victory_road | 01 ✦ Video

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01 ✦ Video

[It could have all been a dream, given the way Izuku wakes up in a bed that isn't his own. It could also very well be the hospital- a fact that wouldn't have been surprising- but the stark lack of a sterile atmosphere leads him to believe otherwise even as he sits up with a start. His heart is hammering in his chest and between his ears with such ferocity that believing this is anything but reality would be difficult...

He isn't afforded much time to collect himself, because someone has noticed he's awake and immediately lept up onto his chest to greet him, his fluffy tail wagging excitedly.

Okay, maybe this is a dream after all.

Everything happens pretty quickly after that. Your usual fair of arrival: Izuku's "mom" comes in the room upon hearing his Eevee chirp at him, ushering him up-and-at'em even as he's stammering questions and trying (and failing) to get her to give him a straight answer. She is in fact not even remotely his mother but she doesn't seem to know that or care, and before he's able to get a word in edgewise he's out the door with a bag over his shoulders. Eevee had taken advantage of the chaos to climb up Izuku's back, sitting pretty on his shoulder as if he belongs there. So what does Izuku do? Well...

He starts to walk, hoping he'll be able to come into a town and maybe someplace more familiar than the route ahead of him. ...only for a Pineco to drop from a tree and attack both him and his Eevee pretty much immediately. It's a pretty sudden and surprising introduction to Pokemon battling before he's even finished reading up on it, leaving him to find a tree to sit down under for a while before anything else can happen. He has the PokeGear, so let's just try to contact someone. Anyone.]

Hello? I don't know if anyone can hear me on this, but it's worth a try...

[He pauses as Eevee pushes his head into the screen's view, hello he's here too.]

My name is Midoriya Izuku. I'm not sure what's happened, but I'm really not where I'm supposed to be right now. My only guess is this all is due to the effects of a Quirk, but I don't remember anything that could have lead to that.

[Unless Shigaraki had some tricks up his sleeve he really wasn't prepared for. Doesn't explain how his injuries have ceased to exist, either.]

I've been reading the guidebook, but it's really just giving me more questions than answers. Not only that, the pet the lady had in her house where I woke up followed me outside and I can't get it to go back home to her. She won't answer the door now so I'm not really sure what to do about that.

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[If Claude weren't currently preoccupied with hunting for Chip, he might reply to Izuku with a video. As he is, though - distracted, anxious, not feeling or looking his best - he sticks to text.]

Hey, Midoriya! [Claude doesn't understand Japanese naming conventions yet, so as far as he knows, Midoriya is Izuku's first name.] Welcome to Johto! They really drop you in at the deep end here, so don't worry about being confused - we all started out that way.

I'm sure other people have explained this already, but that little guy is yours, not Mom's. He's meant to follow you around and be your partner! These creatures are called pokémon, and they like to partner up with people. Some of them do it just for companionship, but some do it because they really enjoy competition in the form of fighting with other pokémon, and fighting alongside a human trainer helps them bring out their full potential. Some of them can even evolve into new, more powerful forms once they've gotten strong enough! Also, you don't have to stick with just the one you started with - you can catch more to add to your team.

Honestly, normally I'd go a lot more in-depth but I've kind of got pressing business right now.

...boy, I'm really scattered, I almost didn't introduce myself. Name's Claude von Riegan.

Thank you. It's nice to meet you, Claude-san. I appreciate the explanation, even if a couple people have already replied to my post. More insight from others never hurt, and I'm going to try to make notes of everything whenever I get my hands on a notebook...maybe when I get to the next town.

Don't let me keep you if you're busy though! I hope everything is alright.

Claude-san? What does that mean? [He's instantly curious.]

And, well, everything's not exactly all right, although I'm trusting things will turn out okay in the end. The kid of one of my boyfriends ran off for some reason, and we've been looking for them. They're a smart kid and they're capable of taking care of themselves, I'm sure, but we're still plenty worried. It happened right after a day that put everyone in a really bad mood, so maybe they're upset about something...

Anyway, most of our travel group is looking for them. Whatever they're upset about - it must be something, for them to have suddenly cleared out like they did - we want to fix it, not have them just run off on their own. Their dad's absolutely frantic, and who wouldn't be? But honestly, the rest of us aren't doing much better. They're a good kid.

I wouldn't even have the time to talk right now, except we're giving our pokémon a breather.

Oh! I'm sorry- it's a more polite way of addressing you. It's common where I'm from to use honorifics...so, -san. But if you would just prefer I call you Claude, that's fine too.

[He'll have to get used to it, but it'll work out.]

Wait...are you talking about Chip? I spoke to someone about a missing child earlier...Dimitri-san. I'm guessing that must be who you're talking about?

[Man Izuku is going to have to get back in touch with this group later if only to see if Chip was found because now he's worried about the little guy...]

I don't think I'm in the same area he might have gone, but I promised I'd help keep an eye out for him.

Interesting! I don't think I've heard that one before. I don't really require any honorifics, but I don't mind if you use them, either.

And yeah, it's Chip! Dimitri's another one of my boyfriends, and the one I'm currently searching with right now. I'm not surprised he mentioned Chip, too. Dimitri's probably almost as frantic as Chip's dad is. He and Chip are really close.

Anyway, I appreciate you keeping an eye out even if you're not likely to run into them. But the most likely place they'd be is somewhere between Ecruteak City and Olivine City; that's the route Dimitri and I are currently searching, so with any luck, we'll find them.

Of course. I wouldn't exactly be able to call myself a hero if I wasn't at all worried about a missing child.

[Even if it's kindof unreasonable to expect him to be able to help out much given how far away from the situation he is.]

Why do you think he might have run off?

Really? Are you a hero back home? That's not usually something people call themselves, where I'm from.

That said, Chip is a 'they', not a 'he'. As for why they ran off...well, like I said, I'm not sure. I don't know if anyone knows yet, or if we'll know before we find them. But there was a day recently where it seemed like everyone had short tempers, so maybe they got upset with something that happened then.

I'm sorry, I didn't mean to assume anything...but yes, I am. Being a hero is a profession back home. I'm going to school to become officially licensed so I can work as one, one day.

I guess it doesn't help much to speculate the reason before you've actually found them.

Ah, that explains it, then. Hero is more of a descriptor of personal merit where I'm from. Usually, people who are admirable enough to be considered heroes are also the last people who'd describe themselves as such. Granted, I don't know if that's out of humility, awkwardness, or having goodness be so second nature to them that the idea of being praised for their natural inclinations feels kind of obscene to them. A profession, though...that's something much more clearly defined.

But yeah, I hope to figure out what's up and resolve whatever problems they're are once we actually catch up with Chip.

[It's strange...Izuku has never really thought about it from that perspective before, but Claude has a point. If you look at it that way, it is strange to just outright call one's self a hero. Izuku just hadn't considered anything else since being a hero means something very specific, back home.]

I think...maybe back before Quirks appeared, people probably saw the term "being a hero" in a similar light. It's just so commonplace nowadays that it's turned into something completely different.

I hope you can too. From what I can tell most everyone here is really nice, so they won't be alone for long even if you can't find them right away.

Oh, man...I really want to ask what Quirks are, but at the same time Dimitri and I should probably get traveling again soon. Would you mind elaborating for me, even if I probably won't be able to respond for a few hours? I get the feeling capital Q Quirks are different from the lowercase quirks I'm familiar with.

But yeah, I'm not so much worried about Chip's safety as their mental state, if they ran away to begin with. I think that's probably way more of a problem than anything they can run into, especially with them having a team of pokémon I'm sure are looking out for them - and, like you said, kind and helpful people everywhere. But I can't do anything about that until we find them.

I don't mind at all. You can respond again whenever you're able to. Do what you need to do, I'm not going anywhere for a while anyway.

As for Quirks...they are superhuman abilities that everyone is born with. They tend to manifest around the age of four in children and they're usually a combination of whatever Quirks your parents had, or one or the other if one of them happens to manifest more strongly. It's closely tied to genetics from what we understand about it right now.

They don't seem to be able to work at all here, though...I haven't been able to use mine.

They sound pretty fascinating. My understanding of genetics is somewhat limited; as I understand it, modern levels of knowledge about it are vastly more advanced than anything we had in my own world. We didn't even have electricity yet where I'm from, so some of the advancements science has made in this world compared to at home are still unfamiliar to me. And I make a habit of learning everything I can! It's just that there's so much to catch up on...

That said, it seems like a lot of special powers and the like from other worlds aren't relevant here. In fact, species that aren't even human tend to be given human forms here, rather than staying as they are. I've talked to a guy who was something called a robot back home - which is apparently a fully mechanical race, as opposed to being a biological lifeform. I don't know quite how it works...but he's definitely human here.

Oh wow...that's crazy for me to think about. I guess it just goes to show how different a lot of us are, coming not just from different worlds, but completely different sorts of time periods too...

I can't help but wonder how that sort of change can happen. I know Pokemon can be very powerful, both from what I've seen them do and have read about, but being able to change someone's actual physiology and biology is no small feat. And that's not just for one person, but for everyone.

Maybe there's no point in wondering about it, but it's going to be on my mind for a while anyway I think.

Well, there's a pokémon called Arceus that's actually supposed to be some sort of god. Of everything, I get the impression, not just pokémon. I suppose someone - or something - with godly powers could achieve just about anything...although that's such an outright deus ex machina of an explanation that it drives me a little crazy. I hate how many mysterious things there are here that we just have no way of understanding.

[Now there's god Pokemon to worry about? Oh boy.]

It definitely does sound a little too convenient to be true, but there's a lot happening here that should be unbelievable. But I guess believing it and having to just accept it aren't entirely the same thing...

I feel like I'm going to need to be here a lot longer to really understand everything that's going on here.

Yeah. I mean, a lot of stuff here is just too wild to believe, but things are just going to keep being what they are whether we believe in them or not.

That said, I've been here for months now, and a lot of things here really just do seem to be beyond understanding. Like, I'm not even sure where to look. And there are people who've been here for years who haven't figured out much more than we already know. As inquisitive as I am, I've come to feel like maybe there are some things I'm never going to be able to figure out here - I don't have the tools or even the slightest idea where to start, and I think I'd just be ramming my head into a wall. There's a lot of other things that my time and attention are going to be much better spent on.

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01 ✦ Video

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