A Hero's True Strength Chapter 2

There was nothing truly more beautiful than the undisturbed image of nature at its most natural state.

Or at least, that was what Vaccine Man thought as he sat in the middle of a forest, enjoying the sounds around him as he meditated, deep in thought over his last encounter.

The words of the bald man, the one who was a self-proclaimed 'Hero for fun', were sitting heavy on his mind, the underlying logic present in them being the prime focus.

Why was he being instructed to destroy humanity indiscriminately? Why was this the path he was walking down, with no alternative or diversion in sight? And was this truly the best outcome?

He didn't know, and that was deeply troubling him. He had been sent on a mission by Mother Earth herself to stop the destructive tendencies of humanity, before they damaged the Earth in an irreparable way. That was the reason he had been created, his sole purpose and the reason behind his strength.

So why couldn't he shake these words?

Looking around, Vaccine Man allowed himself to be washed over by the sounds of nature, sounds he had grown to love in his short existence. The chirps of birds which flew overhead, the rustling of leaves being disturbed by the gentle breeze, and the various bleats, groans, and moans of the various wildlife that lived throughout the forest. All of them relatively simplistic and common, certainly not unique to this area at least, but all incredibly therapeutic.

Vaccine Man couldn't resist just closing his eyes and enjoying the peaceful serenity for a moment, slightly throwing his head back and breathing in some of the clean air that the forest provided.

The serenity almost completely swallowed Vaccine Man up, the words of the bald man slowly receding into the back of his mind and allowing him to briefly let go of the stress that the man's questions gave him.

Suddenly, a loud crash broke Vaccine Man out of his peaceful meditation, prompting the stress to return in full force, hitting him all at once, and causing his eyes to snap open.

A second crash sounded out, and this time it was followed by the sound of lots of thundering, and the snapping of branches and twigs as the thundering got louder. A few tense seconds passed, before a horde of varying forest dwelling animals burst through the shrubbery, stampeding past Vaccine Man as they ran with reckless abandon, not even slowing down to acknowledge or run from Vaccine Man, just sprinting past him like their lives depended on it.

Vaccine Man watched the stampede run pass; a confused frown etched onto his face. After a minute of animals passing him, Vaccine Man turned to face the origin of the sound that came before, just in time to hear yet another crash sound out.

With a growl, Vaccine Man pushed himself up, and he began travelling toward the sound, stalking toward it with an angry malice. As he paced toward the sound, more crashing sounds kept sounding out, getting louder and louder as Vaccine Man got closer. With each stint in-between the sounds, they got louder, and Vaccine Man got angrier and angrier as a sneaking suspicion began seeping into his mind, causing his powers to start pulsing angrily through his form.

Soon, he found the source of the sound, and his suspicion was proven correct, as he stood over the scene of a destructive and vile act.

Deforestation. There were men in machines currently bulldozing through several trees with not a care in the world, tearing down precious parts of the Earth's ecosystem as if their lives weren't dependent on it.

Rage built within Vaccine Man's heart, fiery malice flooding through him as a red haze washed over him, and murderous intent became present.

Raising his hand, Vaccine Man began charging up a ball of energy, making sure to keep it at a lower level than the ones he used against the city earlier, so that he didn't damage the surrounding forest. The bald man may have had him questioning his mission, but he was no hypocrite.

But before he could fire, someone beat him to it, a sharp rock being flung at one of the machines and bouncing off of it with a heavy clang. Intrigued, Vaccine Man turned his gaze toward where the rock came from and was met with an intriguing sight.

There, just further in the distance, behind an improvised barricade being enforced by men in high-vis jackets, was a crowd of angry people, all shouting and yelling at the men in the machines, with signs in their hands. On the signs were varying messages proclaiming that these men were evil, and that their presence here was unwelcome, and even a few saying that trees were more important than buildings.

Vaguely intrigued, Vaccine Man focused his hearing, trying to distil something useful from the various noises coming from the crowd. And what he heard was almost… comforting.

"Say no to the destruction of the forest, say yes to preservation!"

"Who needs a hotel in the middle of nowhere? We have cities and lodges! Destroying the Earth for corporate gain isn't worth it!"

"What kind of asshole thinks destroying nature for a holiday inn is worth it? Say no to corporate greed!"

Vaccine Man was oddly soothed by this and found himself circling back to the words of the bald man, and what he said about not all humans being irredeemable. Here in front of him, was definitive proof that while some humans were truly guilty of the crimes that Vaccine Man himself had accused them of, and some who were trying to stop it, campaigning for the same thing that Vaccine Man believed in.

Maybe there was hope for humanity.

As Vaccine Man felt the energy orb begin to dissipate, a new voice, amplified by a megaphone, cut through the varying shouts with a much harsher tone.

"Alright ya tree hugging hippies, clear out! The boss has paid for this lot of land, and now he's paid us to clear it for his new hotel! Ain't nothing you can do to stop it! So, either clear out or be forced out!"

As he said this, a few men in riot gear stepped forward, batons and riot shields in hand, as they started bashing them against each other, only to be met by a wave of shouts and boos by the crowd.

Vaccine Man frowned at this, gritting his teeth together at this, before he stopped the dissipation of the energy orb. He instead focused it into a single one of his fingers, before pointing at one of the various bulldozers and diggers present.

With no hesitation, he fired a highly focused beam, bursting through the engine of the bulldozer with ease and killing the low humming instantly. The burst from the beam also had the added benefit of making both the workmen and the crowd go dead silent, the shock of the sudden attack silencing their dispute.

But Vaccine Man didn't dwell on this, not interesting in their reactions. Instead, he turned his wrath onto the rest of the machines, and with pinpoint precision, he disabled the engines of each and every vehicle present, working like a doctor with a scalpel.

Once he was done, he turned away and began walking back into the forest. He had done enough, as they wouldn't be able to do any more damage without their destructive machines to aid them. The forest was saved.

And Vaccine Man found himself viewing the words of the bald man in a new, more appreciative light.

"Maybe he has a point." He mumbled to himself, disappearing into the forest to further mull on that encounter.

Saitama sighed as he entered his home, wanting to feel frustrated but ultimately just feeling kinda tired. He had just had a few encounters with some monsters on the way home, both of which had him questioning his current situation, and his standing on being a hero.

He had started being a hero because it was what he wanted to do, and because he wanted to have more excitement in his life. The sensation that he had felt when he saved that big-chinned kid from that Crab monster… whose name Saitama could not remember, had been so overwhelming. The pulsing of blood in his veins and the thumping of his heart as he took laboured breaths after killing that monster was… indescribable. It made Saitama feel alive.

Now however, he couldn't really feel that emotion anymore. That satisfaction, that pleasure, the sheer thrill of battle; Saitama couldn't remember the last time he had felt like that.

In fact, Saitama was struggling to remember the last time he felt any emotion that strongly. He just felt empty, and even when he was in a fight with monsters, like the ones from earlier that day, he felt nothing. No joy, no fear, no adrenaline; just a craving for a challenge.

Though he couldn't help but find himself sparing a thought toward that first monster, the one he didn't fight. That had been a first. Normally most monsters don't really talk, they just ran around and destroyed stuff until Saitama showed up and punched them into oblivion. And even when they did talk, they usually didn't engage in conversation, usually prattling about how strong they were or how screwed Saitama was.

It was hard to remember anything precise, they all kinda blurred together.

But never had one really spoken to Saitama, really engaged with him. And the fact that Saitama had managed to talk it down, talk it out of fighting. That was definitely different, and Saitama couldn't help but feel amused by it.

He had been annoyed at first, feeling cheated of a chance for a challenge. But after he had dropped the girl off at a hospital, Saitama found himself almost… appreciating the change of pace. He had actually talked his way out of a situation, and his words seemed to of had an effect.

Which was odd, since Saitama didn't think he was very good with words.

But as Saitama prepared dinner, he found himself smiling over this. It left a warm glow in his stomach, as it felt almost heroic in a sense, not just resorting straight to violence.

'Maybe I'll try using words again in the future,' Saitama thought as he sat down to eat, 'at least it'll be more interesting than winning all my fights with just one punch.'

At the edge of City Z, in the dead of night in the middle of a street, was a lone man walking silently by. His hands were deep in his pockets, and his face was shrouded by the hood of the jacket that they were wearing.

From just a glance, he seemed like just another person, a teenager out late at night; a sight some give a second, somewhat suspicious, glance, but only a cursorily one at best.

But as they say, appearances can be deceiving.

As the figure walked, they lifted their head up somewhat to look ahead, glancing at a fenced off part of the city, one that had been long abandoned by the population.

With the edge of the abandoned zone in sight, the teen tensed his legs up and, with a very minimal amount of effort, hopped over the eight-foot-tall fence with ease, landing back on the ground with the grace of a feline.

Now in the abandoned zone, and with no peering eyes to watch him, the teen pulled down his hood, revealing a set of silvery hair that spiked upward into two large prong like shapes, somehow not affected by the hood squishing it down. And looking forward with his yellow eyes, the teen smiled a toothy grin.

"This looks like a good place to set up shop. Time to find a place to crash for the night, and then tomorrow: the hunt begins."

Vaccine Man sat at the edge of a pond, staring at his own reflection intently, as he repeated the words that were spoken to him through his mind.

'Isn't there better things you can do to help than this?'

As it turns out, yes, there was. There were plenty of forces out there who caused mass destruction to the Earth, forces which Vaccine Man could easily stop. But he needed to target the right people going forward, and not condemn the innocent like he had been before.

But how would he be able to tell which was which?

'How much damage to the Earth is she doing?'

As it turns out, Vaccine Man didn't really know. He didn't know much about humans in general, or how they lived. He knew that their current lifestyle was somewhat destructive toward the Earth, but he didn't know in what way. Maybe the bald man was right, maybe the individual human didn't really do much, and that it wasn't fair to blame them for the destruction.

All he needed to do was figure out who was really to blame.

'Why start here?'

At first, Vaccine Man hadn't spared a thought to where he started. City U had simply been the city closest to his creation point, so he had started there. Maybe that was wrong on his part, the act of a mindless beast rather than a Chosen Champion of the Earth herself. If he was to truly campaign for her, then he needed to give his task more thought than that.

'You could probably do more good overall by just campaigning against pollution than just blowing up those who do pollute.'

With so much running through his mind, Vaccine Man found himself focusing on one thing linking these rampant thoughts together: The Hero for Fun.

Saitama.

If Vaccine Man was to determine the truth behind these words, he needed to return to their source, and find out more. If he could, then he could do more in the name of Mother Earth.

But as he stared at his own reflection, he found himself criticising his own appearance. In the water, staring back at him with sharp, aggressive eyes, was a monster. A creature of death and carnage, a unworthy look for someone representing something as kind and giving as the Earth.

And if he was to approach that hero again, he couldn't do so as a destroyer. He needed to be something else.

He needed a new form.

So, he sat down next to the lake, gazed at the sky, and began to pray under his breath.

"Oh, great Mother Earth, guide me in this trying time. Help me to create a new form that will be appropriate for my new mission, so that I can best save you. One that will convey the beauty that you possess yet retain your mighty strength. May your wisdom bless me in this trying time, in your name."

And with his prayer completed, he began to glow, his body slowly beginning to change under the pale light of the full moon.