Breathing heavily, Arthur let go of the bar, landing on the ground, his muscles burning, the silence of the nearly empty gym deafening. He picked up his towel, wiping the sweat off his forehead as his black hair, matted with sweat, fell into his eyes. Throwing his towel over his shoulder, he picked up his bag and started to walk towards the door, having finished his workout.
As he walked past a group of people, he could hear them talking quietly, soft enough where they thought he wouldn't hear them.
"It's a pity, you know, he really thinks that if he works out enough, he'll be able to become a hero despite not having a quirk."
"Yeah, if only he had a quirk, he might've been a top hero with that work ethic."
Arthur continued walking. He was used to the comments by now, choosing to ignore them. His dad had been a hero, a fairly famous one, he had a quirk that allowed him to manipulate space to a certain extent, creating portals and distortions in space. While he didn't have many offensive capabilities, his rescue-oriented capabilities managed to get him a spot in the top 100 heroes. It was his quirk, in the end, that led to his death. A group of villains led by Muscular kidnapped him in an attempt to use his power to assassinate the Prime Minister.
When heroes finally found where the group was hiding, Muscular saw that he wouldn't be able to go through with his plan. He killed Arthur's dad, deciding it would be better if the heroes weren't able to use such a power. It had been 10 years since it happened, and Muscular hadn't been seen since then.
Walking down the street, Arthur sat down on a bench, waiting for the bus to come. He'd always wanted to be a Hero, seeing his dad growing up had been his biggest inspiration. Even after his death, his desire to become a hero and fight evil continued to fuel him. But that dream had slowly started to fade out of possibility. He still had not awakened his quirk, even though he was already 17.
Seeing the bus arrive, he got up and walked onto the bus, taking a seat near the back. The bus moved through the city, towards a less developed part of it. After his father's death, his mother and he had been living on the edge, strapped for cash and only able to afford a small apartment in the outskirts of the city.
As the bus arrived in his neighborhood, Arthur got up from his seat, walking off the bus. Sighing, he walked towards his building, climbing up the stairs until he reached his floor. Pulling out the keys to the door from his backpack, he opened the door, and the smell of food hit him.
Walking down the hall, he saw his mother, her black hair tied up in a bun, cooking something. Throwing his bag onto the couch, he walked to the table, preparing it for dinner. Finishing up, Arthur and his mother sat down at the table and began eating the soup his mother had made.
"So, how was school today?" she asked, looking up from her food. Her eyes, with bags under them, were a result of working long hours at the hospital as a nurse. Her quirk, Mending Hands, helped her at work, allowing her to quickly heal small cuts or bruises, but anything more was beyond her.
Arthur had been looking for a job to help support his mother and lift some of the burden off her, and after multiple applications with no success, he was finally able to land an interview with a sales company.
"It was fine, the same as usual, go to class then the gym," Arthur said, continuing to eat without looking up.
"UA applications are coming up, are you going to sign up for them?" his mother asked. Even though she was reluctant with him trying to become a hero, especially after what happened to his father, she felt it was best to support him instead of letting him go about it on his own.
"I heard, but I'm not going to sign up for them. There's no way any hero school would accept anyone without a quirk," Arthur said, finishing up his food before telling his mother that he was going to his room to do his homework.
His mother's heart sank as she watched him walk away. A soft sadness pierced her as she watched her son's dream of becoming a hero crumble as the days went by without his quirk appearing.
Arthur, back in his room, sat down at his desk staring up at the ceiling wondering if he would ever awaken a quirk, with each passing day he continued to lose hope.
Sighing he got to his homework finishing it before heading to bed, laying down as he thought about the interview he had tomorrow.
Waking up, Arthur got up from his bed getting ready for the interview he would have later, before standing in front of the mirror. Looking back was him in a plain black t-shirt and jeans, his Black hair messy as always.
Leaving his room, he sees his mother's door slightly open looking through he could see her passed out on the bed, still in her nurse scrubs after coming back from a late-night shift. Sighing he walked into the room gently pulling the blanket cover over her before leaving the room closing the door behind him.
Eating breakfast in silence he pulled out his phone reading the news. He saw that All Might had stopped yet another attack on a city to the east, seeing the headlines of him saving people reminded Arthur of his dream of becoming a hero himself before he pushed the thoughts aside remembering that he was still as quirkless as ever.
Finishing his breakfast he left his house, getting onto the bus and heading towards the city, he watched as the landscape changed from the run-down area that he lived in to the active and lively suburbs of the city.
Reaching the inner-city Arthur got off the bus walking towards a tall tower, one that even rivaled some of the biggest in the city. Standing outside the entrance, he took a deep breath before walking through the rotating doors, he walked up to the front desk clearing his throat to get the attention of the front desk attendant.
"Um, I have an interview for a sales position today, is there somewhere I should wait beforehand?" Arthur asked, his voice nervous as his hands shifted around.
"What's your name?" the attendant asked her voice monotone.
"Oh yeah, uh, its Arthur, Arthur Celeste." He responded, still fidgeting with his fingers.
He listened as her hands clacked against the keyboard swift and precise. "Alright, go to the 15th floor they will call you in when they are ready for you, good luck." She said with a small smile at the end.
"Thank you," Arthur said, blushing slightly as he moved towards the elevator, stepping into the elevator Arthur looked out the window of the elevator watching as he went higher and higher.
Reaching the 15th floor, he stepped out, the silence deafening with the occasional person walking by. Just as he was about to sit down on a nearby chair, the building began to shake violently, a deep groan as the metal and concrete shifted.
The silence of the floor was shattered by the muffled sound of explosions, and the floor shook violently, causing Arthur to lose his balance and crash to the floor. Alarms blared as the muffled screams of panicked people resounded around Arthur; a soft ringing sounded in Arthurs ears as he tried to get up.
The ceiling above him started to crack, and small pieces started to rain down on him the dust temporarily blinding him, a support beam groaned as the building shook. The blur of people running out of the floor and the constant ringing in his ears disoriented Arthur, causing him to fall back down to the ground.
As the building continued to shake, the cracks in the ceiling deepened eventually growing before a chuck broke off, crashing down before landing on one of Arthur's legs, effectively crushing it. He screamed as the pain grew, the feeling of his leg being crushed numbing his mind.
"Help, please, anyone help." He called out weakly, yet nobody was there anymore, everyone had already left the floor, leaving him the only one there. The only sound was the alarm and the groaning of the steel.
Trying to lift the stone off his leg groaning as he put as much of his strength into it before getting exhausted and falling back down onto his back, his leg still trapped underneath it. Thinking back, Arthur had always wanted to be a hero. Even now, to this day, he still had that dream. But after not having awakened a quirk for such a long time he had started to lose hope in his dream. He was only holding on by training his body everyday hoping it would help his dream of becoming a hero despite not having a quirk, but it proved useless in this situation. The years of hard work that he put into trying to grow his strength to save people and become a hero, yet here he was unable to even help save himself.
That thought, a bitter truth he had lived with for years, was the last straw. He couldn't die here. Not now, not ever. The image of his mother's tired face, the bags under her eyes from working long hours to support them, flashed in his mind. He couldn't leave her alone in this world, not after she had already lost his father. His dream of becoming a hero, a dream that had slowly started to fade out of possibility, was not a dream anymore. It was a promise. He had to live. He had to become a hero.
A roar of raw determination left his throat as he pushed through the pain, trying to pull his leg out from under the rock. Yet even after putting all his strength into it he still didn't budge, laying back down on the floor sweating as the groaning of the metal roared once again.
"If only I had a quirk, then I wouldn't be in this stupid situation, just waiting to die." He lay there staring up at the ceiling, the cracks growing wider.
Just as he was about to close his eyes a pale pink light arose around him engulfing him in its embrace. A warm feeling surging through Arthur, relaxing him, as the air shimmered around him before cracking with a soundless, cosmic force. Feeling something change he roared in pain as he felt his body break apart and stitch itself back together with a power he couldn't imagine.
A deep, resonating hum, a sound that felt more like a part of the universe than a noise, filled his mind. The feeling was agonizing, his muscles and bones felt as if they were being torn apart and knit back together with raw, spatial energy. His body stretched and expanded, solidifying into something new and alien. His neck grew shorter, and his back straightened, giving him the upright posture of a guardian. From his back, large, crystalline wings, shaped like ethereal blades, jutted out, shimmering with an otherworldly light. A long, elegant tail, made of the same white plates, extended behind him, etched with glowing, purple stripes along its underside. His shoulders were adorned with large, smooth, gem-like protrusions that pulsed with a soft pink glow, with similar purple stripes running down his forearms and legs. A sleek, spartan-like helmet formed around his head, its sharp features giving him a fierce, alien countenance, and his eyes, which were once a familiar color, now burned with a vibrant, piercing purple light.
He had passed out long ago from the pain, his body only running on his instinct to survive this ordeal. He stood up, lifting the rock off his leg with next to no effort, and stood there at 2m tall, looking out the window of the building before crashing through it, flying out of the building and into the air. The ethereal blades on his back seemed to manipulate space around him, allowing him to float through the air.
Below, on the ground, the public and nearby heroes who had just arrived saw a sight that would be forever etched into their minds: a monster that had just come out of the top of the building. Exhausted, Arthur couldn't maintain his new form any longer and crashed towards the ground, a cloud of dust surrounding him.
As the cloud of dust cleared, the onlookers watched in stunned silence as the form of the monster began to shrink, its pearlescent skin reverting to normal flesh and blood, its crystalline wings retracting into his back. A hero's voice, strained with a mix of awe and fear, called for a medical team. As he was being carried away on a stretcher, a mix of heroes and civilians, their faces a mix of awe and fear, took pictures of the boy who had just fallen from the sky.