Shirou, the dumbass, died in a way that created a paradox with his soul. One that gets his soul shunted off into another universe for the amusement of a higher power. But that's alright, he can be a true hero, an Ally of Justice anywhere, right?
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Fate/Rebirth: Marvelous Weapon Wielder
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Rebirth
karmaepsilon
Getting out there.
- Joined
- Jul 10, 2024
- Messages
- 15
- Likes received
- 164
Summary: Shirou, the dumbass, died in a way that created a paradox with his soul. One that gets his soul shunted off into another universe for the amusement of a higher power. But that's alright, he can be a true hero, an Ally of Justice anywhere, right?
Crossposting this first from FF and AO3 because these kinds of crossover do decently here.
Chapter 1: Rebirth
The last thing Shirou Emiya remembered before the Void was Archer killing both him and Gilgamesh in a suicide maneuver he had pulled to trap the First Hero and allow that killing blow.
Right in front of the Grail.
Which probably caused a time paradox. Or explained the Void.
Capital V, there was something mystical about this Void.
Which became really obvious when writing popped up in front of his face.
'So you died, and you died in such a way we literally cannot have your soul continue existing in our Universe, neither through Reincarnation nor the Afterlife. My associate Alaya would like to say, "How the fuck did he do that?" more or less. Less really, I got the sense of humor in our Universe as far as Cosmic Powers go.'
Shirou quickly rubbed his eyes to make sure he wasn't hallucinating, he did believe the dead part. And the died in too weird a way to be dealt with part. It was a higher being having a sense of humor that got him.
"So umm...what now?"
'Well I'm shunting your soul off into another universe of course! But it's a nexus universe so I'll have a little leeway with how I do this, which is great because I get to have fun. So I'll be turning your next life into a...reality TV show of sorts! You'll keep your primary power and I'll even let you pick how it is achieved! It will look like a video game character creator screen but once you are reborn you shall live life normally of course!"
"Whoa, hey, who are you?"
However Shirou was not answered as another box popped in front of his face. This one with big red letters saying 'New Life+'.
"And...he's gone. Great, what did I get myself into now?" With nothing better to do his astral self reached out and touched it.
'Total Achievement Points: 10,000'.
And below that were a bunch of black boxes with only the top one revealed.
'Choose an Origin'
Hitting that he was given a slew of options: Genetic Experiment, Mutant, Inhuman, Mystical Apprentice, Average Joe, Atlantean, and Legacy as the ones not in completely black boxes.
Clicking into them most had sub-types. For example Inhuman had 'Earth-born', 'Attilan', and 'Royal'. However both Attilan and Royal cost more than the ten-thousand points he had. Inhumans were also described as being super powered people that were part of some ancient alien genetic experiment so he now knew this new universe had aliens. Which was pretty wild for him.
"Rin would freak over aliens though," he mused to himself as he kept looking.
Mystical Apprentice seemed pretty solid of a choice, but it wouldn't leave him many points for whatever was in those other blacked out boxes further down the line, costing a full eight-thousand.
In fact the most cost effective to benefit option he saw was the Mutant one. Mutants were apparently a mutation of the standard human who had something called an 'X-gene' which activated strange and wonderful powers in them at around puberty. Under Legacy there were options to be a second or third generation mutant, but those were costly. So he picked a normal Mutant, well as normal as that sounded.
It took him to a new screen titled, 'Mutant Powers'.
And true to the higher being's description his only option was his old powers. Every other option was entirely locked, no matter how many points he had.
'Unlimited Bladeworks: Past Life Discount: 2,000 Points'
However reading the description it appeared that he would have to start back from scratch with it in his new life. Having no blades and no ability to manifest the full Reality Marble. But he could do that, plus it seemed like his Tracing and Object Reinforcement were considered bundled abilities, which made sense as Super Speed got Friction Resistance and High Velocity Impact Resistance for free.
So down to only half his starting points Shirou kept moving through character creation. He picked to speak a bunch of languages, not have any genetic defects, look generally like he had in his past life, and picked 'Upper-Middle-Class' as his upbringing because he didn't really want to be a rich kid but he figured not having to scrounge for food doing odd jobs would allow him to spend more time learning about the weird universe he was going into.
He spent most of his remaining points picking what he felt were the crucial, 'Skip Infancy' and 'Skip to Grade School' features.
It meant he had to forgo doing a geographical choice and left that to random, but he did not want his mind stuck in a baby's body for years. Even if he had gone back and given up a few languages he wouldn't have been able to pull off any more interesting countries than Italy for geographical choice. Japan was a full thousand points and he hadn't even gotten a discount like he had on his Bladeworks!
And then Shirou got the information dump.
He woke up with a gasp, remembering somehow that it was his first day of Kindergarten in...New York City?
His name was Shirou Morita, his mother had wanted a more traditional name for him.
He was born in 2000.
And his dad, Jim Morita Jr. was a teacher at a nearby high school.
And his mom, Cho, was missing presumed dead when...a giant green monster called the Hulk and a big spiky one called the Abomination had rampaged through Harlem just a few months back.
Which made the year...2005.
His grandfather was a US Army veteran and...oh man his head hurt.
At least he wasn't an orphan? He had a father. Which he supposed wasn't too different than last time.
Oh it turns out he had just been enrolled in a local karate class because his dad thought it would help him deal with the grief because he had been acting oddly since his mother's disappearance/death.
That was good, that could help with any personality shift from his memories dropping into his five year old self instead of being here the entire time.
He tested out his magic and...no circuits. Well that was expected apparently he was something called a mutant? But his five year-old memories had never heard of a mutant, perhaps they were secretive?
"Okay, so I've gotten myself into something really weird here haven't I?"
Shirou attempted to reach out to his Reality Marble, attempted to reinforce his body, attempted to reinforce an action figure, and attempted to Trace his small television in his bedroom. Nothing. He had absolutely no luck with accessing his powers.
Which means he'd have to wait until...oh no, until he started puberty again.
It was time to get ready for school he guessed.
School was a bit of a breeze and rather boring. Shirou almost wished he had been able to skip straight to Middle or High School, but those point costs had been huge.
So through Grade School Shirou developed a bit of a reputation as a kind of quiet prodigy. Who taught himself to speak four languages with learning CDs he asked his dad for, as an excuse to explain knowing them. And as a kid that packed a mean punch to bullies. He'd actually had his dad called to the school office once over defending a kid that was being bullied by misusing his karate skills on the bully.
He had been blown away a few years later when he had been home watching the news after school and the billionaire Tony Stark revealed himself to be the Iron Man, a man flying around in a high tech suit of armor, on national television.
His grandfather, Jim Morita Sr, had been visiting from Fresno when it happened and said something that struck Shirou as strange.
"It's happening again, the men of legend. The men of mystery. They're returning."
It sounded haunted. And it haunted Shirou's mind every time he saw one of Iron Man's exploits for the next few years. Because Tony Stark didn't really strike him as a true hero. He wasn't really an Ally of Justice.
And that angered Shirou, he was reckless and a bit selfish with his power as both a billionaire and a genius.
And so Shirou tinkered, and developed his own engineering skill as well as his martial arts skills. Preparing for the day he could access his powers.
And by the time he was eleven he had made a good usable taser out of pawn shop junk and was almost a black belt.
Because Iron Man had inspired Shirou, even if it was through anger, to someday become a hero for this world.
And then on May 4th, 2012, Shirou's twelfth birthday, everything was set into motion.
Crossposting this first from FF and AO3 because these kinds of crossover do decently here.
Chapter 1: Rebirth
The last thing Shirou Emiya remembered before the Void was Archer killing both him and Gilgamesh in a suicide maneuver he had pulled to trap the First Hero and allow that killing blow.
Right in front of the Grail.
Which probably caused a time paradox. Or explained the Void.
Capital V, there was something mystical about this Void.
Which became really obvious when writing popped up in front of his face.
'So you died, and you died in such a way we literally cannot have your soul continue existing in our Universe, neither through Reincarnation nor the Afterlife. My associate Alaya would like to say, "How the fuck did he do that?" more or less. Less really, I got the sense of humor in our Universe as far as Cosmic Powers go.'
Shirou quickly rubbed his eyes to make sure he wasn't hallucinating, he did believe the dead part. And the died in too weird a way to be dealt with part. It was a higher being having a sense of humor that got him.
"So umm...what now?"
'Well I'm shunting your soul off into another universe of course! But it's a nexus universe so I'll have a little leeway with how I do this, which is great because I get to have fun. So I'll be turning your next life into a...reality TV show of sorts! You'll keep your primary power and I'll even let you pick how it is achieved! It will look like a video game character creator screen but once you are reborn you shall live life normally of course!"
"Whoa, hey, who are you?"
However Shirou was not answered as another box popped in front of his face. This one with big red letters saying 'New Life+'.
"And...he's gone. Great, what did I get myself into now?" With nothing better to do his astral self reached out and touched it.
'Total Achievement Points: 10,000'.
And below that were a bunch of black boxes with only the top one revealed.
'Choose an Origin'
Hitting that he was given a slew of options: Genetic Experiment, Mutant, Inhuman, Mystical Apprentice, Average Joe, Atlantean, and Legacy as the ones not in completely black boxes.
Clicking into them most had sub-types. For example Inhuman had 'Earth-born', 'Attilan', and 'Royal'. However both Attilan and Royal cost more than the ten-thousand points he had. Inhumans were also described as being super powered people that were part of some ancient alien genetic experiment so he now knew this new universe had aliens. Which was pretty wild for him.
"Rin would freak over aliens though," he mused to himself as he kept looking.
Mystical Apprentice seemed pretty solid of a choice, but it wouldn't leave him many points for whatever was in those other blacked out boxes further down the line, costing a full eight-thousand.
In fact the most cost effective to benefit option he saw was the Mutant one. Mutants were apparently a mutation of the standard human who had something called an 'X-gene' which activated strange and wonderful powers in them at around puberty. Under Legacy there were options to be a second or third generation mutant, but those were costly. So he picked a normal Mutant, well as normal as that sounded.
It took him to a new screen titled, 'Mutant Powers'.
And true to the higher being's description his only option was his old powers. Every other option was entirely locked, no matter how many points he had.
'Unlimited Bladeworks: Past Life Discount: 2,000 Points'
However reading the description it appeared that he would have to start back from scratch with it in his new life. Having no blades and no ability to manifest the full Reality Marble. But he could do that, plus it seemed like his Tracing and Object Reinforcement were considered bundled abilities, which made sense as Super Speed got Friction Resistance and High Velocity Impact Resistance for free.
So down to only half his starting points Shirou kept moving through character creation. He picked to speak a bunch of languages, not have any genetic defects, look generally like he had in his past life, and picked 'Upper-Middle-Class' as his upbringing because he didn't really want to be a rich kid but he figured not having to scrounge for food doing odd jobs would allow him to spend more time learning about the weird universe he was going into.
He spent most of his remaining points picking what he felt were the crucial, 'Skip Infancy' and 'Skip to Grade School' features.
It meant he had to forgo doing a geographical choice and left that to random, but he did not want his mind stuck in a baby's body for years. Even if he had gone back and given up a few languages he wouldn't have been able to pull off any more interesting countries than Italy for geographical choice. Japan was a full thousand points and he hadn't even gotten a discount like he had on his Bladeworks!
And then Shirou got the information dump.
He woke up with a gasp, remembering somehow that it was his first day of Kindergarten in...New York City?
His name was Shirou Morita, his mother had wanted a more traditional name for him.
He was born in 2000.
And his dad, Jim Morita Jr. was a teacher at a nearby high school.
And his mom, Cho, was missing presumed dead when...a giant green monster called the Hulk and a big spiky one called the Abomination had rampaged through Harlem just a few months back.
Which made the year...2005.
His grandfather was a US Army veteran and...oh man his head hurt.
At least he wasn't an orphan? He had a father. Which he supposed wasn't too different than last time.
Oh it turns out he had just been enrolled in a local karate class because his dad thought it would help him deal with the grief because he had been acting oddly since his mother's disappearance/death.
That was good, that could help with any personality shift from his memories dropping into his five year old self instead of being here the entire time.
He tested out his magic and...no circuits. Well that was expected apparently he was something called a mutant? But his five year-old memories had never heard of a mutant, perhaps they were secretive?
"Okay, so I've gotten myself into something really weird here haven't I?"
Shirou attempted to reach out to his Reality Marble, attempted to reinforce his body, attempted to reinforce an action figure, and attempted to Trace his small television in his bedroom. Nothing. He had absolutely no luck with accessing his powers.
Which means he'd have to wait until...oh no, until he started puberty again.
It was time to get ready for school he guessed.
School was a bit of a breeze and rather boring. Shirou almost wished he had been able to skip straight to Middle or High School, but those point costs had been huge.
So through Grade School Shirou developed a bit of a reputation as a kind of quiet prodigy. Who taught himself to speak four languages with learning CDs he asked his dad for, as an excuse to explain knowing them. And as a kid that packed a mean punch to bullies. He'd actually had his dad called to the school office once over defending a kid that was being bullied by misusing his karate skills on the bully.
He had been blown away a few years later when he had been home watching the news after school and the billionaire Tony Stark revealed himself to be the Iron Man, a man flying around in a high tech suit of armor, on national television.
His grandfather, Jim Morita Sr, had been visiting from Fresno when it happened and said something that struck Shirou as strange.
"It's happening again, the men of legend. The men of mystery. They're returning."
It sounded haunted. And it haunted Shirou's mind every time he saw one of Iron Man's exploits for the next few years. Because Tony Stark didn't really strike him as a true hero. He wasn't really an Ally of Justice.
And that angered Shirou, he was reckless and a bit selfish with his power as both a billionaire and a genius.
And so Shirou tinkered, and developed his own engineering skill as well as his martial arts skills. Preparing for the day he could access his powers.
And by the time he was eleven he had made a good usable taser out of pawn shop junk and was almost a black belt.
Because Iron Man had inspired Shirou, even if it was through anger, to someday become a hero for this world.
And then on May 4th, 2012, Shirou's twelfth birthday, everything was set into motion.
Recreation
karmaepsilon
Getting out there.
- Joined
- Jul 10, 2024
- Messages
- 15
- Likes received
- 164
By age twelve Shirou had somewhat gotten into the flow of balancing enjoying a second childhood with preparing himself for his future of heroism.
For example today was his twelfth birthday and he was really looking forward to getting home and doing some light karate practice with his grandfather while they waited for his father to get home from after school grading and then going out to his favorite pizza joint.
Both Jim Moritas, senior as well as junior, believed in healthy food choices so pizza was a bit of a luxury food only for special occasions.
He didn't feel like he had added seven years onto his old age from his past life if he was being honest with himself. Which kind of made sense when he thought about it, reliving the brain chemistry and experiences of childhood multiple times wouldn't really have any reason to cause a one for one addition of maturity. Thus he felt as if he was somewhere between his old age and his current age, primarily because puberty hadn't quite hit so hard yet. Oh it had started frustratingly enough, but not by much. No crazy hormones yet, just some armpit hair.
Of course as he was getting out of the subway after chatting with his friend Liz Toomes for a few stops a giant hole had to open up in the sky and aliens had to start flooding through.
And it was one thing to intellectually know aliens existed, Shirou had known this since he read the description for being an Inhuman before his reincarnation had fully processed.
It was quite another thing to have a swarm of them flying in your general direction firing laser guns and for you to not have any of your preferred means to defend yourself.
Ducking for cover back down the stairs Shirou really wished he had at least access to a few weapons.
And as dust and concrete were kicked up by lasers striking uncomfortably close, Shirou thought to himself that he would quite possibly kill for access to Rho Aias.
There was screaming, so much screaming. People were screaming in fear, in pain, in anger.
He froze up, it wasn't like him, not in his old life, but it had been over seven years for his mind to get used to a much softer life than he had lived, and died in, during the Grail War.
He had thought he would have more time. He had thought he would be prepared. He didn't even have a taser or a kendo stick to fight with. His powers were nowhere to be found. Magical Circuits didn't seem to be how magic worked here, he knew he had tried to force some open and nothing had hap-
His train of frantic and panicked thought was cut off when he heard a child crying out in pain and fear. He stood up, partially out of the stairs down into the subway and saw, not thirty yards away, a young darker-skinned girl, who couldn't be more than two or three years younger than Shirou, was trying to push herself up off the ground holding a hand to her bleeding temple.
Suddenly, and thankfully, years of older ingrained instincts finally took over and Shirou was running over to help her up.
"Can you stand?" he asked as he, agonizingly slowly in this situation, pulled her to her feet.
She looked up at him and frowned and then pointed to her ear with her free hand and started to...sign! She was signing at him, one handed because she was still trying to staunch the blood flow with her other one.
While it wasn't one of the languages Shirou had picked at character creation, he had actually after establishing himself as a 'prodigy' tried to learn a few the honest way and really only some decent American Sign Language had stuck.
So quickly he told her to hold onto him and he would get them to safety. Or at least he thought he'd done that sequence right, she seemed to nod and accept it at least.
Unfortunately helping a nine year old girl limp thirty yards was much more difficult than running that distance and around when they were halfway back to the subway entrance he heard something behind them and turned his head only to see an alien on some kind of hovering vehicle bearing down on them.
"Get down!" He thoughtlessly yelled while pushing the girl back onto the ground and dropping to cover her with his own body.
However as he closed his eyes ready to die, Shirou was sure that that higher power would be quite put out with him for dying before things could get 'interesting', his E-rank luck actually took a turn for the better for once.
Instead of being disintegrated he heard a mighty clang as the energy bolt struck something else instead.
Opening his eyes and turning around he saw a figure out of his grandfather's war stories standing before him in all of his star-spangled glory.
Captain America himself sent his shield soaring into the alien, knocking it off its speeder, and then ricocheting back into his hands.
"Are you alright, son?" The man said, slowly turning around.
"I can cover you as you get the girl back into shelter! But we have to move if you can,"
"J-" Shirou really was floored and acting out of sorts, this was one of the few men of this world he had heard of that he could call a true hero, "My grandfather, Jim Morita was a Howling Commando!" he finally stammered out as he helped the hearing impaired girl back to her feet.
This took the man aback for a second, "Jim's still around?"
This pause, as well as Captain America turning to look at him more closely, gave Shirou an opening to see the famous shield in all its glory.
And something inside him clicked. The stress, the danger, the near death experience, and finally the exposure to a weapon of great history and power had finally flipped a switch inside of him.
Suddenly just by looking at it he could sense the history radiating off of it, and he reached out and gently brushed a finger over it, "Wow," was all Shirou could gasp as his mind was temporarily flooded with the shield's psychometric memories.
Steve Rogers however, misunderstood, "Son, I know you're in a bit of shock right now, but we need to get you and the girl to safety, I'll come see Jim after this is all over, copy?"
The authoritative and military tone, one often used by his grandfather when he was visiting and Shirou was lacking in discipline, snapped him back to the present.
"Sorry, yes, of course!" Stammering again, he felt it was so unlike himself, but he had seen that shield's entire history just then and was in awe of some of the images and impressions he had whirling around his mind.
The Red Skull. The Cube, no the Tesseract. The Hulk, Iron Man, THOR, there were gods here as well! Or perhaps just more aliens? It was all jumbled and, he was spacing out again so instead Shirou shook his head and helped the girl stand up once more and Captain America led them safely to the subway once more.
After a few minutes of telling them to stay down and stay safe, Captain America left once more, but Shirou's mind was still reeling.
Huddled down in the subway with the girl and ten other survivors, Shirou sat, and waited for the professionals to finish their jobs.
And it grated on him every second of it.
Until an explosion jostled the walls of the subway tunnel and a few of the survivors screamed out in shock or fear, attracting the attention of the two wounded aliens whose speeders had just been shot out of the air by Hawkeye.
They seemed to have lost their main weapons at least, but it didn't stop them from having a wicked long and jagged dagger of space metal drawn as they entered the subway searching for easy pickings.
A few of the survivors shouted and ran further into the subway, but unfortunately many of them were injured and couldn't flee.
"Leave now!" Shirou stood and shouted at the two aliens, while strafing the group of survivors in a way that the aliens wouldn't be focused on them as they looked at him.
The creatures seemed to let off gurgling chuckles at his statement, whether they understood his words or just his tone was not too important to Shirou at the moment however, because he was shifting into a combat stance.
"If you want to get to them, you will be coming through me! I froze up earlier and that was unacceptable. I don't mind losing to someone, but I refuse to lose to myself!"
They definitely understood the tone, Shirou mused to himself as one snarled and lunged at him.
He was able to deftly grab the alien's wrist and twist and slam the creature into one of the tunnel's support pillars, stunning it for the moment.
But the other one hadn't been far behind, and as Shirou turned to face the creature he realized he was too late for a proper disarming or disengaging maneuver. The alien's dagger was less than a foot away and as Shirou realized this time felt like it slowed to a crawl.
A strange feeling, both familiar and new, overcame him and he found his voice screaming, "I AM THE BONE OF MY SWORD!" as an unadorned and silver version of Captain America's shield formed in place upon his arm and he deflected the dagger with a ring.
He could feel it again. It was just a drop from the ocean, but he could feel something akin to his Reality Marble.
There was something inside of him, and that thing inside of him had a Shield, it had The Shield.
It wasn't a Sword. But he was using something instead of Od now, and his Unlimited Blade Works both were and were not a Reality Marble simultaneously.
A swift kick told him the aliens were too well armored for hand to hand, so he slowly backed away with every blow, leading it into a trap.
And every blow he blocked led to him blocking the next one better. It was not quite the instantaneous proficiency he was used to, but it was as if he was slowly assimilating the psychometric memories he had gained about how the weapon was meant to be used.
Normally he should have been able to immediately use the shield almost as well as the Captain, but as he was now just blocking properly was a small miracle, needless to say he had not felt the non-existent shield-jutsu was a martial art he needed to invent before now.
But he was growing in the moment, and was just barely prepared when the second alien regained its bearings and charged back in.
Honestly the timing could not have been more perfect.
He felt he understood The Shield just enough to pull this final trick off.
Because in a way he was lucky that this was the first weapon he traced into his mutant power version of Unlimited Blade Works.
Because this was The Shield, it was a perfect embodiment of everything a shield could be without being magical. The alloy, vibranium apparently, was the perfect material for a shield, dispersing and absorbing energy and vibrations, and it was perfectly aerodynamic.
So as the two aliens charged him he surprised them by leaping forward in a soccer slide and chucking the shield at the pillar he had previously sent the alien into.
The shield ricocheted off and slammed into the backs of the bunched of aliens and sent them flying out over the subway tracks and onto the third rail, electrocuting and killing them as he let the shield disperse out of existence.
All in all Shirou felt that his first experience with his mutant power had turned out quite well.
It wasn't a sword, but it would do.
For example today was his twelfth birthday and he was really looking forward to getting home and doing some light karate practice with his grandfather while they waited for his father to get home from after school grading and then going out to his favorite pizza joint.
Both Jim Moritas, senior as well as junior, believed in healthy food choices so pizza was a bit of a luxury food only for special occasions.
He didn't feel like he had added seven years onto his old age from his past life if he was being honest with himself. Which kind of made sense when he thought about it, reliving the brain chemistry and experiences of childhood multiple times wouldn't really have any reason to cause a one for one addition of maturity. Thus he felt as if he was somewhere between his old age and his current age, primarily because puberty hadn't quite hit so hard yet. Oh it had started frustratingly enough, but not by much. No crazy hormones yet, just some armpit hair.
Of course as he was getting out of the subway after chatting with his friend Liz Toomes for a few stops a giant hole had to open up in the sky and aliens had to start flooding through.
And it was one thing to intellectually know aliens existed, Shirou had known this since he read the description for being an Inhuman before his reincarnation had fully processed.
It was quite another thing to have a swarm of them flying in your general direction firing laser guns and for you to not have any of your preferred means to defend yourself.
Ducking for cover back down the stairs Shirou really wished he had at least access to a few weapons.
And as dust and concrete were kicked up by lasers striking uncomfortably close, Shirou thought to himself that he would quite possibly kill for access to Rho Aias.
There was screaming, so much screaming. People were screaming in fear, in pain, in anger.
He froze up, it wasn't like him, not in his old life, but it had been over seven years for his mind to get used to a much softer life than he had lived, and died in, during the Grail War.
He had thought he would have more time. He had thought he would be prepared. He didn't even have a taser or a kendo stick to fight with. His powers were nowhere to be found. Magical Circuits didn't seem to be how magic worked here, he knew he had tried to force some open and nothing had hap-
His train of frantic and panicked thought was cut off when he heard a child crying out in pain and fear. He stood up, partially out of the stairs down into the subway and saw, not thirty yards away, a young darker-skinned girl, who couldn't be more than two or three years younger than Shirou, was trying to push herself up off the ground holding a hand to her bleeding temple.
Suddenly, and thankfully, years of older ingrained instincts finally took over and Shirou was running over to help her up.
"Can you stand?" he asked as he, agonizingly slowly in this situation, pulled her to her feet.
She looked up at him and frowned and then pointed to her ear with her free hand and started to...sign! She was signing at him, one handed because she was still trying to staunch the blood flow with her other one.
While it wasn't one of the languages Shirou had picked at character creation, he had actually after establishing himself as a 'prodigy' tried to learn a few the honest way and really only some decent American Sign Language had stuck.
So quickly he told her to hold onto him and he would get them to safety. Or at least he thought he'd done that sequence right, she seemed to nod and accept it at least.
Unfortunately helping a nine year old girl limp thirty yards was much more difficult than running that distance and around when they were halfway back to the subway entrance he heard something behind them and turned his head only to see an alien on some kind of hovering vehicle bearing down on them.
"Get down!" He thoughtlessly yelled while pushing the girl back onto the ground and dropping to cover her with his own body.
However as he closed his eyes ready to die, Shirou was sure that that higher power would be quite put out with him for dying before things could get 'interesting', his E-rank luck actually took a turn for the better for once.
Instead of being disintegrated he heard a mighty clang as the energy bolt struck something else instead.
Opening his eyes and turning around he saw a figure out of his grandfather's war stories standing before him in all of his star-spangled glory.
Captain America himself sent his shield soaring into the alien, knocking it off its speeder, and then ricocheting back into his hands.
"Are you alright, son?" The man said, slowly turning around.
"I can cover you as you get the girl back into shelter! But we have to move if you can,"
"J-" Shirou really was floored and acting out of sorts, this was one of the few men of this world he had heard of that he could call a true hero, "My grandfather, Jim Morita was a Howling Commando!" he finally stammered out as he helped the hearing impaired girl back to her feet.
This took the man aback for a second, "Jim's still around?"
This pause, as well as Captain America turning to look at him more closely, gave Shirou an opening to see the famous shield in all its glory.
And something inside him clicked. The stress, the danger, the near death experience, and finally the exposure to a weapon of great history and power had finally flipped a switch inside of him.
Suddenly just by looking at it he could sense the history radiating off of it, and he reached out and gently brushed a finger over it, "Wow," was all Shirou could gasp as his mind was temporarily flooded with the shield's psychometric memories.
Steve Rogers however, misunderstood, "Son, I know you're in a bit of shock right now, but we need to get you and the girl to safety, I'll come see Jim after this is all over, copy?"
The authoritative and military tone, one often used by his grandfather when he was visiting and Shirou was lacking in discipline, snapped him back to the present.
"Sorry, yes, of course!" Stammering again, he felt it was so unlike himself, but he had seen that shield's entire history just then and was in awe of some of the images and impressions he had whirling around his mind.
The Red Skull. The Cube, no the Tesseract. The Hulk, Iron Man, THOR, there were gods here as well! Or perhaps just more aliens? It was all jumbled and, he was spacing out again so instead Shirou shook his head and helped the girl stand up once more and Captain America led them safely to the subway once more.
After a few minutes of telling them to stay down and stay safe, Captain America left once more, but Shirou's mind was still reeling.
Huddled down in the subway with the girl and ten other survivors, Shirou sat, and waited for the professionals to finish their jobs.
And it grated on him every second of it.
Until an explosion jostled the walls of the subway tunnel and a few of the survivors screamed out in shock or fear, attracting the attention of the two wounded aliens whose speeders had just been shot out of the air by Hawkeye.
They seemed to have lost their main weapons at least, but it didn't stop them from having a wicked long and jagged dagger of space metal drawn as they entered the subway searching for easy pickings.
A few of the survivors shouted and ran further into the subway, but unfortunately many of them were injured and couldn't flee.
"Leave now!" Shirou stood and shouted at the two aliens, while strafing the group of survivors in a way that the aliens wouldn't be focused on them as they looked at him.
The creatures seemed to let off gurgling chuckles at his statement, whether they understood his words or just his tone was not too important to Shirou at the moment however, because he was shifting into a combat stance.
"If you want to get to them, you will be coming through me! I froze up earlier and that was unacceptable. I don't mind losing to someone, but I refuse to lose to myself!"
They definitely understood the tone, Shirou mused to himself as one snarled and lunged at him.
He was able to deftly grab the alien's wrist and twist and slam the creature into one of the tunnel's support pillars, stunning it for the moment.
But the other one hadn't been far behind, and as Shirou turned to face the creature he realized he was too late for a proper disarming or disengaging maneuver. The alien's dagger was less than a foot away and as Shirou realized this time felt like it slowed to a crawl.
A strange feeling, both familiar and new, overcame him and he found his voice screaming, "I AM THE BONE OF MY SWORD!" as an unadorned and silver version of Captain America's shield formed in place upon his arm and he deflected the dagger with a ring.
He could feel it again. It was just a drop from the ocean, but he could feel something akin to his Reality Marble.
There was something inside of him, and that thing inside of him had a Shield, it had The Shield.
It wasn't a Sword. But he was using something instead of Od now, and his Unlimited Blade Works both were and were not a Reality Marble simultaneously.
A swift kick told him the aliens were too well armored for hand to hand, so he slowly backed away with every blow, leading it into a trap.
And every blow he blocked led to him blocking the next one better. It was not quite the instantaneous proficiency he was used to, but it was as if he was slowly assimilating the psychometric memories he had gained about how the weapon was meant to be used.
Normally he should have been able to immediately use the shield almost as well as the Captain, but as he was now just blocking properly was a small miracle, needless to say he had not felt the non-existent shield-jutsu was a martial art he needed to invent before now.
But he was growing in the moment, and was just barely prepared when the second alien regained its bearings and charged back in.
Honestly the timing could not have been more perfect.
He felt he understood The Shield just enough to pull this final trick off.
Because in a way he was lucky that this was the first weapon he traced into his mutant power version of Unlimited Blade Works.
Because this was The Shield, it was a perfect embodiment of everything a shield could be without being magical. The alloy, vibranium apparently, was the perfect material for a shield, dispersing and absorbing energy and vibrations, and it was perfectly aerodynamic.
So as the two aliens charged him he surprised them by leaping forward in a soccer slide and chucking the shield at the pillar he had previously sent the alien into.
The shield ricocheted off and slammed into the backs of the bunched of aliens and sent them flying out over the subway tracks and onto the third rail, electrocuting and killing them as he let the shield disperse out of existence.
All in all Shirou felt that his first experience with his mutant power had turned out quite well.
It wasn't a sword, but it would do.
Reunion
karmaepsilon
Getting out there.
- Joined
- Jul 10, 2024
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"Jim!" Captain America, or Shirou supposed, Steve Rogers in his civilian clothes, exclaimed happily as he was invited in their door a few days after the Invasion.
"It is good to see you, old friend!" Shirou's grandfather seemed genuinely happy, without any of the bittersweet edge his brief moments of happiness typically held.
He likely feels taken back to a simpler time, when he was younger, Shirou thought to himself.
Shirou and his father let the two old war buddies catch up as they all made their way to the living room. Jim Morita Jr was also grinning like a lunatic, likely from a combination of seeing his dour father so happy and also meeting a childhood hero. Because how could you have grown up the son of a Howling Commando and not have worshipped Captain America?
"Who else is still around?" Steve questioned as they settled into some sitting chairs.
The elderly man sighed, "Not many, Steve. I know Gabe went back to Macon and is still around. Retired after a few terms as a senator in the seventies and eighties. Happy Sam did some work with the SSR but got a medical discharge and pension after losing his leg in the Cold War-" At that he paused and raised his eyebrow.
"Have you caught up on the last few decades?" At Steve's nod he continued, "I know Pinky got knighted and worked for the SSR as well. Last I heard he had retired somewhere outside of London."
Jim scratched his scraggly white beard, "James dropped off the map entirely in the seventies, but I never found an obituary, missing persons report, or a John Doe with claws."
Before they could continue Shirou interrupted, "I'm sorry, Grandfather, but did you say claws?"
The old man looked over at his grandson and shrugged his shoulders, "I suppose I did omit that in my stories, you see these...Avengers are not the first time people with extraordinary powers have revealed themselves. Though this is on a much grander scale. During the World War there were many such individuals. Some got their power from strange artifacts, some weren't quite human, and well...James said his claws just popped out one day when he was a kid and it appeared that he could not be killed either."
Steve nodded along, "I once saw Howlett take a howitzer round, I was certain he was dead, and then his body just stitched itself up and he ran over and threw a grenade down the barrel. One of the craziest things I've seen, including the aliens last week."
The youngest man in the room chewed on his lip for a moment before making a decision, "So there are people who can develop strange and unusual powers, seemingly naturally, that appear when they are...let's say teenagers or young adults?"
"I'm not really sure-" Steve began but then seemingly he had a second thought, "Actually...Jim do you remember that young man we rescued from the camps right before I went into the ice?"
The elder Morita's eyes opened wide, "The boy with the magnet powers? Yes!"
"It's definitely more than just James then, could be a slightly wider pattern." The super soldier theorized.
"It absolutely is," Shirou responded, then he looked at everyone in the room one by one, "I...may have excluded something that happened during the Invasion. I was able to fight off two of the aliens that broke into the subway, because I had a power appear."
As their eyes widened in surprise, Shirou summoned one of the alien's strange daggers before any of them could truly respond.
"Sh-Shirou!" His father cried out, "That's dangerous, put that away!"
But Senior raised a hand, "Wait, what did you just do? What can you do?"
Shirou's head shifted back and forth as he thought up a proper explanation.
"Well...I think I can sort of...read a weapon's history and composition by touching it? So far it's only worked with things I would call battle equipment at least. And then I guess I can recreate it later, somehow. I actually don't know what the copies are made out of. I seem to be able to very quickly learn a weapon that I've analyzed though. I was able to quickly learn a new weapon well enough to knock two of those aliens onto the subway tracks, the third rail did the rest."
"Fascinating…" Steve whispered before looking up at him, "Is it really any weapon?"
Shirou shook his head, "I haven't pulled it off with anything with mechanical or moving parts. The analysis works okay, but I couldn't recreate one of those alien guns that I could tell."
"Would you be willing to try it out on my shield?" The offer was so sincere and genuine that Shirou felt bad and flushed a bit.
"Ah...that's actually what triggered my powers." He banished the dagger and summoned his unadorned version of the shield on his arm.
The Avengers' eyes went wide and he turned to Shirou's father and grandfather, "Now I don't think he should run around doing anything with this power at his age, but I would feel more comfortable if he knew how to use the objects he can summon."
Shirou's father looked uncertain but his grandfather had his face set in a grim and serious expression, "Jim," He spoke to his son, "I believe we should let Steve work with Shirou, this is just like the martial arts. He needs to be disciplined in his control of himself. And learning from the best man I've ever known is certainly no poor way to do it."
Eventually Junior relented and turned to his son, "You have to promise us that not only will you not use these powers outside of extreme self-defense, but that you also will not go looking for trouble that would force you to defend yourself, okay?"
Shirou rubbed the back of his head, his dad had called him on that one, "I can promise I won't look for trouble until I'm old enough to handle it at least?"
His father rested his face in his palms in exasperation, "Eighteen?"
Shirou sighed and then put a stern face on, "I'll do my best to honor that, Father."
"That's all that we can ask, I suppose."
And thus Shirou added to his weekly schedule visiting Steve Rogers at a rundown boxing gym that apparently SHIELD had leased out for Steve to train and readjust to modern times when he first defrosted.
They mostly worked on Shirou bouncing the shield off of dummies and punching bags and getting acrobatic enough to perform some of the maneuvers Steve preferred.
It was three sessions in when Steve, after tossing a water bottle over to him during one of their breaks, noted to Shirou, "I think your powers have some sort of physical augmentation as well. I'm not sure whether it's a normal improvement with all people who develop powers this way, because even that young boy Erik, that we rescued from the camps seemed in much better physical condition than he should have been, or if it is a separate part of your power in particular. Perhaps your power is strengthening your body closer to what the weapons' memories that you described feeling remember their previous wielders being?"
Well...that honestly felt like exactly what Reinforcement was expressing itself like in this life. The kendo stick I had Traced didn't make me feel any different than usual. Nor did the boxing gloves, nunchaku, sai, or the bo staff.
But the Chitauri side dagger? The longer I had that in hand the stronger and faster I got. But it had nothing on the shield. And after training with Captain America these last few sessions...I could tell that I was supposed to feel even stronger and just overall better if that was where the construct was pulling me.
The strength did not appear to stay around very long after the weapon dispersed however, and both body and non-summoned object Reinforcement appeared to be much more difficult than I remembered from my past life.
At their next session Shirou really decided to put this to the test.
"I'm not sure I am comfortable sparring, even lightly, with a twelve year-old, Shirou." Steve responded sternly to his request.
"I'm not a normal twelve year-old, Cap!" Steve had started letting him use that nickname for him at their second session. Shirou liked it. He liked working with a real hero.
"I still think it's too dangerous...however I may have a compromise." With that Steve turned around and walked into one of the back storage areas.
After some rummaging around he returned with some low weight medicine balls, "How about something more substantial than tennis balls for defensive training?"
Shirou nodded eagerly, "I guess I can agree to that!" He summoned the shield, no longer needing his mantra in this life with the source of his powers being changed, "I can take anything you can throw at m-"
With a yelp Shirou rolled backwards in an improvised somersault to dodge a medicine ball that had gone straight for his face.
"Less talking! More focus!" Captain America called out, throwing another one.
Shirou jumped, rolled, blocked, and even used the shield to ricochet a few back at good angles over the next hour. Until he got overconfident and attempted to do something showy.
His goal had been to do a kickflip off of one of the boxing ring posts and knock the ball back towards Cap while mid-air and stick the landing.
Unfortunately he mistimed it. And while one of the medicine balls thrown by a normal human wouldn't have broken through his Reinforcement, Captain America had also slowly been cranking up the heat on the speed and power behind his throws.
Snap! "Oof!"
And with a thump Shirou fell to the ground on his back, the shield dispersing, and his hand coming up to clutch his shoulder.
"Kid!" Steve called out, running over, "Jim's never going to let me hear the end of this…"
"I'm fine! Cracked clavicle, I think." Shirou explained, "I've had worse from karate, broke my foot once, they won't be mad. I'm just mad at myself."
"Yes," Steve replied, "You weren't quite ready for that, come on let's get you in a sling and get you home. You might need to go to a doctor after though."
Shirou tried to protest as Steve picked him up to get him to the rental car that SHIELD had given him for extra transportation, "No, you should keep pretty still, kid."
Shirou sighed and resigned himself to a boring ride home. And probably some lecturing.
I'm not twelve, the lectures are frustrating, Shirou thought to himself as they pulled up.
However, as they got out of Steve's car they found an odd group of people about to knock on the Morita family door.
"James?" Steve gasped out at he seemingly recognized one of the people.
A short man with wild hair and mutton chops turned around.
"Who the fuck is James?"
"It is good to see you, old friend!" Shirou's grandfather seemed genuinely happy, without any of the bittersweet edge his brief moments of happiness typically held.
He likely feels taken back to a simpler time, when he was younger, Shirou thought to himself.
Shirou and his father let the two old war buddies catch up as they all made their way to the living room. Jim Morita Jr was also grinning like a lunatic, likely from a combination of seeing his dour father so happy and also meeting a childhood hero. Because how could you have grown up the son of a Howling Commando and not have worshipped Captain America?
"Who else is still around?" Steve questioned as they settled into some sitting chairs.
The elderly man sighed, "Not many, Steve. I know Gabe went back to Macon and is still around. Retired after a few terms as a senator in the seventies and eighties. Happy Sam did some work with the SSR but got a medical discharge and pension after losing his leg in the Cold War-" At that he paused and raised his eyebrow.
"Have you caught up on the last few decades?" At Steve's nod he continued, "I know Pinky got knighted and worked for the SSR as well. Last I heard he had retired somewhere outside of London."
Jim scratched his scraggly white beard, "James dropped off the map entirely in the seventies, but I never found an obituary, missing persons report, or a John Doe with claws."
Before they could continue Shirou interrupted, "I'm sorry, Grandfather, but did you say claws?"
The old man looked over at his grandson and shrugged his shoulders, "I suppose I did omit that in my stories, you see these...Avengers are not the first time people with extraordinary powers have revealed themselves. Though this is on a much grander scale. During the World War there were many such individuals. Some got their power from strange artifacts, some weren't quite human, and well...James said his claws just popped out one day when he was a kid and it appeared that he could not be killed either."
Steve nodded along, "I once saw Howlett take a howitzer round, I was certain he was dead, and then his body just stitched itself up and he ran over and threw a grenade down the barrel. One of the craziest things I've seen, including the aliens last week."
The youngest man in the room chewed on his lip for a moment before making a decision, "So there are people who can develop strange and unusual powers, seemingly naturally, that appear when they are...let's say teenagers or young adults?"
"I'm not really sure-" Steve began but then seemingly he had a second thought, "Actually...Jim do you remember that young man we rescued from the camps right before I went into the ice?"
The elder Morita's eyes opened wide, "The boy with the magnet powers? Yes!"
"It's definitely more than just James then, could be a slightly wider pattern." The super soldier theorized.
"It absolutely is," Shirou responded, then he looked at everyone in the room one by one, "I...may have excluded something that happened during the Invasion. I was able to fight off two of the aliens that broke into the subway, because I had a power appear."
As their eyes widened in surprise, Shirou summoned one of the alien's strange daggers before any of them could truly respond.
"Sh-Shirou!" His father cried out, "That's dangerous, put that away!"
But Senior raised a hand, "Wait, what did you just do? What can you do?"
Shirou's head shifted back and forth as he thought up a proper explanation.
"Well...I think I can sort of...read a weapon's history and composition by touching it? So far it's only worked with things I would call battle equipment at least. And then I guess I can recreate it later, somehow. I actually don't know what the copies are made out of. I seem to be able to very quickly learn a weapon that I've analyzed though. I was able to quickly learn a new weapon well enough to knock two of those aliens onto the subway tracks, the third rail did the rest."
"Fascinating…" Steve whispered before looking up at him, "Is it really any weapon?"
Shirou shook his head, "I haven't pulled it off with anything with mechanical or moving parts. The analysis works okay, but I couldn't recreate one of those alien guns that I could tell."
"Would you be willing to try it out on my shield?" The offer was so sincere and genuine that Shirou felt bad and flushed a bit.
"Ah...that's actually what triggered my powers." He banished the dagger and summoned his unadorned version of the shield on his arm.
The Avengers' eyes went wide and he turned to Shirou's father and grandfather, "Now I don't think he should run around doing anything with this power at his age, but I would feel more comfortable if he knew how to use the objects he can summon."
Shirou's father looked uncertain but his grandfather had his face set in a grim and serious expression, "Jim," He spoke to his son, "I believe we should let Steve work with Shirou, this is just like the martial arts. He needs to be disciplined in his control of himself. And learning from the best man I've ever known is certainly no poor way to do it."
Eventually Junior relented and turned to his son, "You have to promise us that not only will you not use these powers outside of extreme self-defense, but that you also will not go looking for trouble that would force you to defend yourself, okay?"
Shirou rubbed the back of his head, his dad had called him on that one, "I can promise I won't look for trouble until I'm old enough to handle it at least?"
His father rested his face in his palms in exasperation, "Eighteen?"
Shirou sighed and then put a stern face on, "I'll do my best to honor that, Father."
"That's all that we can ask, I suppose."
And thus Shirou added to his weekly schedule visiting Steve Rogers at a rundown boxing gym that apparently SHIELD had leased out for Steve to train and readjust to modern times when he first defrosted.
They mostly worked on Shirou bouncing the shield off of dummies and punching bags and getting acrobatic enough to perform some of the maneuvers Steve preferred.
It was three sessions in when Steve, after tossing a water bottle over to him during one of their breaks, noted to Shirou, "I think your powers have some sort of physical augmentation as well. I'm not sure whether it's a normal improvement with all people who develop powers this way, because even that young boy Erik, that we rescued from the camps seemed in much better physical condition than he should have been, or if it is a separate part of your power in particular. Perhaps your power is strengthening your body closer to what the weapons' memories that you described feeling remember their previous wielders being?"
Well...that honestly felt like exactly what Reinforcement was expressing itself like in this life. The kendo stick I had Traced didn't make me feel any different than usual. Nor did the boxing gloves, nunchaku, sai, or the bo staff.
But the Chitauri side dagger? The longer I had that in hand the stronger and faster I got. But it had nothing on the shield. And after training with Captain America these last few sessions...I could tell that I was supposed to feel even stronger and just overall better if that was where the construct was pulling me.
The strength did not appear to stay around very long after the weapon dispersed however, and both body and non-summoned object Reinforcement appeared to be much more difficult than I remembered from my past life.
At their next session Shirou really decided to put this to the test.
"I'm not sure I am comfortable sparring, even lightly, with a twelve year-old, Shirou." Steve responded sternly to his request.
"I'm not a normal twelve year-old, Cap!" Steve had started letting him use that nickname for him at their second session. Shirou liked it. He liked working with a real hero.
"I still think it's too dangerous...however I may have a compromise." With that Steve turned around and walked into one of the back storage areas.
After some rummaging around he returned with some low weight medicine balls, "How about something more substantial than tennis balls for defensive training?"
Shirou nodded eagerly, "I guess I can agree to that!" He summoned the shield, no longer needing his mantra in this life with the source of his powers being changed, "I can take anything you can throw at m-"
With a yelp Shirou rolled backwards in an improvised somersault to dodge a medicine ball that had gone straight for his face.
"Less talking! More focus!" Captain America called out, throwing another one.
Shirou jumped, rolled, blocked, and even used the shield to ricochet a few back at good angles over the next hour. Until he got overconfident and attempted to do something showy.
His goal had been to do a kickflip off of one of the boxing ring posts and knock the ball back towards Cap while mid-air and stick the landing.
Unfortunately he mistimed it. And while one of the medicine balls thrown by a normal human wouldn't have broken through his Reinforcement, Captain America had also slowly been cranking up the heat on the speed and power behind his throws.
Snap! "Oof!"
And with a thump Shirou fell to the ground on his back, the shield dispersing, and his hand coming up to clutch his shoulder.
"Kid!" Steve called out, running over, "Jim's never going to let me hear the end of this…"
"I'm fine! Cracked clavicle, I think." Shirou explained, "I've had worse from karate, broke my foot once, they won't be mad. I'm just mad at myself."
"Yes," Steve replied, "You weren't quite ready for that, come on let's get you in a sling and get you home. You might need to go to a doctor after though."
Shirou tried to protest as Steve picked him up to get him to the rental car that SHIELD had given him for extra transportation, "No, you should keep pretty still, kid."
Shirou sighed and resigned himself to a boring ride home. And probably some lecturing.
I'm not twelve, the lectures are frustrating, Shirou thought to himself as they pulled up.
However, as they got out of Steve's car they found an odd group of people about to knock on the Morita family door.
"James?" Steve gasped out at he seemingly recognized one of the people.
A short man with wild hair and mutton chops turned around.
"Who the fuck is James?"
Relax
karmaepsilon
Getting out there.
- Joined
- Jul 10, 2024
- Messages
- 15
- Likes received
- 164
As if the situation could not have gotten more complicated, it was at that moment that Jim Jr opened the front door.
"Umm...can I help you people?" He asked, looking nervously at the odd group, before noticing Shirou and Steve behind them.
"Uh...are they friends of Steve's?" He directed towards Shirou.
As Shirou was shrugging, the man in the wheelchair spoke up, "Ah...we are here to speak with you about your son's...unique circumstances. Which from the presence of Captain Rogers I now assume you are at least passingly familiar with."
Feeling cautious but also fairly protected with Captain America right there Jim nodded, "Well I suppose everyone can come in. Would you mind staying too, Steve?"
The captain nodded and he and Shirou filed in after the wheelchair bound man, the rude man with the mutton chops he had thought was James, and a black woman with striking white hair.
After everyone, minus Jim Sr who was out at Bingo night, was settled into the living room, the bald man in the chair spoke up, "My name is Professor Charles Xavier, I run a boarding school for...gifted individuals like Shirou here. To help them learn to control and often hide their powers; but also to allow them to be around others such as themselves and aid in reducing any feelings of exclusion or loneliness they may otherwise feel in our society."
Jim, Shirou, and Steve chewed on that for a minute before Shirou turned to look at Steve, "So I guess you and grandfather were right. There's definitely more people out there than me, James, and that kid you guys saved from Auschwitz with these powers that spontaneously develop after childhood."
At that Charles's eyes sparked with recognition, "Yes, when we were associates in the past Erik did mention that he was liberated from his camp by Captain America. And Captain Rogers? You thought that our Logan here looked like this James fellow? Because you see, he has had some traumatic experiences and still has not recovered all of his memories."
"Well," Steve said, glancing over at the now named Logan, "Maybe he is a grandson. Because unless he has bone claws and could have fought in World War Two without aging-"
At that Logan held up a hand and popped out three metallic claws, "They used to be bone, far as I can tell. Before some suits got their hands on me and did summat to 'em. Plus we're pretty sure I don't age."
Steve blinked in confusion and then a grin spread across his face, "James Howlett it is you! You may not remember me but you were a member of the Howling Commandos with myself and even young Shirou's grandfather," He pointed over to the mantle, "You're even in that picture with us!"
Blinking, the short man walked over and picked up the picture frame, "I'll be damned, that's definitely me. I uh…'spose we can catch up later. The professor here has some actual business."
"So, you have a boarding school for...I guess these special kids?" Jim Jr questioned.
"We call ourselves Mutants, a divergent branch of human evolution. A small percentage of Homo Sapiens have something called the X-gene in their DNA. A Mutant is an even smaller percentage of that population in whom that gene has expressed itself. All kinds of exceptional abilities have been documented. Advanced healing, elemental control, and all types of psychic powers. Thus the questions become: what is your power young Shirou, what do you want to do with it, and do you want us to help?"
"Well I did some research on the folklore around similar powers," Shirou began, "From what we can tell I can psychometrically analyze objects and in the case of things that could be considered battle equipment I seem to be able to store a copy of the object and its memories in my mind and summon a copy at will."
With that he held out his arm and summoned the shield into place, "I also seem to become empowered by weapons that were wielded by individuals who were stronger than me. While I use the shield for example I get stronger and quicker, but when I use a kendo stick from my dojo nothing really happens in regards to that."
"Fascinating…" Professor Xavier said, looking closer at the object, "Is this?" He looked up at Steve, "This is a copy of your shield without the designs is it not?"
Steve nodded, "As I am also a friend of the family I have been training Shirou in how to use it to defend himself, and hopefully learn more about his powers."
"Wonderful," The professor stated, "With that all in mind I don't believe I will even need my powers to know what you wish to do with yours."
"Yeah...I...I want to follow Steve's example!" Shirou declared, "I plan to, once I'm old enough, be a hero of justice and save everyone that needs it!"
The X-men and Steve all noticed the steely determination in the young man's eyes, though his own father seemed oblivious to that declaration being more than a childish dream.
"And would you like our help with that?" Xavier pressed.
"I think so, yeah. But um...I don't know if I want to go away to boarding school? I mean I figure that's what a lot of kids do because their family might not be so understanding of their powers; but you can see that I am perfectly safe and happy here. And I'd also hate to give up on training with Captain America!"
Steepling his fingers the professor thought for a moment, "I believe they cancelled school for the rest of the year and just decided to use your existing grades for passing in the Boroughs?"
Shirou's father nodded, "Yes that is indeed the case. A pity, I had a few students who could have used the final exam to gain a letter grade."
"In that case...would young Shirou mind coming out and staying with us in the summers? Treat it as a kind of...Mutant summer camp, instead of boarding school?"
While Shirou was chewing on his lip considering what to do Steve chimed in, "If Professor Xavier would allow it I would be glad to visit occasionally to catch up with Ja-Logan here and perhaps do a training session or two."
"I shan't say no, but I will leave the final call up to Logan."
"Doesn' bother me any, might be nice to get a few bouts in in the Danger Room with the Cap anyways," He grinned viciously, "See how that shield goes up gainst the claws."
The young man relented, "Fine, fine! You guys have sold me on it. I'm actually pretty excited I was just worried about leaving my father and grandfather here. They're both grumpy and hopeless cooks, you know?"
"Hey! I can cook!"
"Dad, a frozen meal isn't cooking. That's...I don't know but it's not cooking."
Jim relented, "I still say I can cook, but you certainly do it better than I do, Shirou. But yes I say you should take this opportunity. But you can't ignore your summer work! The year before high school is very important if you want to get into Midtown!"
"Maybe I don't want to go to the same school my dad teaches at?"
His father let out a fake gasp, "You take that back! You're already a better electrical engineer than a lot of my senior students! The decathlon team needs you!"
Shirou rolled his eyes, "Right, so, when should I be ready?"
The professor chuckled at the family antics before responding, "It is currently Thursday. Would you mind if we came back on Saturday? Our students are still in classes thus that would be the best day to also introduce you to the students."
"I suppose we can have him ready by then," Jim responded.
After the X-men took their leave he turned to his son, "Are you really sure you want to do this Shirou? I won't stop you, but I wanted to make sure you weren't feeling pressured by them into this."
Nodding Shirou looked up at his father, "Yeah, I want to meet other people like me. See what they can do. Expand what I can do."
"Then I suppose you should make a list of what to pack!"
Shirou's Armory:
Vibranium Shield
Chitauri Dagger
"Umm...can I help you people?" He asked, looking nervously at the odd group, before noticing Shirou and Steve behind them.
"Uh...are they friends of Steve's?" He directed towards Shirou.
As Shirou was shrugging, the man in the wheelchair spoke up, "Ah...we are here to speak with you about your son's...unique circumstances. Which from the presence of Captain Rogers I now assume you are at least passingly familiar with."
Feeling cautious but also fairly protected with Captain America right there Jim nodded, "Well I suppose everyone can come in. Would you mind staying too, Steve?"
The captain nodded and he and Shirou filed in after the wheelchair bound man, the rude man with the mutton chops he had thought was James, and a black woman with striking white hair.
After everyone, minus Jim Sr who was out at Bingo night, was settled into the living room, the bald man in the chair spoke up, "My name is Professor Charles Xavier, I run a boarding school for...gifted individuals like Shirou here. To help them learn to control and often hide their powers; but also to allow them to be around others such as themselves and aid in reducing any feelings of exclusion or loneliness they may otherwise feel in our society."
Jim, Shirou, and Steve chewed on that for a minute before Shirou turned to look at Steve, "So I guess you and grandfather were right. There's definitely more people out there than me, James, and that kid you guys saved from Auschwitz with these powers that spontaneously develop after childhood."
At that Charles's eyes sparked with recognition, "Yes, when we were associates in the past Erik did mention that he was liberated from his camp by Captain America. And Captain Rogers? You thought that our Logan here looked like this James fellow? Because you see, he has had some traumatic experiences and still has not recovered all of his memories."
"Well," Steve said, glancing over at the now named Logan, "Maybe he is a grandson. Because unless he has bone claws and could have fought in World War Two without aging-"
At that Logan held up a hand and popped out three metallic claws, "They used to be bone, far as I can tell. Before some suits got their hands on me and did summat to 'em. Plus we're pretty sure I don't age."
Steve blinked in confusion and then a grin spread across his face, "James Howlett it is you! You may not remember me but you were a member of the Howling Commandos with myself and even young Shirou's grandfather," He pointed over to the mantle, "You're even in that picture with us!"
Blinking, the short man walked over and picked up the picture frame, "I'll be damned, that's definitely me. I uh…'spose we can catch up later. The professor here has some actual business."
"So, you have a boarding school for...I guess these special kids?" Jim Jr questioned.
"We call ourselves Mutants, a divergent branch of human evolution. A small percentage of Homo Sapiens have something called the X-gene in their DNA. A Mutant is an even smaller percentage of that population in whom that gene has expressed itself. All kinds of exceptional abilities have been documented. Advanced healing, elemental control, and all types of psychic powers. Thus the questions become: what is your power young Shirou, what do you want to do with it, and do you want us to help?"
"Well I did some research on the folklore around similar powers," Shirou began, "From what we can tell I can psychometrically analyze objects and in the case of things that could be considered battle equipment I seem to be able to store a copy of the object and its memories in my mind and summon a copy at will."
With that he held out his arm and summoned the shield into place, "I also seem to become empowered by weapons that were wielded by individuals who were stronger than me. While I use the shield for example I get stronger and quicker, but when I use a kendo stick from my dojo nothing really happens in regards to that."
"Fascinating…" Professor Xavier said, looking closer at the object, "Is this?" He looked up at Steve, "This is a copy of your shield without the designs is it not?"
Steve nodded, "As I am also a friend of the family I have been training Shirou in how to use it to defend himself, and hopefully learn more about his powers."
"Wonderful," The professor stated, "With that all in mind I don't believe I will even need my powers to know what you wish to do with yours."
"Yeah...I...I want to follow Steve's example!" Shirou declared, "I plan to, once I'm old enough, be a hero of justice and save everyone that needs it!"
The X-men and Steve all noticed the steely determination in the young man's eyes, though his own father seemed oblivious to that declaration being more than a childish dream.
"And would you like our help with that?" Xavier pressed.
"I think so, yeah. But um...I don't know if I want to go away to boarding school? I mean I figure that's what a lot of kids do because their family might not be so understanding of their powers; but you can see that I am perfectly safe and happy here. And I'd also hate to give up on training with Captain America!"
Steepling his fingers the professor thought for a moment, "I believe they cancelled school for the rest of the year and just decided to use your existing grades for passing in the Boroughs?"
Shirou's father nodded, "Yes that is indeed the case. A pity, I had a few students who could have used the final exam to gain a letter grade."
"In that case...would young Shirou mind coming out and staying with us in the summers? Treat it as a kind of...Mutant summer camp, instead of boarding school?"
While Shirou was chewing on his lip considering what to do Steve chimed in, "If Professor Xavier would allow it I would be glad to visit occasionally to catch up with Ja-Logan here and perhaps do a training session or two."
"I shan't say no, but I will leave the final call up to Logan."
"Doesn' bother me any, might be nice to get a few bouts in in the Danger Room with the Cap anyways," He grinned viciously, "See how that shield goes up gainst the claws."
The young man relented, "Fine, fine! You guys have sold me on it. I'm actually pretty excited I was just worried about leaving my father and grandfather here. They're both grumpy and hopeless cooks, you know?"
"Hey! I can cook!"
"Dad, a frozen meal isn't cooking. That's...I don't know but it's not cooking."
Jim relented, "I still say I can cook, but you certainly do it better than I do, Shirou. But yes I say you should take this opportunity. But you can't ignore your summer work! The year before high school is very important if you want to get into Midtown!"
"Maybe I don't want to go to the same school my dad teaches at?"
His father let out a fake gasp, "You take that back! You're already a better electrical engineer than a lot of my senior students! The decathlon team needs you!"
Shirou rolled his eyes, "Right, so, when should I be ready?"
The professor chuckled at the family antics before responding, "It is currently Thursday. Would you mind if we came back on Saturday? Our students are still in classes thus that would be the best day to also introduce you to the students."
"I suppose we can have him ready by then," Jim responded.
After the X-men took their leave he turned to his son, "Are you really sure you want to do this Shirou? I won't stop you, but I wanted to make sure you weren't feeling pressured by them into this."
Nodding Shirou looked up at his father, "Yeah, I want to meet other people like me. See what they can do. Expand what I can do."
"Then I suppose you should make a list of what to pack!"
Shirou's Armory:
Vibranium Shield
Chitauri Dagger
Summer Camp
karmaepsilon
Getting out there.
- Joined
- Jul 10, 2024
- Messages
- 15
- Likes received
- 164
There were not a lot of students younger than high school age when Shirou was given the tour of the School for Gifted Youngsters.
This made some sense, a lot of X-genes didn't trigger before the middle teenage years and of triggered Mutants younger than that, only ones who had unsafe home environments would come at those younger ages.
Furthermore, a lot of students did the exact opposite of Shirou. They went away for the school year and then went home for the summers to their families, who in many cases loved them but just didn't know how to help with their powers.
But children were curious creatures and after his tour he was quickly swept up into a board game with some of the other middle school aged students.
"I'm Hisako, and these are Eddie, Ruth, and Sam! We were about to start a game of Ticket to Ride and I think five players is the max, you want to join?" The Asian mutant had a slight accent that reminded Shirou of his great-aunt, Sakura, who still lived out in California, and her excitement for having another person to join the game caused Shirou to swiftly give in.
"Sure! I'm Shirou Morita, I guess it's obvious I'm new? I'm just going to be staying here in the summers."
The girl with the blindfold over her face, Ruth from the introductions, tilted her head, seemingly perceiving him somehow.
"Our powers feel…similar in some small way. What can you do?"
"Ruth! That's rude!" The blonde haired boy, Sam, next to her said, startled.
Shirou laughed while taking a seat himself, "I don't mind, I think what I do is pretty cool. When I touch weapons and similar objects I learn their history and store a copy of them in some kind of psychic storage and can summon them later."
Ruth's spine straightened up, "A type of psychometry! That's my strongest psychic power! I can do some other astral projection stuff, but psychometry is my strongest one!"
The newcomer was suitably impressed, "A whole suite of psychic powers? Like Mrs. Summers-Grey?"
Her head waggled back and forth indecisively, "Maybe? She thinks I could work on telekinesis and telepathy someday, but my strengths seem to be the more esotic…esoteric! That's the word Professor X used! The more esoteric psychic abilities."
Nodding Shirou turned his attention to everyone else, "So is it really rude to ask? Because I think finding out everyone's different powers is super interesting."
Hisako laughed, "Only if it's completely out of nowhere like Ruth did," she elbowed her friend in the side and then continued, "I can make psychic energy armor."
She pointed at Sam and he rolled his eyes and answered, "I do some weird energy stuff that turns me into a human cannonball."
Hisako's finger pointed to Eddie, the brunette boy, and he answered too, "I can just kind of fly? We haven't quite nailed down what method I'm using."
"Flying would be so cool, don't get me wrong I love summoning weapons and shields and all, but flying like a bird is just kind of everyone's random daydream!"
"Yeah! It's so peaceful up in the air!"
Seemingly the leader of the group, Hisako pulled them back on track, "Right right, anyways, let's get the game set up!"
It seemed that Shirou might be making his next set of friends.
He…was okay with that. A healthy childhood this time around had done a lot to rehabilitate the martyr complex and edginess of his first traumatized life. He'd safely downgraded to a hero complex. Who needs therapy when you have reincarnation?
That didn't mean he wasn't extremely excited for his training sessions with Steve and Wolverine in the Danger Room though.
Apparently Logan/James was a master of more weapons than just his claws. He was also perfectly willing to allow Shirou to utilize a veritable armory of swords, daggers, sai, and all sorts in their training sessions. Any used against him were blunted of course, but Shirou was told to use the real deal.
"Gotta get used to seeing blood if you're gonna swing a blade around, kid. Plus, we can handle it. You actually get a hit passed Cap's shield and I'll give you a medal. And me? Well Jim told you the story about the howitzer? I don't remember that one, but I've been blasted by one of those black ops prototype Sentinels that could have given Iron Man a run for his money in the seventies."
SHIELD must have done quite a number to keep giant death robots a secret, though, Shirou thought to himself, if they could do that what other crazy stuff had happened during the Cold War?
Doesn't matter! Shirou chastised himself as he deflected a blunted katana with one of his two sai he summoned. It's training time!
Power Ball was a popular activity when the teens and adolescents at the Institute wanted to 'let loose' so to speak. It took many forms, essentially it was any sport you wanted, but with the equipment reinforced to handle most super powers and anything goes except doing purposeful harm to your fellow players.
So one Friday afternoon saw Hisako, Sam, Eddie, and Ruth getting Shirou practiced with how he could use his abilities to supplement different sports.
The Power Basketball was…fine. He could summon the Shield for ricochet throws that deflected the ball around the court. It also supplemented his physique with Reinforcement.
But Power Baseball? That was where he was shining. He had great hand-eye coordination for both catching and pitching. But the best bit? Where his powers really made it unfair?
Shirou held the bat and looked at it oddly as his psychometry triggered, "Hey so…this is the same bat everyone uses pretty much?"
"Yeah," Sam answered, "It's stronger than my pappy's moonshine and expensive to boot! So we only have one in each size."
Shirou grinned, "So it's the same one Colossus uses when using his powers and playing?"
"Yes…" Sam trailed off suspiciously, "Why?"
The shit eating grin stayed, "No reason."
Trace. On. Shirou thought as he absorbed the memories of the bat.
Yeah, this would work.
"Just throw the damn ball, Sam!" Hisako called from the outfield.
"Language!" Shirou called back, causing everyone to roll their eyes. Except Ruth, she didn't have eyes.
Finally Sam threw an attempt at a fastball, but as the strength of both Colossus and Beast slowly built up through his connection to the bat, Shirou knew it wasn't fast enough.
Bam!
The bat cracked on the ball and sent it rocketing past the outfield faster than Eddie could fly up to try and catch it.
"Uh…" Ruth said from behind him as the catcher, "I didn't see that but it left my senses pretty fast. Is it even still on the school grounds?"
Shirou squinted into the distance where he had seen the ball moving, "Probably not…"
Discovering that the bat was enough of a weapon to trigger his ability had been exciting, even without that kind of immediate payoff.
"Hey, Sam?" Shirou inquired.
"Uh…yeah?" The boy was still staring dumbfounded into the distance as Shirou walked over to him.
"How do you know what your dad's moonshine tastes like?"
"Oh! Uncle Jimmy thought it would be funny to give me a taste when I was younger. It tasted so god awful I was sputtering like a fish outta water!"
He nodded in acknowledgement, "That makes sense I guess."
Shirou had, part way into his second week at the mansion, picked up a bit of a tag along.
The blonde seven year old in front of him happily babbled away in Russian as they sat at the counter in the kitchen sipping some lemonade and eating some cookies she had begged Shirou into making.
And Shirou responded in kind. English, Russian, Japanese, and Spanish were the four languages he'd gotten with the multilingual perk during his reincarnation. Admittedly as he already spoke Japanese and he had been passing English at the time of his death he felt he was a bit cheated with their inclusion, but the knowledge imparted was impeccable. He was pretty sure he knew more about the linguistic and calligraphic nuances of all four languages than some scholars.
That was why the young Illyana Rasputin had latched onto him so quickly when they met. Her older brother was Colossus, one of the leaders of the younger team of X-men, as most of the older generation were semi-retired as teachers. And while she'd been here in America for two years now, her English was still quite broken, so when she found someone she could talk to in Russian she leapt at the chance.
So now she followed him wherever he went unless her big brother managed to make time for her.
Shirou found he didn't mind, he'd never really been around much younger kids until this life, but he'd spent plenty of time working with the novice classes at the dojo. And he found he worked well with children.
And just like that the summer flew past. He spent time with his new friends: movie nights, sports, board games, even a few heavily supervised Danger Room sessions. He trained with Logan and Steve. And in general he just got to know a lot of people that were like him, special and different in this strange new world.
Well, not so new any longer, it had been about seven years since consciousness had struck him.
But August was coming to a close and school would be starting soon. His father said that eighth grade was going to be extra important so that he could get into the Midtown public science and tech charter school that he was now the principal of (formerly a teacher at). And admittedly with his friend Liz wanting to attend there as well he was just giving his dad a hard time when he joked about not wanting to go.
Not that any of the material was terribly difficult for Shirou.
Shirou's Armory (Only includes weapons with special properties):
Chitauri Dagger
Vibranium Shield
Heavily Reinforced Titanium Super Alloy Bat (referred to as Reinforced Bat in the future)
This made some sense, a lot of X-genes didn't trigger before the middle teenage years and of triggered Mutants younger than that, only ones who had unsafe home environments would come at those younger ages.
Furthermore, a lot of students did the exact opposite of Shirou. They went away for the school year and then went home for the summers to their families, who in many cases loved them but just didn't know how to help with their powers.
But children were curious creatures and after his tour he was quickly swept up into a board game with some of the other middle school aged students.
"I'm Hisako, and these are Eddie, Ruth, and Sam! We were about to start a game of Ticket to Ride and I think five players is the max, you want to join?" The Asian mutant had a slight accent that reminded Shirou of his great-aunt, Sakura, who still lived out in California, and her excitement for having another person to join the game caused Shirou to swiftly give in.
"Sure! I'm Shirou Morita, I guess it's obvious I'm new? I'm just going to be staying here in the summers."
The girl with the blindfold over her face, Ruth from the introductions, tilted her head, seemingly perceiving him somehow.
"Our powers feel…similar in some small way. What can you do?"
"Ruth! That's rude!" The blonde haired boy, Sam, next to her said, startled.
Shirou laughed while taking a seat himself, "I don't mind, I think what I do is pretty cool. When I touch weapons and similar objects I learn their history and store a copy of them in some kind of psychic storage and can summon them later."
Ruth's spine straightened up, "A type of psychometry! That's my strongest psychic power! I can do some other astral projection stuff, but psychometry is my strongest one!"
The newcomer was suitably impressed, "A whole suite of psychic powers? Like Mrs. Summers-Grey?"
Her head waggled back and forth indecisively, "Maybe? She thinks I could work on telekinesis and telepathy someday, but my strengths seem to be the more esotic…esoteric! That's the word Professor X used! The more esoteric psychic abilities."
Nodding Shirou turned his attention to everyone else, "So is it really rude to ask? Because I think finding out everyone's different powers is super interesting."
Hisako laughed, "Only if it's completely out of nowhere like Ruth did," she elbowed her friend in the side and then continued, "I can make psychic energy armor."
She pointed at Sam and he rolled his eyes and answered, "I do some weird energy stuff that turns me into a human cannonball."
Hisako's finger pointed to Eddie, the brunette boy, and he answered too, "I can just kind of fly? We haven't quite nailed down what method I'm using."
"Flying would be so cool, don't get me wrong I love summoning weapons and shields and all, but flying like a bird is just kind of everyone's random daydream!"
"Yeah! It's so peaceful up in the air!"
Seemingly the leader of the group, Hisako pulled them back on track, "Right right, anyways, let's get the game set up!"
It seemed that Shirou might be making his next set of friends.
He…was okay with that. A healthy childhood this time around had done a lot to rehabilitate the martyr complex and edginess of his first traumatized life. He'd safely downgraded to a hero complex. Who needs therapy when you have reincarnation?
That didn't mean he wasn't extremely excited for his training sessions with Steve and Wolverine in the Danger Room though.
Apparently Logan/James was a master of more weapons than just his claws. He was also perfectly willing to allow Shirou to utilize a veritable armory of swords, daggers, sai, and all sorts in their training sessions. Any used against him were blunted of course, but Shirou was told to use the real deal.
"Gotta get used to seeing blood if you're gonna swing a blade around, kid. Plus, we can handle it. You actually get a hit passed Cap's shield and I'll give you a medal. And me? Well Jim told you the story about the howitzer? I don't remember that one, but I've been blasted by one of those black ops prototype Sentinels that could have given Iron Man a run for his money in the seventies."
SHIELD must have done quite a number to keep giant death robots a secret, though, Shirou thought to himself, if they could do that what other crazy stuff had happened during the Cold War?
Doesn't matter! Shirou chastised himself as he deflected a blunted katana with one of his two sai he summoned. It's training time!
Power Ball was a popular activity when the teens and adolescents at the Institute wanted to 'let loose' so to speak. It took many forms, essentially it was any sport you wanted, but with the equipment reinforced to handle most super powers and anything goes except doing purposeful harm to your fellow players.
So one Friday afternoon saw Hisako, Sam, Eddie, and Ruth getting Shirou practiced with how he could use his abilities to supplement different sports.
The Power Basketball was…fine. He could summon the Shield for ricochet throws that deflected the ball around the court. It also supplemented his physique with Reinforcement.
But Power Baseball? That was where he was shining. He had great hand-eye coordination for both catching and pitching. But the best bit? Where his powers really made it unfair?
Shirou held the bat and looked at it oddly as his psychometry triggered, "Hey so…this is the same bat everyone uses pretty much?"
"Yeah," Sam answered, "It's stronger than my pappy's moonshine and expensive to boot! So we only have one in each size."
Shirou grinned, "So it's the same one Colossus uses when using his powers and playing?"
"Yes…" Sam trailed off suspiciously, "Why?"
The shit eating grin stayed, "No reason."
Trace. On. Shirou thought as he absorbed the memories of the bat.
Yeah, this would work.
"Just throw the damn ball, Sam!" Hisako called from the outfield.
"Language!" Shirou called back, causing everyone to roll their eyes. Except Ruth, she didn't have eyes.
Finally Sam threw an attempt at a fastball, but as the strength of both Colossus and Beast slowly built up through his connection to the bat, Shirou knew it wasn't fast enough.
Bam!
The bat cracked on the ball and sent it rocketing past the outfield faster than Eddie could fly up to try and catch it.
"Uh…" Ruth said from behind him as the catcher, "I didn't see that but it left my senses pretty fast. Is it even still on the school grounds?"
Shirou squinted into the distance where he had seen the ball moving, "Probably not…"
Discovering that the bat was enough of a weapon to trigger his ability had been exciting, even without that kind of immediate payoff.
"Hey, Sam?" Shirou inquired.
"Uh…yeah?" The boy was still staring dumbfounded into the distance as Shirou walked over to him.
"How do you know what your dad's moonshine tastes like?"
"Oh! Uncle Jimmy thought it would be funny to give me a taste when I was younger. It tasted so god awful I was sputtering like a fish outta water!"
He nodded in acknowledgement, "That makes sense I guess."
Shirou had, part way into his second week at the mansion, picked up a bit of a tag along.
The blonde seven year old in front of him happily babbled away in Russian as they sat at the counter in the kitchen sipping some lemonade and eating some cookies she had begged Shirou into making.
And Shirou responded in kind. English, Russian, Japanese, and Spanish were the four languages he'd gotten with the multilingual perk during his reincarnation. Admittedly as he already spoke Japanese and he had been passing English at the time of his death he felt he was a bit cheated with their inclusion, but the knowledge imparted was impeccable. He was pretty sure he knew more about the linguistic and calligraphic nuances of all four languages than some scholars.
That was why the young Illyana Rasputin had latched onto him so quickly when they met. Her older brother was Colossus, one of the leaders of the younger team of X-men, as most of the older generation were semi-retired as teachers. And while she'd been here in America for two years now, her English was still quite broken, so when she found someone she could talk to in Russian she leapt at the chance.
So now she followed him wherever he went unless her big brother managed to make time for her.
Shirou found he didn't mind, he'd never really been around much younger kids until this life, but he'd spent plenty of time working with the novice classes at the dojo. And he found he worked well with children.
And just like that the summer flew past. He spent time with his new friends: movie nights, sports, board games, even a few heavily supervised Danger Room sessions. He trained with Logan and Steve. And in general he just got to know a lot of people that were like him, special and different in this strange new world.
Well, not so new any longer, it had been about seven years since consciousness had struck him.
But August was coming to a close and school would be starting soon. His father said that eighth grade was going to be extra important so that he could get into the Midtown public science and tech charter school that he was now the principal of (formerly a teacher at). And admittedly with his friend Liz wanting to attend there as well he was just giving his dad a hard time when he joked about not wanting to go.
Not that any of the material was terribly difficult for Shirou.
Shirou's Armory (Only includes weapons with special properties):
Chitauri Dagger
Vibranium Shield
Heavily Reinforced Titanium Super Alloy Bat (referred to as Reinforced Bat in the future)
Perdition
karmaepsilon
Getting out there.
- Joined
- Jul 10, 2024
- Messages
- 15
- Likes received
- 164
"So when are you going to switch to an iPhone?" Liz pestered Shirou as they waited for his dad to finish after school responsibilities and take them back to study at the townhouse for a few hours before Liz went home herself. Her family was going through some financial struggles since the Invasion of New York so her mom was working and her dad was on some business trip to Jersey. She said her dad was making a comeback and they might be able to go back to living in a bigger house again soon.
"I like my Galaxy!" He responded with a roll of his eyes, having had this conversation many times. He pocketed the phone, having just finished responding to the group chat he was in with Hisako, Sam, Ruth, Eddie, and a few other students their age from the Institute.
"Plus I heard StarkTech is about to break into the smartphone market, I'm going to save my upgrade for when that drops."
"Where'd you hear that?" Liz questioned.
Shirou squinted at her trying to decide if she was serious or not, "You met Captain America at my last birthday party. He gets drinks with my grandfather. He's an Avenger!"
She shrugged, "So? I didn't think he knew how to use a smartphone."
"He does!" Shirou exclaimed, "I taught him!" He added proudly. "We're Farmville friends too!"
"I can't believe you guys still play Farmville." The girl lamented, "Why am I still friends with someone so uncool? An Android user that plays Farmville!"
He rolled his eyes again, she was fully aware of his powers at this point and loved to see him do cool tricks with them.
"Anyways, after all that craziness with the Vice President, Stark needs to put something new out to distract the press. So I am hoping that means the smartphone line drops soon. Do you think it will have cool holographic interfaces? I hear his personal computers at home and his office all have that."
"There's no way that holographic interfaces hit the smartphone market before they hit consumer personal computers. If he has that tech, and big if, he's sitting on it because it requires an Arc Reactor or gold wiring or something crazy to run." Liz solidly dunked his hopes into the cold water of reality.
"Yeah, you're probably right, uggh, hope they figure out that issue by the time we get to college."
She smacked his shoulder, "Stop. We're freshmen. I don't want to think about college until at least next year."
In a desperately obvious attempt to change the subject she added, "So you're going camping with those friends from your summer trips for Spring Break?"
He nodded, "Yeah, Piotr, one of the teachers, is kind of doing a field trip to a big old cabin the place owns in the Adirondacks. He's bringing his kid sister, Illyana, too, but a bunch of the border students that are my age are going. My friends, plus a few more."
"She's the kid that has a crush on you because you speak Russian, right?"
Shaking his head in exasperation Shirou retorted, "She does not have a crush on me! She's eight!"
"I'm sure if she heard you say that she'd insist that she's turning nine soon." Liz teased back.
"Uggh! You are the worst!"
Just as Liz had said, Spring Break the next month saw Shirou joining his fellow mutants on a camping trip. The 'responsible adults' were the twenty-somethings of Piotr Rasputin and his girlfriend, Kitty Pryde.
Professor Xavier as one of his many properties apparently owned some land up in the Adirondack Mountains in the north-end of the state. On that land after making his school he'd had a large longhouse style cabin built that could comfortably house a solid dozen people in two bunk style rooms and included kitchen and shower amenities as well.
The rest of the land was turned into some of the most cliche summer camp style facilities Shirou had ever seen. A small mountain lake had a dock and some canoes with a fishing shack next to it. Multiple fire pits existed around the area. A storehouse could handle quite a lot of supplies. And they even had archery targets and equipment for that as well as a dozen other outdoor activities you would expect.
He was also fairly sure he'd seen some arts and crafts gear when he'd peaked into that storehouse.
All in all Shirou was definitely comparing the whole thing to that camp from the movie Addams Family Values that he'd watched with his dad when he was younger.
It had taken a few hours to drive up to the site on the bus and another few hours to set up and unpack. Thus by the time everyone was settled it was time for dinner. Piotr and Kitty had a few of the students help grill some hot dogs and burgers and afterwards they did smores as the sun set.
All in all it was a pretty fun and relaxing day, he'd caught up with his friends on the ride over and now they were just chilling.
However, even with mutants living in secrecy, the X-men were incapable of going on a field trip or vacation without something insane and outlandish occurring.
As Shirou was about to learn.
The next day he was walking back with Illyana from attempting to teach her archery on the straw targets when he noticed something.
"Hey, Illyana, was that candle there yesterday?"
The young girl squinted at the storehouse window Shirou was pointing to.
Then she shook her head, "Net."
"Why would a candle be lit in the middle of the afternoon?"
There was something weird about the whole thing to Shirou, he had a sinking suspicion something was going on in the camp.
"Illyana, stay close, something's not ri-"
It was at this point that the scarlet candle burst to life with a high flame, and Shirou noticed another flame in the distance. And another, and another. Candles were spread around the entire camp.
Suddenly he felt it, magic in the air.
It didn't feel too terribly different from magic in his world, even though he knew how it was accessed was certainly different here.
In fact it felt like…
"A bounded field!" He gasped, quickly summoning the Shield and a short thrusting sword for whatever was coming.
And then he felt it, something similar, but different and twisted from a Servant summoning.
And a huge portal of flame flickered into view at the foot of the docks and the bounded field slammed into place, blocking the outside world from them with a strange blood red barrier.
Through the portal strode beings that could only be described as demons.
The first was tall, almost six feet, red and muscled, it had the stereotypical demonic spade tail, a single strange horn upon its head, sharp teeth, claws, and was wearing a black leather vest and black leather…hot pants?
The second was some kind of vicious green gargoyle creature, with cloven hooves, a horses head (with a mouth full of fangs of course), and claws.
Behind them a dozen or so slavering orange creatures, mostly the size of a large child, but all with a variety of claws, fangs, and other deformities howled.
And finally, standing in the mouth of the portal, an armored centaur with six arms and a variety of weapons strapped to its back as it stared blankly through a helmet at them, arms crossed, at a towering seven or so feet tall.
"Illyana…run to your brother, get help." Shirou charged forth without another word, slamming his shield into the first orange monster to break ranks and sending it flying back into the pack.
The nine year old girl stammered something and took off towards the longhouse. Now screaming for help at the top of her lungs.
"Get the girl. We need her and the woman for our master." A low rumbling voice came from the centaur. The two demonic leaders nodded, the green one taking flight and the red one licking its fangs with a long tongue as it flanked the squad of orange creatures, looking to make a break for it.
"No you don't!" Shirou called out and Frisbee tossed his shield up at the flying creature.
The demonic gargoyle held up an arm to block the shield, contemptuously until the moment it struck and the bone snapped with a resounding crack. Then it shrieked and retreated higher into the air as Shirou leapt up and caught his shield on the ricochet.
It was at this point that the red demon leapt up into the air at him. Shirou barely got the Shield back onto his arm and into position in time to block a clawed strike.
As he was sent backwards through the air by the force of the blow he heard a commotion in the distance, the other students as well as the adults hopefully now coming to help.
He landed with a grunt and narrowed his eyes at the red demon, however he couldn't focus on a duel due to the orange monsters attempting to swarm him.
"Damnit!" His world became a whirl of stabbing, kicking, and shield bashing as he fought off the ten little gremlin creatures that tried to dogpile him.
"Illyana!" A deep voice, Piotr's in his Colossus steel form, Shirou recognized, called out in a panic.
Just as Shirou looked over to see what was going on he noticed the centaur demon blitz past him and swing a sword to intercept Colossus's form that was charging after the green gargoyle flying back towards the portal…carrying a struggling young girl.
"No!" Shirou shouted, and he pinballed his Shield off of three of the orange demons before springboarding off of another and snapping the Shield back out of the air and going for another Frisbee toss at the flying creature, only to be intercepted again by the red demon's claws.
"We have one, get the other!" The centaur called out and the red demon disengaged from Shirou and took back off.
With a curse, Shirou kicked an orange demon out of the way and tried to follow the gargoyle demon towards the portal.
Only to have a giant sword held in one of the many arms of the centaur demon crash to the ground in front of him.
"I can fight you both, puny mortals."
As the green demon entered the portal, Illyana struggling in its arms, Shirou had a flashback to another young looking girl. One with white hair, laying in a pool of her own blood after he failed to arrive in time to stop Gilgamesh from ripping her heart out.
"No…" His gladius and shield dissolved and he reached out and touched the giant sword in his way.
"Never again!" His structural grasp reached out and he absorbed the history of the giant sword into his soul with a touch.
Then as the centaur raised that sword to bring it back down on Shirou while his other arms fought Colossus off with other weapons, Shirou raised his own arms above his head.
"Trace. On."
"I like my Galaxy!" He responded with a roll of his eyes, having had this conversation many times. He pocketed the phone, having just finished responding to the group chat he was in with Hisako, Sam, Ruth, Eddie, and a few other students their age from the Institute.
"Plus I heard StarkTech is about to break into the smartphone market, I'm going to save my upgrade for when that drops."
"Where'd you hear that?" Liz questioned.
Shirou squinted at her trying to decide if she was serious or not, "You met Captain America at my last birthday party. He gets drinks with my grandfather. He's an Avenger!"
She shrugged, "So? I didn't think he knew how to use a smartphone."
"He does!" Shirou exclaimed, "I taught him!" He added proudly. "We're Farmville friends too!"
"I can't believe you guys still play Farmville." The girl lamented, "Why am I still friends with someone so uncool? An Android user that plays Farmville!"
He rolled his eyes again, she was fully aware of his powers at this point and loved to see him do cool tricks with them.
"Anyways, after all that craziness with the Vice President, Stark needs to put something new out to distract the press. So I am hoping that means the smartphone line drops soon. Do you think it will have cool holographic interfaces? I hear his personal computers at home and his office all have that."
"There's no way that holographic interfaces hit the smartphone market before they hit consumer personal computers. If he has that tech, and big if, he's sitting on it because it requires an Arc Reactor or gold wiring or something crazy to run." Liz solidly dunked his hopes into the cold water of reality.
"Yeah, you're probably right, uggh, hope they figure out that issue by the time we get to college."
She smacked his shoulder, "Stop. We're freshmen. I don't want to think about college until at least next year."
In a desperately obvious attempt to change the subject she added, "So you're going camping with those friends from your summer trips for Spring Break?"
He nodded, "Yeah, Piotr, one of the teachers, is kind of doing a field trip to a big old cabin the place owns in the Adirondacks. He's bringing his kid sister, Illyana, too, but a bunch of the border students that are my age are going. My friends, plus a few more."
"She's the kid that has a crush on you because you speak Russian, right?"
Shaking his head in exasperation Shirou retorted, "She does not have a crush on me! She's eight!"
"I'm sure if she heard you say that she'd insist that she's turning nine soon." Liz teased back.
"Uggh! You are the worst!"
Just as Liz had said, Spring Break the next month saw Shirou joining his fellow mutants on a camping trip. The 'responsible adults' were the twenty-somethings of Piotr Rasputin and his girlfriend, Kitty Pryde.
Professor Xavier as one of his many properties apparently owned some land up in the Adirondack Mountains in the north-end of the state. On that land after making his school he'd had a large longhouse style cabin built that could comfortably house a solid dozen people in two bunk style rooms and included kitchen and shower amenities as well.
The rest of the land was turned into some of the most cliche summer camp style facilities Shirou had ever seen. A small mountain lake had a dock and some canoes with a fishing shack next to it. Multiple fire pits existed around the area. A storehouse could handle quite a lot of supplies. And they even had archery targets and equipment for that as well as a dozen other outdoor activities you would expect.
He was also fairly sure he'd seen some arts and crafts gear when he'd peaked into that storehouse.
All in all Shirou was definitely comparing the whole thing to that camp from the movie Addams Family Values that he'd watched with his dad when he was younger.
It had taken a few hours to drive up to the site on the bus and another few hours to set up and unpack. Thus by the time everyone was settled it was time for dinner. Piotr and Kitty had a few of the students help grill some hot dogs and burgers and afterwards they did smores as the sun set.
All in all it was a pretty fun and relaxing day, he'd caught up with his friends on the ride over and now they were just chilling.
However, even with mutants living in secrecy, the X-men were incapable of going on a field trip or vacation without something insane and outlandish occurring.
As Shirou was about to learn.
The next day he was walking back with Illyana from attempting to teach her archery on the straw targets when he noticed something.
"Hey, Illyana, was that candle there yesterday?"
The young girl squinted at the storehouse window Shirou was pointing to.
Then she shook her head, "Net."
"Why would a candle be lit in the middle of the afternoon?"
There was something weird about the whole thing to Shirou, he had a sinking suspicion something was going on in the camp.
"Illyana, stay close, something's not ri-"
It was at this point that the scarlet candle burst to life with a high flame, and Shirou noticed another flame in the distance. And another, and another. Candles were spread around the entire camp.
Suddenly he felt it, magic in the air.
It didn't feel too terribly different from magic in his world, even though he knew how it was accessed was certainly different here.
In fact it felt like…
"A bounded field!" He gasped, quickly summoning the Shield and a short thrusting sword for whatever was coming.
And then he felt it, something similar, but different and twisted from a Servant summoning.
And a huge portal of flame flickered into view at the foot of the docks and the bounded field slammed into place, blocking the outside world from them with a strange blood red barrier.
Through the portal strode beings that could only be described as demons.
The first was tall, almost six feet, red and muscled, it had the stereotypical demonic spade tail, a single strange horn upon its head, sharp teeth, claws, and was wearing a black leather vest and black leather…hot pants?
The second was some kind of vicious green gargoyle creature, with cloven hooves, a horses head (with a mouth full of fangs of course), and claws.
Behind them a dozen or so slavering orange creatures, mostly the size of a large child, but all with a variety of claws, fangs, and other deformities howled.
And finally, standing in the mouth of the portal, an armored centaur with six arms and a variety of weapons strapped to its back as it stared blankly through a helmet at them, arms crossed, at a towering seven or so feet tall.
"Illyana…run to your brother, get help." Shirou charged forth without another word, slamming his shield into the first orange monster to break ranks and sending it flying back into the pack.
The nine year old girl stammered something and took off towards the longhouse. Now screaming for help at the top of her lungs.
"Get the girl. We need her and the woman for our master." A low rumbling voice came from the centaur. The two demonic leaders nodded, the green one taking flight and the red one licking its fangs with a long tongue as it flanked the squad of orange creatures, looking to make a break for it.
"No you don't!" Shirou called out and Frisbee tossed his shield up at the flying creature.
The demonic gargoyle held up an arm to block the shield, contemptuously until the moment it struck and the bone snapped with a resounding crack. Then it shrieked and retreated higher into the air as Shirou leapt up and caught his shield on the ricochet.
It was at this point that the red demon leapt up into the air at him. Shirou barely got the Shield back onto his arm and into position in time to block a clawed strike.
As he was sent backwards through the air by the force of the blow he heard a commotion in the distance, the other students as well as the adults hopefully now coming to help.
He landed with a grunt and narrowed his eyes at the red demon, however he couldn't focus on a duel due to the orange monsters attempting to swarm him.
"Damnit!" His world became a whirl of stabbing, kicking, and shield bashing as he fought off the ten little gremlin creatures that tried to dogpile him.
"Illyana!" A deep voice, Piotr's in his Colossus steel form, Shirou recognized, called out in a panic.
Just as Shirou looked over to see what was going on he noticed the centaur demon blitz past him and swing a sword to intercept Colossus's form that was charging after the green gargoyle flying back towards the portal…carrying a struggling young girl.
"No!" Shirou shouted, and he pinballed his Shield off of three of the orange demons before springboarding off of another and snapping the Shield back out of the air and going for another Frisbee toss at the flying creature, only to be intercepted again by the red demon's claws.
"We have one, get the other!" The centaur called out and the red demon disengaged from Shirou and took back off.
With a curse, Shirou kicked an orange demon out of the way and tried to follow the gargoyle demon towards the portal.
Only to have a giant sword held in one of the many arms of the centaur demon crash to the ground in front of him.
"I can fight you both, puny mortals."
As the green demon entered the portal, Illyana struggling in its arms, Shirou had a flashback to another young looking girl. One with white hair, laying in a pool of her own blood after he failed to arrive in time to stop Gilgamesh from ripping her heart out.
"No…" His gladius and shield dissolved and he reached out and touched the giant sword in his way.
"Never again!" His structural grasp reached out and he absorbed the history of the giant sword into his soul with a touch.
Then as the centaur raised that sword to bring it back down on Shirou while his other arms fought Colossus off with other weapons, Shirou raised his own arms above his head.
"Trace. On."