3 years later
POV: MC
Growing up here hasn't been too bad except for the fact I'm halfway across the world from anything interesting. The only thing here was a bunch of animalistic battle freaks.
I haven't been put into any training yet, but they have put me in lessons for language and other subjects. We were taught English instead of whatever we originally spoke due to the emergence of quirks effectively decimating societies in central Africa, which made us look outwards for business and connections.
On that subject, I also learned we lived in pretty much lawless lands—no government, no heroes, and basically no vigilantes. The only sort of order here was my clan; we were de facto leaders of hundreds of kilometers of land, so I got my wish… just not how I expected.
But that doesn't matter. What really mattered was how cute I was. I didn't have a feline face like my dad, but I did have a tail and ears—as in, the golden ratio—all the cuteness without the downsides. All the ladies would come to me and pamper me with adoration, and I wasn't rejecting any of it. I leaned into trying to set off more "awwwws" and "how cute." It made my day-to-day a little bit more flavorful.
One day, during my normal activities, I started feeling funky—not sick, but my body felt weird. My heart rate spiked, and my vision thinned. My body started morphing; my limbs kept changing from human to cat-like. My face stretched and contracted. It felt like I was having a weird seizure. I fell over, not being able to control my body, and I passed out.
…I opened my eyes to see the blaring lights of a hospital room. I was covered in sensors connected to monitors. I felt fine, so I went to take everything off my body, but as I was about to, the door opened and my mom and dad came into the room.
"How are you, my little cub?" she said as she put a hand on my cheek. Dad was behind Mom; he didn't say anything, but he was clearly worried.
As they looked over me, a doctor came into the room with a clipboard.
"Now that he's up, we can reveal his quirks."
My parents were shocked when they heard the plural, but didn't say anything, waiting for the big reveal.
"Well, first of all, as we all know, he has the family quirk of being a demi-human—but he has control of how much he is, from being human to full lion. Second is some sort of aura similar to the mother's quirk. We don't know much else besides that."
Both of them couldn't be happier with the results. They hugged each other, relieved that I came out gifted. I couldn't help but smile at their happiness.
As they had their moment, the doctor told me to keep on all the monitoring equipment for a bit longer so they could be sure there were no complications. Once my parents were done with their moment, they started going on and on about how they were going to train me. I couldn't help but laugh at how lively they were compared to the more stoic and reserved people they usually are.
Once they were done with the tests, they finally let us leave. We left the room and started heading toward the exit.
"Don't be too surprised when we leave now, okay, my little cub?" she said as she held my hand, guiding me toward the exit.
Once we exited through the door, the sight shocked me. It looked like some sort of complex or mall, but pretty much every person here was a clan member.
"This is how we connect to the rest of the world," my dad said as we walked around the place.
There were shops filled with myriads of items from across the worlds, agencies from any self-respecting hero-based country—it even looked like there were some restaurants with varying cuisines. It was MASSIVE (low taper?). I did know that we worked with countries, supplying them with heroes that could make it easily into the top 1000, but this was unexpected.
"We also protect these lands so trade of minerals and precious resources found almost nowhere else is smooth," my dad said, seeing my confusion. It made the whole scene more sensible (a lot of precious minerals come out of Africa).
We kept walking till we made it to an elevator that brought us to the surface.
Months later
I joined the other kids for training. It was some basic combat training like hand-to-hand combat and conditioning. It was something I had to get used to, but I never backed away from it. It was exhilarating getting stronger, despite how minimal it was due to me being so young.
It was clear whatever soul or brain was in this body was made for this stuff. I picked it up quickly and soon started beating kids a year or two older than me (this is pure one-on-one, no quirk—they all have some sort of strength-based demi-human quirk with varying levels of disfigurement).
Aside from beating brats, I was also learning how to control my quirks with my parents. My dad brought me through traditional exercises to control how fast I could change my body (they all tend to be able to shift slightly, example being forming claws, but none have had full body like MC).
It felt weird, like my body molded and morphed into something else. It wasn't painful, but it didn't feel nice. I also had to get used to moving in lion form—it was instinctual, but that doesn't mean I could do it well.
Aside from that, I also learned how to use aura from my mom. It wasn't hard to access it, but controlling it was taxing—it felt like a machine long left to rust. The only thing I could do was try to oil the machine through repetitive training.
But even without major applications, releasing aura would increase my strength greatly.
It wasn't a glamorous life, but I was having fun learning all these new things. It made life vibrant and interesting. I could only look to the future for a change of pace—but that was in due time.