Playing the Hero

Chapter 12

TW - Violence

Enjoy the read!

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Vallerie arrived at gym gamma ten minutes early, and one of the staff let them in. Vallerie was pretty sure it was Teruhashi's teacher, Vlad King. The gym was large and empty, and the only sounds to be heard was the wing running through the vents. They set down all their stuff save for her headphones on the bench. They figured they had enough time to do something fun, so they set a random song on loop and started running up the walls.

They did that for exactly five minutes, using their quirk to zoom up the walls then flip backwards, launching themselves towards the ceiling. They would extend their wings and glide back down to the floor, and then would go again. If only she could do this at home. Adeline would yell at her if she ever tried. She had gone up and down 15 times when they got a wonderful idea.

Vallerie liked to surprise people, whether that was with outlandish knowledge, weird things she found on the side of the road, or just appearing behind them. The look on a person's face when they were surprised was truly one of the best, in her opinion. So here they were, in energy form, hiding in the ceiling and waiting for an unsuspecting lizard to waltz through the door.

When 1:30 hit, Teruhashi had not shown up, and Vallerie got nervous. She knew that sometimes people were late, yes. But she got nervous regardless, and also annoyed. She wanted to scare Teruhashi, and Teruhashi was not there. Vallerie frowned from her perch from on the ceiling. 1:33 and Teruhashi still wasn't there, had they decided to ditch? Vallerie would probably cry if that was the case. Maybe it was just traffic.

They showed up two minutes later.

Vallerie watched as the girl's eyes scanned the room, looking for her. The confusion on their face was like a fresh drink of water to Vallerie. It took them a few moments to wander into the arena. They tensed almost immediately, and Vallerie struck.

The way Teruhashi's eyes widened was everything Vallerie wanted. Her incoming kick was caught in a strong grip. She twisted her foot and brought it through Teruhashi's hand, placing their shoe back in the ground.

"Hello to you too, Vallerie." They said, voice warm and fond.

Vallerie smiled at them in greeting. "Hello. While I was waiting for you, I decided on the rules of this fight. I had Adeline look up the previous rules of one on one battles in the Sports Festival. This fight will end when one of us is either immobilised, pushed out of the arena, or unconscious." They informed Teruhashi. They turned and walked over to the other side of the arena, already prepared to fight. "I will not negotiate these rules, as you wanted to test your strength for the Sports Festival, so we will go with the Sports Festival rules."

She stared directly into ocean eyes, "Are you ready to start, Teruhashi?"

"Absolutely not."

"What."

Vallerie frowned. They were here to fight. What more could she want? Teruhashi sighed, "Vasiliev, I just got here. I thought maybe we could talk a bit before we start beating the shit out of each other." Well, if she wanted to talk, she shouldn't have been late. Vallerie crossed their arms, glaring at the other girl. "Maybe if you had gotten here on time, we would have time to chat. But we only have an hour."

Teruhashi's expression morphed into one Vallerie had seen on her little sister multiple times. It was a bit different, with Teruhashi still smiling, but the eyes were the same. They bore into her with the message 'Please, please please.' Vallerie tried. She really did. But for some reason she couldn't help but give into the lizard. They looked away, embarrassed. "If you insist, we can talk later. But we fight now." Vallerie ran forward immediately, not giving Teruhashi even a second to breathe.