"In the end, the hero defeats the villain and saves the day. By the final chapter, they stand victorious over all of their hardships and tribulations with unmatched triumph."

     My fingers grazed across the pages of the novel in my hand as I put the story to an end myself. I tilted my head back and let the ending set in. Despite there being numerous times the protagonist questions their own strength, no matter what, they had always finished off their heroic journey in success. It was a given that, at the end of stories, heroes would beat the villains.

    A little impractical if you ask me.

    Who decided that villains were destined to failure? Or that heroes were born to go on quests and fend off the villains? In half of these stories, the protagonist started off as an ordinary person just trying to get by. What if they never chose to go on any dangerous quests?

    Would they still be a protagonist if they decided their own destiny?

    My eyebrows twinged at the sting of a small headache. I had been awake too long to fall into any philosophical rabbit hole. I rubbed my palms over my eyes, and when I blinked them back open, I was met with the same scene as before. I was still laying on the couch of Q's living room at 1:58 in the morning.

    I was into the third or fourth month of being fostered by Professor Q. I adjusted to the change just fine; however, I found trouble falling asleep that particular night. I just couldn't relax. Every time I shut my eyes, my brain told me there was time being wasted. I tried to combat these anxieties by reading myself to sleep, but the cliche narrative I chose only had me thinking more.

    The workaholic in me had to get up and move. If I couldn't fall asleep, then I could at least make use of my time by starting Q's pot of coffee for the morning. I slumped off the couch and walked across to the kitchen and the coffee pot against the wall. I had lived in that house long enough that I didn't need to turn the lights on to start brewing. I was usually up and ready before Q, so I typically gave him a hand with his morning routine in small ways like this.

   As the quiet beeps of the machine eased me in the moment, I leaned my head against the kitchen cabinets and gently shut my eyes. My room was only a few doors down, but I knew that if I moved myself even an inch, I'd be struggling to fall back asleep for another hour. I made use of the chance to rest, unknowing of how it wouldn't last.

   Footsteps from behind my back caused me to open my eyes, feeling the hairs against my neck stand. Cautious and hesitant by my lack of sleep, I leaned my head around to the dark hallway. A breath of relief passed through my lungs while I saw no dangerous figure. Yet.

   "INTRUDER‽" Q's dramatic and frightened proclaim of danger was enough to send me jumping back, screaming, and clutching the countertop for my life. I grabbed the collar of my sleep shirt over my heart and caught my breath.

    "No! It's just me and. . ." I trailed off while glancing over the glowing, blue rod Q had burst in swinging during his jumpscare. "You thought someone was breaking in, and your weapon of defense was a fake lightsaber?" As a weapons-specialized inventor, I was disappointed.

    Q paused at my observation before he looked down and deactivated his saber. "Sure, let's call it fake." He cleared his throat before I could follow up on one of many questions. "So I'll mull over the fact you're awake at this hour, but I must say that you do seem awfully skittish this morning."

    That's because you just gave me a freaking heart attack.

    Before I could voice my blunt remark, Q continued with his own theory about my jumpiness.

    "This wouldn't happen to be regarding your last day of private training, would it?" he asked.

     He might have had a point there. After my somewhat victory at the Sports Festival, I spent the past few months exercising and training with the Class A homeroom teacher, Shouta Aizawa. Although, I wouldn't call our lessons private as I shared the time with the festival's real winner, Hitoshi Shinso. The idea behind this spring training was to help the both of us toughen up before we're even considered for a position in the hero course.

   Getting into one of the two top classes has been my goal since the beginning. It was a dream that I was determined to make real, but with only one day of training left, it was almost too real.

   "I don't know," I told Q. "I'm just not sure if I'm ready. It's hard to explain, but being transferred felt easier when it was months away. What if I mess it up, or something happens? Those kids have done so much this semester; what if I can't keep up?"

    Maybe it was the exhaustion that allowed me to open up and let out some of the worries I had held onto. Whatever it was, Q was ready to listen as always. He checked on the coffee, and after pouring two mugs, he took a seat on the couch. Q then waited patiently and silently for me to continue.

   I took a breath and tried venting again. "I know I want to transfer classes, but I also know that if this doesn't work out, then it's over. I'll just be the loser who failed at Heroics and had to be put back in Support. . . No offense."

   Q knew I loved his class and wasn't hurt by my comment. That was the good thing about being able to talk to him about this despite his class being the one I wanted to leave. Instead of ranting about the magic of Support, Q offered me some advice.

   "You're familiar with the work of Erwin Schrodinger, correct?"

   I nodded my head, recalling the name from a previous science class. "He's the quantum physicist that studied the Copenhagen Interpretation." I wasn't sure to be proud or embarrassed that I understood anything from that sentence.

   Q seemed more on the proud side as he elaborated on the subject. "Correct! I bet you also know that in 1935, he devised an experiment with a cat, a box, and a vial of poison."

   Saying I was a little suspicious of where he was heading with this would have been an understatement.

   "So this vial was set to release the poison at a random time, to which Schrodinger then placed the cat and the poison inside a box. The box stayed locked so that Schrodinger had no idea when or if the poison was released. With no way of knowing the state of his cat, it could be considered both alive and dead."

  I let his story sink in, but it still just sounded like a disturbing tale of the half-dead cat. "Where's this going, Q?"

  "Your situation is the same," he told me. "Until you open the box and see for yourself, your life in the Hero Course can be classified as both good and bad. All you can do is think like a proton, and stay positive!"

   As strange as he was, Q was also right. There were worries about the Hero Course, but I also thought about all the good that could come from it. Bottom line: I wouldn't know until I gave it a shot.

   I still couldn't get the intrusive fears out of my head as I debated. "What if I don't even get a chance to try though? There's a lot of training I have to pass, and who's to say I'll finish? I might just be dead weight in the end." I was never this discouraged when trying for something. When it came to contests or tests, I always gave it my all with sure confidence in the results.

   But this was different. I had already tried for 1-A at the Entrance Exams, and I flunked that. Then, there was my second chance at the Sports Festival, and even there, I gave up before my last battle. UA was more of a challenge than I was ever used to, and I couldn't be certain I was up for it.

   "Can I show you something?" Q popped in. Before I could answer, he stood up and walked over to his bookshelf where, on a top shelf, sat a box I never bothered to look into. He pulled out the medium-sized box and sat it on the couch between us.

   When I looked in, I saw the box was filled with certificates, medals, and hand-written notes. Q dug through and pulled out a dusty edition of a UA yearbook.

   After flipping through the first few pages, he turned the yearbook around to show me as he explained. "Here, my dear, is the Heroics Class of 1-A from 23 years ago. Most of these kids are now underground Pros, but there are a few spotlight heroes, sidekicks, dropouts, and at the very bottom. . ." His hand slid down to point to a small frame that pictured a young kid with spiky green hair, white skin, and thick glasses.

   "That's you‽" I screamed and yanked the book from his hand to get a better look. I couldn't fight back my laughter while even covering half my mouth with my hand. "You were so dorky!" The younger version of Q looked exactly the same. He still dressed up more than he had to with a vest and pins underneath his uniform jacket, but also looked ruffled enough that one could tell he had spent most of the day in a science lab.

   "Hang on," I stopped my teasing when I finally looked away from the hilarious picture. "This is 1-A, but weren't you in Support?"

   Q pushed up his glasses while looking down at his old yearbook and answering. "Yes, my third year I was in Support, but I started out in Heroics before transferring in my second year. As a matter of fact, I was one of only three students with autism to be in the Hero Course in UA's history."

   "I didn't know that," I looked up and told him. With how long I've known him, it was hard to think that there were still things about his life that I never knew. Some of it I inferred, but I wouldn't ever have guessed that Professor Q was almost a Pro Hero.

   "The thing is I knew I could get into Support. With my Quirk and my achievements, UA even offered me a scholarship to Class H. But it was too easy. It's exactly what my friends and family expected of me, and I almost wanted to settle for it to appeal to my mother. However, when the exams came, I couldn't discourage myself from not trying for Heroics. I wanted to try even if it wasn't easy."

    When Q stopped momentarily, he reached back into the box until a crumpled paper was in his hand. "This is a study from Tokyo that says only 1 in 25 students on the autism spectrum pass UA's Entrance Exams. Even then, that one student is usually placed in Support or Business. The Heroics exams just aren't designed for people like us. They're loud, they're crowded, they're stressful, and seeing this statistic on top of it all. . . It was terrifying to think about.

    Although, I managed to wrap up that fear and persevere. And when I passed, my friend printed out this research to show me I was the 1 in 25. I was really proud after that."

    I felt something fall against my cheek, and I instinctively brushed it by. I didn't notice I was teared up until then, but I made the effort to not acknowledge it. I instead changed the subject by turning my head down to the photo of Q and his first-year class.

    "Which friend was that?" I asked him. Q looked down and pointed to the picture just two rows above his.

    "That one." The picture was of a girl his age with dirty blonde hair, brown eyes, and a light pink bow in her curly hair. The name in the yearbook called her Millori Mōshi, but I knew her as—

    "Miss Infinity!" I interjected. Even though she wasn't well known as a sidekick, Miss Infinity has always been a secret idol of mine for a long time as one of few Hispanic Pros to climb the Billboard charts.

    Q laughed at my sudden enthusiasm as I continued to look over the faces of his class. For as young as they were, the Pro Heroes I recognized looked just like how they appear on television. SuperNova had the same bright orange and yellow ombre waves; Killer Wasp had the same Mutant characteristics with sharp fangs and long antennae. It was hard to believe that someone like Q attended class with so many professional Heroes even for just a year.

   "If you think that's spellbinding," Q broke my focus. "Then I have something even neater." Q turned the box of memories back around and pulled out a few more papers until an old notebook was in his hand.

   "These are some of the notes I took my first year," he told me, handing over the composition book. "I designed most of the costumes for my class, and I kept a lot of notes on them."

    Sure enough, when I flipped through the book, I found summaries, writings, costume drawings, and even interviews with students that later grew into a whole generation of heroes. Miss Infinity's Quirk, Bounce, had nearly a page of notes while Killer Wasp's segment was more detailed in his bee-themed costume. I was way impressed with the amount of work young Q had put into this.

   Although, when I kept flipping, I noticed the writing stopped before the notebook was even half full. I opened the empty pages and showed Q to ask where the rest was.

    "Yes, I never got around to finishing my notes for the whole class. Back then, we had a lot of dropouts, transfers, and so on. By the time I was about to leave for Class H, there were roughly ten students in my old class." As he explained, I turned through the pages and noticed how some students' pages were crossed out, written over, or even a few torn out. As for the few left inside the notebook, Q elaborated on just about everything in massive detail. I wouldn't have expected anything less of him as a kid.

   "It's a shame you don't use these notes anymore," I told him. There was a ton of useful information not only about the former class A but also for anything in the Hero Course.

   Q agreed with me and suggested, "Well, why don't you hold onto it for me?"

"Oh, I couldn't," I began to say before he was insisting on it.

   "You might as well. I have no use for it in this cattywampus clutter. You'll be a Hero student yourself soon, so maybe you can find it helpful."

    I considered his offer while glancing over the writings below me. When he was my age, Q had listed out everything he would ever need to know about UA. I read over the pages from a kid who knew exactly what needed to be done and wasted no time.

   He even inspired me a little. The reason I felt overwhelmed about the Hero Course might have been that I had no idea what I was getting into. I took Q up on his offer and decided to keep his old notebook. My first step was filling the first page with a list of things I planned to see if I got into 1-A.

   I looked down at my short list as Q cleaned up the mugs of coffee. I didn't drink mine, but luckily he had no problem taking mine off my hands. The list of goals managed to put me at ease for a minute. I was looking forward to crossing off each of them, and I had just the tiniest bit of faith in myself.

   I thanked Q for his gift, and he made sure to tell me to get some rest. I reluctantly agreed as we each said our goodbyes.

    "Good night, Tallulah," he told me, leaving down the hallway across the house that separated our rooms. 

   My head immediately snapped back to him as I ducked into the hall. "What did you call me?"

   Q turned back to me. "Tallulah," he simply repeated.

   As confused as I was, I chuckled along. "Really? What happened to Rosemary?" For under a year, Q had insisted on calling me by my formal last name despite my many suggestions he just use Rose. Seeing him change to my first name out of the blue was a huge deal.

   Q didn't seem as though it was as he shrugged it off. "It's been long enough. I think maybe it's time to shake things up once every while."

    I didn't debate him on it. If I couldn't get anywhere with him just calling me Rose, then I figured I could live with Tallulah.

   "I guess things are changing pretty fast, huh?" I thought aloud.

   Q nodded. "Like it or not, Tallulah, your life is going to be changing. It might make you feel less anxious if you change with it just a bit." With that last piece of indefinite advice, Q put the topic to rest as he left down the hall.

   I wasn't sure what he had meant. I also didn't like to admit things were changing faster than I could keep up with, but I looked around. A school year hadn't even passed by, and I was in a completely different house with a new guardian and on my way into a new class department. No wonder I wasn't ready, but what exactly could I do about it?

    Q advised me to make a change to get it out of my system. I considered getting another piercing, but I was running out of space on my ear. I could always update my prosthetics, but with training and classes, there would be no time for something that big.

   What's left for me to change?

   I yawned, stretching my arm back behind my head. Doing so, my hand felt through the 21 inches of pink curls that hung behind me in a ponytail.

   Bingo.

   Before I knew it, I was in my bathroom with a trash bag, hair ties, and a pair of scissors. My heart raced while I looked over myself in the mirror. Even my half shave had grown out below my ear, and the left side of my hair draped over my shoulder down to my waist.

    I took a breath while pulling my arm through a handful of curls, stretching them out as far as I could. Without giving myself a second to reconsider, I leaned over the sink and slid the blade of the scissors across my hair. When my hand gently fell to my side, I still held onto the chopped-off locks of hair.

   I looked up to my reflection that showed me exactly what I had done. My half shave was still down to my ear while the front side of the rest was now just below my chin. My stare was glued to the dramatically uneven strands that framed my face as I took in everything at once.

   "Uhh. . . Q?" I called from across the house.

    This is going to look ridiculous later.

Hello again everyone! Welcome to the first authors note of this book where you'll get short insights to the story you love.

To start us off with this book, we have a short chapter of exposition. My favorite thing about this part had to be showing some glimpses of Q's past at UA. Who knew the mad science teacher was almost a Pro Hero? For your chapter question, do you have any experience with after school activities?

For me, I've had experience with art, theater, and all your classic introverted clubs. Although, my favorite memories came from the many years in marching band as a drummer/ field commander. My respect goes out to those in drum core or college grade marching because it's not easy!

Character Spotlight: Professor Quinton Q. Qonstance (original)
Quirk: Blueprint!
Likes: Coffee

And before we close this out, we have one more bonus spotlight! Bonus Spotlights will be reserved for new characters that will me mentioned throughout the book to keep these important people in mind while you read. Here is someone from Q's graduated class!

Bonus Spotlight: Millori Mōshi, AKA Miss Infinity (original)
Quirk: Bounce!
Likes: Dance

And that's all I have for you lovely readers! If you enjoyed this chapter, be sure to leave comments with your thoughts. Stay safe, and until the next update, guys, gals, and pals!

Dedicated to VanguardActionSquad