Fanfic / Lightwaves

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Lightwaves is a Hanna Is Not a Boy's Name Alternate Universe Fic by EmptyHeart and DigitalDreamer

The year is 20XX.

After an assortment of terrible plagues and wars, mankind has finally united into several city-states. One of these is the City of Varuna. Sprawling thousands of miles and surrounded by formidable walls, the citizens remain isolated from the outside world, taught only what the government wants them to hear. They are constantly protected by both highly skilled agents and advanced technology.

Their only problem now are Undesirables living in the city: vampires, werewolves, mages and similar remnants of an ancient and dying world. These creatures are expected to register with the government, suffered to remain withing city walls as long as they don't taint the proper citizens. Those that break the laws are hunted down by a special section of the police force, the Ahimsa.

"Eli" has been an officer of the Ahimsa for ten years. In his late twenties, he suffers from insomnia and has grown indifferent to the world around him. Every day is a copy of a copy, another day spent hunting down creatures that may not even deserve it. The more dissatisfied with life he becomes, the more trouble he has resisting the question — is there something more?

And that's when a certain redhead comes literally crashing into his life...

Can be found here on DeviantArt in its entirety and here on Fanfiction.net

It's now complete. A sequel, Father of Death, has been started, but your sequel is dead.

Provides examples of:

• Arc Words: "Your city is dead."
• All-Loving Hero: Hanna, very insistently. This may be a coping mechanism.
• Applied Phlebotinum: The Fireflies powers come from by magical crystals grafted inside their bodies. Hanna's bracers let him control his, sort of.
• The Atoner: Worth only grew a conscience thanks to Hanna and used to be an utter prick (which is a mild and spoiler-free way of saying it). Any angst is kept private, though.
• Beach Episode: A breather they take in chapter twenty one.
• Big Eater: Veser (he's a growing boy!) and Hanna (whose powers run on calories, or so he says) both.
• Black Market: It's called that, it is underground and illegal, but mostly the place functions as a Bazaar of the Bizarre.
• Bookends: "He was pretty sure it was Tuesday."
• Brilliant, but Lazy: Compared to Ellis and most of his peers, Worth an utter genius who keeps to himself in the slums, in part because he's a bit saner than his peers, and practically born wearing Jade-Colored Glasses.
• Broken Hero: Hanna. His parents died in a messy accident that was partly his fault. He has experienced the tender mercies of several wacko "scientists" that changed him into a Living Weapon with an unreliable off button. Loves and sees the best in everyone, except maybe Ellis, seems to only care about fun and happiness for everybody around, and his smile rarely cracks.
• Cast from Hit Points: Hanna's Firefly powers can be draining. He tends to overtax himself into full Power-Strain Blackout due to the Chronic Hero Syndrome or just lack of thought.
• Cold-Blooded Torture: Ellis attempts this on Worth, but forgets that Worth is a masochist.
  • He does it earlier, with far more success, to Conrad.
• Conversational Troping: Worth namechecks such tropes as Imperialstormtrooper Marksmanship Academy (while ranting about the local mooks and their shooting skills) or No-Holds-Barred Beatdown. He also calls the Big Bad Mandark and Eli — a The Matrix Reloaded reject.
• Coolest Club Ever: The one where Toni sings looks shabby at a first glance; it's really how Eli feels there that counts.
• Crapsack World: Varuna is a Vast Bureaucracy, where any sort of individuality and independent thought is frowned upon. Spiderman comics, toys, video cassettes, plushies, action figures and posters are apparently illegal, along with most books (The Bible included) and non-state-approved art. Living flowers are banned as a health hazard, trees are scarce and most neighbourhoods in the city have an allotted number of artificial ones. Crapsack doubles if you happen to be a werewolf, vampire, magic user or an Undesirable of any other sort.
• Crowbar Combatant: Lamont normally prefers using his guile, but when he has to fight, he breaks out the crowbar.
• Cyborg: The Fireflies are Magitek-enchanced Living Weapons, in some cases made out of people who have been in magic-related accidents, like Hanna and Eli.
• Darker and Edgier: The source material has already been noir with the undead, but here we have a full-blown dystopia.
• Dead Fic: The authors confirmed, on their DeviantArt, that Father of Death would be left unfinished due to lack of inspiration. They did post several sketches of planned plot points, as well as a summary of how the rest of the fic would have gone.
• Disney Death: Hanna, in Eli's arms, on the top of the wall, looking outside of the city for the first time...
• Dr. Jerk: Worth may not be a medical doctor per se, just a (former, hopefully) Mad Scientist who has been doing biological work and handles the After-Action Patch-Up duties for the Ragtag Bunch of Misfits. He is also rude, abrasive, insulting and condescending towards everyone but Hanna. Most of the time. Actually, since he throws bottles at Hanna, the jerk part of the trope is indisputable.
• Dystopia: Vaguely cyberpunk, with the gritty setting and a Fascists' Bed Time. Individuality is seen as suspicious, for some reason, and the Propaganda Machine is working non-stop.
• Engineered Public Confession: How the cast gets Ellis.
  Veser: Smile, asshole!...You're on Candid Camera!
• Everyone's Baby Sister: Hanna may be the member of La Résistance with most raw power, but he's such a Kid Hero that everyone else would rather die than let him be seriously dissapointed.
• Evil Tower of Ominousness: Slap-bang in the middle of the city, inhabited by Ellis's "scientific" institution. An elaborate Executive Suite Fight takes place there in the finale.
• Flechette Storm: Worth doesn't usually fight, but when he does, expect loads and loads of surgical steel to fly in the air and hit exactly where it hurts most.
• Flight: Hanna's powers include it. Veser has a Hover Board, which is like a skateboard, only flying - this technology seems quite widespread. Eli is given a hover bike in the epilogue, just cause.
• Foreshadowing: This is said as an honest joke. Dear gods of Plot...
  "Maybe I'm a sleeper agent," his partner said with a smile of his own.
• Friendly Sniper: Eli, a crack shot and a reasonable, quiet, caring person.
• Hates Everyone Equally: Worth, pretty much. He sort of cares about Hanna and maybe Lamont, but otherwise...
• Icon of Rebellion: Hanna, the Undesirable Number One and proud of it. Later on, this gets weaponised by the bad guys.
• "I Know You Are in There Somewhere" Fight: Hanna versus Eli, twice. First time it's to snap Eli out of it, the second time it's Hanna's turn.
• Industrial Ghetto: The slums, to an extent. Our heroes' Home Base used to be a carpet factory.
• Innocent Blue Eyes: Hanna's very blue eyes go quite well with his Kid Hero personality. He's only metrically a grown-up.
• The Insomniac: Eli's existential worries manifest in this way. After joining the Ragtag Bunch of Misfits, he sleeps a lot better.
• Ironic Name: "Ahimsa" ^note a buddhist concept of nonviolence being used as the name of the local State Sec.
• It Is Dehumanising: Ellis insists on calling the Fireflies (and Undesirables in general, but he does this with special glee in the case of the former) "it".
• I Want My Jetpack: The characters tend to notice just how ragged their world is by complaining this way.
• La Résistance: A Ragtag Bunch of Misfits consisting of Worth, Lamont, Hanna, Toni and Veser. It is joined by Conrad (who has nowhere to go) and Eli (technically a prisoner). There is also the "network" of people who scrounge stuff and keep Ahimsa away from the Undesirable parts of town, but The Main Characters Do Everything of plotty importance.
• Let Me Get This Straight...: Lamont asks to hear the group's plan one more time in chapter twenty four.
  Lamont: Can someone please explain this to me again? Because I really just want to be clear on how stupid this is.
• Mad Doctor: Ellis fancies himself one, but while he really is giggling mad, whoever gave him a doctorate should have their eyes and brain checked.
• The Nicknamer: Worth, and being the Sir Swears-a-Lot of an already pretty sweary group, the nicknames he gives are Not Safe for Work.
• Pistol-Whipping: Like in the source material, Eli on Adelaide, shedding some of her blood and allowing for Emergency Transformation of Conrad.
• Powder Keg Crowd: Which Veser (of all people) manages to channel into a full-blown revolution with a Rousing Speech.
• Removing the Earpiece: Veser and Toni do this to not hear Conrad's panicking while they rescue (ish) the Undesirables on the Arc. Done later, more dramatically, by Hanna, when he fights the rouge Firefly, and even more dramatically by Conrad, when he's captured and destroys his earpiece so it can't be used to track the others.
• Restraining Bolt: The chip Worth invented before switching sides. It turns the Fireflies into mindless killing machines.
• Running Gag: Hanna coming up with increasingly-silly names for La Résistance and promptly being shot down.
• Safety in Indifference: Deep down, good old Worth. Way deep down under the Jerkass facade.
• Smug Snake: Ellis. Good God, Ellis. Absolutely zero brains to back it up, but he honestly thinks he's that cool.
• Strapped to an Operating Table: Several people who Ellis gets into his grubby little hands. Including Hanna (twice) and Conrad.
• Sympathetic Sentient Weapon: The Firefly Project was about making Human Weapons by Magitek cyborgisation. All the results suffer persisting mental problems that don't always manifest as Insane Equals Violent. Hanna can be considered a Loon with a Heart of Gold, while Eli, who has no idea he's a Firefly for most of the story, is only a bit depressed.
• Superpowered Evil Side: Most of the Fireflies are being controlled into destroying buildings, but some retain their free will most of the time. When the controllers pick up they joysticks, this is what it looks like.
• Tron Lines: Hanna has blue ones on his bracers.
• Trouble Entendre: Yes — and no, when Lamont calls Worth in chapter seventeen. Yes, they have worked out a distress code (when they were really drunk). Yes, Worth knows Mont's inane babble means "don't come over, I've been compromised". No, because Worth goes to rescue him anyway, fully aware he's walking into a trap.
• True Companions: The resistance. Worth and Lamont especially, since good ol' doc is fully prepared to lay his life down for 'Mont.
• Wall Around the World: The city of Varuna is surrounded by a wall thick enough to lie comfortably on top of it. Hanna eagerly speculates what's behind it — he claims to have seen a glimpse but it's a lie. He really does in the finale.
• Voice with an Internet Connection: One person in the merry band of rebels always fills that position, usually Conrad, partly because Everything Is Online and they need a hacker backing them up.
• Used Future: Depends on where you are in the Dystopia, but even the relatively shiny upper city is a bit bleak.