffin bobs, which Dabi assumes was meant to be a shrug. “Just a hunch. Anyway, I have an idea,” He says before vanishing in a puff of digital mist. He reappears a moment later with a set of gloves that clatters onto the floor.

“Put these on. They should help you cool down faster.” He says, whizzing around Dabi.

Dabi picks up the dark blue gloves and shoves his hands in. Instantly, he could feel his hands and forearms cool. Dabi set fire to his arm and snuffed it out, watching ice cover the curled metal piece near his elbows.

“They are called Osmiomancy Gloves. I may have borrowed them from Cyndrac’s vault,” Griffin says.

Dabi nods in thanks to Griffin and stands up from the steps. He walks further into the building where Marvela ran off. On the wall was a circular picture of a diving bird; to his left and right were doorways, and behind him was another circular image with a two-headed snake.

“Did Marvela abandon us?” Dabi wonders aloud to Griffin.

“No, she will be back once she finishes killing the Labyrinth Architects,” he says, floating up to the picture.

“How will we know when-“

A sound behind him cut off Dabi. He turned to see a dark blue orb expanding behind him. In a sudden burst of light, it disappears, leaving behind a large creature holding four swords.

Dabi quickly put on his helmet and sent a blast of fire toward it. The creature screams in pain and disappears. More portals pop up around him, and waves of acolytes pour out.

The giant creature appears again and throws a huge black orb towards him. Dabi tries to leap out of the way, but it hits him, causing his vision to go black. He couldn’t see or hear, and his whole body felt heavy. Dabi barely even notices the creature lunging at him, swords reeled back to strike.

Dabi grabs the two front swords with his gloved hands. Using his blue flame, he heated the swords until the ends snapped off and clattered to the ground. The creature hesitates momentarily, allowing Dabi to kick it in the chest.

The creature falls to the ground with a painful thud. As it struggles to stand, the acolytes rush forward. Dabi smiles slightly at their confidence and slams his hands against the ground, pushing as much blue flame as he can muster into the floor.

Geysers of blue flame erupt from the ground where each acolyte stood, incinerating them instantly.

Once Dabi finishes off the acolytes, he turns his attention to the giant creature. It had finally pulled itself off the floor and ran towards him, but Dabi was ready. He rolls out of the way as it lunges at him. Dabi grabs the broken blade off the floor next to him. The creature turns around and runs towards him again, but Dabi ducks below its swords and jams the knife into the creature's chest.

It screeches in pain and tries to punch him, but is too slow. Dabi lights the blade and pushes fire into the creature. The creature screams even louder as the blue flame burns it from the inside out.

Dabi steps back as the creature collapses, clawing at its body. Blue flames burst out of the creature's mouth and lick at its flesh. Small bits of blue light shine through its skin, glowing brighter and brighter. Then, the creature explodes in a wave of blue flame, knocking Dabi back against the wall.

Dabi groans in pain and shuts his eyes. He rests his head against the wall and hears heavy footsteps growing closer. He opens his eyes to see Marvela enter the room with her gun drawn.

She looks around for a moment and notices Dabi against the wall. She quickly runs over and pulls off his helmet.

“Holy shit, what happened?” She asks as she inspects the back of his head.

“Blew up a creature. Probably one of your Architects,” He says.

Dabi couldn’t see her face because of her obnoxiously blue helmet, but he could tell she was impressed. She looked down at him and cocks her head before returning to check him for injuries.

Griffin floats over to Marvela, scanning her for injuries, then disappearing.

Eventually, Marvela stands up and huffs. “Well, you're not bleeding, but you got a nasty bump,” She pulls off her helmet, revealing her sweaty face. She pushes her purple hair off her face and turns to Dabi.

“You still wanna do this?” She asks as Dabi stands up.

“Yeah,” He says, putting his helmet back on.

Marvela looks at him for a moment.

“What?”

Marvela shakes her head. “Nothing,” She says. “Let’s get going,”

Marvela walks to the middle of the room and stops before a large circular pattern on the floor. The moment Dabi stops next to her, the floor rumbles, and the floor begins to shift. Not ten seconds later, the patterned floor was gone, leaving a large hole in the floor.

“Well, after you,” Marvela says, gesturing to the hole.

Dabi rolls his eyes and jumps. He falls briefly before pushing flames out of his feet to slow himself. He stumbles slightly when he lands and looks up at Marvela.

Marvela never ceased to baffle Dabi, especially her lack of self-preservation, which was only heightened when she stepped off the ledge. Dabi watches as she gains more and more speed the closer she gets to the ground. Dabi could feel the shockwave once she hit the ground. The floor cracks beneath her feet the second they make contact.

Despite the hard landing, Marvela dusts herself off and walks toward Dabi.

“Ankles of steel,” She says.

Dabi follows her into the hallway. They walk in silence for a while before Marvela speaks.

“So, what’s your home like?” She asks.

Dabi bites his cheek. “I don’t have a home,” He eventually says.

“I meant your reality ‘cause I know you're not from this one,” She clarifies.

“Well, everyone has these special powers called quirks,” He starts. “Mine is called blue flame,”

Marvela hums. “I’m guessing you can produce blue fire from your body, but you’re not immune to it?”

“Yeah, but I’m immune to extreme colds and ice,” He says.

Marvela lets out a loud “Ha” at Dabi’s explanation.

“What’s so funny?” He sneers at Marvela’s reaction.

“How the hell did you end up with that piss-ass combination?”

Dabi stops walking for a moment. Memories of his childhood flood back into his mind. He was told he was a failure for his broken quirk, being pushed aside in favor of his younger brother and replaced so easily by his father.

“Hey!”

Dabi is shaken from his thoughts by Marvela aggressively shaking him. Dabi rips off his helmet and throws it at the wall.

“Whoa, what's wrong?” She places a hand on Dabi’s shoulder. “Was it something I said?”

Dabi shakes his head and runs his hands through his white hair. Yet another reminder of his failure.

“I hate my quirk,” He whispers. “This ‘piss-ass combination,’” He quotes Marvela.

Marvela pulls off her helmet as well. Dabi excepts to see pity in her eyes but instead sees confusion. “But, your power is so fucking cool! Why do you hate it so much?”

Dabi stares at her in disbelief. He opens his mouth to argue but realizes that it is futile. She didn’t know anything about pro-hero culture or quirked society. She is an immortal hero from a different reality; how could she understand him?

“You wouldn’t understand,” He says, turning away from her.

“I’ve got time,” She says. Dabi could hear her walk up next to him. She places a comforting hand on his shoulder. “You can tell me whatever you’d like,” She says.

Something about her sincerity causes Dabi to cave.

“My mom has an ice quirk, and my old man has a fire quirk,” He starts. “My father wanted a successor that was more powerful than him, so a child with both fire and ice powers would be nearly unstoppable,”

Dabi took a deep breath before continuing.

“When I developed my quirk, I had more firepower than my dad. I trained with him daily until he realized my flames hurt me. I was shunned when we learned I inherited my mother's immunity to cold. My father deemed me worthless and forbade me from training.”

Dabi lights his hand, letting the flames dance across his palm. “My quirk constantly reminds me that I’m incomplete. A failure, which could be easily replaced,”

Dabi looks up to meet Marvela’s eyes. Once again, Dabi expected to see pity but was immediately responded differently.

Rage.

Dabi gins a little at Marvela. “When I return to my reality, I’m going to kill my father, then my replacement,” He declares to Marvela, who now has a wicked sparkle in her eyes.

“You better let me get a few punches in,” She says.

Dabi laughs. Never in his life would he have expected a so-called hero to join his conquest for revenge. However, Marvela does consistently surprise Dabi.

—-

After going through the halls, jumping into a massive cavern, and fighting through another massive hallway, they reach what Marvela calls ‘the ogre chamber.’ Dabi wasn’t sure what she meant by that, considering it was a huge room with no floor or ceiling. The only interior to the chamber was large pillars with thin beams between them.

Dabi peers over the edge into the dark abyss below them. He kicks a pebble off the edge and listens; no sound returns.

Marvela puts her handgun back into its holster and pulls out a rifle. “You may want to get your scout rifle out,” She says to Dabi.

“Why? I can torch whatever gets in our way,”

“We need to pick these guys off from a distance; we get too close and…” She points down and whistles before mimicking an explosion with her hand. “You’ll become a Dabi-pancake,”

Dabi rolls his eyes under his helmet and takes the silver gun off his back. In Dabi’s helmet, a small pop-up appears, letting him know he has 28 shots left in the clip. “Can I get ammo for this?”

“I’ll reload itself,” Marvela answers, taking the first step into the beams. Dabi follows at a distance, still skeptical of Marvela’s plan. When they reach the first intersection, a taken portal appears on one of the pillar’s platforms.

Out of the portal appears a massive creature with a giant glowing eye. It roars when it sees Marvela and Dabi and blasts them with a projectile from its eye.

Dabi jumps out of the way before the blasts hit them, but Marvela was too slow. She takes almost the full power of the shots and is knocked back onto another pillar.

Dabi ready his rifle and shoots the creature in the head. It reels back in pain but recovers quickly.

“Damn, it’s like a high-end Nomu,” He mutters before taking another shot. The creature didn’t flinch from the shot and sent another blast toward him. He lets go of his gun quickly and sends a fireball toward the projectile. The two blasts meet midair and explode.

“Nice shot!” Dabi hears Marvela shout. He sees Marvela fully recovered with a larger rife in her hand. She presses the trigger, and he hears the gun rev up. Suddenly, a powerful laser shoots out of the barrel and hits the creature's head.

The creature roars one last time before collapsing and disappearing in a small warp. Marvela runs to the platform and grabs something out of the beast. Dabi quickly joins her and leans against the pillar.

“So I’m assuming that was an orge,” He asks, watching Marvela reload her laser gun.

“Yep,”

“And we need to fight how many more of those?”

Marvela turns and counts the platforms remaining between them and the door.

“Like six?”

Dabi groans but takes the lead as they carefully cross the beams.

—-

After crossing the beams and a near disaster when Marvela slipped and almost fell into the void, the duo made it to a large doorway. It was nearly identical to the doors they had passed through before, but a film covered the doorway.

Dabi stuck his hand through and felt an immediate heaviness along his arm. He quickly pulled his arm back and looked at Marvela.

“What’s wrong?” She asks.

Dabi looks wearily at the door. “What’s in there?” He points.

“I’m not sure. Griffin, what do the notes say?”

The squid-like ghost appears over Marvela's shoulder. “The notes just say ‘run.’” He says and looks between Marvela and Dabi. “I don’t like the sound of that,”

“Me either,” Marvela says, putting away her linear fusion rifle. She looks to Dabi and nods.

“Stay close,”

Marvela runs through the door, and Dabi quickly follows. Immediately, he stumbles and feels a crushing weight on his body.

He tries to call Marvela, who is also struggling against the heaviness, but his voice is silent. He calls out louder, only hearing a slight sound escape his lips.

Luckily, Marvela heard and turned to him.

He could nearly make out the distant ‘What’s up?’ before something tackled her from behind. The thing attempted to rip apart her armor with its inky claws, but Marvela quickly punched its head clean off.

“What the-“

Dabi’s shout was cut off by another creature lunging at Marvela. She quickly shot it, but another replaced it.

Then another.

And another.

The creatures jumped out of portals on the floors and walls and rushed Dabi and Marvela. The inky monster's body slammed Marvela, clawing at her armor and ripping some of it off.

“Dabi, RUN!” She screams as she releases a massive blast of lightning from her fist. The creatures disintegrate on impact but are quickly replaced by ten more.

“FUCKING RUN!”

Dabi finally moves his feet and drags his body through the heavy air. Lucky for him, the creatures have all their focus on Marvela and any he encounters just run past him in search of the light-bearer.

He continues moving until he finds a balcony covered with the same veil as the entrance. He sticks his hand through, feeling the weight lift off his hand. He peaks over the balcony and sees only a short drop into the cavern below.

Dabi rests his hands on the railing, preparing to jump to safety, but stops. He turns and looks back at the hallway. He could still hear the sounds of combat far down the hall. Despite the heaviness in the air deafening the noise, one sound rings out as clear as day.

Bloodcurdling screams.

Without thinking, his body moves.

Dabi runs through the hallway as fast as he could manage. Marvel's screams get louder and louder with each step he takes. Eventually, he turns a corner and meets a horrifying sight.

Dabi had never seen that much blood in his life. In the center of the hallway, a mound of creatures were crouched over Marvela’s mangled body. They had torn off most of her armor, leaving her body easy prey for the monsters.

Every few moments, lightning erupted from her body and evaporated the creatures closest to her. However, dozens more would replace them. Dabi watched in horror as claws dug into Marvela's shoulder before ripping it clean off.

The creature flung it across the hallway, where ten others lunged at it. The worst part wasn’t watching as they tore the flesh apart, fighting over the scraps and sinking their fangs into the skin.

It was Marvela’s screams.

Suddenly, Dabi wasn’t in that blood-soaked hallway.

The wooden walls smelled familiar, nostalgic even. Almost by muscle memory, he walked through the hall until he reached his unknown destination.

He pressed his ear to the door and listened. Two voices were behind the door: an adult man and a child.

The man was yelling at the child. Dabi couldn’t make out what the man was saying, but he sounded almost… disappointed in the child. The child screamed back, but his voice was full of tears.

He hears an impact followed by the sound of puking. The man continues yelling at the child, who is now dry-heaving.

“Stop,” Dabi finds himself whispering against the door. The screams of the child only get louder.

“Stop,” He says again, louder. He turns the doorknob but finds it to be locked. Dabi hears another impact of skin and a thumping sound.
“Stop it!” He screams, banging on the door. The screams got louder and louder until Dabi couldn’t take it anymore.

“STOP!” He releases his flames, allowing a blue inferno to consume the hallway. The vision melts around him, but he takes no notice as he bangs on the door.

“You’re not ready yet,” A voice behind him says. Dabi’s hand freezes mid-air, and his eyes widen.

He slowly turns away from the door, noticing the void around him.

“Keigo?” He whispers.

“No,” The winged man says. He pulls his visor back to reveal his eyes, but Keigo doesn’t have his iconic golden irises. Instead, his eyes were dark blue and black, with white specks sprinkled like stars.

“I am not Keigo; I am simply using his voice,” He says.

Dabi swallows, realizing his mouth has gone dry. Thousands of questions run through his mind, but only one makes it to his lips.

“What is behind that door?”

Keigo smiles. “The truth,” He says cryptically. “Of what could have been,”

“What could have been,” Dabi repeats under his breath. The amount of times Dabi had pondered the “what ifs” was uncountable. But behind that door was the answer to them.

Dabi looked back to Keigo’s smile. “You want to see the truth?” He asks.

Dabi didn’t even need to nod.

“I could show you, Keigo said, walking towards him until he stood beside him. Dabi could feel his shoulder bush against Keigo’s jacket. Keigo turned his head until his lips were right next to his ear.

“Only if you wish it,” He whispered.

Dabi’s eyes snap open. Marvela's screams fill his ears again, but it isn’t incoherent anymore.

“RUN, DABI, RUN!” She screams at him. Dabi flicks his eyes to the creatures who have noticed him. One lets out a screech and rushes toward him. Dabi feels time slow around him as he stares down the creatures.

He lets out a long exhale and cracks his neck.

“I’m done running,”

Dabi never thought his quirk was pretty. It was destructive and dangerous, but watching it explode out of him in swirls had him smiling. The creatures turned to ash the moment it touched them.

Dabi knew his quirk inside and out, but something about the flames around Marvela was different. The raging inferno in the hallway dissipated anything that dared to enter it, but the fire around Marvela was cold.

Dabi had never seen these kinds of flames before. While primarily blue, the base gave off a red hue. He reached out to touch them, and they sharpened. Almost as if they reacted to his presence. All the flames around Marvela had turned into dark blue ice.

“What?” Dabi reached out to drag his fingers across the surface. Despite the cold surface, Dabi could feel warmth emanating from the inside of the shard.

As much as Dabi wanted to study this newfound power, he knew it wasn’t the time. Marvela still lay in a pool of blood, barely clinging to life. He jumped over the ice ring and hoisted Marvela’s body over his shoulder.

Dabi walks through the halls, releasing flames whenever they encounter an inky creature. He eventually reaches the balcony and jumps through. He slows their fall with a few well-timed bursts from his feet and lands safely. He places Marvela against the wall before collapsing against it himself.

Griffin suddenly appears above Marvela and scans her. His shell opens, revealing a ball of pure light before it pours out of Griffin.

Dabi watches in awe as Marvela’s wounds close and her arm regenerates. The moment every wound shuts, her armor reappears and she sits up with a gasp. She frantically looks around before her eyes land on Dabi.

“I-…You-…What?” She manages to sputter out.

“I think you died?” Dabi says meekly, still processing whatever just happened.

Marvela groans and buries her head in her hands. “Fuck,” She says under her breath. “What is wrong with me?” She asks no one in particular. She groans again, pulling herself off the floor.

“Might as well keep going,” She says, reloading her gun.

Dabi’s head snaps up in shock. “What?” He says, jumping to his feet. “We almost just died, and you want to just move on?”

Marvela ignores him. “Griffin, how far are we from Elucenia?”

The ghost doesn’t say anything.

“Griffin,” She says again, harsher this time.

Dabi looks over at the hovering Griffin. He nervously looks at Dabi before hesitantly floating over to Marvela.

“Well?”

“Marvela, I think we should leave,” He says.

Marvela’s jaw clenches. “You too, huh?”

“Marvela, I-“

Marvela smacks Griffin out of the air. His shell clangs against the floor, but he quickly zooms back toward Marvela.

“I don’t want to hear it, Griffin.” Marvela attempts to hit Griffin again, but he dodges it. “And don’t give me any of your ‘I’m worried about you bullshit’ it’s not going to change my mind,”

Dabi looks between the two, the argument sounding slightly familiar.

Suddenly, a beeping sound resonates from Griffin. Marvela’s voice halts as she stares at Griffin in rage. “You didn’t,” she says through gritted teeth.

“Sorry, but I can’t let you kill yourself,” He says.

Dabi hears a whooshing sound behind him, followed by three sets of boots hitting the ground. He turns to see Rowan, Summer-9, and Daz-5 standing behind him.

“Dabi, please stand behind me,” Daz says, leaving no room for argument. The moment Dabi is behind the group, Rowan cautiously steps toward Marvela.

“Marv, let’s go home,” He says, gently reaching out to place a hand on her shoulder. It doesn’t slip by Dabi that Rowan had a hand on the sidearm clipped to his waist.

The moment Rowan’s hand landed on her shoulder, Marvela screamed and materialized a sword in her hand. Rowan tried to pull his hand back, but he was too slow. Her blade cut through his armor like butter and cleaved his arm clean off.

Marvela wheels her sword back around, aiming for his neck, when the sound of a bullet firing rings out. Marvela was frozen midway through her swing. She coughs loudly, blood spitting out of her mouth. She then collapses into Rowan's arms.

He reholsters his gun and picks up Marvela’s body. He turns to the group and nods while his arm materializes back on his body.

“Let’s get out of here,”

Daz places a hand on Dabi’s shoulder. “Prepare for transmat,”

Dabi watches as the room becomes blurry, but one image is still etched in his mind: tears rolling down Rowan’s face as he holds Marvela’s corpse in his arms.

Chapter Text

Dabi isn’t sure when he passed out, but he wakes several hours later in Marvela’s apartment. His throat is dry, and his arms are wrapped in bandages, but other than that, he isn’t in any pain. He gets out of bed and sluggishly walks to the bathroom.

After freshening up, he returns to the bed and sits down.

“Fuck,” He mutters, thinking about everything that occurred. He flops back onto the bed and runs his hands down his face. Dabi wasn’t sure what to think about the whole ordeal. It was simply too much to process; he could barely remember saving Marvela in the hallway. The clearest memory he could conjure was just after Rowan arrived with Summer and Daz.

Perhaps the adrenaline clouded his memories.

Dabi stared at the ceiling momentarily until he heard the front door open and footsteps coming up the stairs. Dabi got up and poked his head out the door. Outside, he saw an exhausted Rowan placing some plastic bags on the table.

Rowan turned his head and smiled when he saw Dabi. “Oh good, you’re awake,” he said softly.

“How long has it been?” He grunts, sitting down at the surprisingly clean table.

“About 18 hours,” Rowan replies. “How are you feeling?”

“Eh,”

Rowan chuckles. “Want something to drink?”

“I’ll have whatever,” He says, waving his hand. The two fall into a comfortable silence, the clinking of mugs being the only sound. Rowan eventually sets two mugs in front of Dabi, both full of piping hot tea.

“Could you take one to Marvela? I don’t think she’s eaten in a while,” Rowan asks, scratching his head.

“Can’t her ghost take care of it?” Dabi complains.

Rowan just nods to the living room. Dabi looks to see Griffin hovering aimlessly around the room. His yellow, diamond-shaped eye was full of sorrow.

“Didn’t think a robot could look so damn pathetic,” He says, taking a sip of his tea.

“Marvela threatened to kill him if he went into her room,” Rowan sighs. “Griffin’s purpose is to aid Marvela, but when she pushes him away, he’s like this; All ghosts are,”

“Well, if Marvela is such a bitch to him, why doesn’t he just leave and find some other guardian to help,”

Rowan sets his mug down. “I’m not sure how much she’s filled you in one, but the bond between ghost and guardian is much deeper than I think you understand,”

“No, I get it. Griffin raised Marvela from the grave to fight aliens.” Dabi said while sipping on the tea. “Marvela told me that much. What I don’t get is why can’t Griffin go find some other person to revive?”

“Griffin was only ever able to revive Marvela. The same goes for my ghost and every other ghost in the system,” Rowan states. Guardians and ghosts share a bond similar to the old idea of ‘soulmates.’ They can only ever imbue one person with light, and many ghosts have spent centuries searching for their guardian.”

Dabi looks over at Griffin, who has settled into the spot where Marvela always sits when she watches the Crucible. His droopy yellow eye is now closed, and his tentacles have calmed.

Dabi kept his blue eyes on the ghost for a few more moments before standing up and grabbing the third mug of tea off the table.

“I’ll bring the tea to Marvela,” He grunts before heading down the hall.

Marvela’s door was at the very end of the hall, far away from the kitchen. Dabi softly knocked on the door but didn’t hear an answer. He rolls his eyes and turns the knob, only to be greeted by a staircase.

Dabi climbs the stairs, his bare feet cold against the hardwood, until he reaches the next door. This time, he doesn’t knock and opens the door.

The room was almost pitch black except for a tiny ray of light peeking through the blackout curtains. The beam of light rested upon a workbench with the same shotgun that was on the kitchen table only two weeks ago. Barely any progress had been made on it.

Once Dabi’s eyes adjusted to the darkness, he could make out a lump underneath the covers.

“Get out Rowan,” Marvela grunts.

“I’m not Rowan,”

Marvela jerks around to look at him. Her face softens once she sees him. “Hey, scabs,” she whispers before lying back down. Did you bring me tea?”

“Rowan made it,” Dabi answers, setting the mug on her nightstand. She gently wraps her blue hands around the mug and brings it to her chest. “Thank you,” she mutters.

Dabi stands awkwardly by the bed as Marvela begins to zone out again. The mug must be burning her hands, but she showed no sign of caring. Her hands squeezed tighter around the mug, and a slight wince appeared on her face.

When the cup began to shake, Dabi quickly moved to pry it out of her hands. Despite knowing how strong she truly was, it was rather easy to take the mug from her shaking hands. As he carefully placed it on the nightstand, he saw Marvela turn her head towards him.

Dabi glances towards her but freezes. Silent tears rolled down her cheeks as she stared at him.

“I-“ She starts before sniffling. “I’m so sorry,”

“Huh?” Dabi grunts.

Marvela huffs a laugh and aggressively scrubs her face. “I should have never brought you with me,” She whispers.

“Oh,” Dabi mutters. “I don’t really care,”

Marvela scrunches her nose at him. “No,” She says.

“What the hell are you talking about?” He snaps. “I told you I don’t care,”

Marvela brings her knees up to her chest. Dabi was impressed at how small the muscular woman could make herself. “Before we left for the dreaming city, I told you I was retrieving something I lost,” Marvela says.

Dabi sits on the corner of the bed, observing Marvela. “Yeah, I remember that. Why are you bringing that up?”

“5 years ago, I went rouge,” Marvela said.

Dabi perked up. “Rouge? You betrayed the vanguard?”

Marvela whined. “Not exactly. I betrayed their orders.” She said. “There used to be three members of the vanguard. Zavala, Ikora, and…” She paused, “…and Cayde-6,”

“Cayde was killed while we were stopping a prison riot in the reef. The vanguard refused to avenge his death, so I did.”

Marvela looked up at Dabi. “Have you ever been betrayed by someone you trusted?”

Dabi’s heart skipped a beat. Flashes of red feathers, mixed with the blue of his flames, filled his mind. His entire mind was flooded with the memory of the man he loved standing over Jin's body.

“Yeah,” He eventually whispered.

“I chased that man to the end of the tangled shore, massacring everyone in my path, but when I finally put a bullet through the head of that man…” Marvela slammed her fist against the bed.

“It wasn’t him. He was a fucking puppet.”

“A puppet?” Dabi asked.

“To kill that man, I had to open the dreaming city. In the heart of the Dreaming City, there was an Ahamkara. A terrible beast with the power to grant wishes, but at a price,”

The tears started flowing down Marvela’s face again.

“Six of us went into her lair; I was the only one to make it out,”

—-

“GET BEHIND COVER!” Shay yelled as the dragon spewed fire. The team of five quickly ducked behind the pillars, but one of them wasn’t fast enough.

“Zezul!” Marvela screamed as her friend was burned alive. The Awoken hunter screamed as his armor melted against his skin. In less than an instant, Zezul’s body was no more than a charred corpse.

Marvela attempted to dash out from behind the pillar, but someone grabbed her and pulled her back. “Marv, don’t,” The pink-haired woman said.

“But…”

“He’s dead; there’s nothing we can do,” She said through tears.

The flames stopped, and the dragon let out a roar that shook the room. The team peeked out from the portal and began to fire upon the dragon again.

“Aim for its eyes!” Oragani-6 yelled as he brought the scope of his scout rifle to his eye. The team began raining fire down on the Ahamkara. The dragon screeched and closed its mandibles. The four tentacles behind its head launched around the room, shattering the pillar Marvela stood behind.

Marvela looks up to see the tentacle descending back towards her. She braces for the impact, but instead, a bang echos through the chamber, and the tentacle explodes in a blast of solar light.

“Shay!” Marvela shouts in relief. “I thought you were dead,”

“I had an extra healing grenade,” He says. “That overgrown lizard didn’t finish the damned job,” Shay coughed under his mask. “However, I don’t know how long I can hold out. I was able to buy myself more time, but that thing is still kickin.”

Oragani-6 rounded the corner of the shattered pillar the two were behind, followed shortly by the pink-haired woman.

Marvela’s eyes widened at the state of her comrade.

“Oragani, your arm!” She gasped

The exo grasped at the wires of his now exposed innards. Sparks and oil sputtered out of the gaping hole in his side.

“You were a good team,” Oragani muttered before falling limp against the wall. His yellow eyes dimmed before extinguishing completely. Behind them, the Ahamkarah spewed fire on the pillar.

“Rosie, I can’t do this anymore,” Marvela sobbed, holding Oragani’s body in her arms. The pink-haired woman dropped to her knees and pulled off Marvela’s helmet.

“Marv, look at me,” She said, cradling the blue-skinned woman’s cheek. She wiped the tears off of her skin and pressed their foreheads together. “No time for tears,” She whispered.

Marvela took a deep breath. “No time for tears,” she repeats. The couple rejoins Shay, who has reactivated his golden gun.

“What’s the situation,” Rosie asks.

“I’ve got one more eye to destroy. Once it’s down, I need both of you to hit the blight inside as hard as you can,”

“Understood,” Marvela says.

The trio sprite out from behind their cover. The tentacles immediately honed in on their position, but Rosie shot them out of the air.

“Rally barricade up!” Marvela shouted as the barricade popped into existence. Shay ducked behind it and fired his golden gun. The bullet found its home in the dragon’s remaining eye and exploded.

“NOW,” he shouted as the dragon's mouth opened, revealing the taken blight. Rosie threw her arc staff straight into the center.

Marvela sprinted across the room, arc light cracking with every step. She leaped into the air and soared, punching the staff with full force. The Ahamkara let out one final screech as lightning traveled up its body.

Marvela crashed through the blight as it exploded. She landed inside the Ahamkara and took off running down its throat. She felt the creature collapse beneath her as she entered its heart cavity.

The dragon’s heart was full of taken corruption. She remembered the techeun’s instructions from before they entered the dragon’s lair. They needed to extract the heart to be cleansed. She grabbed the heart and ran out.

Rosie and Shay were waiting for her outside of the mouth.

“Oh thank the Traveler it’s over,” Shay sighs.

“Yes, inde-“ Marvela was cut off by taken portals surrounding them.

“What the? “ A beam shot through Shay, sending him tumbling to the floor. Marvela screamed as dozens of taken thrall jumped her friend. Shay’s cries echoed through the chamber.

Rosie grabbed her wrist and pulled her toward the open door. “We need to go!” She shouted.

“We can’t leave him,” Marvela cried, dropping the heart and pulling back toward the now-collapsed Shay. She yanked her hand from Rosie’s grasp and ran towards her friend.

She stopped a few steps from Shay’s body and charged up her thunderclap. She punched the air, sending arc lighting towards the mass of thrall. They disintegrated on impact, allowing Marvela to quickly kneel beside Shay’s body.

She pulled off his helmet and slapped his cheek.

“Shay, get up; we have to go!” She sobbed. She repeatedly shook his body, trying to rouse him from eternal sleep. Marvela could hear more thrall rushing towards them, but she didn’t care. Once Shay was awake, they could run.

Suddenly, a hand gripped her bicep and hulled her to her feet. Marvela readied a punch but stopped when she saw Rosie’s unmasked face.

“Marvela, he’s dead,” She whispered. “He’s dead,”

The Awoken turned and looked at Shay’s body. His eyes were glazed over, and pools of blood poured out of massive claw and bite marks all over his armor. Marvela covered her mouth and sobbed again.

“We need to go,” Rosie said breathlessly and roughly pushed Marvela towards the door. Behind them, they could hear the squelching of flesh as the thrall mutilated Shay’s corpse.

Marvela scooped up the heart from where she dropped it and sprinted back through the dragon’s lair. Around them, portals appeared, teleporting in thousands of taken. Rosie took out her auto rifle and killed anything that got in their way.

The duo were chased back through the tunnels, the vault, and finally into a large hallway leading to the elevator.

The heart began executing darkness around the two. Marvela collapsed from the suffocating energy and coughed.

“Rosie, I can’t run anymore,” She gasped.

The human quickly picked her up and slung an arm around her shoulder. She began to half carry Marvela to the elevator but stopped right before the edge.

“Why are we stopping?”

Rosie released Marvela, who stumbled but stayed up. “The taken will follow us to the techeuns if we continue,”

The sound of thousands of footsteps was practically on top of them.

“You get the heart to the techeuns, I’ll hold them off,”

“No.” Marvela immediately said. “I’m not leaving you.”

Tears flowed down Rosie’s face as she shook her head. She reached out, cupped Marvela’s face, and smiled. “I will always be with you,”

Marvela grabbed Rosie’s hand. “Of course, because you’ll be next to me, right?”

The sad smile on Rosie’s face told Marvela the answer she sought. “I love you,” Rosie whispered.

Rosie leaned forward and planted a kiss on Marvela’s trembling lips. “Rosie, no,” she muttered.

“See you starside,”

Rosie pushed Marvela off the edge of the elevator shaft before turning and running out of her sight. Falling into the shaft's darkness, Marvela let out one final scream as she left the dragon’s lair completely alone.

Chapter Text

Dabi thinks it’s almost poetic. A universe away from everything he’s known sits a mirror image of himself—a broken hero.

After Marvela finished telling her story, the two sat in heavy silence. Dabi opened and closed his mouth, trying to make a sentence, but words couldn’t come. Marvela’s story resonated within him to the point of pain.

A self-destructing ‘hero’ who was sidelined for fear they would hurt themself. Once again, Dabi thought, fucking poetic.

Marvela's shifting shook Dabi from his thoughts. She clambered out of her bed and towards the attached bathroom.

“I think… I wanna take a bath,” Marvela mutters. “Ok,” Dabi nods as she opens the door and disappears. He sits on the bed until he hears the water running.

He sighs, pulls himself off the bed, stretches, and heads towards the door. His fingers barely touch the knob when a thud followed by a shattering sound comes from the bathroom.

“The fuck?” Dabi mutters before turning and walking into the bathroom. Peeking inside, he sees Marvela slumped on the floor, with a shattered bottle of sweet-smelling liquid next to her. She winces in apology to him and picks herself up off the floor.

“Sorry,” She says, noticing a large scrap on her arm.

“Do you-“ Dabi starts but is cut off by a wave of Marvela’s hand. “I’m fine, I’m fine,” She dismisses. The scared man just nods his head and turns to leave again.

Marvela bites her lip before calling, “Hey, wait!”

“Hm?” Dabi hums.

“Could you send up Griffin?”

—-

The days pass far too slowly for Dabi. He swears it’s been weeks since the Dungeon incident, but only three days have passed. However, he found a few ways to pass the time.

For one, he finally meets Ana Bray properly, the guardian who saved him on Europa. He took a liking to her blunt and sarcastic personality. Of course, it helped that she had a robotic dog named Archie, who loved Dabi’s warm palms. (Ana almost blew up her lab when Dabi was there by putting exploding shotgun rounds into an auto rifle).

Crow was also one of Dabi’s new favorite people (not that he had a significant competition). They would often walk around the top of the city walls or chat above the tower hangar with a bowl of spicy ramen (One of Dabi’s new favorite foods).

Then, at night, he, Rowan, and Marvela would gather around the TV to watch The Crucible. After the shock of the first game he saw, Dabi grew to enjoy watching the thrilling matches. He even argued with Marvela and Rowan about their favorite players or bad calls made by Shaxx’s Red Jacks.

Perhaps he was even starting to like this place.
However, something strange happened on the eve of Dabi’s three-week stay. Since the dungeon, Dabi had heard whispers—nothing of note, just voices calling his name when the apartment got too quiet.

When Dabi fell asleep Tuesday night, he awoke to find himself back in the dungeon or somewhere similar to the dungeon. It was familiar but different. He recognized the walls, but everything was darker and suffocatingly quiet.

“Do you recognize this place?” A voice came from behind him. He knew that voice, one that usually was teasing and playful, sounded so wrong. “One doesn’t easily forget a place like this,”

Dabi refused to turn around but could feel the other’s presence behind him. “Why won’t you face me?” The voice asks.

“Because you are not him,” Dabi answered. A chuckle was the only answer he received.

Dabi lit his hand ablaze, ready to strike whatever monster was toying with him. He turned but froze upon seeing him.

In front of him stood a near-perfect replica of Keigo. Except he looked like the creatures from the dungeon. He was swirling with beautiful galaxies dripping with the darkest ink. Parts of his limbs flickered into different poses as if he existed in hundreds of other states simultaneously.

“Hello Touya,” It said. “We have much to discuss,”

“Fuck off,” Dabi rasped, still recovering from the shock. “You’re not Hawks,”

The thing just smiled. “Perhaps not, but you still see me as him,” It said.

“No, I don’t.”

“Oh?” The thing raised its eyebrow. “And why not?”

“Because I killed that traitor,” Dabi sneered.

The thing smiled again, but this time in mockery. It started to laugh, starting as the familiar airy laugh of Keigo before distorting. Dabi stepped back as the thing began shifting and glowing until it no longer resembled Keigo. Instead, it became a blob that climbed the walls around him until the entire hall was covered in corruption.

Dabi stepped back as the corruption grew closer. He tried to burn it away, but his hands wouldn’t light. The laughter grew louder, even more distorted than before, until it finally spoke.

“Don’t be scared, O villain mine,”

The corruption sprung to life, reaching out in tendrils. They viciously grabbed at his arms and legs. Dabi tried to pull away, but the inky substance pulled back until Dabi fell. Instead of hitting the ground, he just kept falling.

He fell through the blackness, feeling nothing, hearing nothing but static. He tried to scream, but there was no air in his lungs. He gasped, but his mouth was full of the inky substance.

“I’m going to die,” He thought.
“Don’t give up. I’ll see you later,”

Dabi’s eyes shot open as he remembered the last words Keigo told him before the war. He couldn’t die yet. His goal wasn’t complete yet. His life wasn’t done.

He is fire, and he is flame. Dabi set himself alight, burning away the corruption surrounding him. His entire body was enveloped in flames as he fell, but his body did not sear. Instead, they wrapped him in comfort, like a warm hug from a lover.

“Be safe,”

Dabi hit the floor hard. Blood seeped out of his nose, dripping onto the floor. Dabi groaned as he pulled himself off the floor and wiped his nose.

“You broke free?” The voice said now in a female tone. “How interesting.”

“Shut up,” Dabi said. “I’m not your puppet,” He looked around and found himself back in the hallway.

“Do you not recognize this place, O villain mine?” She said, filling the hall with echos.

He did; how could he not? The familiar wood, the tatami mats, and even the smell flooded back to him.

“I know what this is,” he growls. “I don’t know what game you are playing, but I’m sick of this shit,”

A deep laugh reverberated through the hallway. “This is no game,” The voice mocks. “This is simply… truth,”

Dabi’s eyes widen. “What do you mean?”

A voice cries out behind him. Dabi turns to see the door at the end of the hallway. Hatred and anguish seep from the door as if those feelings were built into it.

“See for yourself, O villain mine,”

The door opened, and a scream rang out.

“Stand up,” A familiar voice booms. “If you’re downed by something like this, forget beating All Might,”

In the training room, his father stood over his youngest brother. Shoto was curled up on the floor, tears streaming down his face.

“You won’t even be able to take the small fry villains-“ Endeavor was cut off by Shoto puking and their mother running into the dojo.

Rei stood above the trembling child, shielding him from the monster before her.

“Please, stop! He’s only five!” She says while trembling at Endeavor’s furious gaze.

Dabi watches as Endeavor screams back at her and throws her out of the way.

“Mom,” he utters, watching her fall to the floor. Something wet falls down his face. He wipes it, expecting blood from his nose, but sees some clear liquid.

“Tears?” He mutters. “How?”

“MOMMA”

Dabi whips his head to see Shoto lunge towards Rei, but Endeavor grabs his arm.

Shoto continues to scream as he is dragged out of the room. The last thing Dabi sees is Rei’s frail body collapsing on the floor before the room dissolves around him.

“I… I don’t understand,” He mumbles. “Why show me this?”

The voice doesn’t answer.

“Answer me!” He screams into the void.

Instead of the woman’s voice, a familiar one answers instead.

“I may not know anything about you’re past, but I can tell you’re like me.” The chipper voice of Keigo rings out. “We both got bad pasts, but we can’t let them consume us,”

Dabi remembered this conversation well. It was early morning, and they both were sitting on a roof enjoying the sunrise. Keigo even picked up some bagels from them to enjoy.

“The past has a way of lying to us,” He continued after eating his breakfast. “If we look at it too long, we’ll go crazy,”

The conversation itself wasn’t anything special. Mostly, it was just Keigo blabbering a mile a minute, but that morning was special to Dabi.

Because that was the morning he fell in love with a boy who was just like him.

—-

Dabi woke up in a pool of his own sweat. Light seeped in through the curtains, slightly blinding him. Outside the room, he could hear Rowan calling his name and hear many feet rushing around the apartment.

He groggily leaves the room, getting only a moment of peace before the gray Exo, Summer, grabs Dabi’s wrist and drags him toward the kitchen. The rest of the Rez fireteam rushes around him, mumbling good mornings.

“What the hell is going on?” He rasps as Cyndrac drops a bow on the countertop.

“We just received a distress signal from Europa,” She says, laying a small projector beside the bow. A map pops up showing the location of the signal.

Dabi stares at the map for a moment. “What the hell does this have to do with me?”

The Warlock sighs, picking up the bow and slinging it over her shoulder.

“The signal is for you, Touya Todoroki,”