Chapter 7

If you seek it, why owe you?

I heard this somewhere online and thought it's the perfect line to describe exactly how I feel right now. It came from a K-pop group that claimed to be a heroic idol group. When I first heard it, I thought, 'Oh my god, K-pop idols are cursing so revolutionary! Grow the fuck up,' but then I realized the idols said this and went, 'Yeah, nevermind they fucking suck.'

But I really thought about it and realized that was actually smart and I should have come up with it.

But now I can use that line for this very moment here, now that I've realized how powerful this can be.

Wait, a minute. Xdinary Heroes are a rock band. They aren't heroes whatsoever.

Damn it, I screwed up.

Brand new heroes of this generation have finally come. Many new heroes have been introduced during the Specialty parade in Manhattan, celebrating 100 years of Specialty. The statues of the first and greatest heroes of all time are finally complete, and here we have our US president shaking the hands of each and every hero. That's almost 40 hands he's shaking.

The TV was playing the news in the background while I was trying to confront the two of them.

Oh, to an agent under the US government. I bet you that's why half of the people here joined us. They were all a bunch of dumbasses and thought they'd become heroes and save the world.

That's why you gotta stick with being selfish.

"Why the hell is Ivan here?" I asked Dante, looking up at him, "Also, why the hell does it look like Ivan's been living the life here free while I was stuck in a cube? He can't be more trustworthy than me."

Ivan had on a pair of shorts with a shirt half his size. There's no way Ivan got out before me, and he got a specialty removing collar. That's a fucking slap on the shoulder he got to walk freely on the planet while stuck in a stuffy cube.

Ivan ran up to me and hugged me. Ivan had tears forming in his eyes.

"I thought you were dead—he told me you were dead," Ivan kept sobbing on my outfit.

Not like it was anything special, just my patient clothes.

"Dante, you did what?" I exclaimed angrily, making Dante stammer his words.

"I—I can explain—"

"He said they killed you, so I thought I lost my soulmate forever," Ivan cried harder, and I just put my hand on his head.

"Why would they kill me? I'm a B-ranked agent. I have value," I asked both of them with one hand on my head.

Dante kicked off his shoes and started rolling me away with my IV machine while saying 'beep' 'beep.'.

"Uh, Danny Boo Boo Bear, you almost hurt me," Ivan added sass to his words.

"Fuck you!" Dante replied.

What happened to 'If you seek it, why owe you'? Someone has to say it.

"Dante, explain to me in simple terms what happened." I asked him as he opened the door to one of the many rooms.

He sighed and turned the wheelchair to face the door, which was right where he was standing.

"Ok, don't kill me, but just know that everything I've told you has been the truth," Dante started. "

"After the incident occurred, I became a manager and had to replace Max's role since he was injured. The council told me to get rid of everyone except for Ivan...They said no one below an A rank was allowed to live, especially since the majority of the agents there were B ranks who betrayed us," Dante explained.

Stop

no

no

no

Just stop, because there's no way in hell they thought everyone but the A ranks could stay alive, especially when Max and Dante were the only two A ranks there.

"They said that if I killed all of the agents, they'd promote me to an S rank, and could work with the council," Dante continued.

"Dante…" I sighed at him.

"Look, I know what you're thinking Dante, why didn't you just kill everyone? I would've benefited from it and become an S rank hell, a council member, so why didn't I do it?" Dante knew my exact thoughts.

Of course he did. I expected nothing less.

"Why didn't you, Dante?" I crossed my arms while looking at him.

Dante started walking toward me, smiling to himself while doing so.

"Wait, let me clarify the question." Dante started, "Why did I kill everyone except you?" Dante put his finger on my chest, pointing directly at me.

"You—you—me—but why? What do you get from keeping—" Dante took that same finger and put it on my lips.

I looked at him, not taking anything he was saying seriously when he was acting like a fool. How weird of him.

"Max's injured, and the council was going to use us and the other A ranks to stop Apex with Ivan, though with Max being unavailable, Ivan's little obsession with you, and the fact we need about one more extra person to try and get every single Apex, especially a person who could copy specialties. Come on, Ai, how could I not?" Dante further explained, adding some jazz hands to it.

I clapped for him. No, applauded him for his brilliant performance.

"God, that was just magnificent. Uh, how could I not love a show you ever put on? Sadly, there's only one problem," I stopped clapping. "How the fuck am I joining this when I can barely balance on two feet?"

"Yeah, tell 'em, honey," Ivan agreed from behind the door.

Dante went up to the door and opened it, making Ivan fall flat on his face.

"Not too much on the face this is what got me here in the first place." Ivan rubbed his nose delicately, as well as his cheeks.

"Aisha, we live in a society where having fucking powers exists, and you never thought once that maybe someone has a unique specialty healing people through the IVs you got. Go outside for once," Dante scoffed.

"I'm sorry, I've been unconscious for two weeks and held hostage for 1, yet I'm the dumbass for thinking I'm all mentally here right now," I defended myself against this horrible mistreatment.

"Aisha, you've always been a dumbass." Dante said slowly, and I rolled my wheelchair up to him.

Dante, why are you acting like this suddenly? At this point, Dante, who even are you?

"Dante, don't ever fucking change. Just stay like this," I said and held his face close to mine with my hands.

Once again, I made Dante stutter with his words as soon as I got close to him.

"Wait a minute, I can do that even better. Aisha, I think you're a beautiful bitch. Marry me, ho," Ivan reacted out of jealousy, and I punched him in the chest, though it was a weak one.

"If you seek it, why owe you?" I finally said the magical words, but saying them out loud makes it seem less impressive than it really is.

"I love K-pop too," Ivan exclaimed, grabbing my hands and holding them happily.

He already screwed up when he said K-pop.

"Who did it come from?" I asked him, not believing him.

"Um, XG," Ivan shrugged his shoulders.

An entirely different company, with different genders and different nationalities, and it's not even K-pop. If you combine our IQ in this room, you'd get 107.

103 coming from Dante, while both Ivan and Ivan are a 2. The amount of dumbassery in this room is diabolical.

Breaking news An unknown broadcast has started interrupting millions of news stations around the world. It's said to be from-

The TV started to glitch out. Ivan went in there to check out what was wrong, but he never came back or made a sound. Instead, he stared at the TV, emotionless.

"Ivan," I called out, "You good?"

Dante rolled me over to the TV, and I was in shock too.

There stood a pale and skinny child in a yellow dress sitting in a chair, not moving. Her eyes barely opened, staring at the screen.

Welcome everyone to a soon-to-be brand-new world. My name is Ivan Petrov, and I am the reason we are all here today.

A man came into the camera, and there lay Ivan, the one standing next to me, staring at the TV. There were two of them. How—what was going on?

I am the leader of Apex, a world that wants you all to join us and help fix this ugly planet corrupted with specialties. We want to live in a world that is perfect from head to toe and a world that's beautiful and mesmerizing. We want to live in a world without specialties.

Of course, it's Apex. Who else would it be? But why are they revealing themselves? The whole point of them being underground was, so no one knew they existed.

We have figured out a way to live without specialties, and that's with the help of her and many more like her.

Ivan's face twitched as he saw himself touch the child's face.

This beautiful human being is what we call a god.

I and Dante looked at the TV horrified. Gods are myths. They don't exist, they can't exist.

This God has the power to not only get rid of galaxies, she has the power to get rid of specialties as well. This heavenly divine creature has the power of destruction. She is not just any god, no...

She is the God of death.

The God of Death Apex has somehow gotten a death god in their hands. How the fuck do we fight that? Since the beginning, there was no hope for us.

Now the main reason I've wanted to create this broadcast was because, in the next three months, I will use my Mona Lisa here to save humanity from its greatest mistake of all time and create a new world free from mistakes.

Ivan held the girl's hand and got close to her face, and the one next to me was tensing up. I could see the veins popping out in his head every time his lookalike touched the girl.

My love, let's fix this world together.

The man pulled the child close to his face, and Ivan completely lashed out, throwing the remote into the TV, shattering it completely and causing Dante to shout at him.

Ivan attempted to break off the specialty removing collar and successfully did so, breaking it in half.

With the split pieces in each hand, he threw one of them out the window and hopped onto the fire escape.

"Wait, Ivan," I called out, and Dante ran to the window, watching him run up the fire escape.

The broken TV turned back on even with a remote inside it.

"Dante, it's back," I alerted him.

I will only stop unless I've been given all 7 Gods. They are all on the planet somewhere around the world, hiding, running, killing, and saving. The other 6 gods are somewhere here, and I will not stop destroying every single one of your specialties until I'm given the most powerful being on this FUCKING PLANET!

Apex are your saviors. We will all save you...

"Aisha, are you there? Aisha" It was Ivan's voice, but where was he coming from?

"Ivan, where the hell did you go? How can I hear you?" I called out, making Dante confused about who I was talking to.

"Look, you copied my quirk earlier, and I just need you to know I'm going back," Ivan told me.

"What!" I shouted.

"What did he say?" Dante asked

"He said he was going back to Apex," I informed him.

"That man is doing this on purpose. He's doing this because he wants me back. He knows that doing those things to my sister will make me come back."

"Ivan, what are you talking about?" I asked him, waiting for him to respond, but he didn't.

"Ivan... Ivan... Ivan, fucking answer."

Ivan went quiet, and I suddenly heard an ear-piercing noise. It was like a siren, and it kept ongoing off, getting louder and louder. The noise was so strong it broke all the glass in the house.

What the fuck was that? Wait, this is Ivan's. It's part of him being a half-beluga specialty. Is this supposed to be some form of echolocation? Why the hell is it so powerful?

The noise suddenly stopped, and I didn't hear Ivan again.

Ivan, where were you going, and what were you doing?

Ivan, please

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You're Playing With Fire