🦋Before You Read🦋

🦋 The following story was a gift to my good friend, -butterfly--effect- . I met this wonderful writer on the UAStorytellers server, which hosts an annual gift exchange. As always, I participated, and was so thrilled to pull out her name. This was the gift I made for Butterfly, and she agreed that I could post it on here.

🦋 This story would probably take place just a couple of weeks before What Makes a Villain takes place, though, it's not completely canon as our stories don't take place during the same time period.

🦋 I think that is everything. I hope you all enjoy!

🦋Melody of an Unlikely Duo 🦋

Nothing was ever as black and white like the books filled with music notes. Life might have been simpler that way, but then things would be too easy. The more I thought about it, music wasn't always just black and white. There were time signatures, keys, and other musical elements to be wary of. Forgetting just the slightest detail can ruin an entire piece.

And possibly an entire paycheck.

I sighed. As much as I hated to believe it, Mari was probably right that I needed to revisit my sheet music to ensure I was playing all the notes correctly. While the woman got on my nerves, she was one of the better people I worked for. It was because of her I could play the piano and make somewhat of a living off of it. Well, I could if there weren't management fees, deductions for playing the wrong note or showing up late...the list goes on. She was the reason why I decided to take a look around a small music shop filled with my favorite things: music and quietness.

Strange to think that a music shop could have both, but no one appreciated music as much as they used to, especially when it came to music written over a hundred years ago. That was the section I enjoyed looking at the most. No one dared to bother me, so it was somewhat quiet where I was standing, surrounded by sheet music I could play during my next performance. I could easily learn by ear to play what people were listening to now, but there was just something about sheet music from older composers that was much more memorable.

My hands flipped through some of the old books that were dedicated to those composers.

John Williams. Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky. Fredrick Chopin. Antonio Vivaldi. Domenico Scarlatti.

Domenico Scarlatti. That's a new one. I plucked it out of the stack on the wall and began flipping through the pages. What I loved about this store was that there was a section where they sold books that held music by a certain composer, and then they would have a little snippet inside the front cover about them. They didn't contain all of the composer's songs, but they held the more well-known ones.

Before I could read more about him, the chimes of the front bell rang into the store. It took me off guard. Hardly anyone dared to step foot into a place like this. I carefully glanced towards the door, not turning my head as I did.

It took everything in me not to react to the girl walking inside. Asia Alegria. I recognized her immediately because of her tall rabbit-like ears and the way she fashioned her hair into some type of braid over her shoulder. Not to mention, she still carried that same hardened expression in her eyes.

No, there was no reason to be afraid, I told myself, not after all the information Rove dug up on her. This girl didn't give us much of a choice. During a mission I was on for Rove last week, she decided to jump us, taking us all in for surprise.

It all started when I left the group. They were supposed to cause a distraction, so I could run through the side streets, taking the blueprints with me. Unbeknownst to them, the people I was working with were just dead weight. Rove would care less if they were caught. I was much too irreplaceable, which sounds great when I say it. Sounds like I had a steady job, but it wasn't what I wanted to do.

Sadly, Rove and I knew each other too well to know what would happen if we stopped working together.

That was why I was sent to retrieve a flash drive, one that contained the blueprints on how to create a high quality tracker with a built in listening camera. She needed it for the big mission she's been planning for months. Ever since it was announced that Foxglove was going to host this big thing, Rove knew it was time to quicken her own plans.

I turned down a street, thinking I was in the clear, only to see a feminine figure standing in front of me. The dull lampposts were enough to show off her fuzzy rabbit-like ears. With a rabbit-like Quirk, she couldn't have known what I was up to. Not when the chaos happened far away from where we were standing.

Yet the girl held out her hand. "I'm going to need that flash drive," she said.

My fingers tucked it into my sleeve before I faced my palms in her direction. "I don't know what you're talking about. I don't have anything on me."

The girl shook her head. "I wasn't born yesterday, you dunce," she sneered. "I saw you take it from one of the other villains. You better hand it back, now."

I looked at the way she stood there. Her hands clenched into fists as her muscles tensed. She wasn't going to let me fool her, no matter how polite I was going about it. I sighed. If she wanted to do things the hard way, then so be it.

"Sorry, I can't do that, and neither can you," I said, flourishing my hand into a fist. The girl looked perplexed for a split moment, only, it didn't last long. My Quirk was activated to simply create a metal ring that would wrap from the ground and around her foot to prevent her from following me. Sadly, she somehow predicted it as she leapt into the air before the metal could even curve above ground.

She's fast, I noted. I've dealt with fast opponents before. All I needed to do was anticipate her movements before it was too late. I turned on my heel and started running. In my right hand, I felt a chill as I created a metal crowbar in my hand. It wasn't a standard one by any means as the top twisted to create a loop, but it would suffice if this person got close enough to me.

Hopefully, she didn't get close enough. Violence didn't always need to be the answer, but that didn't mean I wouldn't resort to it if need be. Trust me when I said that no one ever likes having a crowbar striking them.

I ran a few more steps only to find the girl had somehow zipped past me. I never saw it. All I saw was how she stood right in front of me, crossing her arms over her chest. I had no choice but to stop, nearly falling flat on my face as I did.

"Like I said, you better give me the flash drive, now," she demanded. "I'm not going to ask again.

Turning my head back, I noticed she was behind me. She didn't have some type of cloning Quirk. That let me breathe easier knowing I didn't have to fight multiple versions of her. Or at least I should've breathed easier knowing that fact. It still didn't feel right that she could get past without me noticing.

She was going to be a tough opponent. I knew right away running away wasn't going to be easy. This girl was fast, faster than a jackrabbit.

My fingers tightened around the misshapen crowbar, ready to swing it at any given moment. This girl might have had speed on her side, but I still had something up my sleeve.

No, it was not the flash drive she wished she could get her hands on.

"Sorry, but I don't think I can help you," I simply stated. "Please, unless you want to get hurt, I'd suggest you move aside."

Hearing my words, the girl with the rabbit ears leapt into action, jumping high into the air. I watched as she plummeted down with her leg extended, ready to kick me. Before she could, I swung my crowbar, slamming it right into her foot. My teeth clenched as her weight tried to knock me down, but I used every bit of muscle I had to push her back. As she flew back, I took it as an opportunity to run away.

But again, she didn't let me get far.

I had barely made it to the end of the alleyway we were in, ready to run into another street when something slammed right into my shoulder. The impact was so unexpected that I fell forward. Metal scraped against the sidewalk, echoing against the walls surrounding us. It rang loudly that I didn't even hear the other sound that escaped my fall.

I didn't even feel it slide as my hands were getting scratched up from the beaten road.

"See, that wasn't so hard," the girl said. "Guess I'll be going now."

My head snapped up seeing the girl with the rabbit ears straighten up. I could feel my breath still as I saw the tiny device in her hands; the same one I was trying to retrieve for my boss.

Damn it! Rove is going to kill me if I don't get back with that, I thought to myself. This girl had no idea the trouble she would cause if she just ran away with the flashdrive. Not when I needed it.

She didn't even give me time to stand up as she leapt into the air and disappeared. I blinked as I looked around, finding her standing on the other side of the alleyway, as far away as she could get from me.

The girl was giving me a run for my money, but seeing how she was running back towards the scene of the crime, I had one last thing I could do to get the flash drive back.

Let me just say, it was mere luck that the fools I was working with didn't get caught, so they could retrieve that flashdrive, saving our whole mission.

My hand brushed over the shoulder she landed her last kick on, feeling the muscles tighten and ache from the slightest amount of pressure. I was lucky it was winter, so my sister didn't see the bruises or scratches I had come home with that night. She would've been worried.

But not as worried as I was when that girl took us by surprise. After that attack, I swore the heroes had insight on what Rove was planning, heroes other than Sakura Sakai that was. Rove thought the same. In the matter of hours, my boss came to all of us, giving us the rundown of that girl. She attended the same school as Sakai, but she wasn't in the hero course. Alegria was just a Support student, so why she decided to jump in on the attack, endangering herself and others, was beyond me.

At least the only thing I had to worry about was knowing what kind of gear she'd one day make for heroes. That wasn't a problem I needed to worry about now. As long as she didn't recognize me from that night and left me alone with my sheet music, we would be fine.

"Mind if I look?"

I didn't say a word as I took a step to the side, allowing the girl to scan the books filled with music. While I opened the book to scan over all the notes in the book I had just picked up, I noticed the girl's hand lightly brushing over the music books in front of us. Just like last week, they were covered with a pair of gloves. It made sense being that it was starting to grow colder outside, but they didn't look very warm. If I had to guess, they were probably worn as some sort of fashion statement.

As long as she didn't bother me, or recognize me, then it didn't matter. My eyes trailed back to the book in my hands to see if everything on the page was playable. Anything was, but my problem was more if I could get the piece mastered in a small amount of time.

"Is that Scarlatti?" she asked.

"Yes," I answered, closing the music. "Were you looking for his music?"

Alegria shook her head. "No! I just recognized the composer. I—wait! Can I take a look at that for a moment?"

I handed the girl the book as she opened it up. Her fingers trailed the page while her eyes looked down at the music. To anyone else, she might have just been glancing down, but I could see the way her eyes concentrated with every note written on the page. Add that to the fact that she knew the composer without hesitation...

"Do you play piano by chance?" I asked.

Her eyes shot open before snapping them up to me, giving my answer. "Yes. I've played a few of Scarlatti's works before. I just never thought I'd find the book that holds his Cat Fugue in it. Not many books have that song in them."

As she spoke, I realized how different she was than when she was on the battlefield last week. Which version was the real her? Was she someone who loved music and wanted to relax beside the piano and play to her heart's desire? Or was she serious and snarky, someone who wanted to help the Pro Heroes put an end to a villain's destruction?

Sure, I might have been a villain, but heroes weren't always the good guys. Take that Pro Hero, Foxglove, for example. What hero spends their time with another career, distracting themself from their actual work? I know some people made it work, but she let it distract her actual job from time to time, irritating me to no end.

Heroes like that didn't deserve to be given that title. They should've been more serious about their work, so they could prevent people from dying or seeing a city collapse right in front of their very eyes.

Both were things I had witnessed from various heroes. Both were things I needed to make sure didn't happen again.

The girl standing next to me wasn't even training to be a hero, yet there she was that night, fighting to put a stop to what we were doing. She was more of a hero than most Pro Heroes were, but I could never admit that. Not out loud and never really to myself because if I did, then I would know what I truly was.

There was no way anyone would be proud of that.

"You wouldn't mind if I took this, right?" she asked.

I shook my head. "You seemed pretty excited about it," I said. "Besides, my boss would probably rather have me play more current music than the classics."

Alegria turned, looking at me with disbelief. "Really? But the classics are the best! It's much more complex and fun to play."

To think I was fighting this girl a week ago, I thought to myself, before shaking the thought out of my head.

"I agree," I said, "but you know, if no one recognizes the song, they're not going to stop and listen. It's the sad truth."

"I guess you're right," Alegria sighed as her ears drooped down. "Well, thank you for letting me have this. Good luck with your next performance. If I ever catch you playing, I'll have to make sure to stop and listen."

A smile crossed my lips, but she would never see that. Not when I covered it with my mask. Without it...no. That wasn't important.

All that really mattered now was knowing that someone else out there was going to enjoy playing and listening to Scarlatti's work. Seeing how she was searching for a specific piece, I knew she was going to get more out of the book than I was. I didn't even really know the composer that well. Then again, all the books in front of us were written by composers who were long gone, but still.

"You know, if I ever see you in the crowd, I'll make sure I play a classical piece," I promised, "but only if you promise to tip me."

The girl gave a short laugh. "Sure, whatever you say."

Knowing that the book was hers, she turned to walk to the counter to purchase the book. I watched her for a moment, wondering how this was the same girl I had fought a week ago.

But I guess if anyone would know about living two different lives, it would be me. I just hope, for her sake, she was more careful when danger came her way.

🦋The End🦋

🦋Character Spotlight: Asia Alergia 🦋
🦋Quirk: Runaway Rabbit🦋
🦋Likes: Scarlatti🦋

🦋Character Spotlight: Yamasaki🦋
🦋Quirk: Metal Rings🦋
🦋Likes: Tchaikovsky🦋

Music: Sonata in A minor k532 by Scarlatti