#heda

They hit the forest floor hard.

Not on concrete or asphalt. On damp earth and pine needles, the air thick with the scent of smoke, resin, and something sharper, old radiation that made the hairs on their arms stand up. The sky above was wrong: too wide, too clear, carrying a faint reddish haze that spoke of a world that had been burned and never quite healed.

Bakugou was on his feet first, palms sparking dangerously. “What the fuck was that?! Where the hell are we?!”

Izuku pushed himself up, coughing, already scanning for threats or civilians out of pure habit. His hero costume was torn at the shoulder, but One For All still hummed steadily beneath his skin. “Everyone okay? Kacchan? Shoto?”

Shoto rose more slowly, heterochromatic eyes narrowed as frost and faint embers flickered across his skin in uneasy tandem. “We’re not in Musutafu anymore. Not even close.”

Before they could orient themselves, the sound of footsteps and low, wary voices approached through the trees.

A group of armed scouts emerged, dressed in rough leathers and faded war paint, spears and rifles carried with the casual competence of people who had survived worse than strange arrivals. They moved like predators who had learned the hard way not to trust anything new.

One of them, a sharp-eyed woman with dark braids, leveled a rifle. “Hands where we can see them, Sky People.”

Bakugou’s palms glowed brighter. “Sky what? You’ve got three seconds to explain who the fuck you are before I blow you straight to—!”

“Bakugou,” Izuku said quietly but firmly, stepping slightly in front of him. “Stand down. We don’t know where we are or who they are.”

The scouts didn’t lower their weapons.

“Take them to Marcus and Abby,” the woman ordered. “They’ll decide if they’re a threat.”

The boys were herded into the back of a battered, reinforced truck that looked like it had been salvaged and repaired a dozen times. The ride was rough, jolting over uneven forest trails. Through the slats in the sides, they caught glimpses of the terrain:

Thick, overgrown woods that felt ancient and watchful. Trees with strangely twisted trunks, some bearing faint luminescent moss that glowed softly even in daylight. The ground itself seemed… alive in a way that made the hair on the back of Izuku’s neck prickle. There were signs of old violence everywhere, rusted metal ruins half-swallowed by vegetation, patches of unnaturally bare earth that looked scorched by something far worse than fire.

Bakugou sat with his arms crossed, scowling at everything. “This place looks like a goddamn post-apocalyptic shithole. What kind of villain quirk drops us in a radioactive forest?”

Shoto remained silent, staring out at the passing landscape with quiet intensity. His dual nature felt… unsettled here, like the air itself was pressing against his quirk in ways he couldn’t quite name.

Izuku’s mind was racing, analytical even in chaos. “It doesn’t feel like a quirk. The portal was too unstable. And these people… they’re not afraid of us the way civilians usually are. They’re wary, but prepared. Like they’ve seen worse.”

The truck eventually rumbled into a fortified camp, Arcadia. Makeshift walls, tents, people moving with the wary efficiency of survivors. They were marched straight into a reinforced tent for interrogation.

Marcus Kane and Abby Griffin sat across from them, expressions carefully neutral but sharp.

Izuku did most of the talking, calm, measured, trying to make sense of the impossible. Bakugou paced like a caged animal, barely containing his temper. Shoto observed everything in silence, frost and faint flames flickering across his skin in uneasy balance.

When the boys demonstrated their quirks limited, controlled bursts to prove they weren’t immediate threats, Marcus and Abby exchanged a long, weighted look.

“You’re not from the Ark,” Abby said finally. “And you’re not Grounders. Whatever you are… you’re something new.”

Marcus leaned forward, voice steady. “You can use those abilities….within reason to help around camp while we figure out how to send you back. In return, you don’t cause trouble. We’ve survived worse than strange powers. Don’t make us regret showing mercy.”

Bakugou scoffed. “Mercy? Tch. We don’t need your fucking mercy.”

Izuku placed a hand on his arm, quieting him. “We understand. Thank you.”

As they were led out toward the camp proper, none of them noticed the scout who had slipped away earlier, racing toward Polis with urgent news.

None of them felt the subtle, ancient pulse that had begun the moment they landed.

Deep in the tower of Polis, the sacred Flame in your chest suddenly flared to life.

Warm.

Insistent.

Recognizing.

Three souls.

Three threads.

The Flame had chosen.

In the heart of the Commander’s tower in Polis, Heda woke with a start.

Her breath caught sharply as she sat bolt upright in the wide bed, heart hammering against her ribs. The sacred Flame burned hotter in her chest than it had in years, not painful, but insistent, alive, whispering directly into her blood and bone.

Three names echoed through her mind like distant thunder, carried on the Flame’s ancient voice:

Beloved…

My Fire…

My Twin Flame…

The words were not in any human tongue, yet she understood them perfectly. They were the Flame’s own names for the souls it had chosen.

Heda pressed a hand to her sternum, feeling the living entity pulse beneath her palm. The Flame had spoken clearly this time, with a weight and certainty it rarely used.

They have come.

She rose from the bed, bare feet silent on the cool stone floor. The night air drifting through the open balcony carried the scent of pine and distant smoke from the braziers below. Polis slept, but the Ground itself felt… awake. Restless. As if the planet had stirred in recognition of the three new threads now woven into its fabric.

Heda moved to the balcony, gripping the carved stone railing. From here she could see the lights of the capital spread below the winding paths, the banners of the thirteen clans, the faint glow of nightblood torches. Beyond the walls lay the vast, radiation-scarred forests that had survived the old world’s end.

Three outsiders had fallen into that forest tonight.

Not random travelers. Not ordinary Sky People.

The Flame had called them.

Heda closed her eyes, letting the Flame’s whisper wash over her again. She could feel the faint, newborn threads stretching across the distance, raw, confused, resistant. Three powerful souls, each burning with their own light, now tethered to her whether they wished it or not.

Beloved:the gentle one, carrying an ancient strength passed down through generations.

My Fire:the explosive force, raw and untamed, burning brighter than any flame she had ever known.

My Twin Flame:the perfect balance of opposing forces, ice and fire existing in sacred harmony.

They would fight this bond at first. She could already sense their pride, their disbelief, their fierce loyalty to the world they had been torn from. They would reject her. They would reject the Ground. They might even try to leave.

Heda’s fingers tightened on the railing.

She had always offered choice. Even when the Flame burned hottest in her veins, even when the nightblood called for unity, she had never forced a single soul to stay.

But the Flame had chosen them for a reason.

And the Ground… the Ground remembered every soul that walked upon it.

Heda turned away from the balcony, already reaching for her armor and the ceremonial war paint. The scouts would bring the three strangers to Arcadia soon. Marcus and Abby would question them, test them, perhaps even offer them limited use of their strange powers.

She would go to them when the time was right.

For now, she simply whispered into the quiet of her chamber, voice low and steady, carrying the weight of every Commander who had come before her:

“Welcome to the Ground… my bonded.”

The Flame pulsed once in answer, warm, ancient, and undeniably pleased.

The threads had been woven.