Hotguy and Poultry Man [Hermitcraft AU]

Ch.1 - Hero Hopeful

"Thank you all for coming, and have a beautiful time!" Scar called, and with that, his panel was dismissed. People got out from the chairs and streamed out, chatting excitedly, and Scar turned away from the table and sighed as he stretched and rubbed his back.

"I'd say that went well," Doc said as he started disconnecting Scar's laptop from the speakers and the room's projector.

"Pretty well," Scar agreed. "This was our last panel, right?"

"Yep, last one, but you also have one last signing to do, then we can head out. Unless you'd like to stay for the closing ceremony?"

"Mm... I kinda want to get home," Scar said. "At least it's not that long of a drive, but I haven't been sleeping well here, the bed is a little too firm and..." He heard footsteps and stopped, looking over.

A young man was nervously approaching the stage, clutching what looked like a sketchbook to himself. He had wings, denoting him as an avian morph, which Scar didn't see often. Even in his hero work, he only ever knew a few, and they were always quite proud of their flight abilities. But this man's wings seemed small for his size, with white feathers with some brown markings, which matched his brown hair.

His fingers looked more like bird talons and he even had taloned feet, which he kept bare, though that was common among avians.

"U-uh, Mr. Hotguy, sir?" he asked, eyes darting nervously between Doc and Scar. His irises were a vivid shade of blue.

"Please, just call me Scar," Scar said, heading over to the ramp and wheeling down it.

"Right, sorry. Scar. I wanted to ask you something."

"We had a Q&A session, you could have asked then," Scar joked.

"It's... not something I wanted to ask in front of everyone. It's more personal."

"Oh? Did you want an autograph? I'm doing a signing later, but since you took initiative, I could go ahead and sign something for you, under the table," Scar said, lowering his voice.

"It's not that either, it's more... Well, I was hoping you could give me some hero pointers, because I want to be a hero!"

Doc chuckled and Scar gave an amused headshake. He's heard that countless times before. "It's not easy, kid. A lot of people want to be heroes. Very few are actually prepared for the sacrifice. There's a lot of people out there with powerful abilities, who only want to use them to get the things they want, no matter who they have to hurt or kill in the process. You have to be prepared to go up against villains who will stop at nothing to achieve their goals. But you also need to be compassionate. You need to know who is truly a threat, and who may simply be... misguided, and can be guided in a better direction. You can't just go around ruthlessly killing villains. If I had done that, I never would have made one of my best friends." He gestured to Doc, still up on the stage packing things up.

"Oh I heard, that was such a tragic story," the man said. "Hurt by one of his own explosions, and just left there by people he thought he could trust."

"That was my mistake," Doc said. "I should have known they would abandon me as soon as I was no longer of use to them. But well, when you get that lust for power..."

Scar nodded somberly. "I still remember all the blood. His villain friends ran off, and I was the only one who went to him and helped him up, got him to safety."

"He was the only one who visited me in the hospital," Doc said.

"We had a lot of good talks, and eventually, he decided to make a change. He didn't want to be a villain anymore. He wanted to help me, and try to make up for his past."