CHAPTER 15.

When Tripp was back in his ship again, he was already thinking about what he was going to tell Raidir and the others.

This wasn't quite how things were supposed to play out, but that was just how it went. He wasn't really worried about what his superiors would say to him, but he wasn't going back empty-handed anyway. In his pockets, Tripp had a little souvenir. He reached in and pulled it out… a few locks of hair. From Izuku Midoriya.

"Endeavor Agency had a theory," he said, repeating the information he read previously. "A Quirk is in the DNA. Endeavor and his wife both gave Quirks to their son, Shoto. The Quirks were both passed down through genetics. Therefore, theoretically Quirks can be passed through DNA. And now… I have DNA from the target."

He was after Izuku from the start. The others had Quirks that were useful tools, but not for the Carnies. Unfortunately, the Carnies wanted to live up to their reputation. They needed their clones to be super-powered and super-charged, but it wasn't working. The clones never maintained the strength of the Classic Carnies once they were duplicated from the DNA. Therefore, this Quirk DNA would be the key to solving this problem.

It hadn't been easy completing the plan, but Tripp looked back proudly. He left breadcrumbs every step of the way, in the hopes that Izuku would follow through. He made sure to communicate with Izuku, leaving him plenty of memories related to the encounter, so that he would be driven to come after Ochaco. Poking holes at their implied romance was a good strategy as well.

If Izuku fell short of making it to the secret location, then it would only prove that his Quirk wasn't worthy of the Carnies. Instead, he more than proved his worth.

"This isn't what I expected when I wanted to bring back a souvenir," Tripp said with a grin, as he held the strands of hair.

Then he looked out the window, out into space, into the darkness… and thought about Arianny. He saw her face, staring at him. The look of disappointment in her eyes, the same look she gave him when he told her he didn't love her. It filled him with guilt, as it did every night of his life. And each time it did, he swallowed it again, so that it would be gone.

But it always returned.

This time, Tripp was really bothered. He never told the superhero students that in his world, the Carnies intended on destroying humanity and conquering the other planets in the Solar System with intelligent life. This power he now possessed would decide the war for certain.

That seemed to put things in perspective for Tripp. He didn't care about this war. He wasn't passionate about it. It was so far beyond what he ever hoped to achieve with his life's work. Somewhere along the line, he'd lost his mind.

When Tripp climbed into the Shark Tank, he took a deep breath. Raidir was in the tank next to him, and Jotko just beyond that one. The entire team of thirteen was here, and they were all going through with it.

"Ready to live?" Raidir asked, a twisted smile on his face.

Tripp felt a brief moment of power, but it faded fast. He thought about Arianny and realized then and there he had made a mistake. Just as the experiment booted to life, he visualized her smiling face, with her green eyes and black hair shimmering in beautiful splendor.

There was something he wanted in life… he wanted to be back with her. But it was too late. That world was long gone.

A button at the terminal caught Tripp's attention. He pressed it, and it activated a small chute near the terminal. Tripp set the strands of Izuku's hair in it, then shut it. After taking a long breath to weigh it one more time, he finally pressed the next button.

The chute launched the strands of hair into outer space, where they would never make it into the hands of the Carnies.

"I guess you'd like it if I did that," he talked to himself, as if Arianny was there with him. "Not that it matters at this point. But yeah… I'm gonna leave the Quirks to the heroes. Me… I'll just stick to fishing."

That was his final decision, even as he headed back home, where a war awaited him. Arianny's message was brought up on the screen, the old one from the archives that he refused to delete.

"Remember when I made you smile? I hope you don't forget about it."

THE END.

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