T-Generation2378

-------{T}-------

Ever since I was little, there was one thing you'd pretty much always find me doing: drawing. People sometimes see the hobby as advertising or just something to do when they're bored, but not me. Like my sister with a good book, drawing not only takes me into my own world where everything is possible, but also brings my creativity to life so I can show others what is going on in my head. And when I'm not putting my sister's or my own creations on paper, I'm sketching famous faces or my friends.

Crayons to pencils and fingers to brushes. As I grew, I learned more and more about my favorite pastime. Art is my own way of telling a story or expressing my feelings toward something or someone. It became natural to me to notice every little detail about something and match colors with what I saw.

I've done so much of it, drawing seemed like a part of me. Then one day, it literally was. I laugh so hard to think of the first time ink started leaking from my fingertips. I thought it was some kind of black blood and screamed so loud, and in the middle of kindergarten class too! Everyone was so scared, because, well, where we live, quirks are not at all common.

When I was immediately taken to see a doctor by my mom, my panic died down just as quick as it had started when he assured us it was just a quirk. I instantly began comparing myself to the few heroes of the town. The idea was so awesome, to have my own drawing system literally at my fingertips. My parents, on the other hand, had another opinion.

With less of a fifth of our country's population possessing a quirk, those without powers hold some sort of jealous grudge against those with. My parents and most of our friends were certainly no exception. Sad to say only a few people were excited for our manifesting, and those were people with quirks. It was these kinds of broken relationships that have made me wonder if even getting a quirk was a blessing or a curse.

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"And post." I slide up on my phone to update my online art gallery. The picture I threw up half an hour ago is pretty impressive if I say so myself. I take a few seconds to notice every detail I included. There are the two characters in running stances, one with a terrified expression on his face and his soul just protruding from under the chest of his shirt, and the other less human and ferociously chasing the first guy. My signature is in the corner, a simple letter "T."

Every piece I draw, I post on social media to get feedback and critiques from randos with similar interests. That and exploring other people's artwork has helped me improve my style and coloring greatly. Finally, I set my phone down in the locker with everything else and close it.

I take a final drink from my fruit punch Gatorade and enter the gymnasium with my gloves dangling from the wrists of my kendo uniform. As I pass the next trash can, I toss the empty bottle and subconsciously start rubbing my index fingers together, kneading the dried ink still stuck on them with my sword-thing clutched underneath my right arm and my helmet-mask thing under my left. Once I'm close enough to the group of seven other students, I skip my gloves and put my sword in my hands, walking up to WD.

"Cutting it kinda close, don'tcha think?" she asks, pointing out that we're about to start practice.

"Sorry it took me a minute," I apologize. "Armor decided to get complicated." I knock on the back of my helmet to indicate my problem with it.

"It got complicated, or you just don't like it?" She points to my uncovered hands to remind me of my gloves.

I sigh and begrudgingly pull them over my hands. "More of the second answer."

"Right, students," our coach calls, skimming a binder and glancing over the eight of us. "We'll be starting back at the beginning of the point requirement, which was?" He waits for us to call it out and finish the statement.

"Ki-Ken-Tai," we answer in unison.

"Very good. Today, we'll be focusing on 'Ki,' which is?"

"Spirit."

"Exactly." He shuts and sets down his binder to properly take up his bamboo sword by the hilt in both hands. "Every attack you make with your shinai must be done with exhilaration, shouting as you strike. Not only does it show your spirit, but it scares your opponent into knowing you mean business as well. HYAH!!" I flinch with everyone else as he surprises us by suddenly screaming and swinging his weapon in front of him against the floor. His yell and the clack of wood echo in the gym for a brief second.

"See?" he laughs, and I can't help but chuckle along at the surprise. While he has everyone's attention, I secretly take my gloves off for comfort and let them dangle from my sleeves again.

It's one of the things I like about our instructor. For a tough kendo coach, Mr. Skarson is very patient and fair with all of us and is one of those guys who believe that a little fun would never kill anybody.

"Alright, let's jump into it." Mr. Skarson motions for us to get into stance as he walks down to the left side of our line. I carefully hold my weapon in both hands, which I bring out and down just above my waist. I then position my feet with one in front and my other far behind. "We'll go down the line. When I get to you, swing your shinai and give me your best shout."

Just as instructed, each of us are pointed at, and we swing and shout.

"Ki-yah!"

"Hai!"

"Hya!"

A couple more and he finally points to me. I squeeze my bamboo weapon over my shoulder. Before I can swing, one of my classmates calls from the beginning of the line, "Can I get a 'Hi-yah,' Bendy?"

The other students laugh, and I roll my eyes at him to give a sarcastic laugh. "A-ha." I'm not too focused on the lame internet reference, but more of the name calling. Oh well. Jealous little brats.

With that out of the way, I adjust my grip on the hilt, bring the weapon to my shoulder and swing as hard as I can, giving my mightiest "Kyah!"

"Good," Mr. Skarson nods before pointing to my sister next to me. "Wanda."

I hear her mutter "WD," to correct him before she brings her sword to her waist and thrusts forward. "Ka-yeet!" A few of us snicker at her joke, while our instructor tries to decide on her actions. Finally, he nods. "Yeah, I'll let it count. Don't do that in a real match though."

He walks back to his place in front of us all. "With shouts noted, let's start with some practice matches." His eyes scan over us to pick his entertainment. "Let's start with... how about Elijah and Trey?"

Now I know the man is messing with me. If there's one person who's been picking on me just for having a quirk, it's Elijah. Just the same, I pull my helmet on and walk to one side of the court as the other students shout out words of encouragement, mostly to my opponent.

I step on the starting line and walk myself through the positioning. Both hands on the shinai, feet at shoulder length, and crouching down.

"No cheating, Trey!" Eli calls from his own line.

I cock my head. "You expect me to?"

"Both of you play fair," Mr. Skarson warns, standing little back from the center. He puts up his hand. "Ready?" We rise from our greeting stance and tilt our weapons to each other. Our instructor suddenly drops his hand. "Fight!"

Now one would assume when the word 'fight' is called, everything would commence in half a second, but kendo is actually all about patience. We both take a step toward each other and let the far ends of our swords meet. I'm a tad nervous, so my end is shaking and clacking against his a little.

I watch the weapons between us, waiting for his to move. He remains still though, so I make the first move and pull my shinai to my chest, stick pointing directly up. He reacts by swinging his tip to my side, which I see coming and deflect it, countering by making a jab at his chest. Unfortunately though, he blocks it in time and keeps our sword against each other.

Both of us grunt and struggle against each other, trying to take push the other back, but it's clear neither of us are going to let up here. Eli thinks the same as we ease back to standing still with our swords touching. My eyes dart from the bamboo between us to my opponent behind them, trying to detect a hint as to what he might do next. He doesn't do anything, so I take a turn again.

I push my shinai past his, throwing him off and giving me a path to his head. I take the shot but he blocks again, bringing his weapon back around to block from his chest. I get ready in case he counters, but he keeps his position, still blocking my sword from making contact with his head.

I seem to have him at a standstill. Unless his forearm can gyrate around at his elbow, I can't see anything he can do. He's still blocking though, so his only way out is when I move. That means I'll only have a second to free him and strike again. I glance at the top of his head, choosing that as my next point. No time like the present.

I quickly swing my weapon away from the block and vertically at his head. Unfortunately, Eli must've predicted this, because he raises his arm to block and deflect perfectly. He pushes above him hard and throws me off, redirecting my momentum over my shoulder.

For some reason, I'm beginning to lose grip on my hilt, yet I still wave my hands back in front of me to block. In the motion though, I feel my shinai slip from my hands as they fly in front of me, faster than I expected and making me lose my balance.

As I bend over, I hear splatter of liquid in front of me and Eli exclaim, "Gah! Hey!"

I'm almost too scared to look up. He's still armed and sounds ready to bash my face in. Just the same I get back up and stare at him. In front of his frown, his barred mask has large streaks of red that flow down to a large blot of on his chest.

Blood? No, wait.

It's here that I stand and glance at my hands. The palms and my fingers are coated in the same red substance as on Eli. My ink. Of course.

My mind raced to find the words to apologize, but I only stutter like an idiot and glance back at our audience. Everyone who's not my sister is easily glaring daggers at me. Our instructor sighs and shakes his head, and WD points at her hand to remind me that this is why I, more than everyone, needed to be wearing my gloves for this. She then mouths 'apologize' in Japanese and rubs her knuckles in a circular motion over her chest.

I understand and am trying to. I look back Eli who is waiting for me to say something. Finally, my mind blanks and a single word escapes my mouth. "Whoops."

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"To be fair," I start as we get off the bus, "the kendo uniform could use a little color."

"You did see most of that ink went through the bars, right?" WD smirks, laughing at the moment. "Nice to see you're being more public with your quirk though."

"I promise that was an accident! I.. relaxed and it slipped!"

"You 'relaxed' during a sword fight? Sometimes I wonder what kind of screwy world you live in where an anvil to the head is like a mosquito bite in real life."

"Okay, I panicked," I admit.

"This is why you need to be wearing gloves in a moment like that. When you overreact in some way, it becomes difficult to control your ink. It's also dangerous, because you know you can become dehydrated."

I sigh as we at last make it to our home and walk up to the porch. "I'm sorry, D; I really didn't mean to."

"Dude, don't apologize to me." She steps in front of and turns to face me before the front door. "I couldn't care less about it, and in fact, I found it hilarious. What happens in our own lives is ours to worry about. Mom and Dad are always at work at the top of that business of whatever they do, so it just goes to show that we are allowed to fend for ourselves." She grabs the door handle. "I'm sure it'll be years until both of them retire and find out what we've been doing, let alone have time for us."

She opens the door at last to let us in, only to reveal, you probably guessed it, Mom on the couch and Dad getting up from leaning against the wall. And you know that deep stare parents give their kids that tell them that they messed up big time? Yeah. That expression was on both their faces.

Their presence alone is enough to make me worry about my well-being, but that plus the look gets me to exchange glances of concern to my sister. "Crap," we both sigh in unison.

"Both of you," our father begins, pointing at us then to the couch across from Mom. "On the couch. Now."

I almost don't know how to respond, but my sister, on other hand, claps her hands together. "See, I would love to, but I have homework to do, so-" She starts to take a step to the staircase until she's abruptly corrected.

"Wanda Danielle."

"Who?" she cockily responds, hinting toward her preferred nickname. This just earns her a deeper glare, and she backs down and starts toward the couch, whispering, "Okay." Knowing not to talk back, I follow and slump onto the red leather with her.

"You're in trouble!" we hear our little brother call from the hallway in a taunting manner.

"Go to your room, Ben," Dad tells him, and he leaves the scene.

There's an uncomfortable pause as our eyes glance from one parent to the other. There is absolutely no difference in either of their expressions, and neither of us can seem to look away. It's obvious what the talk is going to be about; we're busted. Yet, it's taking them this long to start the scolding. Maybe it's a parenting strategy. They know you know, so they let you quiver under the glaring pressure, daring you to say something.

Finally, our dad says, "Wanda. How was school?"

She sucks through her teeth before answering. "Was okay. We reviewed on probability in math, read a couple pages in history, I almost started a food fight during lunch-."

"And Latin?"

"I dunno; didn't go."

"Why?"

"Already knew it. I'll be fine." There was no use in making excuses. We were caught one way or another.

"It doesn't matter if you knew it or not. Participation is part of your grade. Thanks to skipping all those classes, you're looking at an 84 in the subject."

She glances at me, a tad confused. "Still passing."

"True, but you could do better. Just leaving someplace to do whatever is not okay. This brings me to another point though: your quirk. We know you've been using it."

Oh, now we're really in trouble.

"Those are natural," WD defends. "People can't help if they get one. It's not like they're against the law."

"That is beside the point! We deliberately told you to stop using it! Stop nurturing it, and it'll go away!"

"You don't know that!"

"You're right, we don't. But if you keep using it, things may go very wrong for you. Quirks are the cores of some evils in the world, and we don't want you to a part of that."

"'Evils?' You do realize there are things around the world made up of people with quirks called hero agencies. Hear that? 'Hero' agency. Quirks are not only for bad!"

"If you think about though, we wouldn't have heroes without villains, making that the origin."

"But the agencies here just-!"

"You know what. We're done," he interrupts. "We've had this conversation too many times, so you know our verdict. Go to your room."

We fall silent, and I glance at my sister, who looks like she's on the verge of crying. Finally, she coldly groans, quickly gets up, and angrily marches to and up the stairs. A door slam echoes down to us, dragging us back into silence. My turn now. I am not looking forward to this.

"Huh," I say. "I did not know you guys had talked about this."

"Yes, and we realize that we should've had it with you a long time ago, Trey," Dad answers.

I swallow. "Whadaya mean?"

Mom pulls out her phone and holds it out to show me a picture. "Care to explain this?"

I stare in near shock at the picture of my latest work I posted this afternoon. Maybe I can get away with it? "Well that's impressive. That could be anyone though, seriously. There are other people in the world who draw."

Mom takes her phone back and zooms in a part and shows me my signature I had left in the corner. Ah, forget it. "Okay, that was me. But what makes you think I used my quirk?"

"Because art materials in all these colors for a brick wall is expensive, and we know you didn't buy anything."

"Touché," I sigh.

"Quirk or not," Dad takes over, "this is called vandalism, Trey, and it's illegal. I'm guessing everything else on your gallery is done the same?"

"No, I asked most of the time, and I haven't gotten any complaints."

He sighs. "Look, I'm tired, so we'll make this brief. Stop using your quirk, draw only on paper in your free time, and we'll decide on a punishment for both of you soon. Go do your homework."

"'Sir," I mumble and get up to head up the stairs as well. As I make it to the top, I turn the corner and see our brother Ben standing at the door of WD's room. "What are you doing?"

"Hey, what did you and D do?" he instead asks me. "Something about your freak powers?"

"None of your business. Get outta here."

Ben simply shrugs and leaves to his own room. I take a step to head to my own, but stop and think about WD. She was no doubt upset when she came up here, and if I don't do anything about it, she'll stay like that the rest of the day. So, I knock on her door and wait a few seconds for her to answer.

When she doesn't, I slowly turn the handle and peak in. She's huddled up in her bed with a sad expression. Usually, I would find her reading a book from her unlimited collection, but not this time.

I open the door more and walk in, greeting her with, "Hey."

"Hey," is all she says back.

"So, the mastermind is back behind bars?" I jokingly ask, referring back to her criminal story from the afternoon. She doesn't answer. I sigh. "I.. uh.. thought you'd be reading or something."

"Forgot my books downstairs."

"Want me to get them for you?"

"Nah."

I nod and come to sit on her bed with her. "You.. wanna give me a scenario to draw?"

"Maybe later."

We're quiet for a little more until I sigh. "I'm sorry you got in trouble."

"It's not your fault. As I said, it was bound to happen. Just wish we could freely use our quirks."

"Is there anything I can do?"

"Not right now. Thanks anyway."

I don't know what to say. I'm at a loss. I open my mouth to talk about her and Dad's argument, but decide against it and close my mouth. I gotta make her smile again, but what do I do?

Suddenly, my phone starts to vibrate, and I pull it out. It's a number I don't recognize, so that can only mean one thing.

"Hey. Hey, D." I nudge her to get her attention, and she looks up at my phone as I show her. "Telemarketer. Wanna do a prank call?"

She slightly smiles and nods. I smile back, ready to make her laugh again. With my line in mind, I clear my throat and unlock the answer. I choke back a last snicker and bring the phone to my ear.

"Thank you for calling Dominoes at a Dentist Clinic, where yesterday's floss is today's sauce! How can I help you?"

WD snorts and quickly covers her mouth to let me continue. I wink at her.

The other end is silent for a second until I hear, "I'm sorry, what?"

"Would you like to try our special on spearmint breadsticks?"

Silence again. Finally, "Is this Trey Caveat?

I stop and pause, trying to think who would be trying to reach me. WD looks at me as if to ask why I stopped. I shake it off and return to the call. "It is, so does that mean you'd like a twelve-inch-."

"Drop it, kid. It's gross. This is Binge. I'm a sidekick at Blockbuster Agency."

Uh oh.

I lose my train of thought and can still only think of ordering food. So I answer, "Do you want cheese or no cheese?"

"Blockbuster would like to see you and your sister at seven this evening to discuss something. Do not be late."

Before I can answer, the sidekick hangs up, leaving me to process what just happened. Finally, my hand drops to my side, as WD starts laughing. "Hahaha! 'Dominoes at d-heh-dentist clinic-c-c-c!' Where do you come up with this stuff??" I don't answer, realizing that we were just called in to the hero agency we were just caught at. "Dude, you good?"

I suck through my teeth, getting ready to share the news that may be us in even more trouble. "So.. funny story..."

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Author's Notes
Howdy, friends! It's T-Generation2378, and thank you for reading my first chapter to SketchBook! WaterDragon and I are hoping you're enjoying the story so far, and rest assured, more is on the way! The two of us are going to keep a pattern and take turns writing for this project. Meanwhile, we would appreciate it if you slap on a vote, leave a comment, or maybe just add this story to a reading list. All of these actions let us know that you are enjoying it all, and it'll encourage us to keep writing! So, let's meet the next character under the spotlight!

Trey "T" Caveat
Creator: T-Generation2378
Quirk: Illustrate
Fun Fact: Being WD's twin, he used to share his sister's eyes before he manifested his quirk, giving him a cartoonish expression that changes drastically depending on his mood.

Now! In this chapter, T shares many things with his sister, from laughs to trouble. I'm curious to know if any of you have siblings! How many? Who's the oldest? Who's your favorite? Nah, don't answer that last one.

I myself have four younger siblings, two brothers and two sisters. Yes, all of them tend to drive me crazy sometimes, but isn't that what siblings are for?

Thank you all again for reading, and please look forward to the next chapter! Toodles!

Words: 4,039