myvillainacademy | ORIENTATION

[When you start to stir from your slumber, you awaken to the smell of dust and rotted wood. Your bed is far from comfortable -- lumps in the mattress, a tattered blanket that barely keeps you warm and a pillow almost as hard as a rock-- and you'll immediately see there are others in your room with you.

All of you are confused, surely. "Where am I?" "What place is this?" Questions like that stir through your mind while you take in your surroundings. Something might catch your eye before anything else, though. A coloured chest tied with a bow, a large gift tag is attached to it with your name on it. There's one for everyone in each dorm, and if you open it you'll find:

An old, worn school uniform.
A colourful costume.
And a pamphlet with information about you, about your stay in this Academy, and a map of the layout of the school and the training grounds outside. The descriptions are vague, leaving out important details about your new super powers called "Quirks", a bland description about how you were selected to join the Academy called "VA" (no explanation what it means), and even the map has lame descriptions of locations that don't really give you a good idea of where you're staying.

Before you can start exploring, or chatting away with your neighbors, a voice rings over old intercoms. It sounds low and comforting, like a long lost friend. But there's something about that that feels.. unsettling. A feeling in your gut that this voice was anything but friendly.

"Welcome, students. You must be very confused, but I assure you I'll be able to answer all the questions you have in just a few minutes.

For now, relax, explore, and meet your new classmates who will be staying with you during this semester.

Oh, but..... whatever you do, don't enter the dining room."

The intercom cuts off, leaving you with a cryptic message to think about on top of.. everything else you're dealing with right now.]

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Yeah, I never read them. We didn't have any files like that, just ones that explained what they were.

That would explain your unfamiliarity with them. Humans like to read stories about heroes and villains as a form of wish fulfillment. I would hazard a guess that whoever filled this library with books had a fondness for them.

So they can keep the books about that intact, but not the ones about...literally anything else?

[He gestures to his pile of dust-that-was-books.]

I think there's a few math textbooks in there and I know I grabbed something about flowers...

It could just be that the sections devoted to heroes and villains were in a location that protected them against the elements.

[9S gestures around as if to ask "and where would that be?"]

[Ango gestures to the shelf where they found those books. Because obviously that spot is safe if the books survived.]

I found that book on flowers right next to some of these books on heroes and stuff.

Perhaps books got moved at some point? Or the flower book was in just the wrong spot.

Still. It just seems weird that anything at all would be intact here.

The other possibility is that those books were protected on purpose, while the others were left to rot.

[And Ango would be able to know that intent instantly if he had his original ability, but SOME ASSHOLE decided to take it away and give him another one.]

So...books on villains and heroes are worth protecting but not, like, history or biology?

[A beat.]

What.

It doesn't make sense to me either. We would need to figure out why the person who put these books here thought that.

You think it was the guy we heard over the intercom?

Probably. That, or his employer.

...you know, I almost hope he doesn't have one? One weird creepy guy is bad enough.

Trouble always comes in threes. By my guess, we have the voice over the intercom, his boss, and a third person. Possibly a janitor or groundskeeper, who keeps the day-to-day tasks running.

Or maybe a spy.

[...you know, he's got a point.]

I'm pretty sure this place doesn't have a janitor.

[Just saying.]

Maybe a medic, though? Or an aide of some sort.

That could be too. Just a general 'staff member' of some sort.

Yeah. Weird how we haven't seen anyone like that, though. Everyone I've run into is just as confused as I am and I don't think they're lying.

That is why a spy might be likely too. Someone hiding among us, pretending to be confused.

[Hm.]

And I can't hack to figure out who it might be. Dammit.

The unfortunately low-tech situation we are in would prevent hacking anyway.

It's not even that. Assuming they're regular android, if my programs were working I could do it no problem. But they're not.

So you got another power too.

[Just like everyone else.]

Yeah, if that pamphlet's to be believed.

(no subject)

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