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greeenchrysanthemums · 6 months ago

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Hermitcraft x MHA au

I will never use this au but I had to get it off my brain or I would not be able to get anything done. Fair warning, none of this is very thought out, so it is not my best work when it comes to aus.

I'm thinking that The Watchers would be the main threat. They want to return to a world without heroes. The way they go about doing this is by slowly targeting pro-heroes, attacking them when they're alone, and stealing their quirk; sometimes even going so far as killing them with their own stolen quirk. As these attacks become more frequent and heroes start falling left and right, the heroes decide something has to be done about it.

A group of heroes gets called forward by the hero commission for a top-secret mission to locate The Watchers and take them down before they can do any more harm than they already have. The main cast would consist of Grian, Pearl, Impulse, Scar, and Mumbo; with Etho, Cub, Gem, and Skizz as supporting cast.

Scar

Quirk: None. He uses support items to enhance his strength and speed, and uses a bow and arrow as his weapon of choice.

About: #1 pro-hero. He's wanted nothing more than to be the #1 hero ever since he was young and was very determined to do just that despite his lack of quirk. He takes the hero ranking very seriously and treats Grian like his rival. He is often disheartened by Grian's inability to take things seriously. Only a few select people are privy to the fact that he is a quirkless hero, and he ends up using that to his advantage when they find out The Watchers are stealing peoples quirks.

Originally, it was only going to be Scar that went after The Watchers, but he put in a request for a team, and The Commission approved of it. Scar was the one to recommend the commission ask for Grian's help, because as much as he considers him a rival and thinks he needs to take things more serious, Scar sees how skilled Grian is and wanted him on the team.

Hero Name: Sharpshot

Grian

Quirk: Explosion. He creates explosions from the palms of his hands and the soles of his feet.

About: #2 pro-hero. He never intended to be popular, and only really got into being a hero to have a little fun, but people ended up liking him, so his ratings skyrocketed at the start of his career and have stayed relatively consistent as it progressed. He could not care less about the hero rankings and isn't even aware that his own placement is so high.

He is very destructive and careless. He usually leaves a lot of property damage behind in his wake, which somehow does not tank his public ratings? He's a little cocky and a little full of himself, enjoys blowing things up just a little but too much. At first, he was only helping with the case because he thought it sounded fun. He would be the first team member attacked by The Watchers after their mission officially starts, barely making it out alive. He starts taking things more seriously after the encounter.

Hero Name: Ground-Zero

Mumbo

Quirk: Technokensis. He has a level of control over technology, such as computers and similar hardware. For example, he is able to remotely hack computer systems as well as security systems.

About: An underground hero who specializes in information gathering and infiltration. He always hated the sensationalized nature of the hero industry and tries to stay out of the limelight. He is well adept at hacking and creating programs without the use of his quirk. He only agreed to join the mission because Grian, his best friend, begged him to. Grian's reasoning? It would be boring without Mumbo. However, Mumbo ends up becoming vital to their mission and is the one to gather all their intel and get them into places.

Hero Name: Computo

Pearl

Quirk: Lightshow. She can create clusters of light similar to stars and control their brightness and multiplicity.

About: #14 pro-hero. Despite being a new hero (only a few months into her pro career) Pearl's flashy quirk and endearing attitude has made her a quickly beloved and well recognized hero. She is very, very excited to be working with the #1 hero on a mission as important as this one.

Hero Name: Moon-Ray

Impulse

Quirk: Candy. He can secrete a thick, caramel-like substance from his body that he can harden or soften at will. When hard, it is incredibly hard to break, making it perfect for securing villains and unstable structures alike. It's also edible.

About: #5 pro-hero. He's sweet and funny, so it is no surprise that he is fairly high ranked. He is popular with kids. His quirk is surprisingly effective for things like search and rescue, so he is often called in as a first responder to disasters. He doesn't fight very many high-class villains but will jump at the opportunity to help in any way he can whether or not he is outclassed. Pearl was his sidekick before she went pro, and he was the one who put the hero commission in contact with her for the mission.

Hero Name: ???

Etho

Quirk: Magnesis. He has control over all metals. Not only can he move it around at will, it can also become malleable in his hands and he can mold them into whatever shape he desires

About: Former #1 hero who retired after receiving near fatal injuries in a fight with a villain, including the loss of an arm and leg, and permanent damage to one of his eyes. He now works in the support department creating items for other heroes. He helped create some of Scar's support items.

Hero Name (former): Forge

Cub

Quirk: Chemical sweat. He can secrete any number of different chemicals from his body as long as he knows their make up (similar to Momo's quirk but he can only make chemical compounds).

About: Scar's longtime friend who has supported him from the very beginning even when others doubted him. He was the one who got Scar into contact with Etho. Due to the nature of his quirk, he can also create medicine, so he acts as a medic for the heroes. He likes to experiment with poisons.

Hero Name: The Doctor (not an official name, that is just what he is referred to as).

Skizz

Quirk: Dove. He has a mutation type quirk that gives him a pair of massive, white wings. He can fly with them, and they also become rock hard to protect him from attacks. He cannot fly with them when they are in protection mode.

About: Skizz is Impulse's former hero partner and is currently a gym teacher at a hero school. He occasionally still helps Impulse out with villains/missions when it is asked of him. He is everyone's first go to for venting, and he gives a mean hug. He was Pearl and Gem's gym teacher.

Hero Name (former): Angel

Gem

Quirk: Manifest(?). She can take on the attributes of any animal in her immediate vicinity. For example, if a bird flies over her, she may turn her arms into wings or sprout them from her back (though that takes more effort and concentration). She does not have to see the animal for this to work, they just have to be near her. It works with bugs too.

About: #15 hero and Pearl's hero partner. They attended a hero school together and always had the intention of working together after graduating. Gem was disheartened when she was not invited to be a part of the operation to take down The Watchers, but she was happy for Pearl nonetheless and supports her all the way. She still offers support from time to time, but she is not an official part of the operation. She was not invited because they deemed her quirk "too situational" since it relied on a live animal being near her at all times for her to maintain a manifestation.

Hero Name: Fauna

#hermitcraft #grian #goodtimeswithscar #ethoslab #pearlescentmoon #mumbo jumbo #impulsesv #skizzleman #cubfan135 #geminitay #i seen that a lot of people were giving bakugpu the name ground zero before he had an official hero name #and i liked the sound of it so i stole it for this au XD #this au is free use as long as you credit me in some way or send it to me 👀

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miserymet · 4 months ago

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Posting another piece of writing! This one is the opening chapter for a Bass-centric Modern AU. Much longer than the Drabble I posted, but rereading it made me nostalgic for this old AU. I’d like to do some art for it at some point.

Anyway, without further ado, here’s the fic:

His name was Ballade.

Bass doesn’t know much more than that. All he knows is his name and that he was year above him. He either doesn’t remember the rest or never learned it. See, that was the problem with Ballade. He was completely and entirely irrelevant. A stain on ruined shirt, a blemish against tattered skin. He didn’t matter, not in the grand scheme of things and not to anyone at school. A nobody in every sense of the word. Bass doesn’t remember what was so annoying about him either. All he remembers is that one day he said something, and Bass wasn’t in the mood to hear it.

Ballade was the first to end up on the pavement, blood leaking from his face. He was not the last.

Bass Wily’s history is best described as “colorful.” From a young age it was easy to see that he was different from his peers. Teachers described him as difficult, classmates as terrifying, and parents as concerning. That was only the beginning. His first fight was in elementary, with the aforementioned Ballade, but his real beginning was in middle school. Why, the list of his enemies was so long they could make it into a phone book. The list of people he beat to a pulp wasn’t quite as long, but the amount of fights he lost wouldn’t even take up a footnote. As you can imagine, this was a nightmare for his father.

It’s no wonder the old man got sick of him. He came out of freshman year with bloody knuckles and a bad attitude. Most would have sent him to a boot camp. Most would have the shame to admit that they had failed somewhere along the way. But not Wily, no, he could never call his own blood a lost cause. Not when his rotten son ending up in juvie was sure to make the headlines. No, Wily had a different plan in mind. A plan that got Bass out of the way and wiped his record clean. A plan he never planned on filling Bass in on until it was too late to make a run for it.

A plan he named Zero.

That’s how Bass finds himself in the passenger’s seat of a car he’s never been in before, staring out over a dark and endless highway. The lights are few and far apart, covering the car for only a moment before cutting out again. For as far out as they are, there’s nothing to see. All around them are miles and miles of roads and fields and lifeless desert that threatens to swallow him whole. It’s a wasteland. That’s all that lies between the cities out here. Dirt and dust and rock. It’s miserable. At least now it’s too dark to see anything.

The inside of the car isn’t anymore comfortable. His jacket hangs loosely over him, unzipped and falling off his shoulder. It’s just cold enough to make him uncomfortable, but it’ll be too warm if he zips it up. So he doesn’t. Bass just slouches in his seat and breathes a deep sigh.

The radio buzzes in his ear, playing something that was probably popular thirty years ago. Now it’s nostalgic. Retro. A pathetic ploy to remember the past as better than it actually was. It’s so easy to remember those years as too much synth and makeup, as bright lights and exposed skin. It’s just music. Music that said nothing and meant even less. Bass hates that. Hates that the same people who call modern music soulless praise this garbage because it’s old. Hates that they’re all listening to the same bubblegum bullshit, but from a different time.

He doesn’t know why he cares. People have been touting their self importance since the dawn of time. He can imagine their prehistoric ancestors measuring their sticks to see whose was the biggest. Only now people care less for sticks and more for music that takes itself too seriously. That’s the issue, he guesses. Everyone cares too much. Wily cares too much about his image, Bass cares too much about everything, and Zero…

Bass doesn’t know what he cares about. Doesn’t really know the guy. At all.

He reaches for the radio and switches to another station. Bass is immediately inundated with a different kind of garbage. Modern electronic music. At the sudden change, Zero speaks up for what must be the first time in over an hour.

“I was listening to that.”

Bass rolls his eyes. “I wasn’t.”

They lapse into silence again as Bass switches through various stations. Some play pop, some rock, some are pure static. None of it is worth listening to. Bass didn’t think any of it would be, but at least playing with the radio gives him something to do. His phone died forever ago, leaving him with whatever he has on hand to entertain himself. His backpack is full of sentimental junk, nothing he can really use to distract himself. Treble is napping in the backseat and Bass doesn’t have the heart to wake him. So this car radio is all he has for company. Zero doesn’t count. He’s not company.

Bass barely even knows the guy. Which is why he’s trying so hard to distract himself. If he thinks too hard he’ll remember that he’s riding with a stranger to a city he’s never seen before. The knob turns in his hand as he thinks, sliding between stations haphazardly. He’ll be in a new place, away from everything he’s ever known, living with someone he doesn’t know. Someone unpredictable. Sure, anyone that isn’t Wily is probably an improvement, but Bass is used to Wily. He knows how the old man thinks. Knows how he works, how to deal with him. Bass doesn’t know Zero, hasn’t for five years. Which makes the man unpredictable. Which makes Bass nervous. He fiddles with the knob just a bit faster, static breaking through the speakers.

“Forte-,”

“Bass. It’s Bass now.” He keeps his eyes trained on the car radio, watching the stations flicker by. “Has been for a while.”

Zero sighs, loudly. “Well Bass, pick something or turn it off.”

He lands on static. Bass is pretty sure he sees Zero’s eye twitch out of the corner of his eyes, but he chooses to ignore it. The satisfaction of annoying Zero lasts for only a minute. After that, he quickly realizes the consequences of his actions. There’s several hours between him and his destination. Several hours he’s going to have to suffer through with the sound of static accompanying all of it. How lovely. It’s times like these where Bass almost wishes he were someone else. Of course, that’s only when his difficult nature affects himself. Any other time and he’s perfectly happy being the most antagonistic person in existence.

People are stupid. People like Wily, like Zero, like his teachers and his peers. People that look at him and see only what they want to see. People that look at him and see Forte. See this teen with a bad attitude and dark clothes and assume that they know everything about him. Bass exists to defy those assumptions. He is not the expected, not the convenient. He’s loud, abrasive, aggressive. He’s everything Wily pretends he isn’t. He’s whatever’s going to infuriate Zero the most. He’s whatever pisses everyone off. A contrarian. A problem. Bass gets to control what everyone thinks of him. He gets to pick what he wants to be. Everyone else just has to deal with it or move on.

Most choose to move on. Even the most patient people in the world get sick of him eventually. The smart ones leave as soon as they can. As you can imagine, it leaves him on his own more often than not. That’s fine. Bass has been on his own for a while. He’s used to it. Out of the corner of his eye, he catches a glimpse of Zero. This won’t be any different. A change of scenery won’t fix what’s wrong with him. Bass won’t change, won’t get better, won’t get worse. He’ll just continue on as he always has. Zero will get sick of him eventually. Send him back in a few months, throwing Wily’s mistakes in his face once again.

The thought isn’t as comforting as it should be. As nervous as he is about this move, the idea of returning home isn’t thrilling either. That house, that city hasn’t felt like home for a while. It used to. It used to be familiar and comforting. It used to be his. Now it feels like any other place. Those long halls, those labyrinthine streets, they don’t feel the same. Not since…

Wily certainly chose a convenient time to get sick of him. After everything, it figures the old man would cut him loose after he’s already been hanging from a string. He wonders, briefly, if that was exactly Wily chose to do this now. The old man never cared much for the company he kept, so why would he get rid of him after his old gang had left? Why wait until he had nothing to ship him off? It doesn’t make sense. Maybe it was just convenience. That he was waiting for Zero to come home, that this was always the plan. Of course, that just leaves one unknown variable.

“Why…” Bass falters and hates himself for it. “Why are you doing this?”

Zero grips the steering wheel a little harder. “Doing what?”

“This! The move, the new house, the new school-, why? Why any of it? Why?”

Bass flails his arms in useless gesture. The man next to him huffs in what might be amusement, which makes only one of them. He slouches in his seat and turns away from the man. Pouting, he knows, but he figures he’s earned the right. His life is being upended by the only two people that still hold any power over him. Two people that don’t even know him, for all the years he’s lived with them. Wily and Zero never cared to learn anything about him, and Zero’s missed a third of his life. Bass was ten when Zero left, ten. A lot changes in five fucking years. And Zero doesn’t know the half of it.

“Didn’t he tell you what you’re dealing with? My record? My ‘attitude problem?’”

Zero stiffens a bit at that. Bass wouldn’t have gotten as far as he has if he didn’t know how to exploit a weak spot. He prods further.

“C’mon, how much do you know? I have to know what the old man said about me, which one of my greatest hits he told you.” Bass tugs on Zero’s jacket, jostling him a bit. “Was it that kid whose nose I broke? Or the one who got his older brother involved, who I destroyed by the way. What about the one who showed up with a bat-,”

“Bass.” His grip is harder now, jaw clenched as he stares dead ahead.

“What? I just want to know-,”

“Why are you proud of that? Of what you did to those kids? What-,” Zero takes a deep breath, barely keeping it together.

Bass rolls his eyes. “What’s wrong with me? A lot. I’m sure you can make a few guesses.”

“Do you enjoy hurting people? Is that fun for you?”

“I enjoy winning.” He pulls back his hand, crossing it over his chest. “I enjoy being better than all the idiots who see someone whose barely five feet and thinks that they can take him. I enjoy when everyone else is wrong. I enjoy making them admit it.”

“Well, you weren’t doing much of that when I came home! Your father said you weren’t doing anything. That you hid in your room all day. That you stopped leaving the house. That’s what he told me.”

Bass opens his mouth. Then shuts it. He honestly didn’t think the old man noticed. No, the truth is that he honestly didn’t think the old man cared. So what if he was in his room? It’s his room. It’s his house! He’s allowed to be there! The alternative was being somewhere else, doing something illegal. Most parents would be happy that Bass wasn’t doing any of that. That he was somewhere they could see, that they could keep him out of trouble. Actually, considering how fond Wily was of pretending his own son didn’t exist, this was almost textbook. Figures the old man would only care because he had to suffer his own son’s presence. Still…

“What do you care?”

Zero doesn’t answer him, not right away. Bass spares him a glance. He’s kinda like a monolith, in a way. He sits straight, arms stiff and limbs locked into place. He’s about a foot taller than Bass so he almost towers over him in his slouch. Zero has towered over him for a while. A monument to everything Bass is not. Zero is tall and lean, with smooth features and a pretty face. His skin is tan, his hair blonde and his eyes a vivid blue. He was a straight A student all throughout high school, at the top of his class, and he even got valedictorian. Not to mention the Ivy League school he went to, which he graduated a few months ago. With flying colors, of course.

Bass is nothing like him. He’s short and awkward, his face round and features mean. Bass is a darker complexion, with black hair and dark eyes. What’s worse is that these features only look bad on him. If Zero had them, he’d look great. But Bass isn’t Zero. His grades are mediocre, his attendance record awful, and he’s never gotten anything more than a participation trophy. And, not to be redundant, but the record. Even if it’s being swept under the rug here, it still exists. Bass did everything he got in trouble for. Beat up every name in that file. He’s every counselor’s nightmare.

“I care because I don’t think you’re a bad kid.”

He blinks at that. “You’re insane.”

“I mean it, Bass.” Zero takes another breath. “Your father isn’t…a good person.”

“He’s a shithead, I know.”

“Yeah, he is. And having a father like that doesn’t make for a good environment to grow up in. It leads to…people like us.”

“What the hell does that mean?”

“We’re not normal, Bass. Normal people don’t beat people up for fun, they don’t have rampant anger issues, they don’t pick the farthest school from their family because the thought of living in that house makes them sick.”

That explains why Zero never visited. Bass kinda assumed he was too busy studying or whatever to bother, but it makes sense that avoiding Wily was his main motivation. Bass did the same thing, although he could never get as far away as Zero did. And he eventually had to come home. But every moment he spent away from Wily was one he savored. Even if he was just loitering or hanging out in empty parking lots. Anything to not have to be home. Bass remembers staying out for hours, far after sunset, just so he could be sure Wily was asleep.

Sometimes one of his friends would wait with him. Tengu’s presence was typical, seeing as he didn’t have any good reason to go home either. His parents weren’t ever around and Bass learned not to pry. He wasn’t good company, though. Bass kinda got the feeling he only stuck around because he felt like he had to. Burner sometimes stuck around too. Usually to get the smell out of his clothes, but sometimes he didn’t want to go home either. Bass didn’t like Burner, for a lot of reasons, but he could be nice when he wasn’t on something.

His friends weren’t normal either. Bass knew that, instinctively, but that was why he hung around them. Because they knew what it was like to not be normal. To be ugly and awful, to be unforgivable to everyone else. They were so not normal that it made Bass feel normal. Like he wasn’t some freak of nature. Like it wasn’t his fault that he came out like this. That it just…happened. Like it did with all of his friends.

Zero is the opposite. He’s a stark reminder of how messed up Bass is. Because if Zero ended up as perfect as he is, then Bass doesn’t really have an excuse. Bass just isn’t good enough. Someway, somehow, he is insufficient. Flawed. Imperfect. But hearing Zero say that he isn’t normal, that something wrong with him? It’s bittersweet. It doesn’t fix Bass, but it does make him feel better to know that Zero isn’t as high and mighty as he might seem. But again, that only explains part of what’s going on. Bass knows why Wily sent him away, knows why Zero wants to leave, but it still leaves one thing unanswered.

“That explains why you’re moving, but why the hell did you bring me along?

“Because getting away from that-,” Zero falters for a moment. “Getting away from our father was good for me. College was good for me. Getting to be around normal people with normal lives made me realize how fucked up ours was. It made me realize that things didn’t have to be like this. That we don’t have to be like this.”

Bass doesn’t say anything. He got what he wanted. Now he knows that this is some strange attempt to “fix” Bass. He’s not sure how Zero thinks he’s going to accomplish that, but he’s welcome to try. It’ll be entertaining to watch him fail for the first time. Well, second if you count what happened in Zero’s junior year, but Bass doesn’t. Zero did win, after all.

“You deserve a chance to have a normal childhood. With someone who hasn’t given up on you. I…want to give you that. I want to try. God knows someone has to.”

They fall into silence again. Bass doesn’t know what to say to that and Zero seems to have said all he had to. Now it’s just them and the open, empty road. There’s a part of Bass that’s hopeful, despite everything. That thinks maybe this can work. That he and Zero can play pretend. That Bass can survive for a little bit longer. But it’s only a small part. Every other part of him tells him not to hold his breath. Bass sighs and turns his attention to the window. The sky seems to be brightening, which means that morning isn’t too far off. He relaxes in his seat.

When he wakes up, he’ll be in a new city. When he wakes up, he’ll have to figure this out all over again. Bass closes his eyes and dreams of nothing.

#mega man #megaman #rockman #megaman au #megaman x #megaman zero #megaman classic #bass #bass megaman #zero megaman #zero mmx #I’d write this whole fic if I wasn’t working on other things #And if this wasn’t already one of my many attempts to do so #Fun fact: this was originally a soulmate au #Decided I wanted a more grounded setting

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