Brotherhood Crisis

by Leadhammer

Follows a number of different OC's on their adventures as heroes and villains, and the scars they get along the way.

It was a good day. Iyana walked the streets on a sort of patrol that he liked to go on. He wasn't allowed to, legally. Even by definition, since he wasn't a 'hero' he couldn't exactly go on a 'hero patrol' but he liked to think of it that way. He walked the streets on the patrol he went on when he felt that strange tug in his stomach. That knack that urged him to do good. He only felt it go away when he did good, and then it replaced with a strange and lovely feeling that he quite liked. He found himself marching through alleyways, with his hands in his pockets and a cocky grin on his face. He soon heard it, and shook his head to himself.

Crime made an unmistakable noise. The noise of someone screaming, or suppressing a scream. He knew the sound well. He didn't know where it was coming from just yet but he would find out. It was always funny to him how crime could still occur in a town so densely populated with heroes and trainy heroes. He followed it, stalking closer to it like a predator. He finally turned a corner and found it. His grin widened, a manic look in his eyes. There was a salary man being assaulted by a pair of large mutants who were being led by a man with a long tongue, strange purple spots dotting his skin. It was clearly a mugging. The salaryman was obviously someone stuck with an inferior quirk, and was helpless before the three. Briefly, Iyana wondered why these three had turned to crime. He pondered it, saving up for the moment when he would spring into action. He watched for a few seconds, until one of the mutants began flashing his quirk. Had to wait for illegal quirk use, at least. That sort of thing had tripped Iyana up on multiple occasions. Too often had he found the news reporting criminals who had been taken out without proper cause for it.

Iyana had a strange father. A man with manic eyes that Iyana only ever met through a pane of glass, and who talked hurriedly and excitedly. He told Iyana all kinds of things whenever he got the chance. About how Iyana had to be careful, couldn't be seen. He had to make sure that he was never seen until he was a real hero. He said that phrase a lot, Iyana mused. 'Real hero'. Iyana found himself distracted again. He had to focus. Illegal quirk use. Perfect. He grinned from ear to ear, in such a way that would make anyone leary. He slowly stepped out of the darkness and emerged into the outside area. He never felt the need for pop and circumstance that others did. That was something he always felt was a weakness, but he never truly cared. He emerged into the opening and lifted one foot carefully into the air. He seemed to hop around a little bit, staring directly at the largest mutant. The salaryman, if he saw Iyana, did not make it apparent. He was a bit preoccupied, Iyana thought to himself. Finally, Iyana seemed to have things lined up. With one quick stamp, he brought his foot down to lightly tap the ground. All at once, there was a sudden red flash and then-
SMASH!
The mutant was pummeled into the ground, crumpling immediately. The group looked around in confusion but before they could respond-
SMASH!
Another was blasted into the ground. The long-tongued man noticed Iyana and yelled some kind of vulgarity that didn't really register with Iyana, who seemed to be having trouble balancing. He rushed towards Iyana, which Iyana had assumed he would.

Iyana had a strange father. A man with manic eyes that Iyana only ever met through metal bars, and who talked hurriedly and excitedly. He told Iyana all kinds of things whenever he got the chance. About how Iyana had to be careful, couldn't be seen. He had to make sure that he was never seen until he was a real hero. He said that phrase a lot, Iyana mused. 'Real hero'. Iyana found himself distracted again. He had to focus. Illegal quirk use. Perfect. He grinned from ear to ear, in such a way that would make anyone leary. He slowly stepped out of the darkness and emerged into the outside area. He never felt the need for pop and circumstance that others did. That was something he always felt was a weakness, but he never truly cared. He emerged into the opening and lifted one foot carefully into the air. He seemed to hop around a little bit, staring directly at the largest mutant. The salaryman, if he saw Iyana, did not make it apparent. He was a bit preoccupied, Iyana thought to himself. Finally, Iyana seemed to have things lined up. With one quick stamp, he brought his foot down to lightly tap the ground. All at once, there was a sudden red flash and then-
SMASH!
The mutant was pummeled into the ground, crumbling immediately. The group looked around in confusion but before they could respond-
SMASH!
Another was blasted into the ground. The long-tongued man noticed Iyana and yelled some kind of vulgarity that didn't really register with Iyana, who seemed to be having trouble balancing. He rushed towards Iyana, which Iyana had assumed he would.

Iyana was quickly diagnosed with the same Quirk his father had, known as 'Godfather'. The exact same, but that was alright. His mother was quirkless and Iyana would rather have this than just about anything else. The doctor quickly determined it, before his mother dragged him aside and had some private words with him. Iyana sat at the edge of the bed, kicking his feet off the side, smiling to himself and imaging his future.
"He's not normal." His mother said.
"Not?" The doctor shook his head.
"Not normal. He doesn't seem to be scared of dying, but it's not-" His mother glanced into the room and saw her son sitting there, happily, "It's not like he just doesn't understand it-"
"Pardon me." The doctor stopped her, "If you think it's something psychological, you should really see a child psychiatrist."
She had to take him to see one, who quickly diagnosed Iyana as a psychopath. Iyana didn't have the same interest in living as everyone else. Not that he wanted to die, just that he didn't think about it, but was aware of the concept. Iyana walked through the alleys, thinking of all the different people he might run into. All the fires he could rush into that might quell that tug in his gut. Sadly, he didn't find anything. Nothing. Nothing of interest happened. Not that, Iyana supposed, he was supposed to be sad that nothing was wrong. He was supposed to be happy, but god was peace boring. Iyana was going to be late for school, at this rate, he supposed. He had to move quicker. This daily ritual really ran a rod through his schedule, but it was just about all he had to look forward to.
He eventually made his way back to his middle school. It was a dull place. It was all so mundane. There was never anything of much interest happening. Never any bullying, never any gloating or corruption. Iyana missed that from his younger years. There were always bullies running around. It was always fun when Iyana found a kid who just discovered their Quirk and thought they were king of the world. They were especially fun to step on. Iyana made his way through the halls, catching glances from children much more odd in appearance than him, yet not getting nearly as much attention. That was because Iyana was known as the king of his school. All the people within its walls knew his name, because nobody would pick a fight with him. The reason the school was so peaceful these days was because it was very violent in the past. And then Iyana came along and things seemed to magically straighten out.

Iyana had a teacher named Uchinaru who he didn't really like that much. Uchinaru wasn't necessarily a bad teacher, just odd. Iyana couldn't get a read on him, not that that sort of thing was ever his strong suit. He would often watch other students and try to figure out what their emotions were, what they were saying, why they were laughing. He liked analyzing them. Another thing his dad taught him, but he never quite understood why it was so important. He knew understanding people was necessary, but as long as he did a good job and was just... himself he didn't see an issue with anything. Iyana still tried his best to 'get' people, but it was so difficult sometimes. Uchinaru was one of those people. He reminded him of himself, oddly enough. He smiled a lot, which Iyana did, also, and not even when he was happy. Sometimes he just smiled because deep down he was happy, or he knew he would be happy again soon. There were many reasons to smile, Iyana mused. Uchinaru smiled a lot, but Iyana never knew why. It always seemed forced. Big and cheesy. It made Iyana confused. Iyana wasn't being presumptuous when he thought of himself as the top student in the school. He wasn't assuming, he just was. In the tests, physical or written he passed with flying colors. He knew all of these things were true about himself. And the final straw in Uchinaru's weirdness was that he never offered Iyana the recommendation to whatever academy he wanted to go to. Not that Iyana wanted it, he didn't really care one way or another, but he knew for a fact that he should have been offered it. And yet he wasn't. Instead, some other kid from another class entirely was offered the recommendation. Iyana wasn't annoyed, sometimes that's just how things went. No, Iyana rarely got annoyed. More often he just got confused. And he didn't like being confused, it muddled with him. It was a hindrance. And he didn't like being hindered. Iyana sat and thought for awhile on this subject. Why did he not get the recommendation. Was the other kid just better than him? That couldn't be it. Again; Iyana was the best student in the school. He tried to convince himself that the other boy was, perhaps, just lucky. Or maybe he was personal friends with the teacher and the teacher let him in because of that. Iyana laughed at his own thoughts. That was quite a naughty idea. He couldn't believe he had come up with it. But maybe it was true. Iyana smiled again. Maybe they were friends. If we're going down that rabbit-
"Iyana!" The teacher called from the front of the class.
Iyana looked up, not seeming surprised.
"Please read the passage from the book."
Iyana froze. He hadn't been paying attention to where they were in the book. One of his classmates leaned over and quickly pointed to one of the lines. Iyana smiled at him, then cleared his throat and read the passage flawlessly. His teacher sighed slightly but moved on and Iyana went back to pondering things. If we're going down that rabbit hole, perhaps the teacher was paid off to give that kid the recommendation. Iyana was very interested in himself. He had come up with a number of interesting ideas, and he hadn't even had lunch yet.

One of Iyana's earliest memories was of his father, the man behind the glass. He never knew his father very well, not to imply that his father was dead. Forging a meaningful relationship had just become substantially more difficult since his father was arrested. He remembered seeing it all on TV. His father in some kind of hulking form, fires surrounding him with tears running down his face as heroes encircled him. Iyana was too young to understand anything that happened leading up to the arrest, and even when he grew up he still found the whole affair rather confusing. And Iyana didn't like to feel too confused so he usually didn't bother thinking about it much. His father was a bad man, probably, and was arrested. His father was a man with blurry eyes and shaky teeth, Iyana always thought he had wound up looking more like his mother. His father would make sure he understood as many things as he could. He talked a lot about how this was the society of heroes and how heroes were the best part of the world. How he had to be a hero. Hero, hero, hero. Iyana couldn't tell why his father thought this, he just seemed to love heroes. And so it was ironic that he ended up where he had. Iyana found it funny. He wasn't sure if he would be a hero if it weren't for his father, because of that reason. Sure, Iyana liked doing heroic things but he would never have put two and two together and realized that he could make a living out of it.
Iyana remembered not getting along with anything living as a child. He remembered sitting on the roof of the apartment complex and throwing rocks at birds. He couldn't remember why he did any of it, or if he really wanted to hit the birds. He just did it. He just didn't think properly. He wanted to see if he could hit them, if they'd die, what it'd look like if they died. He did it because he didn't like them sitting on his roof, sitting there loitering and doing nothing for him. They were just rats with wings, truly, and danced in his court without paying him the slightest mind. And that bothered him. His mother started treating him that way after his father left. She made him a little paper crown and he wore it constantly. She referred to him as a prince before his father left. After he was gone he became the king of the house. All of a sudden Iyana had a number of foreign responsibilities. He was seen as more grown up right away and he wasn't sure if he liked the idea of that. It meant less freedom. But simultaneously he did like the idea of power. He liked the idea that the house was his. Overtime, he found himself patrolling around the house and checking to make sure there were no rats or roaches scuttling around. And if there were, he would kill them. He didn't like those creatures in his living space. If the roof was his court, the house was his castle. And he would protect it. Overtime, he became more interested in the work his mother assigned to him. Cleaning was only natural. He had to have a tidy castle. It was important, otherwise he would look like a foolish ruler. He never realized, because of all the work he had to do, that he was locked in. Unable to leave. He never thought to check the door. His mother had finally found a way to keep him from stumbling into danger whenever he was left alone. It was only when he was a teenager that the illusion of the castle faded and he stepped outside.

Iyana ate lunch alone, depending on your definition. He had a number of people who sat near him while he ate but they weren't really with him. There was only one person Iyana sometimes found himself 'with' in a familial sense and that was a young student named Benpatsu who had managed to grab Iyana's attention. Iyana had a habit of making his superiority known even if he himself didn't see it as him showboating. He often just found himself getting into fights with people. He was extremely arrogant but not bragadocious. Trouble just had a way of finding him. One person who found Iyana very quickly was Benpatsu. Benpatsu was a slight and harmless looking boy. His name was almost perfectly suited to him because both were soft and kind. Benpatsu was perhaps the first friend Iyana ever made, not that he realized it at the time. Benpatsu Sensui sometimes sat with Iyana when he wasn't sitting with other friends or girlfriends.
He was very popular among the other students, almost completely juxtaposed to Iyana. He had had multiple girlfriends, whereas Iyana had none. He had more friends than he knew what to do with, and no enemies to the best of anyone's knowledge. And it was Benpatsu who had received the recommendation to UA instead of Iyana. It was why Iyana felt his line of thinking might yield fruit. He had known Ben for a long time and remembered several things about him. He wasn't a good fighter, he was an average student and his family had a substantial amount of money. Iyana remembered this because he went to Ben's house once and was impressed by the size. He wondered why Ben wasn't more arrogant when he possessed so much wealth, but he felt he wouldn't like Ben as much if he was too proud. Not to mention, having a lot of money is nothing to be proud of. That's why Iyana was proud to be poor. Ben had received the recommendation, and that was something that puzzled Iyana. So when Ben sat next to him at lunch, Iyana decided to investigate. Ben had a habit of tapping Iyana on the shoulder before speaking to him or approaching him. Iyana was quick to respond to sudden movements or noises, and so Ben was careful to make his presence known in a small way before he sat down.
"Hey, Yana." Ben had called him that for a long name, though Iyana had no idea why. Ben was the type of person to come up with nicknames for everyone, though.
"Good morning."
"It's more like noon."
Iyana smiled faintly and didn't bother looking at Ben.
"Picked a school yet?"
"Of course." Iyana said, leaning back and staring at the ceiling.
"Oh, cool. Maybe we picked the same one."
"Maybe." Iyana waited a second, "Why did you get the recommendation?"
Ben looked confused, and leaned in his chair jauntily, watching Iyana carefully. He knew Iyana didn't get jealous, so this was probably just him being 'curious'.
"I dunno." Ben said honestly, "I didn't think I earned it either."
"So we're in agreement."
Ben knew better than to be offended by this, because it's just how Iyana was. He laughed awkwardly.
"I mean, I guess."
"So you're not the least bit curious?"
"I guess a bit." Ben shrugged, "Maybe the teacher just likes me."
"What do your parents think about the whole thing?"
"Not much, I suppose. They always assumed I would get into a good school, anyway. They really forced me to study for exams, and all."
"I know, but even people other than me were well suited for it."
"You worry too much. Teacher probably just likes me better."
"That'd be fine." Iyana sat forward and stood up, "Likability is important to being a hero. I just want to make sure that's what it is, then."
"Oh? Gonna shake down our teacher?"
"Something like that."

Iyana stayed late after class that day. He gave no reason for it, he just sat there until all the other students had filed out. Ushinaru was a large and imposing man. He didn't look like a teacher, with a long mass of cord-like hairs hanging from his head, dark skin and wide shoulders. During some combat-readiness classes, he wore a wife-beater which he looked much more at home in. Iyana sat and stared out the window carefully, waiting. Finally, the last pair of students left for the day. Iyana heard his teacher stop typing momentarily.
"So, what's up?" Ushinaru said.
"Well, teacher. I don't want to discredit your character-"
"Oh, ok. So we're having this kind of conversation." Ushinaru observed.
"Why did you give Benpatsu the recommendation?"
"I thought he earned it. He's a well-rounded student in academics, heroic behaviour and physical ability with plenty of room to grow. I think a good school would turn him into a top-class hero."
Sounds rehearsed, Iyana thought to himself, but he made a decent point.
"Then why was I not given it."
Ushinaru sighed, "Look, Iyana, you shouldn't take this sort of thing too personally. It's not anything that you lack that earned Ben the recommendation, it's just that I thought he deserved it more."
"But why."
"He... feels more like a future hero to me. He's better with people." Ushinaru realized he was going to a dark place, "I'm worried that your biggest problem point is your inability to interact honestly with people."
Iyana was reminded of his childhood and the doctor his mother took him to visit.
"Have you ever hurt a living creature?" The doctor would ask.
"Yeah." Iyana answered, displaying a shyness and nervousness that would be utterly absent from him in a few years.
"Why?"
Iyana squirmed a bit, not wanting to look at the strange man.
"I just wanted to." He finally said, though it was barely more than a whisper.
"What kinds of things were you hurting? Were they people? Small animals? Bugs?"
"Yes."

"Iyana?"
Iyana stared back at Ushinaru who looked at him, slightly concerned.
"Did the Sensui family pay you to give their son the recommendation?"
"No." He answered automatically, "And I know how you can be, so I'll give that question a pass, but that's absolutely an inappropriate way to speak to a teacher. Are you done asking silly questions?"
"Are you done lying?" Iyana asked automatically.
"Iyana!" Ushinaru almost slammed his fist on the table, but stopped himself, "That's a completely inap-"
"It's easy to lie when you don't feel bad about it. It's easy to get good at. Especially if this isn't the first time you've had to lie."
"Iyana, do you really want to ruin your track record when you're so close to graduation? I'm able to give recommendations, but I can also recommend that whatever school you choose review your application with some of your current actions taken into account."
"That's fine. I'll find my way, teacher." Iyana said, "But I just want to know the truth. As a future hero, it's important to me."
"I'm telling you the truth." Ushinaru said slowly, words dripping with poison.
Iyana stared at him for a long time, then turned and began to leave.
"I suppose I'll need to believe you, then."

"You there?" Iyana said, sitting on his bicycle outside school.
"Who else would be answering the phone?"
Iyana had another friend, one who was good with computers. She had been scouted before by some big cybersecurity firms as a possible investment. Her quirk let her create flash drives that could be plugged into computers and create a number of different types of viruses. She wasn't much of a hero, but she was definitely useful. It had been years and years since Iyana had last seen her in person, since she spent most of her time pent up in her room.
"Is that sarcasm? I can list examples." Iyana said almost robotically.
"Please don't." She said, eating chips, "Not that it'd be a very long list, I only live with two other people."
"Are you sure?"
"Well..." She paused, "Mom and dad could've gotten up to some funny business, I suppose. Haven't heard any babies screaming, though."
"Well." Iyana often didn't know how to respond to her.
"So, what'd'ya need?" She said.
"I need you to look into one of my teachers' bank accounts."
"Like siphon funds or what?"
"No-"
"Embezzlement?"
"No, just check for erroneous payments or donations he may have received."
"People can't receive donations."
"Oh."
"I get what you mean, though."
"Good, his name is Ushinaru." Iyana listed his personal information.
"I'll get back to you."
"You're going to procrastinate, aren't you?"
"Yes." She then hung up to procrastinate.
Iyana sighed. Some people really weren't cut out for being heroes. Good thing he was here.
He smiled.
There was that noise again. The unmistakable noise of crime. And that tugging was back.

One blood-splattered alley later, Iyana made his way home to clean while his mother was out. He passed by a number of posters that he didn't like, mostly advertising heroes and heroic activity, imploring people to stand up to villainy. A number of famous heroes had large murals painted on the sides of buildings, or had small monuments erected in parks. Looking at them, Iyana wasn't even able to remember all their names. Their faces bled together. Beneath all their names was the same thing '20XX-20XX'. Iyana never liked that part of them. They weren't infallible. He wanted to be.

Zasso stood making deep-fried tempura, fanning himself with a small paper fan and cursing his own life for what it had done to him. His life was, really, getting right down to it, the cause of all his problems. He had been born and then it was all downhill from there. He had really enjoyed being a zygone. Zygite. Zegote. Whatever it was. When he was a mass of cells and couldn't feel pain and might still just die for no reason before he had the opportunity to disappoint anybody that wasn't just his mom or his mom's friends. Zasso hated this job. It was hot, smelly and tedious. But it gave him money and he needed that, so he put up with it.
Things for Zasso somewhat improved the day his place of business was attacked by enormous mutants with shotguns for hands. He blankly wondered why their hands were shotguns as they burst through the glass doors and screamed something about wanting to speak to the manager. Zasso wondered if they were naturally that way or if they had eaten a shotgun or something. He wondered this as the manager made a break out the back door and sprinted into the alleyways and out of Zasso's life forever. One of the mutants chased the manager while the other hung around to turn the place on it's head. What few, seedy customers there were poured out of the place like spilled milk, soon leaving only Zasso in the kitchen and shotgun-hands number 2 in the dining area. 'Dining area' how fancy Zasso thought.
The mutant trudged into the kitchen and began going through the various dishes Zasso never got the chance to hand off to the customers, one of whom was a girl and seemed kind of cute. Zasso resented that, so he decided to do something about it.
"So are you two brothers, or what?" He said, casually from his hiding spot under a sink.
"Who's there?!" The mutant shouted. Zasso could hear him moving around the kitchen, knocking down pots and pans.
"Or are you mother and son? Are you the mom?" Zasso said, sliding around out of sight.
"Show yourself!"
"Sorry, I don't speak Goon." Zasso said, making his way for the front door.
"Leave your filthy nose outta this, frycook!" The mutant growled and Zasso could hear a gun cocking.
"How do you cock the shotgun if your hands are both shotguns?"
That was when the mutant took his first shot and with the lead bouncing into the wall so did Zasso's heart bounce into his throat.
"I said shut up if you don't want to end up like your manager!"
"I would hate that, you're right." Zasso said, sweating profusely. He really didn't like the feeling of being in mortal danger, it wasn't something he believed in. He slunk out of the kitchen but there was the entire dining area between him and possible, potential, might-be-but-probably-not freedom.
'Dining area.' Zasso thought to himself, 'How delicate.'
He sat under the counter, with the mutant roughly on the other side if he had to guess.

He waited.
"Where'd'ya get off to?"
Zasso had often wondered how difficult throwing your voice was and if it was one of those things you could do perfectly right off the bat without ever having done it before. Probably not. There weren't many things like that, he had come to find.
"Alright, ya talked me into it. I'll just leave." Zasso said, trying to sound reasonable.
Another gun cocked.
'Seriously, how does he do that', Zasso thought.
"I'm not feeling too forgiving anymore." He could hear the shit-eating grin in the mutant's voice.
"Well, guess there's nothing that can be done." Zasso took a number of deep breaths and steeled himself. He hadn't used his quirk much. Almost never, really. It wasn't something that was very applicable in everyday life.
Several minutes went by.

-
It was then that a young boy walked by the restaurant, having heard about a commotion. This was the worst part of town so it wasn't surprising that the pros had responded yet.
"Hello?" He called in.
There was no answer, but he could hear something. A faint crackling. He finally managed to work up the nerve to enter. He was an aspiring hero, so he needed to get used to this sort of thing. He walked slowly into the establishment and the crackling grew louder. After several seconds, it seemed to vanish with a WOOSH.
The boy reached the kitchen area, stepping over broken tables and mounds of shattered glass. He found, to his surprise and horror, a giant mutant stuck to the wall. He was seemingly stuck there by a series of segmented, thick, black, shiny rings. The boy drew closer, finding the mutant was indeed unconscious. He was badly burnt and beaten, the boy could see. And as he drew closer, he found the rings weren't just rings, but giant tires. And it was as if he had been stapled to the wall by them. He called in the crime, with heroes responding quickly.
"What is it, Benpatsu?" The responding hero, Mr. Lighthouse, said.
Ben explained as best he could, but was at a loss.
The crime was eventually traced back to Ranru Zasso, quirk: Necklace. Age: 22. No record beyond a single instance of illegal quirk use at age 8 and 15.
"Juvenile detention's done nothing to straighten this one out." Col. Straight mused.
"He's small time." Mr. Lighthouse shrugged, "Hardly worth the effort to track down. He was probably just acting in self defense."
"His employer's got ties with a local mutant syndicate. Maybe things got hairy."
"Still better have the cops collect a statement, I suppose."
A statement was collected, and Zasso was let off largely unscathed.
What a terrible day.

She sat in a dark room, with only the warm, blue glow of the laptops around her to illuminate things. The floor was a mishmash of mattresses, pillows and various discarded food wrappers which had been herded towards the edges of the room. Discarded clothing draped itself across her computers and lamps. The windows were drawn for the 2763rd day in a row and would remain that way for hundreds more.
She sat in the darkness, thinking about her old friend, Iyana. He was funny and she liked messing with him. She found long ago that the only real way to make him normal was to be weirder than him. The two had settled into a rhythm with each other and unbeknownst to her she had started to quite like him. Though this would just confuse him more, so she knew it was better to not confront him about it. She did like to make him happy, though, so she only wasted about an hour of time before investigating his teacher. It took her only a minute or two to access his bank statement and, sure enough, there was a big, fat payment from an LLC that was completely unlisted without so much as a Wikipedia article. She grinned. He would like this. She called him back and he responded within two rings of the phone. Punctual as ever.
"What do you have?" He asked.
"You were right. He got a payment of several million yen from some company that doesn't exist."
"A front."
"Yup." She said triumphantly, despite 'Yup' being an extremely lame thing to say.
"Thanks. Bye."
"Byyy-" He hung up as she droned on with her farewell.

Iyana had the evidence he needed, but he had no way of accusing Ushinaru since he had acquired the evidence illegally. An illegal tip would do it, but he also didn't particularly care that Ushinaru was doing this. Ushinaru was a good teacher and the recommendation system was hardly that big a problem in terms of exploitable aspects of hero society. Weak heroes would always fall by the wayside, not matter how much grooming they received. Only the strongest, smartest and most likable could succeed. He decided to let Ushinaru go in this one instance.

"Have you ever had an involvement with the Brotherhood of Mutants?"
"Do I look like a mutant?" Zasso asked, incredulously.
"We just need to collect a statement and verify that you weren't involved in the crime that took place at your place of work in any way."
"I was acting in self-defense. A few guys I don't know burst in, one goes after the manager, one goes after me. I used my quirk but it was just to-"
"Kill him?"
"That's what I had to do, yeah."
"Seems pretty open and shut." One cop said from behind the glass of the interrogation cell.
"Yeah. What we really need to do is find the head of this 'Brotherhood of Mutants' is."

'Still,' Iyana thought, 'Nothing better to do.'
"Back again?"
"I know you did it." Iyana said abruptly.
Ushinaru sighed and buried his head in his hands.
"Iyana, I'm going to have to ask you to report to-"
"Take a look at this."
He handed him a stack of papers displaying his bank account activity.
"That's your pin number at the top, right? This is yours. And that-" Iyana pointed to an enormous payment made several weeks ago, "Is damnation."
"Are you insane?!" Ushinaru stood up, slamming his hand on the desk, "You hacked into my bank account?"
"No." Iyana said simply, because he wasn't the one who did it and merely was the one who asked someone else to do it. He felt as if the fact he wasn't lying somehow made the act more digestible.
It didn't.
Ushinaru was furious, nearly having steam pouring from his nose.
"What is it going to take to get you to stay quiet?"
"Nothing. I'd just like to have a sparring match with you."
"What?"
"A match. I've always liked the idea of fighting a teacher, you know."
"Are you insane?" He wondered why he bothered asking at this point, since the answer was becoming more and more clear by the minute.

The two met in the gym later, both having changed into proper fighting attire.

The information was handed in anyway, because Iyana was, first and foremost, a hero. It was handed in anonymously, however, since Iyana couldn't have himself being investigated hacking and didn't want Kotori found out. She had a bright future ahead of her in that dark little room of hers.
He walked home, bruised and sore, but victorious.

Zasso walked home in a similar state, but defeated. The cops had been unnecessarily harsh with him. It was this sort of behaviour that fostered animosity between the poor and the police, he thought to himself. He desperately wanted to like police officers, but they had never helped him once in his life. All they ever did was reprimand him.
'Maybe I'm the problem' Zasso though.
It was on his way home that Zasso found himself being followed.
"Oh, now what?" He said out loud after it had become achingly apparent that the figures in the alleys and on rooftops weren't just going in the same direction as him by coincidence.
All at once, the sidewalk next to him exploded, a dumpster flew at him and three enormous car-sized shadows dropped on top of him.
He woke up some indistinct amount of time later, with a massive headache. He was in a cage. A big one. And he was strapped to a chair in the middle of it. Outside the cage there was only darkness, but he had an uneasy feeling. He felt as if he was on a ship, with the floor rocking back and forth. Suddenly, there was a burst of light at the edges of the cage. He heard a cheer roaring up from underneath him. They were low, guttural and animalistic roars that filled Zasso with a sense of dread he couldn't fathom. It was if the monsters of hell were screaming at him and charging. All at once he felt as if he was locked in a coffin and the undead were burrowing up towards him from below. Then a clear, loud voice cut through the mucky and muddled roars.
"Brethren!" The voice said, "It's a joy to see all of you gathered here again!"
There was silence. The noises below him were becoming clearer. It was cheering. But from what? Not humans.
Zasso rolled his eyes, 'Fucking mutants.'
Sure enough.
"It's been so long since we caught a good fighter! But today we have the man who took down a member of the Shotgun Brothers!"
"They're called the Shotgun Brothers?!" Zasso yelled as loud as he could, "DID YOU JUST PICK THE FIRST NAME YOU COULD THINK OF?!"
There was silence.
"It sounds like our guest is awake!"
Zasso rolled his eyes. He took the opportunity to look around and found there was something like a square traced out around the chair he was chained to.
"Let's meet him!"
Suddenly, the floor dropped out from beneath Zasso and he was falling. All at once his eyes received far too much information to process properly. Falling. Chain. Bound. Falling. Sick. Noise. Cheers. Lights. Falling. And then-
CHUNK!
He stopped, nearly knocked out from the sudden arrested falling. He was slowly spinning around. He looked around. He was dangling from the chain and was in the center of an enormous colosseum with every row packed with mutants. So many mutants. More than he had ever heard of or could even think of. He had never seen so many. Hundreds. And at the same time as he was impressed, awed and surprised he was terrified. He was going to die, surely. There was no way he could survive this. Even if they were sucked and were pitifully weak, so was he. He couldn't possibly take even three at once. His Quirk was decent but not built for this sort of thing. He looked down and saw some small, squat mutants standing on a podium, smiling at him.
"Gonna say something or what?"
"Like?" The mutant asked.
"Gimme a proper introduction! Or gimme the mic, I'll do it for you!" Zasso had fallen back on his old tactic of just shit-talking anything that got in his way.
"What a fighter! No wonder he took down Big Guns!"
"God! Get a better name! I know there are a million of you ugly bastards but you can do better than that!"
It was then that Zasso was dropped the remaining dozen feet to the floor. Looking up he saw some dark shape had cut the chains in the cage. He also saw the remaining length of chain plummeting towards him. He rolled out of the way as the thick metal chain cascaded down around him. He felt his heart racing. This was dangerous. He was scared. More scared than he had ever been before. He was going to die.
"We at the Brotherhood of Mutants," The announcer continued, "Invite guests as a means to test our new recruits."
"Beautiful." Zasso spat, "And what does killing a weakling like me prove?"
"You can't be that weak, you killed-"
"Well he was weak, too!" Zasso felt tears running down his face. If only he was strong. If only he had bothered training in his freetime instead of-
He couldn't think of a single thing he had done with his time outside of work. Talk to girls, hang out with friends. All of it dwindled away overtime. And he was left like this. On the dirt floor, crying, about to die.
"So just hurry up and send in Big Fucker Number 700 and we'll get this show on the road!" Zasso screamed.
"If you insist, we can hurry this along."
The crowd booed. Zasso wondered what had been skipped over, but maybe he didn't want to know. He heard a pair of footsteps approaching from behind him. He turned and saw a strapping figure approaching. Tall, but not too muscley. Interesting. Most people here were utter freaks. The lowest of the low. As the figure approached Zasso, he tried to struggle around to get a chance to attack.
"Not even gonna unchain me first?!" Zasso snarled.
"Oh, of course we will!" The announcer said cordially, "We're not complete animals here!"
The person approaching Zasso pulled out a ring of keys and knelt before him. He flipped Zasso on his other side with relative ease. He could hear the key enter the locks and before he knew it he was free. He immediately scrambled away and got to his feet, ready for anything. All he saw was the tall figure carrying off the length of chain. The chains dragged slowly behind him, unwinding like a snake as he got further away. They slowly straightened out until they were a perfect line proceeding into the dark door he had come from. Finally, they disappeared and the figure was gone. Zasso couldn't help but be curious about him. He immediately was back on edge, ready for anything. There was another clack and he whipped around in time to see an enormous, industrial-grade bunker door slowly opening. He raised his fists, ready for anything.
A shadow emerged and Zasso charged.

Iyana ran through the gates of the exam area and into the enormous city stretched before him. All at once he began analyzing the area, before heading for the alleyways. From there he ran around and crushed only the highest point-robots available. It was easy. All he had to watch out for was his stamina running out. After smashing several he found himself breathing heavily. He never liked that feeling.

Later that night, Iyana sat alone, eating dinner. His mother was working again and would probably be out late. She always was. But Iyana was fine with that. Things were uncomfortable when his mother was around. Things tended towards silence after a little while. Iyana ate dinner, cleaned up, did laundry, took a shower, brushed his teeth, did his stretches and got in bed at a reasonable hour to get a good night's sleep. He awoke bright and refreshed the next day with a tug in his gut and a smile on his face. He knew just what to do. A bright hero in the making made its way into a world that would one day be terrified of him.

Zasso found himself lying on the ground, something warm pooling around his face. Blood. He could feel his ears ringing, his head throbbing. The thing in the shadows had knocked him cold with one shot. It was too big to get a grip on. Zasso felt the crushing weight of realization setting in. It was the same desperate feeling he got when he read through a test he hadn't studied for. There was a mountain before him. One he couldn't claim because it was smooth and featureless. He didn't have the strength, knowledge, gear or the right mountain for this. He was out of luck, as little luck as he had left to run out of.
But he got up again. He didn't know why.
He felt the same smashing force rip through him and bat him aside. For him to was like getting hit by a truck, but he was sure that his slight frame offered no resistance to the arm and hitting him this hard took no effort. He lay there, hopeless. Bleeding and broken and bruised. He was going to die. He would let himself.
But he got up again.
He was far enough from the creature to see what it was. A giant, snake-like mutant. So thoroughly generic that it pissed Zasso off.
'This stupid thing's gonna kill me?!' He thought, 'This DragonQuest Monster?!'
He took a step forward, but fell to his knee. The creature slowly approached him. He froze in place. He waited for the creature to get closer and became aware of a dull chant from all around him. Blood had filled his ears but he slowly became dully aware of it. A thousand thick, hideous voices calling for death. And not just any death.
"EAT HIM!"
"EAT HIM!"
They roared. Zasso had never even considered that to be a possibility, but the mutant was definitely big enough for it. And they wondered why nobody liked them. The snake stood above him, licking its lips.
"Choke on me, fucker." Zasso spat on him.
The snake slowly lifted him into the air with a single, enormous hand. As he was slowly lifted into the air, Zasso saw his one golden opportunity. The neck. The neck would do just fine. He held out his one good hand and made a slight motion with it. Yeah. It would do.

The creature lay on the ground, choking and gasping for air. There were a number of enormous scorch marks on its neck. Zasso lay on the ground in front of it, panting heavily.
Not quite enough. He had taken too much damage to be effective at this point. He slowly got to his feet and stumbled away. The mutant was slowly rising to its feet.
Zasso couldn't hear anything. Not the jeers of the crowd or announcements from the speaker. All he could hear was blood pounding in his ears. It was then that it hit him. Something. He wasn't sure what. It felt like a chair, maybe, but it didn't see it because it hit him in the back of the head. Immediately he was seeing stars and seeing doubles. He stumbled forward and vomited on the ground, falling to his knees. He felt things smashing into his back. Apparently the crowd had taken exception to his performance.
He could feel himself filling with rage. He wasn't even close to winning the match and this is what they were doing. Animals. He looked back over his shoulder in utter hatred and saw the jeering, ugly faces of dozens of mutants screaming and raining debris on him. He sighed. He would die. That was ok. He didn't expect to have survived this. But if he was going to die...
He got up and stumbled toward the snake mutant that was just beginning to recover. He outstretched a hand as he drew near and it slowly began to turn jet-black and shiny. Ridges appeared along the back and center of each finger. His hand grew in size slowly, ballooning outward. Finally he reached the mutant and clamped his black hand over it's neck. His fingers had turned into enormous towers that were wrapped around the mutant's neck. Flame began bubbling up around the edges of his fingers, slowly licking its neck. They weren't as strong as usual. He was too weak. The mutant howled in pain and fell back but Zasso pinned him to the ground and poured all his remaining strength into choking the life out of him. There was a final explosion of flame from his hand and everything went black.

Zasso woke up later, feeling numb. He was completely out of energy.
'Wait.' Zasso looked around. He had woken up. He scrambled his way backwards. There was a wall behind him. He pressed himself against it. He woke up. Zasso was rarely happy about this sort of thing. He was awake. He waited. Why had they spared him? What possible reason could they-
The tall, human-like figure from early stood at the door to his cell. He was in a cell! Well, of course he was. That wasn't really that surprising. He stared at the figure, who watched him closely.
"Why am I alive?" Zasso asked.
The figure was silent.
"Can you speak?"
"Yes." The figure said finally.
"Then why am I alive?!"
"They didn't tell me." The figure seemed to momentarily break his normal rigid posture and figit uncomfortably, "I'm just the jailer."
"Are you a regular human?"
"Yes." The jailer sounded guilty, almost.
"Where the hell am I?!"
The jailer froze and stared at him, then turned and left.
"GET BACK HERE!"
He didn't come back.
Zasso was alone for a long time before he got another visitor.
"I suppose you think we're animals." He saw the announcer standing at the gate now.
"No. Animals don't kidnap other animals and torture them."
"Lower than animals, then." The announcer conceded.
"What is this place?"
"It's an old warehouse that was under construction before being abandoned. We've lived here for quite some time."
"So-"
"I suppose you want to know why we've kept you alive? It's because your death at this point is something that many of my people are seeking. And I would be remisce if I let you be beaten to death by an angry mob. Your death must be a spectacle. Something that our children for generations can speak of."
"Great, tell stories about me, they'll suck!" Zasso waved a hand dismissively at him, "Wait. Your children?"
"Do you know how much mutants are scorned by society? How rife with mental illness mutant society is? They are treated as inferior based solely on appearance. They are denied the same privileges that normal humans receive. Those like us, the tragically mutated," The announcer indicated his own strange body, "We are seen as scum. We aren't trusted."
"You know what'll help your public image? Kidnapping and murdering people in your giant ritual, cult-fucking thing!" Zasso was incoherent. Probably from hunger.
"We had two roads to take. Fight for years for our rights and still be denied them, or produce something that the public would have to accept; a hero."
"A hero?!"
"Our purpose is to produce a perfect mutant. Down here we've gathered a number of powerful quirks. A small army of them, as I'm sure you've found. We seek simply to create a mutant stronger than any hero who will serve as a benchmark for our species to be judged."
"You aren't a different species! You're human!"
The announcer stared at him, confused, "No we aren't. We are beyond that. How dare you imply otherwise."
With that he turned and left.
Zasso felt panic rise in his chest. So this was it. He was trapped. He wound be used as a guinea pig until he gave out from his wounds. After a few moments, the jailer brought by food. Zasso was too hungry to question him or who he was at all and just ate the food as fast as he could. That was fine. If they wanted to fuck with him, he'd become unfuckable. Even more so than he naturally was. He pressed himself against the wall and thought long and hard about his current situation.

Away from prying eyes he could practice his quirk as much as he wanted to, but at what cost? If he was called to fight in the next hour and was out of stamina he was doomed. He couldn't risk training his quirk just yet. He had to train his body. He slowly dropped to his knees and pressed his hands into the ground. First came repent, he remembered. On his hands and knees he allowed himself a few tears before straightening his legs and taking a deep breath. He slowly sank down, bending his arms, then slowly rose back up. His lungs burned almost immediately. How could he have let himself get this out of shape?! He slowly lowered himself again, then rose back up. He did it over and over again until he couldn't anymore. Twenty. That was all he could do before he needed a break. He crawled over to the small cot attached to the wall and flung himself into it. He counted his breaths for no good reason. Finally, when he had gathered his energy again, he did more. He threw punches and kicks, but worried that they were out of form and that they wouldn't even help him. At a point he stopped and dropped his arms to his side. How stupid. That a weakling like him thought he could become anything by throwing a few punches and kicks. He rubbed the tears from his eyes. Who was down here to judge him? He sighed and dropped back to his knees. More push-ups. More.

Iyana recalled his earlier days in school when his teachers would excitedly tell stories of heroes who had fallen in the line of duty, protecting the civilian populace from big, evil villains. And it always seemed somewhat off to Iyana. The way they fetishized their sacrifices, as if it was the most noble way to die. As if that was the only way a hero could die. Iyana stood before a large bronze statue of a caped crusader that had been erected in the middle of a tree-lined walkway. Golden Ape. That was his name. His hero name, anyway. Iyana didn't see a civilian name on the plaque. He passed this statue an awful lot, since it was often on the same path he took home from school. And yet despite that he didn't know much about Golden Ape. He was killed by a villain called Crusher Scorpion in the line of duty, but not before subduing the villain. Crusher Scorpion. Iyana wondered where he was now, considering he was probably still alive. Iyana wondered if he'd have had to die in order to defeat a villain like that. Iyana could feel excitement welling in his chest. He liked the idea of meeting someone who he would have to die to beat, but not because of the nobility of it. He just wanted the rush. Iyana tightened his grip on his bookbag. One day he'd meet his own Crusher Scorpion and die. That would be perfect, he thought. He didn't like the idea of slowly withering away, or disease taking him. He couldn't die in an accident. It had to be his life that was beaten out of him by some spectacular person.
Iyana made his way across a silver-y overpass lined with pink flowers. It was truly a beautiful part of town that he was in. Very unlike the part he was from. Not that the part he was in was bad. There wasn't much crime or anything. It was just unmemorable. The buildings were usually beige as if the sun was setting and covering them in shadows. That perfectly boring color that wiped the smile off Iyana's face. There was nothing more to the neighborhood. It felt so empty. Iyana knew of only one other person who lived near him and that's because they were an excessively noisy person. They often disrupted Iyana while he was trying to exercise, stretch, enjoy a meal, clean or (worst of all) sleep. Iyana couldn't imagine being up as late as they were, but some people were just unreasonable.

Sandanju wouldn't have received much attention on his way into the building because he had dressed for the part. It was a nice building in the business district, populated by people in nice suits who walked quickly and smiled as they passed one another. Sandan had to rent a suit for the mission, which he didn't appreciate, but he also didn't have to pay for the suit. That was nice. He didn't like the fitting process, but sometimes you had to do what you had to do. Sandanju walked up to the secretary's desk and gave her a line about needing to meet a Mr. So-and-So at whatever time for a meeting. She waved him by after he flashed a fake ID that she didn't investigate thoroughly enough and soon he found himself in the elevator up. It was one hundred and seven stories up in a one hundred and eight story building.
'The hell is on the top floor, I wonder' Sandan wondered to himself. It was not his place to know that, nor was it his mission to find out.
He ducked out of the elevator after it reached its destination and skulked to the bathroom, where he ripped off his suit and threw on his mask. He liked his mask. He didn't like people being able to see him. Not that he was self-conscious, far from it, he just didn't like being looked at by people he hated. And he hated most people. He slid the mask on like a second skin and pulled out his weapon. For this occasion his usual guns had been confiscated in favor of a thin metal blade. That was all he would need, Mendula had decided. He couldn't tell if that sort of thing was a compliment, but he decided it probably was. He slipped into an air duct in the ceiling and made his way through. He slid around, listening into the different rooms it came out of. He really didn't like the air duct, though. It was so cramped and hot. Sandan was a bit claustrophobic and this sort of thing was not his cup of tea. He finally found a familiar voice discussing familiar things.
'Bingo.' He thought.
He waited. His mark was on the phone. That wouldn't do. He waited a long time. His mark was a talkative guy, and in the very annoying way. Just listening to him, Sandan could tell he didn't like this guy and was going to thoroughly enjoy what he was about to do. Finally, the man hung up. He stood and stretched. Sandan hovered just above him, viewing him through the vent cover. Finally, the man took a step forward. Sandan removed the screws of the vent cover carefully and silently dropped onto the carpeted floor below, making only a faint tap as he landed. He hopped up behind the man, grabbed him around the mouth with one hand and dragged the blade across his neck with the other.
Clean, quick and completely boring. Sandan looked up at the vent. It was several feet of the ground, and several feet above his head. These fucking high-ceiling rooms were so fancy. He had to pull around the man's chair and then jump in order to reach the vent again, but he managed it. He pulled himself, wriggling, into the event and crawled back to the bathroom. He grabbed his stuff, changed and repacked his mask and everything in his bag. He then made his way over to the window and used the knife to cut a small hole in it. Climbing out, he looked at the city expanding before him. He sighed.

Heights also scared Sandan, not that anyone needed to know that. He gathered himself, then slowly lowered himself out of the window. He reached a hand out and pressed it against the building's metal exterior. He pulled as hard as he could. His hand held firm. He took a deep breath, then another and then a third one then reached fully out the window and placed both hands on the building's exterior. He lowered himself out the window and clung to the side of the building, a mere 1000 or so feet off the ground. He glanced up. The top floor. Tempting. Too tempting, he decided. He might die, he wanted to know exactly what was on the top floor. He climbed up quickly, hands and feet sticking to the exterior of the building easily. He reached the top, which was devoid of anything particularly interesting.

There was a number of radio towers and antennae, but beyond that nothing. He found a hatch and held a hand against it for several seconds. A standard lock, not digital. Perfect. After concentrating for a few seconds, the lock clicked. Sandan grinned. He was too good, sometimes. He flipped the hatch open and climbed down. It was a slightly slanted ladder that led into a dark room. He dropped down and found a door, which he slowly opened. It led out into a single hallway that seemed to reach around almost the entirety of the outside of this floor. Sandan pressed himself against the floor, mask back on, and made his way along like a snake. Finally, he found that there didn't seem to be anybody else on this floor. If this was the CEO suite they were likely out doing whatever it is CEO's do instead of be at work. He sighed. Probably nothing interesting.

He then decided to trash the place for no good reason. If it wasn't interesting, he would MAKE it interesting. After smashing windows and setting off who knows how many alarms, he scrambled back up the ladder and back to the edge of the building. He placed a hand and foot against the side of the building and slid down the entire thing, as casually as someone would use a fireman's pole. He slid down, doing his best to regulate his speed and landed in the deserted garden area at the base of the building where he landed primmly on both feet and, after a single shakey step, strode off whistling. Another job well done. Kind of.

Needless to say, his boss was not entirely pleased with his performance.
"What does it say here about a breaking and entering on the top floor? And vandalism? What's all that?" Mendula extended a long, pale finger towards the headline on the news article.
Sandan feigned ignorance.
"Beats the hell outta-"
"I know it was you." Mendula rolled her eyes.
"Yeah, yeah it was." Sandan grinned.
"Need I explain how utterly unnecessary that was?"
"To be fair," Sandan pointed to himself, "You brought me on, knowing me and still had me do what is predominantly a stealth mission."
"Your point?"
"Did you not expect this?"
Mendula sighed.
She was unnaturally tall. A mutant. She has pale and smooth skin, somewhat like a fish. Her eyes were large and completely black. She had long, silver-y hair that swirled around her body. Her neck was several feet too long to be natural. There was some kind of strange, ethereal beauty about her. None of this is how Sandan would've described her, but that's beyond the point.
"You will be punished later."
Sandan winced, "The usual thing?"
"That seems to have become less than effective."
"Well, you know. Hit a guy with a stick enough and he just gets used to it. Doesn't really matter what the stick is."
"I'll come up with something." Mendula promised, which somewhat unnerved Sandan.

Later that night, Sandan lay awake, sweating profusely. His blood was ice cold in his veins.
'Well,' He thought to himself, 'That was new.'
He slammed his fist into the bed. He didn't like his current line of work. Or how it had developed. At a point in his life Sandan was feared. He was known as a violent criminal, a gangster, thug, bastard, and that suited him just fine. He had fun doing all of that! He loved shooting places up, pulling off bank heists, having people whacked. He liked beating people, stomping on them and kicking them, slapping them around, cutting them. It invigorating! He had grown addicted to that kind of lifestyle, and now that he was just a hired gun he greatly missed it. It all began when that woman appeared in front of him. Things've never been the same since then.

Iyana passed another statue. Torpedo. A simple enough name. He died saving civilians from a sinking ship. Fitting, Iyana supposed. That wasn't the death for him. There was nothing interesting about that. But he remembered hearing a lot about it in class. There was even a movie that came out about Torpedo's life. There were more and more of those coming out lately. Low budget movies about heroes. Hero endorsements at every turn, hero movies in every theatre. It was odd to Iyana. He got the sense that he was in an alien society, despite his goal aligning with the society he was in. He got that feeling sometimes. That feeling that he fundamentally didn't belong somewhere. Usually it was just a result of him not understanding people, their motivations or their feelings. Sometimes it was worse than that. Iyana shrugged the feeling off. Those people would like what they like. It didn't mean anything to him. He then came across something somewhat interesting. He had managed to find his way to a main street and before him he found quite a scene unfolding. This was the business district, and one of the towers had been surrounded by a police barricade. A number of people in business suits were gathered outside. Drawing close, Iyana managed to put something together about a proposed terrorist threat or active hostage situation inside. There was a news team already here. Iyana could tell this would probably be reported for the next few days. He also had the feeling that it wasn't anything nearly so dramatic as what people thought it was. More likely it was just a break in.

Iyana had found that the crime in the city typically boiled down to the same thing. It was all pretty organized. There weren't many completely off-their-rockers killers going around. He heard about Quirk psychos who just snapped and started killing people, but those people only ever seemed to show up in other cities. In his hometown, all crime originated from some level of rational though. Drugs, money, gang wars. It all came down to something that was understandable. That made it both more and less dangerous. Mutants were known to snap due to chemical imbalances in their brains that would cause powerful emotions or instability and as a result a majority of violent crimes in other cities was related to mutants. But there weren't as many mutants in Iyana's town. That meant that most of it was gang or mob related.

The next few days of Zasso's life were a living hell. He did nothing but train and fight. And each fight he only won by the skin of his teeth. Each time he came out nearly dead and had to be nursed back to health as he heard the hordes crying for his death. Finally, on the fourth day he was sure he had reached the end of his luck.
"And his next competitor! After just managing to escape police custody, he's returned to seek vengeance for his brother's death!" Zasso's heart sank, "Let's all give a hand in welcoming Little Brother Gun!"
Zasso rolled his eyes, even as he could feel his blood run cold. What a stupid fucking name. Hopefully there was no obituary for him. Hopefully Zasso could just die and it wouldn't say 'Zasso was killed by Little Brother Gun'.
The enormous, green, misshapen mutant with shotguns for hand stomped into the arena.
"Now, before we begin I would just like to say-" The announcer paused dramatically. Zasso waited, only to hear two shotguns pump suddenly, "-LITTLE BROTHER SHOOT HIM NOW!"
Suddenly there was a pair of deafening cracks, one right after another. Zasso fell to his chest on the ground but could feel the bullets rip across his skin. He stumbled back and scrambled away. This is exactly what he was scared of. A long range competitor. He realized too late that clearing more distance was probably exactly what Little Brother wanted but was unable to do anything. Little Brother cocked his guns again and fired both, his arms cartwheeling backwards from the kick back. There was an explosion of sand in front of Zasso as he could do nothing but cower. He felt a sudden stinging pain in his hands, but nowhere else. He opened his eyes. He fingers had turned into thick, flat strips of dense rubber. He breathed raggedly, amazed he had survived. The buckshot fell to the ground like metal rain. His hands shrunk back to their original size. That was his only shot. He had to get close to him and use his hands as a shield. He screwed his eyes shut and rushed towards Little Brother, who hurriedly cocked his guns again.
'There has to be a weakness to Quirk' Zasso thought. He thought this knowing full well not all Quirks were equal. Maybe there was no drawback to Little Brother's Quirk. The only reason he managed to beat Big Brother was luck. He got the drop on him, was nearly shot point blank and managed to grab him in one go and burn him alive.
Little Brother had the advantage of an entire, open area to fight in and there was no element of surprise. Zasso rushed him and just barely managed to block another hail of bullets by absorbing them with his rubber hands. He realizes this time just how much damage his hand had taken from the first blast. This one was at much closer range and the bullets nearly pierced clean through the rubber. Returning his hand to normal, he found them bleeding horribly. He reached Little Brother and pulled back a hand, ready to launch it forward and grab him, but felt a sudden force thud into his stomach. He managed to forget that Little Brother was still several feet taller than him and likely four hundred pounds heavier. Speed vs strength. At this major of a difference, there was no way being slightly faster would help him at all. Zasso spat up blood. He could hear Little Brother stomping towards him and rolled his eyes.
'Here it comes,' He thought.
He figured he was probably about to get an earful on how he would soon experience a pain unlike no other blah blah blah you killed my brother blah blah blah.
He waited. People this stupid liked to talk. He would probably try some big power play and grandstand. That was the time to get him. Sure enough-
"So, this is the little runt that's been causing so much trouble around here?" Little Brother said, yucking it up to the crowd. The audience was in a blood frenzy, and screamed with approval at the prospect of Zasso dying.
"Well, he didn't seem so tough."
Zasso bit back the urge to point out that he was fighting a guy four times his size with modern weapons, instead opting to feign pain and distress. He coughed loudly and clutched nonspecifically at his abdomen. Little Brother ate it up. He stepped on Zasso's back, crushing him into the ground.
'Just wait' Zasso thought, 'He'll slip up.'
Yet, all Little Brother did was grind Zasso into the dirt, applying ever increasing pressure to him.
Zasso could feel his head as if it was about to burst. Blood spilled, unobstructed, from his mouth and pooled onto the ground. This felt familiar.