The Tick vs... MY HERO ACADEMIA!
This was it. The two of us were on the train headed towards, the Tick refered to, as the Hall of Heroic Knowledge, with it's care taker, the Jet Hero: Gran Torino! Due to my own nature, I knew quite a bit about the hero, but I thought he was retired. On the other hand, it was possible that he knew more then All Might was telling me. Perhaps Torino knows something about the nature and origins of One for All?
Time was going to tell...
"... and then as I saw them pour from the dam, a VERITABLE YULE TIDE!" The Tick had been telling his young ward, the Amazing Aphid, a story about that time he saved Christmas from the mysterious machinations of the Multiple Santa.
"Wait... did you just end this on a pun? You spent almost 20 minutes telling me about this... just to end on a pun?" Aphid didn't know wether to laugh or to cry! He felt like he had a head ache coming on.
"Awww, c'mon! That's a good one, and you know it's a good one! Besides! I saved the day and I got to meet the real Santa Claus!" ... ... ... Aphid didn't have the heart to tell him. Sure, the Tick was crazy! Insane! But there was a kind of innonence and he wasn't going to be the one that went and shattered it.
The Tick almost killed Endeavor when he thought that the flame hero had killed Aphid. Who knew what telling him the truth about Santa would do to him?
"That's... that's great Tick." It wasn't so bad, the two were on the train, avoiding the looks of the various commuters and students. The Tick was famous through out the country, the world, even! And so was the Aphid.
Well, so was Izuku Midoriya, but Izuku Midoriya was the Freshman Champion of the UA Sports Festival. Izuku Midoriya was a hero in training! But Izuku Midoriya was approachable, he was relatable.
That was not to say that Aphid wasn't approachable or relatable either, in fact, if Izuku had ever thought about it, he behaved so much differently when he was wearing the Aphid costume, wearing it's mask. He never stuttered as Aphid, it didn't matter if a pretty girl was talking to him. It didn't matter what the danger was.
Aphid was honestly everything that Izuku wanted to be. Brave. Confident. Capable. He was hoping that he could transfer that to his other costumed identity, Jack Rabbit. But it was harder, as others knew who was on the other side of the mask of Jack Rabbit, but he still had this anonymity with Aphid.
The Tick was still talking to him, and Aphid hadn't actually heard a single thing he had said, too lost in the thoughts of a teenage boy trying to understand his place in the world.
"I'm sorry, Tick, but what were you saying?" The best way of dealing with the Tick was sometimes you just had to be direct and honest.
"I was saying that our stop is coming up. Next station after. You as excited as I am, chum?" Oh! They were that close? Aphid was excited! Learning at the feet of hero as renowned as Gran Torino! What he could learn from the elder hero, the experiences he could gain.
"Tick, I think it's more of a question if you're as excited as I am! A week long apprenticeship! And maybe, just maybe, you'll learn something worthwhile too!" At least that was the hope.
"Oh, I sure hope so! Other then lived experience, Aphid, you'll find no greater teacher then an elder hero! And from what I can tell, there's no hero more elder in this land of the rising sun then Gran Torino! Ooooh! I'm so giddy! I wonder what kind of stories he has to tell!?" Of course the Tick was more concerned over the stories that Gran Torino would tell then what wisdom he could impart to the two of them.
"Never change, Tick. Never change!"
Soon enough, the train came to their station and it was time to follow the directions to the home of one Gran Torino. The Tick gave a low whistle as they walked through the neighborhood.
"Gotta say, Aphid... this Torino guy certainly knows where to hang his cape!"
"It is a nice neighborhood, but I think it lacks the charm Mustafu has. I mean, it's too calm... it's the type of place you want your grandparents to live." Aphid replied. Still, this was the kind of place that he would like to retire too if he ever made it that far.
Then again, superheroes never retired, not really. They just took a step out of the spot light and focused on other things of import! Being a super hero was more then just punching the bad guys in their face, after all! Soon enough, they were standing in front of the town home that All Might said Gran Torino called home.
"I really hope that Mighty Man told Gran Torino to expect us." He thought for a moment. "Wait, no. If he didn't tell him, we might get to fight! That'd be EVEN cooler!" Aphid would never get the obsession that American heroes seemed to have with fighting each other. It just seemed like a distraction that criminals could take advantage of!
He rolled his eyes, and knocked on the door, only to find that it was both unlocked and unlatched!
It slowly opened.
"Look at that, he was expecting us!" The Tick stated, as Aphid walked in.
"Mister Torino? Hello! All Might should have told you to expect us..." Aphid looked around, headed towards the kitchen. He barely rounded the corner, as he let out a loud scream, having come across the grisly scene of a murder!
There he was, Gran Torino, lying in a pool of his own blood, guts and viscera strewn around him!
"TICK! TIIIIICK! SOMEONE KILLED HIM!" This was too familiar to him, he had to calm himself down, regular his breathing before he started to have a panic attack!
And then the corpse sat up.
"ZOOOOOOOOMBIE!" And with that, Aphid... Izuku Midoriya couldn't take it any more and fainted dead away.
It was a blissful, dreamless sleep that Izuku came out of, his head was hurting and it was a blur of what had happened. He finally woke up on the couch, the Tick was there in the living room, on a chair.
"Hey, champ! Gave us quite a scare there." The Tick told him. Izuku was confused.
"... us? What? Gran Torino... he's...!" He felt a chill down his neck. He couldn't be... was he? He turned his head to the side and saw the elderly man sitting next to him. Very much not dead.
"But... I... you... but..."
"Sorry about scaring you like that. I was setting up my lunch when I fell over. Sausages with ketchup..."
"So... what I thought was blood... was ketchup... and what was supposed to be your guts... were sausages and..." He put his head in his hands. "You did that on purpose, didn't you!"
"I can neither confirm nor deny that I planned on messing with you this entire week." He shrugged, looking away from Izuku. "Toshinori didn't mention that you were a bit high strung."
"H-high strung!? I thought you were dead! Murdered!" Izuku yelled at him. It wasn't the first cooling, bleeding corpse he saw, but that wasn't something he never wanted to get used too.
"Listen, kid, I said I was sorry. It did get us off on the wrong foot. So we're just gonna have to put it behind us and work through this week. So get suited up. In your hero costume, not your vigilante costume."
"... what about me, Mister Torino, sir?" The Tick asked. Torino looked at him and smiled.
"Tell you what, Tick. Hold down the fort, and I'll tell ya a story when I get back." There was no way that the Tick was going to go for that.
"BOY HOWDY! I'll make sure that no evil doer makes it into your secret lair of justice!"
Of course. The one thing that the Tick was more interested in beating up bad guys... hearing stories from the likes of the heroes that came before him. Izuku still gave a sigh and suited up in his Jack Rabbit costume, hood down. He found Gran Torino waiting for him, the Jet Hero standing... well, proud as an old man could be with a cane and a comically small version of their costume.
"So... are we... patrolling? Isn't that kinda illegal?" The pro hero looked at Izuku, who came into his house dressed as a vigilante. Right, not exactly the best thing to have scruples over.
"Not this time. You're performing field training with a pro hero. I might be retired, but I'm still licensed. So all this? Totally legit." Gran Torino and Izuku were walking side by side on the sidewalk. "So... here's how this is gonna go, Midoriya. I'm gonna put through the same paces I put Toshinori. We'll find ourselves a crime, I'll have you stop it while I observe." That didn't sound so bad, really.
"How do you expect to find a crime to happen, though?" Izuku was curious how this was going to work.
"Oh, that's easy. See that place over there?" The elderly hero pointed to what appeared to be some kind of bar... pool hall. Something. They were in what Izuku would call... a not so good part of town, but not so bad that you'd worry about getting knifed for your trouble. There was a row of motorcycles in front of the building.
"Yeah. Local hangout for a biker gang, huh?" Izuku observed.
"They call themselves the Lords of Thunder. Head honcho has a lightning quirk. Also an asshole, but you probably know the type. Unfortunately, some poor soul is going to end up raising their ire after knocking over all those fancy bikes."
"How can you be so sure about that? We can't wait all night for something that might not happen."
"See, kid, here's the thing. This is your field training, and I have to evaluate what you're capable of before I can figure out what you need to know. So like a papa sparrow, I'm kicking you out of the nest." The hero replied, before grabbing Izuku by the wrist, who barely had a chance to see what was happening... and throwing the hero in training towards the bikes. "Don't worry! If it gets to hairy, I'll step right in to save your ass!"
Izuku Midoriya would like to say that he had never felt such betrayal in his life, but there was when Katsuki started bullying him for reasons he's still trying to figure out when he finally came back to a real school. There was when that doctor told him that he'd never develop a quirk and should just stop worrying about it. There was when All Might told him that his dream was unachievable!
But he managed to get over... at least two of those? Maybe that first one? Him and Katsuki weren't outright antagonistic any more, but Izuku wasn't sure if they'll ever go back to where they were before. Oh, the things you find yourself capable of thinking when you were flying through the air before crashing into expensive bikes belonging to what he could only assume were a bunch of vicious, spiteful bikers.
He thought about pulling his hood up, but never got a chance as he got to his feet, and got back onto his feet, just as nearly a set of a dozen ne'er-do-well burly bikers came out of their bar, looking for the five and a half foot kid that just probably made, in their eyes, the biggest mistake in their life.
Izuku felt himself slip into a stance. He was only out numbered by like 10 to 1. He laughed at those odds! Even if it was only something to calm himself down. They were surrounding him, with their billy clubs and chains and brass knuckles.
He faced worse on his first night with the Tick.
"Gets to your head, don't it? Some little punk ends up winning some little school yard fight and thinks he's badass." That must have been the leader of the Lords of Thunder, a man that towered over his underlings. "Why don't we teach him a lesson he won't soon forget!"
Looks like there was no explaining what actually had happened, but he set up his Cocoon. He had a feeling he was going to need it! As well as slipping on his Full Cowl, 15%. These guys wanted a fight? Then he was going to give him a fight! He pulled back a fist and went to charge the closest one!
Only to find that the real difference between villains that wore costumes and criminals that just had quirks is that the criminals were, nine times out of ten, more able to work together. He never got a chance to land a hit, as a chain wrapped around his arm and it was pulled back! A singular distraction for a tire iron to crack across his back!
"Nnnngh!" He grit his teeth, taking a step forward. He had to concentrate. Shake the daze from his head, as another burly biker, wielding a weapon, came after him. This time he managed to land his hit, launching the criminal into the air! That was one, eleven more to go. He made a mental note: Get a mouth guard.
He could do this. He had to do this. He had to show Gran Torino that All Might didn't make a mistake, that he was worthy of all this power! He had to change the way the fight was going, he had to change the direction. He leapt backwards, cresting over the gathered thugs. 15% should be enough as he grabbed the forks of one of the fallen bikes and found it adequate to move it and swung!
One! Two! Three!
A clean sweep bringing the amount of foes to eight, but he lost his grip on the machine and it went flying through the plate glass window of the bar. He didn't mean to do that, but whatever. Can't focus on what he wanted to do or not wanted to do! Four of them rounded onto him, as the boss was content to just watch. That was good. Of this lot, he was certain only the boss had a quirk that was any dangerous.
He ducked, he side stepped, and punched! His fist impacting against the side of the thug on the right! His power flowed through his body and his arm and his fist and his opponent!
BOOM!
Another three went flying. That left two more, not including the boss. He rolled his head, cracked his knuckles. "A lesson, huh? Looks like the only people learning are you lot." He knew he complained to Eijiro about bantering while fighting, but these guys weren't even close to being on his level. And the boss was content enough to keep throwing his underlings at him, then he'll let him.
The boss, for his part, didn't say anything to Izuku, just clapped the final two men on the back. A signal, perhaps? He saw the two pull out a vial each and his eyes went wide. They couldn't have... they were... the two thugs downed a vial of Trigger each, their quirks accelerating through evolution.
The man with the large eyes soon became a monster with 360 degree vision. The other, with his fuzzy bear like ears turned into the most frightening monstrous panda that Izuku had ever seen. He looked just passed them... and saw Gran Torino, asleep on a bench.
"Awwww... crap..." This was fine. He could deal with this! The panda monster was faster then anything that big had any right to be be and was on top of Izuku in an instant! Izuku was lucky that the monster used a mighty backhand instead of it's claws! Cocoon was always best at absorbing concussive blows, he only managed to have it stop a sharp blow once or twice and still wasn't sure how he got it to work!
That didn't stop the fact that such a thing still hurt, nor did it prevent him from flying backwards, landing with a heavy crash against the wall of a building. He groaned, as he got back to his feet. If it wasn't for Cocoon and the power of all One for All, he was certain that his back would have been broken and he would be at the mercy of these criminals.
But with Cocoon? With One for All? He was nigh night invulnerable. Still hurt like a bastard, though.
The monstrous quirk user charged him, even as Izuku put the power of One for All into his legs. He had to fight smart, against the foes with weapons and weak quirks he was fighting dumb. Sure, his bell was still ringing from that last hit, but he could do this!
At the last moment, he leapt over the monster, placed his hands on the panda's shoulders and as he felt his power in his arms, he shoved the monster head first into the wall, a large crater forming as the panda pulled back, snarled... then fell forward losing consciousness!
Izuku felt his lips curl into a smile, as he looked over to the other two. He was winning. He was doing this!
The problem with the other was the whole 360 vision. Or at least he had assumed... the man was covered with eyes now.
But what do they say about assuming things?
He dropped to the ground as a beam of light left the eyes of the multi-eyed criminal, with a loud Bzowt! It hit a car, which vanished with nary a voip.
Everyone looked surprised at that. Izuku was certainly surprised, but so was the thug! Apparently he didn't know what he was capable of now that he was under the effects of Trigger. A pause that Izuku could take advantage of! Pushing his power into his hands and arms, he launched himself into the air! Right and twisting himself, he landed a mighty kick upon the gut of the multi-eyed monster criminal and sent him flying!
It also planted Izuku firmly on the ground, but he was still smiling, all he had to do was get back on his feet and...!
Pain coursed through his body, just as the electricity did! Take your eye off the enemy even for a second and they would make you regret it.
"You must thing that you're a real piece of work, don't you?" The leader of the Lords of Thunder clicked his tongue and for good measure shot Izuku with another bolt of lightning. "I think you're a real piece of shit!"
Izuku couldn't move... his muscles and nerves were fried and frayed! He could barely feel anything except pain. He supposed that was a good sign, it meant he wasn't crippled.
"Punks like you piss me the hell off. 'Oh, look at me, I went to a school what taught me to be a hero.' Well? How's that working out for you so far?" He picked Izuku up with one single meaty hand and brought him in close. "You gonna answer me, you bastard!?" Izuku for his part, gave a smile.
"How's this for an answer?" Izuku shouted at him, as he landed a head butt on the man. With Full Cowl and Cocoon... with the power of One for All... well, very few people were capable of taking such a blow and the Lord of Thunder wasn't one of those that could. He dropped Izuku before falling down like a sack of bricks, leaving the green haired boy in the middle of the beaten and battered bikers and the devastation from the brawl that happened.
"Whelp..." Oh, look, Gran Torino, the cause of this mess finally walked up to Izuku. "Looks like I got my work cut out for me. I don't think a week of field training is nearly enough to fix all these problems. Just what has Toshinori been teaching you?"
"... what are you talking about? The fact I'm not nearly as hurt as I could be is nothing short of a miracle and should be a testament to All Might's training!" He felt indignant, but who wouldn't in this situation?
"Fact is, kid, is that you fight too much like All Might, who would've managed this fight in seconds. But you? You're way too shrimpy to be fighting like All Might or that Tick friend of yours. Though this gives me an idea of what we should focus on. Also, you really need to learn how to dodge. You aren't a tank and if you keep doing that, One for All be damned, you're going to end up being blasted apart." He shook his head, helping Izuku back up onto his feet.
"C'mon, let's head back. This has been really eye opening. And I know what we'll be focusing on this week."
I have no idea what he has in store for me, but if the fact that I survived a 10 on 1 fight was something that I should be scolded for... I think I was starting to understand why All Might didn't talk about Gran Torino that much, whether it was in his interviews with the media or even in class. It all made sense, too much sense. Gran Torino was a horrible monster that was going to put me through hell this week.
Tenya Iida knew what he was doing. His brother, bless him, wasn't one for revenge, and he wouldn't want Tenya to go after Stain. It didn't matter, though! He couldn't just leave this standing! Tensei wasn't capable of dealing with Stain, leaving it upon the shoulders of the Engine Hero's younger brother! It didn't matter how many maniacs the Hero Killer had recruited into his cult.
It's why he wanted his field training internship in Hosu City, with Manual. No one could... no one should know that he was seeking revenge. His family was hurt, so he would hurt the one that caused his family pain. His behavior hadn't changed, no one saw the simmering agony just under the surface of him.
He couldn't talk with his friends, no one could understand what was happening to him. What could they tell him? That it didn't matter what happened to his brother? That he wasn't dead, but what kind of life did he have?! He could wake up today, tomorrow, next year, next week, next decade! The doctors didn't know and more importantly it wasn't about his brother, it was about how his family was hurt! How could no one see that?
Not his friends. Not his parents. Not anyone!
This wasn't about the attack on his brother, it was about how everyone would let a monster like Stain stick around! Everyone that let Stain walk around like the monster he was, was an indirect endorsement of his cruelty!
The fact that only he could see this... it made him sick. But once he removed Stain... once he got his closure... he was sure, he was certain! That he could go back to normal. That life would be normal. That when his brother woke up, everything will be fine.
Or so he hoped.