Chapter 7: Pulse
"So let's see what we're working with here." Melissa walked over to Endo, who was constrained to a wheelchair inside the workshop.
He bumped into a pile of scrap metal and cursed, "Why can't Hatsume clean this place?" He immediately started coughing at his exclamation, "Over… on the… table."
It was a wide and tall cube, reaching about one foot in each direction, "My technopathy doesn't allow me to move a machine unless it has the capability itself, so I built this machine to mass produce the bots for me. That way I wouldn't have to put together millions of the microscopic things. It takes in raw materials." He lifted in a chunk of steel, "And outputs however many of the Swarm it can." A tiny clink could be heard as the first tiny chunk of the Nanomachines fell out, Endo absorbed all but one of them, taking it to a microscope.
"Where's the power come from? Its outer shell is pure steel, so I don't see any room for solar panels." Melissa slowly adjusted the zoom as Endo disassembled the diamond-shaped machine.
"It's something I developed, called a Zero-point Energy Harness."
She looked at him in shock, "You mastered Zero-point Energy?! Why doesn't the rest of the world run on this stuff now?"
"I sold the design to the government, that's how I built the Swarm, but they're still working to develop a larger harness that's stable."
Melissa nodded, "So, how much do you know about biology?"
"Without my powers, I would've failed it in middle school. That's how much."
"What do you mean without your powers?"
Endo rubbed the back of his neck, embarrassed, "Well, I may have on occasion tapped into the internet during tests. I'm really only smart when it comes to tech."
Melissa giggled, "Well, Mr. Cheater I can handle the biology portion of this then, you will need to reconfigure the cube to make our upgraded bots."
"That's easy, all we need is a blueprint for it."
"Ok, well I would suggest we just make the Swarm slightly bigger to accommodate the large number of modifications we need to make. Does that sound ok?"
Endo wheeled back over to the table, "It's what I actually planned on, since this Swarm won't leave my body, we won't have to worry about it leaving my body through the pores of my skin. Either swallowing or an injection will suffice." More of the Swarm clinked out, all of which he absorbed.
"So we need something that will constantly repair and reinforce muscle tissue, along with bones, organs, nerves, and basically everything else." She looked concerned for a moment, "I don't know of anything like that."
Endo coughed, thinking hard about what to do, "What… what are those things called when you're a baby, those things that can make any cell?"
Melissa snapped her finger, "Stem cells!"
"Right, so we just need to have my body overproduce those right?"
A/N: I'm a seventeen-year-old kid, so this is almost certainly wrong, I tried to do some research into it, and this was the closest scientific solution I could think of. Sorry, but then again Anime isn't exactly realistic.
"Yes, we would need to balance it though to make sure that it doesn't spiral out of control." Melissa sat down at the computer in the room, typing rapidly, then scribbling something down on a notepad. "Well, let's get started."
"So, how do you know All Might?" Two days had passed, with them communicating little if any, Endo was back on his feet after absorbing enough of the bots.
"Hmm?"
"It's just that we've been working nonstop, I can multitask, but I just think that I was to tense these past two days to even talk. I need to let my brain take a break for a bit."
Melissa smiled, "My dad helped All Might in his hay day with support items, they were the best of friends and All Might suddenly became like family to me."
Endo tilted his head in confusion, "Where are you from? Your accent is different, but you're still very fluent in Japanese."
"Have you ever heard of I-Island?"
Endo nodded, "Of course."
Melissa turned back to the computer suddenly, typing in an algorithm before she forgot it, "I live there with my father, developing support items for the next generation of heroes. I suppose like what we're doing now."
"Man, I would love to visit that place someday." Endo turned back to his own work, he was using the Swarm as his hands, to redesign the Swarm producer. As it turns out his machine wasn't ready for the design they had in mind, but thanks to the parts Mei Hatsume and the school provided he would have it done in another three days, "I'm sorry if this is a rude question, but… do you have a quirk?"
Melissa seemed to pause for a minute, "No… I don't."
"I'm sorry, I didn't mean any harm.
"I've come to terms with it, if I can't be a hero directly, I'll do it the only way I know how."
"Well, you've already got a good start I guess." He chuckled.
"What do you mean?"
"Saving my life, that's definitely being a hero."
"I'm just doing what anyone else would if they had the ability." She didn't say it, but she was grateful for his words.
Five days passed, and they weren't any closer since finishing the machine. "All the simulations show either you dying from the diseases, or you overproduce the stem cells and it becomes cancerous. Without your powers intervening the Swarm just isn't in sync with your body."
"What if we made it techno-organic?"
"You mean make it a living thing?" Melissa stared at him bewildered, "That's quite dangerous, it could attack your body instead of protecting it."
"I can make the code for it pretty quickly, but we would need to subject it to some serious neural networking before it could actually work."
Melissa adjusted her glasses, "How long?"
"As long as we can." Endo shook his head, "I've scanned myself and done the math, my body is dying… too fast. This would be our… my last chance. The diseases have been progressing at an exponential rate, at first we thought I had months, then weeks, but now... it's down to days."
"Well, then we better get to work."
Endo was once again, much to his chagrin, confined to a wheelchair, his body was now too weak even with the Swarm. Melissa looked at him with those sad blue eyes, "This is it. Do you want anyone else here?" They had agreed that there was no point in Recovery Girl being here, he was beyond her help.
"My parents are rushing over now." Endo's parents had indeed visited many times, but left rather quickly, fearing that they were interrupting and slowing the two teens down. It was late at night, and one day before his classmates returned, so even if he wanted his friends to be here they couldn't. "Remember it doesn't really matter where you stick them, but a vein would be preferable."
Melissa nodded putting on gloves and assembling the four large syringes filled with the new white Nanomachines, while Endo used the Swarm to put himself on the table. His face pale from even the small exertion as the rest of the Swarm left his body, falling onto the floor. He hacked and violently coughed up blood, "I don't have much time left." He grabbed onto her arm, "Thank you, no matter what happens to me… thank you."
"Endo!" His mother and father rushed into the cluttered workshop, "Oh my god." She exclaimed at his frail state.
"I don't… have long… she has to do it quickly…" He took one last shuddering breath, "I love you both, so much. I'm sorry if it ends like this."
"No, don't say that… you designed this, so… I'm sure it'll work."
Each parent took one hand and Endo nodded at Melissa, "Now or never." She inched forwards, holding the first syringe, this Swarm was already active and just waiting for a host. Endo slightly winced at the feeling of cold metal flowing into his body.
"One down." Another needle, "Two down." And again, "One more." And another. Melissa stepped back expectantly. "Well, do you feel anything?"
"No, I just feel-" Endo suddenly became quiet, then his eyes began to shutter back and forth. Out of nowhere, his body started spasming and he thrashed like his life depended on it.
He father tried to hold him down, "What's happening?!"
Melissa just stood there shocked, "I-I don't know…" They had expected a possible violent rejection of the Swarm, but this was beyond anything they had predicted.
Just as suddenly as it started it stopped and Endo fell back to the table, his mouth slightly foaming. His father reached for Endo's neck, checking for a pulse. His hand recoiled as if it touched hot metal, "No, no, no, no, no."
Melissa put a hand to her mouth, this wasn't right, they were supposed to save him, why did this happen.
The room was silent as Endo's mother checked again for a pulse. As her fingers touched it, her eyes downturned in anguish.
"What happened?" Endo weakly choked out.
"ENDO!" All three hug tackled him
Despite his still frail body, he remained like a stone pillar, not moving, "What happened?" He repeated.
"Y-You died." His mother continued to sob while Melissa backed away, running to the computer to pull up the diagnostics.
"I did?" Melissa suddenly gasped, "What? What is it?"
"Endo… how are you feeling right now?"
"Wh-Well now that you mention it, I don't really feel much. I barely feel anything in fact." His face suddenly twisted up in confusion, "I-I just realized something, I haven't taken a breath since waking up and… I don't feel the need to."
Melissa with a shaking hand, pointed at the computer screen, "Endo, you don't have a pulse."
The newly resurrected teen slapped two fingers on his neck, then his hand went to his chest, "Melissa, why can't I feel my heartbeat?"
She gasped again, "Your body."
Endo hadn't noticed it at first, but she was right, his body began to fill out, arms and legs growing thick with muscle. His chest expanding out to form a six pack. He stared at his body as if he didn't know it, his legs swung over the table standing on surprisingly firm legs for someone who just died, and still was technically. Which brought him back to the question at hand, "Why can I still move and… well, do anything, while I don't have a heartbeat?"
"The Swarm, when you died, it took over, restarting your brain, but not your heart." She pressed several keys on the computer, "It looks like the Swarm is doing more than we expected, keeping you alive was just the bottom of the barrel, this surpasses any expectations."
"Melissa… I'm dead. I'm literally dead, that was not an expectation I had even considered thinking about!"
"We made a new living machine, that we put inside of you, I don't think we really knew what to expect, we just hoped to keep you alive."
Endo put his head in his hands, "Well, I guess that it's better than being completely dead." He calmed himself by taking his first breath in several minutes, he no longer had the desire to do so. "I guess the Swarm is helping me get oxygen somehow, otherwise my brain would die all over again."
The door slammed open to reveal a disgruntled Aizawa, who looked over Endo's new body, "Hm, well good to hear you're alive, see you in class. Melissa, I'll call your ride."
His mother put her arm around Endo's now massive shoulders, "Come on, let's get you home, it's late."
"Wait." He turned to Melissa, "Thank you. You saved me, just like a hero."
She smiled wide, slightly blushing at the praise, "I'm just glad you're ok."
Endo couldn't sleep, no matter what he did, he couldn't fall into unconsciousness, in fact, he wasn't even tired, "Do I even need to sleep? What else did these things do to me?" He was honestly quite scared to use his quirk on the Swarm, he had no idea what would happen. All that he knew was that he managed to retain his powers, which was quite a relief. But what really unnerved him was his dulled sense of touch, any pressure felt extremely weakened. When walking through his house he had bumped into a desk, and the only reason he had realized he had done so was the entire desk shaking at the impact. Every other sense, however, seemed to be heightened to an extreme.
After a quick interface with his computer, he discovered that he was not the first to live without a pulse. As far back as 2011 people had their hearts replaced with a machine to control blood flow. Endo wasn't dead necessarily, since there was still obvious brain activity, although because he wasn't breathing and his heart wasn't beating, he could be classified with cardiopulmonary death technically. It had taken a while, but he convinced his parents not to take him to the hospital, this was something the doctors would never understand without trying to cut him open and he wasn't sure how that would turn out.
It was unfortunate that the Swarm had done this to him, he was planning on giving the design to doctors, but now he was certain they would never administer something like this to patients. He could try the military though, he had connections from a while back when he had sold them an A.I. He had heard it was named Hyperion or something like that. Endo sighed, climbed out of bed, and sat at his computer, "Well, might as well start on Project Bleeding Edge."
Endo stood before the classroom door, he looked completely different from when they had last seen him, and the time they spent away at internships was not enough time to get as ripped as he now was. "Just open the damn door."
Suddenly it was like he wasn't in control of his body and his hand reached up, sliding the door open. "Did the Swarm do that?!" Inside the class Endo could see everyone was very animated, talking about their exciting experiences.
"Bro!" Kirishima ran over to Endo, slowing when he suddenly realized his arms and legs, "Bro! You got ripped! That's so manly!"
"Uh, thanks Kirishima." Endo followed him back to his chair.
Yaoyorozu and Midoriya noticed his presence, asking simultaneously, "Are you ok?"
"Huh?"
Yaoyorozu stood next to his desk, "Well, you weren't here after the tournament, we were just worried."
"It was just the flu." Endo was still debating how much he wanted to tell them, this was still so odd to him.
Yaoyorozu narrowed her eyes, "What agency did you intern at?"
Endo actually didn't know any agencies off the top of his head, "Um…" He was about to interface with his phone, but Yaoyorozu knew something was up.
"What happened?"
Thankfully at the time, only Midoriya, Kirishima, Yaoyorozu, and Jiro had heard the conversation, so Endo answered, "I-I'll tell you during lunch ok?"
They stared at him puzzled, but Kirishima brushed it off, "Oh! Dude, you weren't here, we got our hero names!"
"You did?"
"I AM HERE!" All Might ran into the room so fast Endo could swear he saw some sort of afterimage of the guy.
Everyone rapidly took their seats, "All Might? Where's Mr. Aizawa?" Mina looked around as if Aizawa was hiding somewhere.
"Your homeroom teacher had some business to take care of, so I'll be handling you guys until lunch, after which Aizawa will be back.
"Wonder what he's doing?" As he asked that in his head, an image of cats appeared in his mind, all of which were surrounding Aizawa. "What the hell was that?" Another image appeared, this one of a Nanomachine design.
"All right everyone get your costumes!"
"It's the Swarm. They're more advanced than I thought." Endo shook his head and stood following his classmates out of the room.
"Endo, where's your costume?"
"Huh? Oh! Yeah, right sorry." Endo ran back, snatching his case from the wall.
As it turned out Endo could no longer fit into his hero outfit, "What the hell?" Even if his pants would fit his waist, they would be a little short, because apparently, he had also grown taller. "Well, I guess I don't have a costume for a while." Suddenly the white Swarm began to leak out of his body, forming a jagged armored suit. "No, you can't leave my body! I'll die!" A quick clip of cell replication entered his mind, "You can self replicate?!" The word yes emerged in his mind, in large bold lettering. "Did we design you to be able to do that?" A no was the next answer. "Then how did y-"
"Endo come o-woah new costume huh? Nice." Kirishima had run back into the locker room, "We're gonna be the last ones there if you don't hurry."
"Uh, yeah sure let's go." Endo jogged to the door, wondering what else this thing could do, after all, it seemed to be capable of changing itself since it managed to leave through his pores.
"Where on earth did you get that thing from?" Yaoyorozu was standing with Kirishima and Endo at the front of the class, but he just shook his head.
"I'll tell you everything at lunch."
"Well class, today we have a rescue training race! You will be broken down into groups of five. I will be stationed inside Battleground: Gamma and you will all start at separate points on the outskirts of the city. The first person out of the five to reach me wins! Now, since it is a rescue, please keep damage to a minimum." All Might pointed right at Bakugo, causing everyone to laugh and him to scowl. "All right, first group, Endo, Ojiro, Sero, Iida, and Midoriya, take your places and wait for the signal!"
It was a city of pipes and metal cylinders, like oil containers that were empty, there were concrete pillars all around, and almost no way you could run straight. "I need a path." White overtook his vision as soon as he thought that, then his normal eyesight blinked back into existence. "A helmet?" Then an arrow appeared, tracing a path through the labyrinth. "Um… thanks."
A loud voice could be heard from every direction, "Ready! Race!"
Endo felt just like the first time he had ever used the Swarm, there was no strain on his body, he wasn't even in need of breath by default. However, he wasn't exactly ready for all the speed he could now output, and as a result, he was about to run face first into a concrete pillar. "Shit." A sudden force pushed him to the left though and he kept on running. Endo looked at his shoulder, there was a small opening of some kind, which rapidly sealed itself, "I guess you're more attentive than I am." Out of the corner of his eyes, he could see Sero and Midoriya racing for first place, but somehow Midoriya had the obvious lead. "I guess he figured out how to control his powers." He noticed that with height, came an advantage, they didn't have to avoid as many obstacles, "Can you get me higher?"
A large diamond-shaped structure formed on his back, with aerodynamic wings popping out of either side. He shot into the air with a loud roar of flames from the jetpack. He was shaky at first, his arms at either side wobbling back and forth, but he soon learned that the Swarm was controlling his flight, so he held them to his sides and just enjoyed the speed.
He rocketed past Sero and Midoriya, who slipped just as he reached him, "Since when can Endo fly like that?" His classmates obviously remembered how he was able to walk on the Swarm during the festival, but this was definitely a bit different.
Endo dove straight at the platform that held All Might, slowing at the last second to land on one knee. His jetpack and helmet disappeared as he rose to both feet, "Well done Young Endo, and thank you for saving me!"
"This guy is way too corny about this." Endo accepted the sash, standing to the side as the others arrived.
"That was insane! You were going so fast!" Sero was trying to look for where the jetpack went, "It's just gone?!"
"Well, nice try guys." Endo noticed that Iida's arms were bandaged quite heavily, wrapped from the wrist up past the elbow, "What happened?" The Swarm gave him a newspaper headline, which read 'Three UA students attacked by Hero Killer Stain, Endeavour saves them right in time!' "Oh, wow."
"All right, time for the next group!"
"Spill it, what happened to you dude?" Kirishima had been grilling Endo for a couple minutes now.
"I don't want to repeat this, let's wait for the others."
A couple minutes later, Jiro, Yaoyorozu, Iida, Uraraka, Midoriya, and Iida walked up to the table. "Sorry Endo, I always sit with them, is it ok if they're here?"
"It's fine Midoriya."
The normally bubbly Uraraka looked around confused, "Ok for what?"
Yaoyorozu interjected, "Ok to hear what happened to him while we were at our internships. Some pretty odd circumstances have been surrounding him recently."
Endo sighed, "I-I really don't know how to go about this without sounding weird. I guess I'll start with my condition, I have a dozen degenerative diseases in my body, they started to get really bad during the festival as Yaoyorozu saw. I had less than two weeks to live, so in order to save myself, with the help of someone, I built a permanent version of the Swarm, one that would live in my body for the rest of my life. Constantly repairing the damage, but something went wrong during the injection, and my heart stopped, and... it hasn't started back up yet."
They all stared at him in shock. "Endo, do you mean to tell us that-"
"Yes, I no longer have a beating heart, hell, I'm not even breathing right now." He concentrated on his quirk, connecting to the Swarm for the first time, realizing that it wasn't all that different from the original, and it replicated smaller versions of itself to squeeze through his pores, pooling into his hand. "These things have begun to… evolve on their own, interpreting my thoughts and taking action on them. That's how I got that new suit, it's inside me."
Nobody could say anything, except Yaoyorozu, "Then how are you still functioning?"
"Honestly I don't know a hundred percent, but I'm guessing that the Swarm is helping my blood pump and getting everything oxygen somehow."
"C-Can I feel it?" She reached out a tentative hand towards his chest. He nodded and her hand rested on the left side of his torso, right where most would feel a heartbeat, but she felt nothing. She pulled her hand away, "Wow."
Jiro twirled her Ear Jack around her finger, "You said they were evolving? How?"
"The prototype was purely inorganic, but it had trouble balancing how much or how little it was repairing, so I decided to make it partially organic, by having them mix with blood cells once inside the body, add that to the A.I. I gave it and I'm guessing it's just been learning on its own." Endo reabsorbed the white glob, surprised when he didn't feel anything as it entered.
"Is it dangerous?" Iida had remained quiet for most of the explanation.
"Of course it is, this is something no one has ever done before, and who knows how far the Swarm will advance, but it's also the only thing keeping me alive."
"That's kinda scary, but you gotta admit bro, it's also kinda cool that you just have your costume whenever." Kirishima was nothing if not consistent, he was barely fazed by Endo's explanation.
Endo chuckled and shook his head, "Yeah, I guess it kinda is."
"Wait a minute! You were going to die and you didn't tell anyone?!"
Endo grew somber, "I'm sorry, I just didn't want to burden any of you."
"Well, you shouldn't have done that! We're your friends, you can tell us these things." Yaoyorozu had gone into what Endo liked to refer to as her teacher mode, she would grow uptight and would occasionally do a, 'I'm not mad I'm just disappointed.'
Either way, Endo appreciated the gesture, especially when everyone else joined in, "Thanks, guys."
"Oh crap!" Kirishima smacked his forehead, "I forgot, you still need a name!"
"Um, I'm not very good with that stuff, any suggestions?"
His friends began shouting out random names, half of which he wasn't even sure made sense with his powers, "Shatter Steel, Snow Swarm, Technovore!"
"Eh, I don't really know about any of those." Everyone was stumped now, "Ah jeez, what is my hero name?"
"We are Synapse."
Well as you can see I'm going for a sort of Venom symbiote dynamic here, hero name is subject to change. I would like to apologize for how short I made the Swarm development and death scene since they should've been longer, but I really struggled with making them any longer. I am still quite a new writer so you'll have to forgive me on that one. Anyways, thank you for reading, comments are appreciated, hope you enjoyed.
