I tried everything I could not to wake Tami up when my alarm blared on my phone. My eyes peeled open to see her sound asleep. Her head was laying on my arm while her arms were tucked into her chest. I reached over here to grab my phone arm with my free arm, turning off the alarm. Not once did she stir, and honestly, that was how I wanted things to be. After the night she had, she deserved some decent sleep. She didn't need to wake up so early.

Still, it wasn't easy seeing her head lying on my arm. If I had nothing to do, I would've just laid there beside her, but it just couldn't happen. Not when today marked my first day of working for Bravura's Agency. The last thing I needed was to be late, not when I got a text from my boss saying I needed to come in last night.

True, he gave me a choice, but I had already said I'd come. If I'd known Tami would've had trouble sleeping, resulting in the two of us sleeping together, I might have asked to come a day later. It was luck that I got this job in America, one so close to where Tami would be going to college and everything. The last thing I'd need was to screw it up and head back home.

No, there was no way I'd take my father's offer and work for him. That would be the last thing I'd do.

With all that said and done, I tried slipping my arm away from Tami, so she wouldn't wake up. Everything seemed to be going fine until I sat up. The moment I did, I felt the bed shift beside me.

"Wha...time is it?" she groggily asked.

I turned my head down to look at her. Her hands were rubbing her eyes, almost as if she was trying to force herself to wake up.

"Too early," I told her. "Just go back to sleep. I'll call you during my lunch break," I told her as I pushed myself out of the bed.

Before I could take a step, I felt something wrap around my wrist. I glanced down, seeing Tami's small fingers wrapping around mine. It was times like this I realized how beat up they were. Tami didn't seem like the kind of person to have cuts on her hands, but with the amount of training we did, her hands weren't smooth like they use to be. Still, her fingers felt nice and was enough to make me want to just curl up and hold her close.

If only I didn't need to be at work in less than an hour.

"Tami, I need to go," I told her.

Her mouth opened in a loud yawn. Shortly after, her eyes blinked, almost as if she was trying to wake up. The moment her brown eyes were open long enough for me to see, she gave a small smile.

"Good luck," she said. "Stay safe."

I smiled before I bent down and kissed her on her forehead. "You know I will. Just go back to sleep."

My girlfriend didn't fight me. She just simply laid back down in bed, her eyes closing shut the moment her head hit the pillow. Tami looked absolutely at peace as if the nightmares she faced never happened last night.

I slipped out of the bed before I grabbed the sheets that had fallen off the bed last night and carefully placed it on her. She didn't seem to have noticed, but that was alright. At least I knew she'd have something keeping her warm.

As much as I wanted to climb back into bed, I had to force myself to turn around and ready myself for my first day at the Bravura Agency.

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I stared up at the building that was to the Bravura Agency, feeling a bit disappointed when I saw it. From what all the packets informed me about and how Sicarius talked on the phone about the agency, I was expecting something pretty extravagant.

What I didn't expect was for there to be a boarded up window as the glass in front of it was shattered into pieces. The wooden walls looked worn with brown paint that nearly faded away to the wood's natural color. I could even see the shingles all loosely hanging from the roof.

The building was nothing like the sleek silver siding with windows that gleamed in the sunlight that I had seen on their website. If anything, it looked like this building had been abandoned for over a hundred years. My eyes glanced over at the street name, then to the metal numbers hanging on the side of the building to double check this was where I was supposed to go. Sure enough, it was.

If I needed more proof, then there were the red letters spelling, "The Bravura Agency" on a sign hanging above the front door. Looking at that door, I couldn't believe this was an agency, not with the amount of holes imprinted on it. Those holes were big enough for a rat to contort its body to squeeze through.

I wasn't looking forward to seeing what was on the inside, but a job was a job.

"Valiente? Is that you? Oh my gosh! You look so much better in person than you do in the pictures! Oh! I cannot wait to start working with you! This'll be so much fun!" a voice squealed.

I tore my head away from the building to see a woman standing there. Before I could even soak in any detail about her, a bright flash of a camera went off, blinding me momentarily. My eyes squeezed shut before I started rubbing them.

"Oh! This is definitely a keeper! Oh, I'm sure you probably have all the girls running up to you asking for your number," the woman gushed.

After blinking a few times so I could see, I looked down at the overly-enthusiastic girl standing in front of me. She was much taller than most of the girls back home, standing just a few inches shorter than me. The woman wore a skintight black suit with silver stitching woven all over it, creating some sort of intricate pattern on it. Her hair was kept in a short afro, barely being pushed back by a silvery headband.

How did she get all that energy this early in the morning?

"I'm Sicarius, but you can just call me Elle unless we're on missions and stuff," she introduced, holding out her hand that didn't have the old-style camera in her hands. "We've talked on the phone a lot! And gosh! I seriously cannot—"

"Can you please keep it down for one morning?" a monotoned voice asked. "It should be illegal to be this chipper this early."

Sicarius turned around, revealing another Pro Hero closer to my age walking down the street, sporting an ashy blond ponytail. The first thing I was drawn to were bags underneath the eyes. While I understood that it was normal to look tired this early in the morning, this guy looked as if sleep was non-existent.

Did what happened to Tami happen to this fellow Pro as well, I thought to myself, thinking back to those nightmares that nearly kept her stirring all night til I laid down beside her. Maybe Bravura will explain it more when I meet him.

"Perfect timing!" Sicarius cheered. "Valiente, this is Quinn. Their Pro Hero name is Lento Lore. Usually, they're not here this early," she explained before turning her attention back to the other person. "Did you actually get some sleep last night?"

My eyes widened. Sleep? There was no way sleep was in this person's vocabulary!

Quinn looked up at me, showing off a pale complexion that seemed almost impossible to have. "New guy, right?"

"Yup! This here is Valiente! It's Spanish for strength, right?" Elle asked as she turned to look at me.

I shook my head. "Brave," I corrected. "It's Spanish for brave."

"Damn it! Guess I'm going to have to touch up on my Spanish when I get home," Elle said.

I shrugged, and as I did, Quinn's head fell to the side, almost looking at us in confusion. No words came out though.

Elle's hand grabbed my hand and quickly yanked it. It wasn't her strength that yanked me away, but it was the fact I wasn't expecting it at all. Again, there was no way this person should have as much energy as she did. It should have been illegal. True, Kaito was pretty energetic back home, but not this much. She'd give the guy a run for his money.

To think I wouldn't have to deal with someone like that here, I was sadly mistaken.

She pulled me into the building which was nothing like it looked like on the outside. It didn't have cracks or chipped paint. Instead, everything looked put together if it wasn't for the brown move-in boxes scattered everywhere. My eyes scanned the walls to see if there were traces of mold hidden by some of the boxes, but from what I could see without moving them, nothing looked broken.

It was then I realized we had stopped.

"So last month, we had to relocate here, so we're still adding the finishing touches. Course, we could have had it done by now, but our boss is pretty adamant on everyone finishing paperwork, patrols, and other important stuff before we can get back to this. Not that I don't mind, but when I open up my own agency, I'm so going to let my sidekicks have a break every once in a while," Elle explained.

I was about ready to make a comment on something she had said when Quinn quietly stopped me.

"You still have a year left," Quinn commented. "Don't get ahead of yourself."

Elle whipped around and crossed her arms over her chest. "Don't you have places to be? Like finishing the paperwork of last night's mission or something?"

"Stayed up til five this morning getting it all done," Quinn commented.

Five!? I looked up at the nearest clock. It wasn't five, but it was still early as it read eight o'clock.

A part of me wanted to ask Quinn something, but the person quickly knelt to the ground, placed both cups of coffee on the ground, and laid down. Not even a second after Quinn's head touched the ground, I could hear the snores escaping their mouth.

I blinked in confusion. Was this guy seriously taking a nap in the middle of the room? The room that anyone could walk in at in any given moment?

America was definitely a strange place.

"Are they going to be okay?" I asked, glancing back at Elle. Though, the minute I did, I wasn't sure what to concentrate on. It wasn't until that moment I realized she didn't have just one pair of eyes. She had another pair of eyes next to her normal looking eyes. The only difference with these ones was that they were smaller, and a bit rounder than the other pair.

"Oh yeah," Elle told me. "They do this all the time. Honestly, it's a new record for them as they usually pass out right when they walk through the door."

"Wait, it's normal for them to do this?" I asked.

"Yup! Don't worry about it though. Our boss is pretty lenient on that stuff. Just as long as you get your work done when you're supposed to, do your part on missions, and all that good stuff, you can literally do whatever it is you want," explained Elle. "Now c'mon! I've got something to show you!"

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Before Elle could show whatever it was she truly wanted to show me, she took me on a tour of the building. As small as the building was on the outside, it was a bit larger on the inside. It wasn't in the same way as those sci fi movies Kaito forced me to watch growing up where there was no logical explanation as to why the inside of the telephone booth was as big as a small room rather than the size it should have been or that bag this one nanny had that could fit a tall floor lamp inside. For this building, there was just more built underneath it.

Like the woman said before, they were still unpacking, so most of the walk consisted of us weaving around boxes or Elle opening a door to reveal a room filled with boxes or jammed with furniture that couldn't fit anywhere else. My eyes tried to find some sort of proof that they even worked on this building, but I could see the paint chipping away from the walls while the wooden floors were scuffed and scratched.

Elle was right; this place could use some serious remodeling.

She eventually took me into a smaller room where boxes acted as chairs and makeshift tables. The only thing that was used for what it was supposed to was a paper covered tac board with yarn and tacks carefully placed on it. While Elle walked over to one of the makeshift tables, my eyes studied the board in front of me. From what I could see, it was a map of Rhode Island, with X's scratching out particular parts and circles guessing another.

"This is my office," Elle explained, "which brings us to the end of the tour. Any questions?"

"What's this?" I asked, still staring at the board filled with tacs and strings, trying to make sense of everything.

The woman sighed. "That's my current project. There's a few of us that are in charge of specific missions, so we can catch more criminals and keep this area safe."

My head snapped back to see her picking up a folder that was lying on a large pile on a chair. How she could find anything in this place, I wasn't sure, but seeing the glare she gave to a box she nearly tripped over, I could tell she wasn't happy about it.

"We've got cameras hidden all over the city, so whenever someone suspects that they've found the villain we're looking for, we're notified," she further explained. "It's not a major case, but I'd like your help on it whenever someone finds their location."

I nodded my head, not exactly following. Wasn't Bravura supposed to be behind everything that was given to his agency? Did he even know about this operation that was going on?

More importantly...

"What kind of case is this?" I asked.

Elle opened her mouth when the door swung open. My eyes shot wide open when I saw Quinn from before slouching beside a broad shouldered man with short blond hair. His blue eyes shot past me to look at Elle.

"We found them," the man said. "We're going to need to catch them before they move again."

An arm wrapped around my shoulders. I glanced over to see Elle standing there with a wide smile, blinking with both pairs of eyes.

"Perfect timing! I was just a out too tell Valiente about it. Mind if he tags along with us? He'll be a perfect asset to capturing these villains," Elle asked.

The man turned his head to look at me. He didn't look that tall, not when he looked to be the same height as Quinn. His hair was much blonder though, and unlike the person I had met from earlier, this man wasn't built like a twig.

Somehow, I knew who he was without anyone having to say a word to me.

He smiled. "Glad I can finally put a name to the face. What better way to see what you're made of than to go straight to the field? Sicarius and Lento Lure can fill you in on the way. Just make sure to keep up," Bravura said.

I nodded my head, having absolutely no idea what I was about to be thrown into.

Author's Note:

Hello everyone! Does anyone else feel like it's been a while since I've last updated or is it just me? Either way, I'm going to start rubbing updates differently from now on. Chapters will no longer be released on an arc basis. They will be published whenever they are ready. Reason being: I'm afraid breaks between arcs will be so long that it'll seem like I dropped the story. That's not the case. Life has just gotten busier, but I'm still going to keep writing cuz it's something I love. So don't worry, this story will finish someday.

Thank you all for sticking around and supporting the story. Before I go, I will leave you all with the chapter question: we were briefly introduced to the three main OCs of the Bravura Agency: Elle, Quinn, and Bravura. Who are you most interested to learn more about?

Oh, and quick shoutout to aBitGrim and FoxyPuff for creating this amazing picture of Raiden! It's hard to find good pictures of him, so being that these two were able to work together and create the perfect pic for him, OMG, it just makes me so happy! Thank you two so much!

Character Spotlight: Elle
Quirk: Spider
Likes: Photography

Song: Welcome to my World from Made in Abyss (finding music for this arc is hard, so if anyone has any anime, music suggestions that'd do well in accompanying chapters, feel free to let me know).