Chapter Text
(Year 38 AC - Wednesday)
“Great. Another rejection.”
Inside his apartment that his parents helped him get, an eighteen year old Lin Ling sat at his desk reading yet another rejection email. Thanks to his parents he had his bills down for a few months, but that would quickly catch up to him if he didn’t find a job.
He put his head down on his desk, whining, “why are there so many openings if nobody wants to hire me…”
From his desk, Lin Ling looked out his window and saw a blimp float by, with the perfect hero Nice on it.
“Are you feeling down? Like you can’t keep on keeping on? That you're lost in a thick forest?” The blimp TV screen held Nice on it, walking through a forest.
“Yes…” Lin Ling mumbled to himself.
“Well then, allow me to guide you out… on A Hero’s Resolve where I’ll teach you to live like a hero.” The screen flipped to clips of A Hero’s Resolve, a new TV show where heroes show how they live. Nice continued to speak over it, but he tuned it out.
Lin Ling groaned at the advertisement, at how mediocre it was. If only there was someone that could write better ads for heroes like Nice. Hell, he could probably do better.
“Wait… advertisement… that could work!”
He shot up from the desk and immediately searched up advertisement job opportunities on his laptop. A few internships popped up, with one of them standing out.
“Intern needed… blah blah blah… help produce ads for Treeman!” Lin Ling read aloud, his excitement growing. The more he read, the more it seemed to stand out. He’d be able to write ads for Nice! Heck, he might even meet him! And Moon too!
As quickly as he could, he filled out the application form and sent it to the company. He couldn’t help but feel a bit giddy at the chance of working with some of his favorite heroes. So giddy, in fact, that he almost missed another job opportunity.
When Lin Ling went to shut off his laptop, something caught his eye. Back on the window where he searched up advertisement opportunities, there was one that didn’t have anything to do with advertisement as far as he could see.
In search of a CEO. If qualified, please click the link.
He stared at it for a moment, almost dumbfounded and deadpanned.
“There is no way this is how you become a CEO.” The eighteen year old thought to himself.
When he clicked on the link, the application process was rather straight forward. All you needed was a résumé. He looked at the company name: ASTA and it turns out it was a Hero Agency, or at least one trying to be. Lin Ling looked them up and found that they didn’t have any heroes at the moment.
“No wonder the application process is so short. They’re nobody. I doubt they’d have a chance to compete with any of the big hero agencies.”
Even so, he still looked a bit deeper. ASTA had just been newly made and it looks like they also dabble in the medical field. An interesting choice, but not an unfounded one.
Flipping back to the application, Lin Ling scrolled down to the job description and immediately stopped as he looked at it. It was almost five pages long!
“What do you even do as a CEO that needs three pages! Don’t you just write emails?” The brown haired boy couldn’t believe it. All CEO’s do is just write emails and stuff. Right?
“I am NOT reading all that.” He scrolled back up to the top and began to fill out the application.
Day of birth, name, blah blah blah, it was just like any other application. Bringing up a document, he quickly wrote out a resume. He wrote down his high school, the sports he played, and the clubs he was in. Moving to job experience, for his four years in high school, he had worked part time in an XFC near his house, with him being promoted to assistant manager his senior. Writing that down, he was just about to put 1 year of management experience to finish the résumé when something shook his building.
Outside his window, explosions rocked his apartment as a monster flew by. Looking out, Lin Ling saw a villain… thing? It looked like a human that was corrupted by something. Behind it, it looked like someone was chasing it.
“Is that… Queen’s back!?”
Rank #2 hero Queen flew past his building, spear in hand as she chased down the monster down the freeway. He couldn’t believe it, he hadn’t seen Queen since she lost in the 18th Heroes Tournament. Lin Ling watched in awe as she effortlessly dodged the missiles the creatures launched until she disappeared past his view.
“Wow… she’s so cool. I wish I was a hero.” The young adult said as he walked back to his desk to finish his application.
Perhaps, if he had not been so enraptured by Queen and his dream of being a hero, he would have noticed that he pressed a 2 after the 1 when his apartment shook. Perhaps, in another life, he would have noticed his mistake and adhered to fate. But, in this life… he defied the hand of fate and set himself onto a very different path, even if he didn’t mean to.
(The Next Day - Morning - Thursday)
Lin Ling, freshly showered, dressed, and still partly asleep, sat at his desk with his laptop open. He figured he should check his email to see if he got a response from any of the many applications he filled.
“Nothing… great.” He scrolled through his email until something caught his eye: a response from ASTA.
That was odd. Why would they reject his application so quickly? Yes, they wouldn’t give someone like him a bunch of thought, but still, this was pretty quick for a rejection.
Opening it, he scanned through it briefly. “Hello, Mr Ling… eager to receive your application… discussed it with our team… and were pleased to tell you that you got the position?!” His eyes shot open wide.
“What!” “What!” He said both aloud and in his mind.
This had to be a joke, right? Just a bit of sleep deprivation. That's all. He’s just tired.
He rubbed his eyes, determined to see that this was just his imagination, but to his dismay, the words didn’t change. Now he was reading each and every word.
“Your salary will be… WHAT?! And we expect you TOMORROW MORNING!??? Our office is located at…” He trailed off, unable to think clearly.
Now he had to be dreaming. Not to even touch the salary that was higher than he thought possible (especially for such a small company), they expected him to be there tomorrow! Tomorrow! As in 24 hours from now!
What would he wear! How would he get there! More importantly, why the heck was he hired! What is going on!!!
(The Next Day. Again. Friday)
Stumbling off a bus he caught a ride on, now CEO Lin Ling fixed his tie while walking to the ASTA office. He didn’t know what to wear, so he went out and bought a black suit and tie with a white shirt. Better to be safe than sorry.
He double checked the address on his phone. “This is the office? This place looks abandoned!”
Standing before him was a two story building with the only identifier being a worn down sign that held ASTA in a basic font. It had definitely seen better days. He could work with it, though. Never judge a book by its cover.
Mustering his courage, he walked confidently to the door and into the building, ignoring the part of him that was out of his mind nervous and slightly panicked. The lobby was bland; some couches and chairs, with a few plants and tables. Better than the outside at the very least. In the middle of the room there was a semi circle desk that must be the reception desk with a woman working intently on a laptop behind it.
Walking up to it as confident as he could, Lin Ling opened his mouth to say something but the woman spoke first. “You’re Lin Ling, yes?”
“H-how’d you know?” He responded back before he could think of a more dignified response for a CEO.
“We don’t get visitors… plus our new CEO is supposed to come in today.”
“That… does make sense.” Lin Ling internally kicks himself for asking something he should know.
“Well, in any case, it's nice to meet you, Lin Ling,” the woman says as she stands up from her desk, extending her hand to him. “I am Mei Li.”
“Oh, are you a receptionist?” He responds back while shaking her hand lightly.
“Oh no, I’m ASTA’s one and only hero recruiter, I just decided to sit out here to meet the new CEO. We aren’t large enough to have a reception desk yet.” She responded back, proud of the fact she’s the recruiter.
“Oh, and I’m also supposed to give you a tour… not that there’s much to see.”
“Thats fine, I’m eager to see what I’ll be working with.”
Leading him to the back of the lobby, Mei walked into a hallway leading further into the building. “That room right there is our conference room.”
“It looks more like a warehouse.”
The room was filled with boxes. There were some on the chairs, on the table, on the floor. They were piled everywhere. Lin Ling was fairly sure a couple piles were taller than him.
“Right now, we put our medical supplies in since we don’t have conferences. Bandages and stuff like that. At least until we get a place to store them.”
Continuing on, they passed a room with several couches, a fridge, and a couple other appliances.
“That’s the break room, it's got the normal stuff. Coffee machine, fridge, all that. You can put your lunch in the fridge if you bring one.”
As the two kept walking, they passed a few more empty rooms, all of which had dust on their furniture. Why were so many of them empty?
At the end of the hallway, they stopped at the elevator, which was right next to the stairs.
Getting onto the elevator, Lin Ling finally spoke his mind, “Umm, Mei… why are so many rooms empty?”
The recruiter sucked in a breath before she answered, “It wasn’t always like this…. When we were founded, this office was filled with people, even if we weren't trying to become a hero agency yet. Then, one day… he just up and vanished.”
“Vanished?” What? You don’t just vanish in X City, not with the amount of heroes present.
“He was just gone. Nobody could find him. As you’d expect, the company tanked without him, so most of us left. Now it's just us and you. Naturally, you can see why we were eager for someone with so much experience applied to take over.” The elevator dinged and the two stepped out, with Lin Ling following Mei trying not to look like a lost child on the first day of school.
“I’ll do my best.” Lin Ling responds back, trying to sound as casual as he could. Inside his mind, however, was a completely different story, “Experienced!?!? Did they even read my résumé?”
Walking through the second floor hallway, Mei pointed out some larger rooms that had a bunch of empty desks in an open plan arrangement. She pointed out, “that's where marketing was. Jack should be in there somewhere, he’s the head of marketing because of the lack of employees. He likes to talk. A lot. But his head’s in the right place.”
They passed a few more large rooms like that, with her mentioning that, “that one’s the hero management office. I’ll be the only one there, so I should be easy to find. And that one there is the medical management office, the woman in charge of that is out today, so you should meet her tomorrow.”
Finally, they reached the end of the hall where a paper was taped onto the door: Chief Executive Officer Lin Ling
Pushing open the door, Mei Li revealed a relatively expansive office, “and this will be your office.”
“This is all mine?”
The room was pretty large, especially when it was just for him. The window overlooked the street where he entered the building from. The office itself had one desk, two chairs, and three layers of dust. On the ceiling was a broken fan lazily turned overhead like it was mocking him.
Looking at the dusty desk, there were three piles of papers, each about a foot high. Lin Ling deadpanned at them. This couldn’t be for him, right?
Turning to the woman next to him, Mei spoke before he could, “Oh, and these are also for you.”
Mei dropped a stack of folders onto the desk with a resounding thud, “these are this week’s reports and stuff.”
Lin Ling looked down at the stacks. Then at Mei. Then back at the stacks.
“...I have to read all these?”
“You’re the CEO, aren’t you?”
Lin Ling could already feel a migraine forming.
Lin Ling had reached a conclusion: ASTA is completely doomed.
After reading through papers and reports for what felt like days (actually just an hour or two), there was no way this company could be saved by him. The financial reports were pretty bad to say the least. ASTA was barely able to pay the bills, let alone the employees.
“I don’t even know how to pay rent, how am I supposed to pay salaries?!”
Moving onto the budget, what was going on? How in the world was ASTA spending the same amount of money on COFFEE as rent? There’s like only three people working!
Spinning around in his chair, Lin Ling gazed down at the street outside. He wanted to laugh at the stupidity of everything that was going on, at the idea that he was supposed to save this company. What a day….
And then, outside his window, another blimp drifted lazily by. This time it wasn’t Nice, it was some B-list hero of another low level hero agency named Iron Arm, flexing his way through an overproduced ad with explosions behind him.
Lin Ling groaned. “Who even falls for this junk? That was terrible.”
He squinted out of the window, staring at a newspaper blowing in the wind, then back up at the blimp. Then an idea sparked in his mind, faint, but still there.
“Wait… ads…”
He spun back around to his desk and grabbed a piece of paper alongside a pen. ASTA didn’t have any heroes, yes, but they could definitely attract some to them since it seems like the recruitment wasn’t going well.
“Sorry Mei!”
What does he want ASTA to be? Genuine, obviously, but what else? Well, what is a hero? Anybody. Anyone could be a hero. Not to mention, someone made by the people to protect them and give them hope. Bouncing back to ASTA itself, what is it right now? Well, they dabble in the medical field, so he should probably include that too….
After a bit more brainstorming, Lin Ling had finally thought out what he wanted ASTA to be. An agency where heroes could be just heroes and not but heroes. An agency focused on protecting rather than profit. An agency to save and protect.
He stood up out of his chair and, grabbing the paper he brainstormed on, he walked around his desk and out of his office. He walked to the marketing office and knocked on the door frame as he walked in, hesitantly saying, “Jack…? You in here?”
Lin Ling peeked into the office. The space was cluttered with old posters and crumpled drafts taped to the walls, slogans like “ASTA: Healing the Future!” written in five different fonts. In the middle, on the floor sat Jack, a thin man in glasses typing furiously while mumbling to himself.
“Jack?” Lin Ling raised his hand weakly.
Jack looked up, eyes sparkling like he’d just discovered fire. “Ah! CEO! Welcome, welcome, welcome to my creative laboratory!”
Lin Ling blinked. “…It’s an office.”
“An office is just a blank canvas begging to be painted on by my brush of innovation!”
Lin Ling immediately regretted this.
“Please just call me Lin Ling.”
“Whatever you say, boss.”
“I wonder what would happen if I just walked out right now.”
Focusing back in, Lin Ling summoned all the confidence he had as he went to propose his idea. This wasn’t stupid, this was his brand for ASTA, he can do this. CEO Lin Ling for the win.
Lin Ling put the crumpled paper he wrote his ideas on forward. “Okay, look. We don’t have any heroes, but I think we can attract some and I think we can make an ad from this.”
Jack grabbed it with trembling hands, eyes widening like he’d been handed a sacred text from the gods. “Ohhh… authenticity! A return to the roots of heroism! Pure! Untouched by scandal!”
“Uh… yeah, sure…. Just make it so people believe we’re not total garbage.”
Jack slammed the paper on the desk. “Say no more, CEO. We’re going to sell sincerity like nobody’s ever sold sincerity before.”
“…Please don’t phrase it like that.”
(8 hours later)
After multiple iterations, a lunch break, and dinner break, and a bunch of prayers to whatever was out there by Lin Ling, the duo (with the occasional input of Mei) had finally crafted a complete ad. Jack and him spliced together a bunch of uncopyrighted videos of heroes, both fighting and helping people, with a section at the end with him on camera. It turned out Jack had some music on his computer, so they put it in as well. Wanting to check it one last time, Lin Ling pressed play.
“What is a hero?”
“A ray of light in the darkness.”
“A guardian in a moment of need.”
“A saviour, made by and for the people!”
“We live in a world where heroes are forged by trust. You have the power to create heroes.”
“And with hardwork, you can become one too!” Lin Ling walked onto the screen.
“At ASTA, we don’t chase fame, we chase hope. Be the hero the world needs. With us.”
“ASTA: To save and protect!”
The screen displayed a QR code to their recruitment page before fading to black.
Lin Ling buried his face in his hands. “It looks like I’m being held at gunpoint….”
“No, no, no,” Jack gasped, “That was genius! The rawness! The authenticity! The unshakable awkward charm!”
“Pretty sure that last part isn’t a compliment…” Lin Ling muttered.
Mei leaned against the doorway, sipping a coffee. “Honestly? You didn’t sound like a total idiot. That’s a win for us.”
Lin Ling managed a weak smile. “Thanks, I guess. At least not too many people should see this….”
Jack clicked the mouse with a flourish. “Too late.”
“…Too late what?”
“I uploaded it. To every channel. To FOMO. Everywhere. ASTA is back, baby! By tonight this ad will be seen across the city! You might even see it on a blimp going home!”
Lin Ling felt his soul leave his body. “Goodbye, cruel world…”
(Two days later, on Monday)
Once again, Lin Ling found himself getting off his bus, just across the street from the ASTA office at 8 AM sharp. He decided to show up an hour early to try to be a good CEO. The weekend had been awful, between dreading himself on that corny ad and trying to think of ways to pull his company away from the edge of bankruptcy, he hadn’t had a fun time. How he missed the unemployment he enjoyed just a week ago.
Looking at the office before he crossed the road to get to it, his eyes fell upon something, or rather someone. Multiple someones.
No. This couldn’t be right, he had to just be seeing things.
He rubbed his eyes and gazed back at the doors to the lobby. The scene stood unchanged.
There was a line at the lobby door. It wasn’t long, but a line was still there. Outside the door, there were four to five people standing, waiting for the office to open. By the looks of it, they wanted to be/are heroes. Scratch that, they’re definitely heroes.
Staring across the road, one thought came to Lin Ling’s mind. “I am so screwed.”