Bratatatatatatat!
"Ahhh!!"
"Oh God!"
"My arm!"
The sounds of gunfire and screaming is all that could be heard. In the hot desert of Iraq, the child soldier unit was on another mission.
Zola, now a 15 year old girl, was much more mature and developed. She was currently hiding behind a building, backing up her comrades from a group of Terrorists who have been destroying villages left and right for not submitting to their religion.
"Die Heathens!"
Someone with a quirk that allows him to light himself on fire, was running into her comrades. They lit him up, but his will power was great and he managed to grab onto one of her comrades.
"Ahhhh!!!! Help!!"
Zola winced at his screams of agony.
Bratatatata!
Both the terrorist and the comrade were taken out by Pierre.
"You absolute idiot. Being grabbed by a vermin like that. You deserve to die."
Zola hated the prick as he has become a sociopath like most of the kids in the unit.
She returned her focus to the enemies who were taking advantage of the distraction of their comrade to push further.
Gunshots hit the walls behind her and she ducked and aimed her rifle at them.
She easily took down lots of them. However one of them had a hardening quirk and was heading towards her, who just gunned down 10 of his brothers.
"Heathen! Die!"
He rushed through the wall guarding her from gunfire and she barely dodged. She opens fire on him but he barely flinches.
He goes to bring his fists down in her and she backflips away from him. However, she was out in the open now a few stray bullets hit her.
"Gah!"
The hardening terrorist walks up to her arrogantly.
Zola looks behind her and sees that she was left behind by Pierre and the others.
'Fuckers!'
She takes out her Glock and shoots every round at the approaching man who shrugs all her shots off.
"Little more than flea bites. Submit woman! You are not a lowly westerner like the other heathens. Devote yourself to purging the infidels. Do that and I will spare you."
Zola chuckles then spits to the side.
"Fuck you! Terrorists like you only deserve death."
She tries to stand up but is grabbed by the neck. She can hardly breathe.
"Very well! May god have mercy on you Infidel!"
He laughs as he begins to choke her. But this was exactly what Zola wanted.
She grabs his nose and forces it closed.
"What the hell do you think your-mmmm!?!"
The moment she opened his mouth she stuffed something in. He dropped her and she quickly crawls away from him and plugs her ears.
"Say hello to god for me." She says with a cocky smirk.
Before he could contemplate what she stuffed in his mouth, his head blew up, along with the top of his body. All that remained were his legs. And they collapsed like a Jenga tower.
Zola looks at what she did with dead eyes before seeing the rest of them coming her way.
She grabs a rifle from the body of the kid Pierre killed. She then aims at them, but is not hopeful about making it out as she was vastly outnumbered and injured.
Slit!
Gurgle!
Plop!
All of the terrorists look back and see one of their brothers had his throat slit. But they couldn't see who did it as they already disappeared.
"I-It's him!"
"That quirkless Behemoth?!"
"The canvas!"
Slit!
Bang!
Plop!
Plop!
Two more bodies drop. One with a slit throat again and one with a gun.
This time they catch a figure moving swiftly through the sand already on the move for the next one.
"Kill him!"
"For our brothers!"
They start shooting at him who jumped behind a wall.
He then throws a smoke grenade out the broken window of the wall.
Bang!
The hiss of smoke engulfs the terrorists. They begin opening fire on the wall where the figure was hidden behind. But before they could even try to look around:
Bratatatatata!
All of the soldiers were suddenly lit up by an AR-15 from behind.
"Ahhhh!"
"God!!!"
"Nooo!"
After firing a whole clip, the smoke has already disappeared and all the terrorists lay dead on the ground, bleeding from multiple gunshot wounds.
"Mission complete."
A slightly deep voice said, but clearly that of a kid.
Zola sighs. She gives the man who saved her a cocky smile.
"Well, if it isn't my favorite quirkless gentleman, Samuel."
The man sighs and removes the balaclava from his face and shows a young man with short brown hair. He still had an emotionless face, unnerving Zola, but she still treated him like she did with the others. Like she actually trusts them.
Sam walks to Zola and looks at her legs that were hit by gunfire.
"You were reckless."
Zola clenches her teeth.
"You say that after you literally almost got lit up? Are you sure you don't have a quirk? A luck quirk?"
After 5 years of being mercenaries, Sam and Zola both grew up. Sam was now 13 and yet he doesn't look or sound much different from the other kids in his unit.
He also managed to become quite famous after killing the New Zealand villain "Killer King." Tales of how an 8-year old killed one of the most elusive and deadly villains that most pro-heroes would struggle capturing, was nothing short of incredible.
As the years passed, the child soldier unit went on more and more missions. Sam became an expert of espionage after his first mission. He claimed to have learned it from "Killer King" Andy Wayne.
Now, he can sneak up and sneak past others easily. That's why he was also given many personal missions involving espionage. Most famous of all was when he had to save the daughter of a wealthy Sheikh from a trafficking ring that sells women with good quirks for breeding strong kids.
He also went on missions and single handedly dismantled people with strong quirks and by using nothing but deception, trickery and dirty tricks, he would always take down the enemies trump cards.
His name became known all across Africa.
Canvas.
Because of his fame, his status as quirkless was also revealed, making him even more of a legend in Africa. A quirkless kid who always snuck behind enemy lines and killed some of the strongest quirk users the enemies had.
After finishing off a monster who was using his quirk, Sword hands, to slice up prisoners for fun, he headed back to his comrades and witnessed another man with a troublesome quirk. And it was approaching Zola.
Before he could aid her, she stuffed a grenade in his mouth and blew him up.
Before she could be overwhelmed by the rest, he took down all the other terrorists in a sneak attack. He first made them feel shock and alarm by slitting the neck of one of them and hiding quickly. When they see the dead comrade, they start panicking and Sam took down another with a knife and another with his pistol, alarming them again. Then he runs towards a broke wall as they shoot at him and dives behind it. Angered and scared they use up most of their ammo to gun down the wall. Sam then throws a smoke grenade and they try to get out of the smoke, but before they can even see again, Sam lit them up.
He approaches Zola and kneels next to her fallen form.
She gives him a cocky smile.
"Well, looks like I owe you, Samuel."
Despite being called Canvas in the camp, she called him Samuel.
Sam sighs.
"You don't owe me anything. Just keep doing your job. But I liked that move you did to kill that man. It was quite effective. I might use that if I find myself in a similar situation someday."
"That's cruel, Samuel. Stealing my skill without my permission? I thought you were better than that-ouch!"
Sam already began bandaging her leg.
"It was clean, nothing to dig out, it should heal on its own."
She gave a light chuckle.
"Mechanical as always."
She jokes around with him, but she still trusts him the least out of all the other members of the unit.
"Let us get out of here."
Sam grabs her by the arm and helps her walk back to the rendezvous point.
She gives him a smile and a nod of appreciation, but her thoughts are different.
'I really need to keep an eye on you, Samuel. You keep becoming more and more unpredictable.'
———
Once back to the rendezvous point, they patch themselves up. Timo was there as well.
"Alright! Well done everyone! Pierre! Quick thinking putting down the dead weight when you were being charged. Canvas. Great work taking out the leader swiftly and efficiently. We got a nice bonus for saving some of the prisoners he kept. Zola, reckless, but efficient. Keep it up. Soon enough, you won't be the child soldier unit anymore. You will be one of us. That's when you can start making big bucks!"
""Yay!!""
The kids of the child soldier unit have all grown up. Most of the kids Sam met and fought when he was 8, died all ready. In fact, only Zola and Pierre remained. The Asian boy who was friends with Pierre was alive as well, but Pierre killed him along with the flaming terrorist.
Hearing that they can finally be treated as adults was a breath of fresh air. Only Sam and Zola were not cheery about that.
"Are you alright?"
Sam approaches with some water and food.
"You worried for me Samuel?"
"Well… yes. I suppose. You are one of the best in the unit. We can't afford to lose you."
Zola raises an eyebrow at that and sees nothing in his eyes still.
She sighs.
"Yeah yeah. Thank you so much Samuel."
She dismisses him, not interested in conversing with him anymore. He obliges willingly.
———
After returning to Africa from Iraq, a trip that took a day in a large military cargo plane. The unit was granted a break.
The others would use this time to play around or sleep.
Sam was different. He immediately goes into his exercise and recollects his battles and thinks about where he could improve. He is lost in his mind while exercising and before he can realize it, it's already lights out.
The unit is granted more freedom and isn't required to be in bed on the dot anymore. After all, everyone in the unit already knows they would pay on the battlefield and not the instructors for going against their orders.
Sam ends his exercise and goes to wash off. While on his way to the showers, he hears something in the woods near the barracks.
He stops and listens.
Sniffle
Sam was certain someone was in there. He quietly walks towards the sound and tries not to make a sound.
As he gets closer he starts to hear more clearly.
"…I'm sorry…I'm so sorry…"
Sam was shocked. Not because of the words, but because of the voice.
He knew who was apologizing.
He quickly followed the sounds and eventually he finds himself right by a clearing where a lake is refracting the stars and the moon from the sky. He is stunned that such a view was visible from this spot.
Right by the crystal clear lake, hair rustling in the wind, was none other than Zola. Her beautiful face streaked with tears.
She is looking up at the stars, eyes full of pain.
Something hurts in Sam's heart too. He feels his heart beating erratically.
Then he feels something fall from his eye.
'A tear?'
Suddenly, he feels a dreadful headache.
He holds it, trying to be quiet.
But then he sees something. A memory.
"*Sammy… Mommy loves you so much…*"
He hears this in his head as he sees a beautiful woman with brown hair lying on the floor in a pool of blood—so vivid he could smell iron.
Her face streaked with tears of dread.
Almost identical to the tears Zola is shedding.
Sam gasps loudly, unknowingly revealing himself to Zola.
"Who is there?!"
She sits up and looks behind her with an angry expression. She sees a silhouette and charges them with her knife. She presses it against their neck.
She sees that it's the body of Sam. The 13 year old kid she was always weary of.
"Samuel… you better have-"
Before she can say anything else, she looks at his face. Expecting to see his emotionless eyes, she is shocked to see tears falling from his eyes too.
"Samuel…"
Zola doesn't know why but she knows that those tears are genuine.
"I remember… She was my mom… she cried in a pool of blood… why?"
Sam is looking down, not even aware of the knife against his throat.
Zola is confused, but she can feel the despair in those tears. They are similar to the tears she sheds after every mission in secret, apologizing for all the lives she took.
She thought all the members of the unit were psychopaths who had no problem with death and killing.
But now she sees a genuinely guilty expression.
"She died… and I forgot her… not only that… I've become a monster… what have I done…"
Sam finally feels emotion flooding back into him like a broken dam. He feels himself about to breakdown, but suddenly he is engulfed in a warm hug.
"Shhh… it's okay, Samuel. Don't worry… I'm here."
Zola saw that he was about to breakdown from an influx of emotions and held him close. She also began to cry as she could feel the despair he feels from the tremors of his body.
She didn't know why, but she couldn't ignore this.
For the first time in years, Sam finally remembered what it felt like to be a human.
And he felt relief as he silently sobbed while in the arms of another broken soul. He didn't feel so alone anymore.
Zola felt the same. Maybe Samuel could be saved. She loathed being around the psychopathic kids, which is why she came here and cried alone all the time. But now she doesn't feel lonely. She feels, just a little, peace of mind.
Both just cry and allow themselves to not be alone for once. Uncaring of the consequences for showing each other this weakness.