[Edgeshot Heroic Office – The Arena of Increments – 11:45 AM Wednesday]
The land shuddered as rock became pebble and dust around him. It was as if with each attack Leina was carving away a piece of the world that he could use to hide and to run from her through a series of unlikely but deadly deliverances. Her body hurled and twisted itself in gyrates and jumps that defied what might have been a normal onslaught into one that mocked a ballet dance. It was within ten minutes that he had been reduced to dodging once more and almost two hours that he had tried to keep it up through intermittent assault. It was all he could do.
"Are you afraid to hit a woman?" Leina shouted after him, she was one who wore and bared her displeasure through both fist and word, he had learned. Frantic panting was all he could answer with, to even consider retaliation was nothing short of mad.
"If you keep running I'll just catch you sooner or later you little chicken!" she threw a fist at a spire next to her to make her point.
"Shit," he gasped under his breath as it fell just slightly short of crushing him, the weights felt far heavier than they had the day before.
Clang, clunk, he watched as she mashed her knuckles together, "Just wait till I corner you," she began her chase anew.
He ducked right and the glove chunked his arm enough to inflame it, another two steps back was what he took to block the next. It was through luck he stopped the knuckle as it hit one of the weights strapped to his right arm, the sheer force of it might caused it to break.
Leina scoffed as he fell back, "Tch. Your attitude is starting to make me sick to my stomach. I hope for your sake you dodge this next one!" she said as she raised the toe of her right foot in front of her to the point it almost touched her forehead, there she held it for what appeared far too long to possibly be a normal blow.
If he could just back off enough it didn't matter what she was about to do. As he slid his heel back he came to realise that was no longer an option, behind him was a narrow chink of the arenas real wall, a mixture of white and obsidian that had been pried from repeated blows to the rock covering it.
"Swan dive," the woman said as she let the breath out of her chest and swung her leg down in one fluid motion from the front of her head to her back, taking her arms and then her body with it into a front flip.
Riley backed to the left as the woman moved in a pirouette through the air, like she was gathering strength from the mind bending motion. He had to dodge it. In desperation he threw himself forward under her instead, hitting the floor with his shoulder as he came into a roll underneath her.
Slam, his world slanted as the foot came down and all manner of material went in a storm as if it were trying to escape the frightening monster. Rocks and stones almost sought to impale him as the wind loosed them like a slingshot, one caught the back of his leg and serrated the calf with a gash like a knife. Although he wanted to stand and flee his leg gave out all at once, dropping him to the floor again like some wounded animal. His bones felt punished and he could see the wound weeping, enough to stop him from trying to stand on it again.
"Giving up already?" Leina said as she stood over him, there wasn't so much as a scrape on her that hadn't been caused by her own actions. All he could do was grit his teeth at her, which seemed to piss her off even further. "I guess I was right about you and your idiotic school, I was a Shiketsu woman myself. The likes of you would never have made it there with such weak resolve. Get up and fight before I break every bone in your body."
She awaited his reply, he knew, but it was virtual immobilisation like his body didn't want to listen to him any longer even as he tried to push it up. It must have shown on him because while her face had been a constant of spiteful mockery and intent it had never sat with such contempt as it did now.
"So it is true, your little scrape with villainy has made you so submissive you can't even muster the resolve to fight back," she laughed.
"Shut up," he answered. Mocking him was one thing but he wasn't going to let her pretend she knew him after having only met two days prior, even if Edgeshot really had access to some dossier or other.
"Why should I? I don't even need to read your face to see how broken you are, you've done a good enough job of showing it to me in your movements and that obnoxious way in which you present yourself, do you really think your incident makes you different? That those little cuts make you special or above the people out there?"
"No. Hell no," he answered. He had never thought that, it's not like he had chosen to get them. "Why the hell do you think I would cover them up if I thought they made me special? I hate them," it made him bitter even saying it after how many times he'd claimed the opposite.
"Real heroes don't hide their scars you wimp, have you ever even looked at me, or Ko or anyone of thousands that have them?" she sounded irreparably angry now. Her hand struck aside her bangs and revealed a trail of marked tissue around the side of her scalp and more that carved up her leg, "Every single notch villains have made in our skin, they're all wounds that innocent people didn't need to suffer in our stead. Be proud of them, own them."
"Don't you think I know that? You aren't the first to tell me something so obvious, but it's not that simple," he couldn't explain it to the woman.
She cracked her knuckles, "Then let me make it simple for you. Consider this an ultimatum, either you get up and face me without running or if you prefer I can drag you out of here by the scruff of your neck and make sure you never set foot in another Japanese heroic agency again."
"Why the hell would you do that?!" he stammered as he held his leg and tried to push himself on it, only for it to leave him again.
"I have no choice, Edgeshot was wrong about this internship, you really do have nothing to fight for, how pitiful," she grabbed him by the back of the black gi. Then she began to drag him across the dirt in front of her, one inch after another.
He punched her in the gut causing her to let him fall, "I don't want your pity," he spat. "I don't want anyone's pity," he placed his good leg on the broken rock beneath him and leveraged himself on it, then the other which burned with effort. If he couldn't do this, if her threat came to pass, then it would be like they won.
"Oh, did I finally strike a nerve? Then make me regret it," she sounded so eager.
It was an ignited seize not unlike what had taken hold out of fury before, only this time it was all his own. It hurt and it was fine that it hurt. He grabbed his calf and made it lighter by only a hair, enough for it to sting and to cease the cramping of it for the time being. Every one of his muscles fought him on it but he forced himself into the stance.
He needed to do it, if he wanted his revenge. No it was more than that; it wasn't just about revenge anymore. His motivation, he knew, had never been something to come from merely wishing it. The reason hung around his neck, it stood in words he'd said and the marks lacing his body but this wasn't just for them, it was mostly for himself. This was what he wanted, that he now knew more than ever, the ability to look at himself and feel pride rather than miserable disgust. The kind of hero his sister could look up to and rely on.
Leina came at him. This time, however, he answered her challenge eagerly instead of shying away.
After another hour of blows, this time from both sides rather than one, had caused the arena to sink and become crushed till he was sure it could have its name changed from increments to pitfalls and be far more accurate. That was the point at which Leina had finally relent her chronic obsession with turning him into smudge on the floor, just long enough to take a break before they continued. He was slumped against a metal fold up chair, amongst the denser outcrop within which rested a poor excuse for a bunker shelter.
"Here," she said as she put down a box beside him, it was green with a white cross on it. "You know how to dress a wound right? Better do it before it gets infected."
Riley nodded and unclipped the metal hinge, by now he was quite the expert, "Thanks… Ma'am." It was too hard to hide a smirk.
Leina kept her own laughter barely, "You're welcome, Sir," she bowed wide and fell against her chair. "I guess I should have given you more credit," the woman rubbed her shoulder. There had been nigh a moment where he'd held back in using his compression to try and attack, unlike before and her new bruises were proof of that.
They looked painful, "Sorry," he said. The wound he'd received had stopped bleeding by now. It had hardly been as deep as it had felt.
"Hah, why the hell are you sorry? This is exactly what I wanted," Leina unscrewed the cap of a bottle she'd brought and generously poured half of it over her sweat lathered head. Most of it fell to the dress but within moments her body heat caused it to dry again. "Now don't you dare lose that look in your eye again, it took too much effort to bring it out in the first place."
"I won't," he answered. He wasn't sure he'd find what it was again if he did. The futility had forced him to be honest. It was alright to want something for his own, fine to want it more than something that had been his primary goal for years now as long as he didn't sideline it. He wasn't sure at what point it had become that way but it felt like long before he'd ever come to study here.
"Good because you're still too slow with it, far too slow to beat me if I really wanted to kill you."
He knew that already, Edgeshot's demonstration was something he could still easily recall, "All those movements you do, they're part of your quirk right?" he hadn't thought to ask but it seemed obvious.
"You think I twirl around for fun?" she scoffed. "If I could just sock someone with that kind of power from the get go it'd be much simpler, no, it works more like a generator. The more I move the stronger it gets, though there is more to it than that."
"I see," the power of it had kind of reminded him of Midoriya though his appeared far less conditional.
"It's pretty unusual for a quirk to work like yours does, you sure you're the first in your family with a quirk?" Leina asked.
"Yes," he didn't even need to think to answer it. He had searched through his family history compulsively for evidence to the contrary. There weren't even signs of junk quirks or anything more subtle.
"Shame, dual-emitter quirks are as difficult as they are rare. It'd be easier to learn by example," she shook her head. He wasn't sure about that, his quirk was more like two sides of a coin rather than complete opposites like fire and ice might be. If he tried to only use one part of it again it'd feel almost wrong. "Well, whatever. Can't say having a unique quirk isn't an advantage with all the copies going around."
"Say, do you do that pen thing to everyone?" he asked.
"No," she fiddled with her knuckles, "Do you remember what I said to you on Monday?"
"No pain, no gain?" he answered. More pain than gain, he certainly had a thorough grasp of it now.
"That too but mostly concerning the first words."
"If I were a villain you'd be dead," he remembered, something like that anyway.
"What you Yuuei kids don't realise is that the sports festival doesn't just exist for agencies like ours to scout out new material. Villains watch it all too, if anything even more closely than we do."
Hmm, he answered, it wasn't something that he hadn't thought about.
"Sometimes students will just… disappear without a trace. It's not uncommon. I'm sure I don't have to tell you why that might be," she threw him a stern look.
He nodded, "I got lucky," he said. Had he, though? Motive was still missing. No amount of thought had enlightened him on that.
"The whole concept of the Sports Festival doesn't sit right with me but coddling you and pretending like the world is a nice place would be far worse. They've got the right idea throwing you in head first I reckon," she stood and stretched.
"Doesn't the festival also inspire new heroes though? And scare potential villains at that… I'm sure what Todoroki and Midoriya did must have changed a few minds," the display and Uraraka's too, it left him thinking he was playing catch up rather than standing equal.
"That's true as well. You all still have a long way to go before your names have any real teeth, though," she closed her eyes and breathed out, "Right, let's get back to it then, we're burning daylight," she clamped the heavy weapons back and readied them. He stood in turn and raised his wounded hands, only to stop as he noticed a third had joined them.
"That will be enough for today Leina," Edgeshot said. "You can continue with him tomorrow."
"What's the occasion?" she dropped her hands.
"A situation has arisen downtown; I would request the assistance of our intern in settling the matter."
Assistance? he was actually going to go into a real situation?
"If that's the case then who am I to refuse?" she tore her knuckles back off, "If he messes up just let me know, I'll make sure he regrets it," the threat almost made him gulp.
"Come," Edgeshot turned and he was left trailing the man's heel.
"Don't forget this hotshot," Leina yelled after him.
He caught the case as it almost nailed him in the back of the head, "Thanks, Ma'am," he said this time without even meaning to, much to her amusement.
[Hosu – Nozachi Streets – 1:20 PM]
It had taken a train ride and far more attention than Riley could care to deal with to get to where Edgeshot desired. The man was indeed as popular as he had been made out and that attention had splashed onto him in turn, something that had made the whole trip rather uncomfortable. It was a surprise they had even taken public transport but it had given him the chance to change in one of the bathrooms and lock up the case with the gi in a compartment at the station afterward.
"I believe they are gone," Edgeshot shook his head as he peeked around the corner.
"Do you spend a lot of your time running from your fans, Sir?" now he knew why he chose to remain so mysterious. It had been no less than seven rabid fans who had followed them.
"The curse of the job, I am afraid," the man answered as he pushed himself off the wall and walked out of the alleyway edge they'd hidden behind. "They are used to it, if anything it only adds to my popularity when there are so few chances to catch me on the street. No doubt you saw my online presence, it is rather self propagating."
"Yeah," he answered. There had been more than a few websites that existed for the sole purpose of uploading snapshots, "Where are we going, Sir?" the place they were at now looked like some lower class sector similar to South-East Hosu. Rungs of buildings cluttered each other and more sat beyond them in rows made of brick and mortar.
"Our agency was tipped off to the location of a warehouse in this area involved in illegal smuggling this morning. Normally it is something I would leave to my sidekicks however it is an opportunity for you to get a more practical look at what we do, hence why I interrupted Leina and yourself after confirming the operation."
The mere thought of getting to do something involving actual bad guys was nothing short of exciting. Patrolling with Ko had been one thing but it wasn't like anyone was going to mug them in broad daylight. He'd almost been jealous of Kirishima getting to knock out a few thugs the day before, the guy had texted him no shortage of detail about it.
"We're here," the man said as they stopped after twenty minutes and a dozen more turns. The streets had been sparse here compared to a few blocks away, it probably helped that it was barely past midday. They were indeed in front of a warehouse, in all its inconspicuously locked glory.
"We aren't going around the back or anything, Sir?" he asked.
"No," Edgeshot looked at him like he was crazy, "we are going to walk straight on through the front, Terra, after all they were nice enough to leave us a way in," the man said as he put his thinned finger into the lock, which opened with a click.
It wasn't damp inside. The place was in fairly good condition from what he could tell. It looked like any old place one might store goods in transit, the notion it actually belonged to a gang of sorts seemed hard to accommodate. Then again, Leina had only just reminded him that appearances could be deceiving.
There were a few doors before they came upon a scene, it wasn't some kind of villainous stage or anything that they had found but rather a bunch of workers moving boxes around. They were all dressed exceptionally; full blue jumpsuits with heavy shoes and black caps on their head, only the burly man in the centre differed as rather than moving anything around he was writing on a clipboard. In front of him were several crates filled with what looked like power cells.
"Boss, we got company," one of the men said from the upper level before he proceeded to climb down a ladder attached to a wall. In total he counted five men, including their leader.
The man with the clipboard turned, "Might I ask why you be trespassin' on private property?"
Edgeshot shrugged, "We've come to make an inspection of your cargo."
"Is that right? I guess I missed the memo on the Hosu Import Officer's uniform changes," the man grinned. "Get lost," he waved them away with one hand.
The pro's eyes narrowed, "If you have nothing to hide you have nothing to fear from us," his voice had taken on a deadly tone.
"Don't do something you might regret," the man put down the clipboard.
"Jigs up boss, lesjust leg it," a young man with rope-like bundles of brown hair said to a few murmurs of agreement.
"Pull yourselves together piss ants, it's just the two of them and there's five o' us," the man shouted. The confidence didn't settle the group and a man with a red coloured undershirt and two horns on his neck began to back off.
"No way man, are you an idiot or something? That's Edgeshot, keep your money I'm out," he said before turning to run, encouraging all but the apparent leader to do the same.
"Flèche," Edgeshot bowed and then he was gone. The four fleeing men hit the floor like their legs had been swept and the man reappeared near their supposed exit, all of them no longer moved; they had fallen unconscious. "It is over," he said. "Give yourself up peacefully so you may be spared further humiliation."
"You're pretty scary pro hero, but I got one chip in this fight you don't," the man pulled something from behind his back. "You might be able to defend yourself but I bet this kid can't," the man eyed Riley with switchblade in hand, his grip on it wasn't tight, it was like he was drunk. The man stepped forward and tripped over his own construction boots, the knife was waving widely in his hands causing him to take a step back.
"I bet you're pissing yourself, aren't you? This ain't a place for people who play dress up," the man slurred his words. "I may not have a quirk but you ain't shit compared to me," he took another two steps forward, enough to almost be upon him. Edgeshot didn't move to interfere on the man's approach which told him enough.
"Surrender your weapon," he said once. Even if quirks were a thing an armed man was still a dangerous man, this one seemingly insane to boot.
"I'm twice your size and you're giving me commands, pipsqueak?" the man laughed and then brought the knife down from above like he was trying to core an apple.
He moved to the side, it was a lazy stab that didn't even have a chance to touch him. Your quirk is your trump card, he remembered as he almost felt his tremor begin, he didn't need it for this. He grabbed for the man's wrist where the knife was and twisted it so it couldn't move. Then he slammed the back of his gauntlet into the man's nose, breaking it.
"Shit," the man growled as he dropped the knife and held his face, "That fucking hurt!" now he was sure this was the first time the man had actually fought someone. He probably had never had to with the way he spoke.
"Stand down, otherwise this'll end much worse for you," he tried to make his voice sound intimidating and held up his hand toward him.
"You think you heroes own this town, fu-"
Fww-crack, an empty crate next to the man crumbled causing him to jump and yelp, "Don't make me repeat myself," he said, even if he wasn't going to harm the man he knew the most terrifying quirks were those that sprung from nothing.
The man curled, he was blubbering now, a disgusting mix of snot, tears and blood, "I'm sorry. I surrender, I surrender!" he said and fell down on his stomach.
Smack, Edgeshot tapped the man of the back of the head, allowing him to join his subordinates.
He let all his terrible unease drain out of him in a sigh as his front of confidence disappeared. It felt like a lot of time had passed when barely any had, he wasn't sure what he might have done had the man actually been competent.
"Satisfactory enough for your first encounter but keep in mind the man could have lied about having a quirk," Edgeshot said as he pulled out a slim black device. He clicked its side and it began to emit a red light accompanied by a constant beep before he set it down on one of the crates.
"Yes, Sir," that hadn't really crossed his mind. He could have easily fallen for a trap just then. "Is that a tracking device or something?" he pointed at the instrument.
"Indeed, the police will be here shortly," the man looked up and around, "by the looks of it they will be busy for a while with this."
He bit his lip as he looked around, damn this is cool. It felt like he'd stepped right into one of those crime shows, embarrassingly enough most of his speech had been adlibbed from one. "What were they up to with these?" he reached out to one of the power cells before stopping, it was probably better not to touch them.
"Rudimentary bomb material I suspect, it does not matter much now unless more of it exists elsewhere in the city. Now," the man pulled out a roll of tape. "Tie them up so we can we hand them over."
Bomb materials, he thought as he caught the tape and began to unwind. As minor as it had been he had to admit he could get more than used to this kind of work. It actually felt like they'd made a small difference.
[Edgeshot Heroic Office – Underground exit – Thursday 3:18 PM]
The underground tunnel leading out of Edgeshot's offices was still as cramped as before. However that wasn't what was on his mind, instead it was the book he'd gotten about halfway through the night before.
It was perplexing in all its subversions. The tale followed the story of a man slowly driven to insanity by the distinction between his sensory perceptions and what rationally plays out. The actions of the characters blurred the lines between contextual good and evil; you could never be quite sure what would happen next. In that sense it was difficult to be able to gleam meaning from it, but it seemed that was the point. He couldn't actually say he liked it, frankly, he preferred his sci-fi books less ambiguous. That didn't mean it wasn't hard to put down.
He banished the book from his mind as he could see the fluorescent dimming that hung on the side of the tunnel tapering off. They would soon be there, wherever there was. "Where are we headed Ko?" he asked.
Half his hope was that it'd be as exciting as what Edgeshot had done with him. After the police had arrived they had thanked them for a job well done, they hadn't even treated him like he was just some student intern but an actual hero, at least until Edgeshot informed them of it. Merely an observational exercise, the pro had explained and that was that, the police had hung on his every word.
"Right here," the man answered as they reached a ladder, "…And how many times I gotta tell ya to call me by my hero name when we're out there ya dingus. It's written on my shirt for a reason."
"Sorry," he apologised. It was indeed written on his shirt, or at least the first letter of the thing, a large black 'N'.
"Anyway if ya hopin' to take down another ring then I'm sorry to disappoint," the man laughed. "We're just gonna do some community service today."
"Community service?" he was kind of disappointed but at the same time curious.
"A charity stand, getcha some practice talkin' to regular people all heroic like," Ko said as he undid the latch. "Bad thing we'll be settin' up on a street though, lookin' like terrible weather today," he chuckled as he climbed out.
He frowned before he followed the man, had his previous attempts to talk to civilians been that disappointing? It was probably true, he guessed, he hadn't exactly made any new friends with how introverted he had come off on their first patrol. He wasn't a natural people person like Ko was, even if the man had insisted it all came down to experience. As he gripped the ladder to climb up he could see the dark hurling of the sky above that ran on the coattails of a thick storm. It had just begun to roll in to greet the afternoon and it looked like it would be indeed be a long one.