MHA Chaos' Whims Chapter 1: An Earthquake? (Patreon)

Another long week of work under my belt, this month’s expensive ass rent paid, and approximately forty dollars to my name. Yep, a routine start to another month in the life of a broke ass student.

That student being me in this case.

Holding back a sigh, I dropped my satchel onto the ground as I closed my apartment door behind me, door locked up, keys hidden among the rack of things I kept beside it, and the top half of my uniform tossed aside. Satchel picked back up, I headed over to the small couch that felt way too big in this cramped place, some random YouTube video thrown on the thick old fashioned TV across from me while I pulled out my laptop.

No point bitching about being broke when that was my day to day. As long as I was careful with it, forty dollars could…yeah that shit wasn’t going to stretch very far in this day and age. Back in the day that would’ve been more than enough for me to do something like hang out with my friends, but I couldn’t imagine going anywhere with just that.

Not that we did much hanging out besides a rare bit of online gaming here and there. Too busy adulting, aka getting by on pennies and being responsible, to get together all that much.

Annnndddd here I was bitching anyways.

Focusing up, I finished up some last minute editing on some chapters I’d planned on publishing once I got back from work before doing just that and spending the next half an hour bouncing between watching YouTube and checking comments from the people who actually read the stuff I wrote.

Writing was time consuming and demanded far more than me than just wasting the hours away watching anime and playing games, but I enjoyed it. Not all of it, editing an absolute pain in the ass, but most of it, especially the feedback even if I was mostly writing for my own amusement.

A few comments all referencing the same thing caught my eye.

The Chaos Gacha.

I remember one of my readers mentioning it and briefly checking it out, but I’d been a little busy at the time, so I only briefly looked it up. I’m pretty sure it was some kind of website or app that some writer used to write those popular gacha stories.

Opening a new tab, I got to typing and found the website again quickly enough. After some skimming and looking through all the different sections of the site, it turned out to be exactly what it tilted itself to be.

I played my fair share of gachas, especially back in the day when my free time was at an all time high, from the higher quality stuff like Genshin Impact to more simplistic stuff like Dragon Ball Dokkan Battle.

Man, back in the day? I’m sounding like an old man.

Still, playing a game with that sort of thing made sense but writing a story using it? Would it even be possible to write anything coherent if I had no idea what abilities, traits, or items the protagonist would have access to? Hell, a lot of these curses looked so debilitating that if a story wasn’t planned around them, things could end pretty quickly without plot armor.

That said, pantsing was a thing. Seeing how far I could take a story using this without abusing rerolls could be pretty interesting. Just a way to pass the time when I was finding myself coming down with a case of writer’s block or was ahead of my usual schedule.

I was planning to write something for My Hero Academia in the future. I guess I could start refreshing myself on the world with a story based around this system.

A bit more clicking and typing and I had a random character labeled Katsu. Not an actual name, just a label while I tested things out.

I was thinking of going with a simple transmigration and according to the rules that came with three gold ranked random pulls. I set that up and clicked, watching the line of random traits, items, abilities and other stuff speed past.

Despite how little I was invested in this whole thing I found myself leaning closer to my screen as the draw began to slow.

Ah, the simple thrill of gacha. It’d been a long time since I did any kind of gambling like this even without any stakes.

The draw stopped.

[Mysterious Stranger

|Rare Trait|

A guardian angel with a revolver and a fedora, always just slightly out of reach. Sometimes, in moments the stranger will come and offer you his brief assistance, maybe he shoots your enemy in the ankle to cripple them or disables a trap you need him to. (Once the functionality of a skilled man with a gun becomes useless for the MC, the mysterious stranger will drop by one last time and give them a gold rarity trait ticket as a refund before the trait disappears.)]

Interesting, that was pretty fallout inspired, wasn’t it? It could make for a good basis in a My Hero Story. If the protagonist became a hero with whatever quirk I decided for him, principal Nezu and law enforcement could end up pulling hairs looking for someone they’d never find. I guess that was less a plot point and more of a running gag?

Either way, I added it to the character page and hit the roll button again.

My heartbeat sped up alongside the speeding words. Man, this kind of thing really was addicting. Too bad, or I guess, fortunately, I’d always been way too broke to ever indulge in anything but free pulls in the games I played, and my dad was just knowledgeable enough about games to laugh in my face at the idea of ever giving me money for characters.

For once being broke had probably worked in my favor and stopped a gambling habit from forming.

The beat of my heart sped up further as the draw slowed, nearly stopping in one before settling in the next.

[XIX - The Sun

|Elite Item|

Tarot Card - Upon use recovers all of your health instantly and resets all Item Cooldowns. 240 Hour Cooldown]

Talk about good luck. Characters reliant on items weren’t my favorite but something like that would definitely be useful for the MC. Depending on how exactly it worked it could keep a get out jail free card on him at all times or maybe let someone important to him hold on to it if they were preparing to do something dangerous. Spamming some other super powerful item was also possible.

Something like that would’ve been fucking useful for Midoriya on more than one occasion. A ten day cool down was pretty hefty though.

Adding that to the character sheet, I started the final roll.

The thumps of my heart. My held breath. The lean forward.

Maybe I’d pick Genshin back up after this. I heard that came got plenty of updates over the years, both good and bad. I’m sure the thrill of the gacha would be the same as ever though and I couldn’t say I hated it.

[In Time of Need

|Elite Trait|

-A Hero arises. Once every 120 hours you can restore your stamina and energy to full. Hours afterwards you will be extremely exhausted.]

Useful, no two ways about it. Quirks relied on stamina and being able to just refill it alongside possessing a healing item were two crazy things to have paired together. Plus, this one was a built in trait.

On the other hand, I couldn’t help but be a little disappointed. I kind of wanted to get an ability that the protagonist could use alongside whatever quirk I decided on to make him really stand out or be overpowered.

Overpowered MCs were my shit no matter what people claimed about that making a story shallow or stakeless. Done right, an OP MC was as interesting and entertaining to read about as any other.

I glanced up towards the curses tab.

Well, this was just me testing the system. I’m pretty sure the rules said I could change how certain things worked if I wanted. Might as well take on a little curse for a reroll and see the exact kind of debuffs came with that part of the system.

Switching over to that tab I was met with a wheel of black and red, a simple box labeled spin. I’m pretty sure the higher the number the worse the outcome. I clicked the button and brought my hands together.

Praying to the RNG gods had never failed me before!

Actually, it failed me plenty of time but today would be different!

Give me a low number! Give me a low number! Give me a low number! I mentally chanted to myself over and over.

The spin stopped.

[Bad Blood

|Medium Curse|

You were born into a family of bad people, could be criminals, cultists, crooks, gangsters, or god forbid, a corpo.

Resolve: None, a one-and-done deal.]

That’s not so bad. I guess I’d make the MC related to some major or minor villain. Maybe the twin of Himiko Toga? Could be interesting. The secret child of All For One himself? That was probably an overused idea but overused didn’t mean bad; I’d just need to put my own unique spin on it. Did Endeavor count? Technically he was a hero, but I think what he did behind closed doors early on could earn him the title villain. The shit he did to his family was its own kind of evil. Probably an overdone plot that I honestly wasn’t that interested in writing myself. Ties to the Mafia, Eri, and Chisaki sounded like another interesting route.

Clicking back to the rolls screen I made one more, staring hard at the screen.

[Enflame

|Rare Ability|

Allows you to coat any object you are holding or your own body in flames, these flames mimic the properties of and reinforce the object the object they are coating. If they coat fists, they increase blunt force and if they coat blades they enhance cutting ability alongside their edge.]

Yes! I thought, smiling to myself. It didn’t seem all that special to me honestly, but an ability was an ability. Depending on the quirk I gave the MC, this could at least make for some cool aura farming.

Did the flames actually burn? What about their shape and size? How much control would it come with it? If they mimic the properties of anything then-

The lights of my apartment flickered, TV turning off while my laptop nearly shook its way off my lap. Tremors racked the entire room, everything from the couch itself to the roof shaking about.

An earthquake? No, that didn’t make sense. We didn’t get any in-

BAM!

Stomach dropping, my eyes shot towards my TV.

My heart stopped.

On the ground, shaken off the edge of the entertainment set, was my Playstation 5.

Not the p5! I mentally screamed to myself, laptop set aside. I rushed over, quickly setting it upright and pressing the power button.

Over.

And over.

And over.

Nooooooooooo! It took every bit of self control I had not to scream out my anguish. I didn’t have the money to repair it and for damn sure not the money to buy a replacement, be it used or new.

This couldn’t be how I lost the fifth son of-

More tremors shook the place, my left foot giving out, throwing me out of my crouch. Pain flashed across the back of my head, a wince and groan leaving me as I hit the ground.

You know what? I deserved that. Running over to a game console during what might’ve been an earthquake was a dumbass idea. I should’ve stood still or headed to the bathroom or something. That’s what people did during earthquakes, right?

I cracked opened my eyes as the tremors picked up, raising my head.

My TV, shaken over to the edge, tipped over the edge, black screen speeding towards my face and-

XOXO

“Mister Akaguro, are listening or dozing off?” An unfamiliar voice, calling out a faintly familiar name, filled my ears.