Chapter Text
Me, Myself, and I
________
Cassidy
See, the Doctor's Office always kinda annoyed me.
That was doubly so in Monarch Valley, where the only doctor’s office doubled as a vet clinic and a morgue. It was trying to be too many things all at once, and boy, oh boy, going there, you could tell.
Whether it was dogs and cats making noise three doors down or the sour smells of chemicals coming from the darkroom that mom kept me away from- Monarch Valley’s Hospital wasn’t nice. Even the old TV they had in the waiting room didn’t much work anymore, and whenever mom took me to visit, I would just stare at that box bouncing at the corners in some mindless form of entertainment.
I was there for the third time that month, tapping my hands back and forth and trying not to fall asleep as Mom fiddled with her phone. God, it was boring, but we were here on a mission. That’s what Mom told me right before she got on the phone and started whispering in hushed Japanese.
My Japanese was real rusty, but I caught a few words here and there. Something about Dad being late and my brother not wanting to go down for his nap. Devin had just been born, but despite that, I didn’t really understand why Mom was here with me and not there with him.
I focused back on the television and the dumb bouncing box. I swore to god it was gonna hit the corner this time. It didn’t.
That was when the doctor poked his head out of his hidey-hole. I knew him- everyone knew him. He was the only doctor in Monarch Valley, so everyone kinda had to know him. Funny enough I think my mom was the only one who didn’t know him because she didn’t grow up in Monarch Valley.
“Alright, Cassidy, we’re ready for you,” He smiled.
Mom put her phone down and went to shake the doctor's hand.
“I’m Kei Shane,” She said. “Cassidy’s mother.”
“Nice to meet you, Mrs. Shane!” The doctor responded, his yellow eyes twinkling brightly against the beige and brown tones of the waiting room. “Right this way.”
Mom just nodded before reaching out her hand. I gladly took it, realizing that Mom's hand was shaking a bit. Well, I was here to make her feel less nervous.
I could take whatever was on the other side of this door.
Me, Myself, and I
________
Cassidy
“Mrs. Shane, I’m really sorry to be the one telling you this- but Cassidy is Quirkless.”
There was only the hum of lights and annoying- annoying buzz of that AC. I really wanted to hit that AC right now. Wait- what did he say again? Quirkless right? No, no, no. That couldn’t be true at all.
“Are you sure?” mom asked. She shifted uncomfortably, flicking her eyes towards me. “Carlyle and I both have Quirks. Perhaps the test is faulty?”
The doctor shook his head.
“I’m afraid not, Mrs. Shane,” The Doctor said apologetically. He scratched the back of his head and leaned back in his chair, the fabric squeaking. “We usually determine Quirklessness by checking the joints of the pinkie toe. Cassidy has two joints in her pinkie toe, which is how we know.”
That clock was loud. I kept staring at that thing up on the wall, its hands moving unnecessarily slowly. Why was it moving so slowly? I looked back at the doctor, who was just looking sorry and old, and his yellow-amber eyes just looked sick and bad now.
I didn’t like him anymore.
“She could be a late bloomer, maybe?” Mom insisted. Her hands were squeezing the folds of her skirt. I wanted to hold her hand, but I was frozen myself. I didn’t know what to do. Instead, all I could focus on was that clock.
It was so loud.
The doctor pulled out a clipboard, sighed, flipped through a few pages of paper, and shook his head. He looked incredibly hesitant.
“Mrs. Shane, what is your and your husband's Quirks?” he sighed.
Mom looked over me and clasped her hands together. She hadn’t ever really told me her quirk before. Neither had Dad, now that I thought about it.
“I have telekinesis- push and pull. Only one at a time, though. Mom said. “And Carlyle can see a day into the future.”
The doctor nodded before he put his clipboard down. He didn’t even look at me, only looking at Mom. I hated that he refused to look at me. I was right here. They were talking about me! What was that about?
“I don’t want to encourage false hope, Mrs. Shane,” He said. “Having two joints in pinkie toe is a sure-fire way of telling when someone is Quirkless, but-”
He bit his lip and whispered into Mom's ear. She nodded and looked at me, her eyes watery but calm. The doctor backed away and put the clipboard on the table.
“Look, I just wouldn’t hold out false hope, okay? Please- for your daughter's sake,” he said.
Mom nodded, and I got bitter because everything changed after that.
Me, Myself, and I
________
Cassidy
Monarch Valley was a small town of precisely four hundred people. It didn’t take long for people to figure out my diagnosis. That was the nature of a small town in the United States. Gossip was the only interesting activity for people to partake in.
It took an even shorter time for kids at school to start doing something about it.
I remember the first time it was brought up in class because kids were talking about their quirks at P.E. It had come up naturally during the course of picking teams for a game of dodgeball. Kids wanted to use their quirks during the game, but it wasn’t allowed.
I’m pretty sure I was only allowed to play because Quirks weren’t being allowed in this game. Not that it mattered because as soon as teams started getting picked, it got obvious no one wanted me.
Well as soon as it became obvious neither team wanted me, they both started fighting on who had to pick me. The teachers just forced the team with fewer players to take me, which didn’t sit well with that team.
Those kids complained and complained, saying I would just be useless to them.
I was the main target from the get-go. Every ball was thrown at me right away, and they knocked me right to the ground with a missing tooth. All I saw was red, and I didn’t even care that the person I punched wasn’t even someone who’d thrown a ball at me.
Me, Myself, and I
________
Cassidy
Monarch Valley was a small town of precisely four hundred people. People didn’t appreciate the girl with an immigrant mom and her Quirkless kid “starting” a fight in school. My family became the talk of the town, and not in a good way. A few months after the dodgeball incident, Mom got a job offer back in Japan. She didn’t explain it much other than it would be good for her, so that is what our little Family did.
We packed up all our things from Monarch Valley and moved to Japan.
Me, Myself, and I
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Cassidy
“Cassidy!”
I looked over my shoulder at my name being called. Most people didn’t like calling me by first name, except for one—the only other international student in the school. Living in Japan for the last ten years had been…. Alright.
Living in a big city where people didn’t know my face was certainly better than a small town where everyone knew it.
Learning Japanese was really hard, but Mom helped out.
“You going to Band?” Julianna asked, pulling her bag up on her shoulders. Her gear-like eyes studied me for my response. I gave her a shrug.
“Yep,” I said, popping the P. I closed my locker and slung my bag over my shoulder. “Gotta check in with the Applications Counselor First, though.”
High School Applications… I had decided on something rather… unorthodox, especially for someone in my situation. Most people had given me frowns of disgust when I brought up my idea, but I refused to let that get me down.
Their words and faces would not dictate my future
Still, I remained grounded in my hopes, but that didn’t mean I could not have them.
“What songs do you wanna practice today?” Juliana asked, pulling out her phone. She tapped away it before pulling out a playlist. “We practiced Good Grief last week; that was your request. Should we let someone else choose?” She asked.
“Yeah, why not,” I said, scrolling down the playlist. It was a selection of songs that Julianna and I had played during band. We wanted to make sure there were no repeats, so we put them in there once we played a song.
“Alright!” She said. “I’ll pitch that to everybody, meet you there?”
“Meet you there!” I said, giving her finger guns. Julianna gave them back before she skipped down the hall. I just sighed and made my way to the counselor. There were chitters down the halls as I walked, and I did my best to push their words out as I walked.
It got increasingly harder as I continued to hear the voices of-
“That Shane Girl, doesn’t she want to apply to UA?”
“Isn’t she Quirkless?”
“That’s a joke, right?”
“I can’t believe she could even think she’d be on the same level as normal people.”
I just bit my lips as mom told me whenever I got the urge to yell and fight back. No use in getting angry over all that she would say. It wouldn’t make anything better, despite the fact that it would make me feel better. Instead, I fixed my glasses and stepped into the counselor's office.
“So… UA?” The woman asked, her lizard eyes flicking towards me. She had some sort of mutation quirk that gave her lizard features. Neat.
“Yeah,” I mumbled. “NOT the Heroics Course. I don’t think I have the moxy for that- but I still wanna do something, be helpful to people- so-”
I paused and rolled my words in my mouth for a moment. Part of me wished I could do heroics. A VERY long time ago, it had been a dream- but right now, I was being realistic. This was something I could achieve with what I had and what I could do.
“So I was thinking the General Studies Course,” I finished.
The counselor flipped through the essay and other papers I’d brought her. She fixed her eyes on something before turning back to look at me.
“Why, Shane?” She asked.
Why. Why not. Because I can do this, I know I can do this much. I can still be something to people, even if it isn't something they appreciate outright. I can prove that I’m not some useless nobody. I have to prove that, and even if this woman wouldn’t help me, I would still do it. Fuck them all if they wouldn’t help. No one ever did, anyway.
“Cause I want to,” I growled. “Cause It's what I can do.”
Me, Myself, and I
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“You want to be a hero?”
“Yes!”