Chapter Text
It’s a dark and cloudy day- well not really. It’s just night, and the ‘clouds’ in the sky are more of just pollution in the upper districts. Tommy hasn’t left the upper districts since he was five. When he got his power. When he first started training. That’s actually what he’s doing now, actually.
He ducks, dodging his mentor’s fist.
He’s been Dream’s sidekick for three years. He has to train, since his power isn’t really for fighting. Tommy is a healer, but that doesn’t mean he can just stay on the sidelines. At least that’s what Dream says. He was originally trained to be a healer until he became Dream’s sidekick. Dream saw Tommy’s potential and from there came Red Chaos. He has even fought some of the top tier villains!
“Good work, Tommy. You’re dismissed.” Dream says, holding his hands behind his back. Tommy walks back to his small room and finally takes off the frowny mask. His mask is made to look like Dream’s in a sense.
Dream’s mask is white with a simple black smiley face painted on it. Tommy’s mask is black with a simple white frowny face painted on it. He lays back on his bed, arms spread and lightly kicking his feet. He’s lucky to be given the chance to protect people under the number one hero. That’s what everyone says at least.
…
Tommy is eating breakfast out of costume at the mall when he gets an alert on his phone, causing his wings to slightly puff up at the sound.
!!VILLAIN / HERO FIGHT ON ## STREET!!
Shit. He quickly wraps his food up and puts it in his bag. Clutching his backpack close, he rushes to the bathroom. The avian digs through his backpack and takes out his costume. He gets changed into it and wiggles his wings into the costume.
His costume is a black bodysuit with a red hoodie on top. Almost exactly like Dream’s, except Dream’s has a green hoodie and no wings. Tommy’s bodysuit is made for avians so it has wing shaped pockets in the back to allow avians to fly without getting their wings cold. People do theorize about what color Tommy’s wings are under the black fabric that surrounds them.
He puts his mask on, making sure it’s secure, and puts his earpieces in. One is communication, the other is for canceling out Siren’s power. He presses against a tile a few times, copying the beat of his heart. The wall tile comes out. There are a few of these among the upper districts for heroes in a hurry to get to a fight. He shoves his backpack in the storage spot, quickly closing it and sneaking out the small bathroom window. As he makes his way out, he presses on a button under his mask to activate the voice changer.
Thankfully, the fight isn’t happening too far from the mall. When he’s close, his earpiece buzzes as it connects to the surrounding heroes’ ones. Dream’s voice comes through the small device, “Red Chaos, you got Siren.” Tommy doesn’t bother responding, knowing that would only distract his mentor.
The young hero just finds Siren and quickly throws a punch from behind. The villain stumbles forward slightly before turning around to face the attacker. “Oh. Hello, copybird.” Siren greets, taking out a throwing dagger. The blond doesn’t respond. He already got a lecture on the last battle for talking during a fight.
Red Chaos manages to dodge a few daggers, catching some by the handle midair and launching them back to the sender. Obviously some manage to scrape him. He’ll just need some more training. He hears the flap of wings and ducks, feeling a dagger embed itself in his leg while he’s dodging the villain who swooped down. The Angel of Death. His taloned hands almost grab the hero by the shoulder, but only manage to grab his earbuds instead.
“Fly to district 48.” The commanding voice of Siren rings out, melodic and as sweet as poisoned honey. The avian hybrid immediately stops and, as if he was a puppet, flaps his wings. No matter how much he tries, he can’t stop himself from flying.
…
After around two hours of flying, he swoops down, landing roughly. Damnit. He tries to flap his wings to fly back, but a horrible pain shoots up his wings to his spine. Two hours of training does tend to do that. He tries flapping them more, but he’s unable to take off. He can’t just power through this, not this time at least. Dream is going to be so pissed when he gets back. You may be asking, ‘Why doesn’t Tommy just heal himself?’, well he can’t. His wounds may get better a tiny bit faster, but he can’t heal himself.
Tommy slowly gets up, wincing at the pain in his lower leg. The dagger is still in his leg. He freezes when he hears footsteps approaching and quickly looks up to see two low ranked villains. They rarely ever appear.
Ender. He only shows up to teleport an injured member of the Syndicate a bit away. Teleporting isn’t his power, but some enderian hybrids are born with the ability to do so. Their power is that they can make someone freeze by making eye contact, whether it be through their goggles or a camera. As long as someone sees the faint purple glow, he can make them freeze.
Ender’s costume is just a pitch black bodysuit that covers every part of their face, minus their eyes. He has purple tinted goggles on to make it difficult to know whether he’s using his power or not and to obscure how his eyes look. His enderian tail is like a very thin black string with a ball of black-white fur. His ears are either pitchblack or something. Like Tommy’s wings, they have their ears out but covered in fabric. He’s also a tall motherfucker, also due to being an enderian.
Bombee. He usually just teleports into fights with Ender’s help to deliver some tech that he made and immediately leaves. He sometimes has had to use his power to escape heroes. His power is explosions. He can make explosions with only his hands.
Bombee’s costume consists of a green button up over some bullet proof undersuit, a winter jacket (that he sometimes doesn’t wear when it’s too warm outside. Lucky ), and classic black pants. He has medium brown hair, not hidden by his mask. He wears a gas mask, painted like a bee. He has two little ram horns sticking up from his hair along with two brown ram ears on the sides of his head. He is shorter than Ender by a noticeable difference and a few inches shorter than Tommy.
Tommy shakes his head and puts his fists up. “We’re unarmed.” Ender says, the two of them pausing and putting their hands up. The hero doesn’t lower his fists, simply replying with, “And? You’re still villains.” He notices a small glow from Ender’s goggles and feels his limbs go rigid. Shit.
“Bee, what should we do?” The tall bitch asks, keeping eye contact with Tommy. Or at least not moving his head. “I don’t know what we’re supposed to do when we’re at a standstill with an injured high rank.” His friend replies, walking closer to Tommy.
Fuck. He can’t let any villain unmask him. Even before he started working under Dream, they told him to never let anyone see his face as a healer. Thankfully, the villain doesn’t reach for it. Instead, Bombee kneels and pulls the knife out. Motherfucker! If he could move right now, he’d have many different words for the two. To Tommy’s surprise, a green cloth was secured around the stab wound. “If I look away, will you attack us?” The enderian asks, walking closer. “Fine.” The blond mumbles, feeling the bitch’s power return. Sometimes Dream has had to make deals with villains to make sure he doesn’t die, so he hopefully won’t be too upset at Tommy for not arresting them.
After a mile of walking with the villains, the two insisting on coming along to make sure he doesn’t fall with the wounded leg. When they get to a place with more people, he expects the normal he gets when walking in his costume in the upper districts. Instead, he gets either dirty looks or just completely ignored. A lot of people in this area are poor, and Tommy can’t see any signs of heroes. Maybe they all had to go to help with the fight? But that should have ended by now. Along with that, it doesn’t explain the glares.
Tommy finally speaks up, looking between the two, “Why are they so upset with me? I’m a hero. Where are the other heroes too?” This causes the two villains to pause and look at each other. “They probably think you’re here to arrest a vigilante. Most heroes don’t come to these districts unless there is a vigilante.” Ender explains, as if it was obvious. “That’s why we’re part of the Syndicate. They saved us from getting arrested by Dream while we caught a mugger.” Bombee adds on, disdain in his voice when he says Tommy’s mentor’s name.
That can’t be right. Crime is more likely here and there are enough heroes to spare and send here. People shouldn’t hate heroes. “But heroes are supposed to help everyone?” Tommy argues, glancing around. People really don’t seem to like him. Nobody here does. A little spider hybrid passes by and his mom pulls him closer as if protecting him from Tommy.
Something is wrong.
…
They make it there, traveling through alleyways to get there. The tall villain told Tommy it’s not that good to teleport people while they’re injured. “Cameras are broken so there is no point telling Dream.” Ender comments, putting their hands in their pockets. Tommy knows he should tell Dream. He knows it would be useful. But… Something feels off about his travel through the lower districts.
When he enters the hero tower, Dream makes him train with dodging and shit. Dream apparently picked up his backpack for him at least. He goes to bed, bruised and exhausted. He’ll look into the lower districts- not that he doesn’t trust the system or his mentor. They’re doing good. They are helping people. Right…?