For about 10 seconds, everyone was completely silent, Izuku suddenly feeling complete and utter shock and dread about what had just been asked, Venom with his usual face, Black Cat sitting looking at Izuku with a hard, inquisitive stare.
Mina by contrast looked confused until suddenly she realized what they were talking about.
"Oh yeah, you never did tell me what the heck that teleporter woman was talking about."
Izuku swallowed.
Shit, shit, shit.
This… Could become a very bad situation, depending on how Black Cat reacted.
"Well?"
He swallowed again.
"So… Do you… Did you know there was an incident earlier this year where two criminal groups gathered at Azura Valley?"
She nodded.
"Yes… And I remember there was an anonymous caller that led to those arrests?"
"Wait, that was you Midori?"
Mina looked surprised, but as he hesitantly nodded, she grinned and gave him two thumbs up.
"So you got two criminal groups arrested? Awesome!"
He felt his cheeks go red at her praise, but he was quickly brought down to reality again.
"So, you were the one who got old Hammerhead on death row are you? Well done. However, you still haven't explained 1. Why you were there, or 2. Exactly what happened."
He swallowed a third time.
"Well… See… I was out in the mountains training…"
"No doubt with the kind of heavy, quirk usage training that is ludicrously illegal for people who are not heroes in training, but do go on."
"... Actually it was mostly just running around, jumping, and pushing myself to the limit physically…"
"... Sounds legit. Continue."
"Well… One day, not long before the entrance exam I was just training like usual when a woman suddenly teleported to a field I was running by."
Black cat looked upon him with the most skeptical look imaginable.
"Sooo… You were out training, but you just so happened to be exactly where the Caribbean League and some flunkies from the League of Villains had agreed on a meeting."
"Yes…?"
"You didn't have any… Visions around this time?"
"You mean like the ones we were just talking about?"
"Yeah, Izuku, like those."
"No, I didn't."
He could tell she didn't believe him, but out loud she just said; "So, they teleported into the field while you were passing by. What happened then?"
"I… I saw that Tel, that is the teleporter, was armed, but since she had her back turned on me, it gave me the chance to hide behind a tree before the rest of the crew teleported in. At that point, I just turned invisible, and I… Didn't really dare move."
Both of the women looked at Izuku with bafflement.
"You… Turned invisible. That's… Just something you can do?"
In response, Venom suddenly shot up and coated him, and very quickly turned both of them transparent.
Mina whistled softly.
"Wow, so you're like a predator too? Nice!"
Once more he felt his cheeks blush at her praise, and once more Black Cat brought him down to reality.
"Okay, so you hid, what happened afterwards? You were noticed as you tried to sneak away?"
"... My phone rang."
"... Ain't that just the way. You're right in the middle of something, and then SOMEONE just calls you out of the blue to screw things up for you."
" Ye-Yeah. Anyway, after that, it was just running, while the bullets flew."
"Sensible of you. And then?"
"Well… I got away, and after jumping over a river, a gun barrel materialized in front of my face."
"And, this the part where you broke her finger and jaw?"
"Ye-Yeah… I ripped the gun out of her hand and socked her across the face. After that… I picked her pockets and used her own phone to call the police."
"Ah… So you possess common sense after all. MOST teenagers would just have used their own phone in that situation. You were smart enough not to do so, but instead use someone else's so you could remain anonymous."
She hesitated a moment before continuing.
"I… Don't suppose you kept the phone, rather than destroying it?"
"No, it's… It's broken."
"Pity. I could have found some use for it. In any case…"
He stiffened. Here it came.
"Keep what happened to yourself. You don't want to have any scandals before you get out of school."
"Oh, so…"
"I'm not gonna drag you to the police for using your own quirk to defend your own life if that's what you're asking."
He relaxed.
"Wait, THAT'S what you were worried about?"
Black Cat snorted.
"Of course he was. He's a sensible kid, with a seemingly good sense of Japan's draconian quirk laws. In any case…"
She turned back to Midoriya.
"You didn't learn anything about WHO the Caribbean League were after did you? Like, maybe something you didn't tell the police?"
"No… sorry."
She sighed.
"Yeah… I suppose it was too much to hope you knew who old Lincoln wanted to kidnap."
"Who?"
"Oh right. You kiddos would know him better as The Big Man."
Izuku just looked at her.
"You… Know who the Big Man is?"
Black Cat just stared at him like he had just said the dumbest thing imaginable.
"Yes, Izuku… I do in fact know him… Which you should well know by now… Because Mina HAS talked to you about this right? Cause I told her everything about the group after the invasion."
She turned her head to scowl at her oldest daughter who got an annoyed look at her face.
"We don't really talk about this stuff when we're hanging out you know."
"Yes… Because what is the intrigue between empires, compared to the sweet, irresistible siren song of arcades and McDonald's?"
Izuku was barely listening.
Black Cat had the answers. The answers to all his questions about who the Caribbean League were, who the Big Man, this Lincoln guy was. Maybe their motivation and goals!
"He didn't exactly ask me about any of this, you know?"
Black Cat was about to answer when Izuku interrupted.
"So you know who he is, and who the Caribbean League is?"
She looked at him. Then gave a long, long sigh.
"... You want to know everything I know don't you?"
He hesitated, wondering if maybe he was pushing a bit too far… But curiosity won the day.
He nodded.
His curiosity, one of his defining characteristics had suddenly become alight, now that the sense of possible danger had passed.
"So, you want the long or the short version?"
"If you want the long version… It's kinda a boring story." Mina interjected. "Also, REALLY depressing."
"I-It's fine, I… don't mind a long story."
Black Cat looked him over, judging him, seemingly considering her next words.
"Alright… Since you seem so interested, I'll give you the entire thing. But first… Tell me Izuku… How much do you know about the societal collapse of the 21st century? Beyond what they teach you in school I mean."
"Um… Well… It… The collapse came about due to the emergence of quirks right? Law and order collapsed, and societal progress was halted due to conflict between quirkless people, and people with quirks. Then… Heroes first began to be active in the United States… the success of which lead to it becoming the norm across the entire world."
Black cat had sat back, leaning against the sofa spine as he talked. When he finished she smiled at him, but not in a joyful manner.
"You gotta love the Japanese school system. It teaches you, kids, to summarize half a century of death, Chaos, and complete and total collapse of society on a global scale in a few, sterile sentences. Not a single word of what you said, was untrue. Yet it didn't QUITE capture the fact that during the almost 3 decades-long period between the rise of Heroes, and the collapse of society, 2/8ths of the entire human race died."
Izuku winced. HARD.
" S-Sorry…"
"I'm not blaming YOU Izuku. I'm blaming the education system, that doesn't even teach you guys about All for One. Can you believe that? The guy effectively ran Japan like it was a fiefdom for over a decade, and there is literally not a SINGLE word about him in the schoolbooks you kids get!"
She shook her head.
"Anyway, the reason I'm bringing this up, is that if you really wanna understand the Caribbean League, you need to understand who they are, and where they came from. Cause they go back a LONG time, just as long as All For One. Because just like him, they emerged out of the chaos of when the world was brought to it's knees by the emergence of Quirks."
He nodded. Mina just rolled her eyes.
"Mom really likes being dramatic with her stories."
"This WAS a dramatic time period Mina. It was literally viewed as an apocalypse."
She turned back to Izuku.
"Well… Let me paint a more… Objective picture of the societal collapse that brought the world to it's knees. One that doesn't really skip over the more… Unpleasant details of the period."
She quickly picked up her writing block and Pen, then after flipping, a page, she began scribbling as she talked.
"The first quirk user in history, the famous glowing baby from China, was born on November 4, 2014. And from there, if you were to read Mina's old history Schoolbook, you might be under the impression that quirks just showed up, everything immediately collapsed, and there was chaos until the rise of heroes."
"That's… Not too far off. Back in middle school, we didn't really read much about it, and we mostly focused on history from after the rise of heroes and now…"
"You focus exclusively on it, right? Yeah, I did skim through mina's schoolbook. In any case… That is NOT what actually happened. No, the thing is, that that first generation of quirk users actually had to grow up, before they could start affecting the world. They couldn't exactly bring the entire world to complete collapse while they were still in diapers you know?"
Yeah, that… Made perfect sense really. But Black Cat was right. Their school books did make it seem like quirks had immediately brought about a collapse.
"That first generation had it rough. It had it rough, EVERYWHERE. It had it rough in Asia, it had it rough in Europe, the America's, Africa, and in Oceania. And here's the important part. Quirks… Didn't discriminate. It didn't matter whether you were Black, White, Asian, upper class, lower class, Muslim, Christian, whatever. It didn't care if you were born in a dictatorship under a communist oligarchy or a democratic free republic."
She motioned with the hand she wasn't drawing with, to the side, giving the motion of something large.
"It was spread out, everywhere, on every continent. That… Kinda made what would happen pretty much inevitable."
She sighed again.
"It's… Kinda hard to explain this to you kiddos… You kids who grew up both under All Might watchful shadow, and in homogenous Japan… I don't think you kids can ever truly get the kinda divisions in society that people had back then, and to a large extent, still have to this day."
"Japan is a really homogenous country. It has one overarching culture, predominantly composed of Atheists and your native religion, with Christianity, the second largest religion composing a whopping 9 percent of the total population. And back in the day, it was even more homogenous than it is now."
"The rest of the world… isn't like that. And it was even LESS like that two centuries ago. When quirk users first appeared on the scene, they did in societies that were absolutely brimming with tension, whether it was cultural, ethnic, or religious. Just to give an example, there used to be a kingdom called Spain."
Izuku… Thought he had heard the term Spanish before, though he had never heard of any nation actually called Spain.
"Had a crap ton of different ethnicities, and even before the introductions of quirks there was plenty of tension between the dominant Castilian culture and one of the smaller cultures of the nation."
"Now, imagine this Midoriya. You are one of the very first quirk users. You are born into Spain, you're say… A Catalonian, one of that minority that's at odds with the government. Now, the Castilians that run your country, aren't fond of the ethnic people you're born into, nor are they fond of quirk users at all. There are tons of laws, not just against using your quirks, but against quirk users in general, and people are pushing back against those laws, HARD. Violence happens every day, and every time it happens, the state cracks down on it, harder and harder each time. Without even trying to, your people's quirk users have linked the cause of independence with the question of quirks right. Violence is commonplace, and even amongst the people who support people with quirks, there isn't a set morality that people have agreed on for how quirks should be used."
That… sounded absolutely terrible. Like… For a moment, he imagined if there had been actual laws against quirkless people, not just the way so many people treated them being commonplace.
"Then, suddenly, over in Asia, governments begin debating whether or not Quirk users who have mutation quirks that make them animal-like, or no longer look human should be considered humans."
A chill went up his spine, and his eyes glanced over to Mina.
Black cat noticed it, then nodded.
"You get it, yeah? It's such a stupid idea. There is no way, anyone would actually try and sign that kinda thing into law. Then it happens. And not just totalitarian countries either. Democracies, acting on the will of the majority, signs stuff like that into law." She snapped her fingers. "And just like that one the 7 of March 2042… The world came crashing down. Because that scenario I just described, didn't just happen in Spain. It happened everywhere. It happened with the majority, it happened to the minorities. Countries that were smart enough NOT to even consider such inhuman laws were not spared the chaos either, because as these laws are enacted, it leads to the full-on collapse of the countries they happened in."
"Quirks users stopped giving a damn about the law, because why would they? The moment you strip people of human rights, you set a VERY dangerous precedent, and the fact is, that the common consensus amongst every quirk user at the time, was that the governments were planning on doing the same to ALL quirk users. All of this stupidity would have been bad enough… except oh yeah, the people who just got declared non-human? They got superpowers. There was only one way that was gonna end."
"Anyway, so began the collapse. Entire nations fell into complete anarchy, as quirk users began to be extremely violent against their homelands. And in response, the government cracks down harder, which leads the quirk users to become even more desperate, and in many cases leads them to ally with people who really don't like the government to begin with for completely unrelated reasons. Communists, separatists, fascists, quirk supremacists, whatever, people went to whoever would have them. And in many cases, that just meant their own communities. The end result? The situation just becomes more, and more complicated as people begin to take to violence more and more."
"But here's the kicker. Enough countries begin to collapse into widespread anarchy to the point that it starts affecting countries that AREN'T collapsing. The world is built on trade. Most countries aren't capable of feeding themselves anymore. They NEED food to come in on schedule in order for their entire nation not to starve. Then suddenly whatever country they are reliant on for food, goes belly up. Their food production goes to pieces, or they simply aren't able to export food anymore. Famine begins to take hold."
Finally, Black cat stopped sketching, then after flipping some pages back, she held up what she had been drawing.
Surprisingly, it was a comic, drawn in a very chibi style. What it was showcasing, was anything but cute.
"Then, to complicate matters, real, genuine civil wars began to break out, not all of which can be blamed on quirks. In Russia, the president is assassinated for reasons that don't have anything to do with quirks at all. The country goes into Civil War over who will succeed him, all the while quirk-related violence rages. Then, a random separatist quirk user uses his powers to destroy large amounts of farmlands over the course of a month. Russia suddenly isn't able to feed huge amounts of it's population. It tries to look outside it's country for food to import, but everyone of it's neighbors is in no better shape than it is. Millions starve to death. In the next 20 years, Russia's population will have gone down 61%."
She flipped the page, this time showing a whole bunch of nations with similar texts.
China 67% dead, India 54% dead, Japan 35% dead.
It wasn't like Izuku had… No idea about the catastrophic death toll of the collapse period, but to have it thrust into his face like this, with no sugar coating it was… Something else.
"The entire world economy collapses, countries that aren't able to be self-sufficient are absolutely fucked. Resources become slim and limited, lots of stuff that was commonplace stops being made. Education completely collapses, as people don't see any point to it, and focus instead on trying to survive. As a result, an entire generation grows up without ever going to school, if they survive at all. All the while, countries that are depopulated, are now being called into question of whether they should exist at all. Spain, China, Belgium, and many other countries that are composed of different ethnicities utterly collapse into different countries, never to reform again."
"But… China still exists."
"Yes, it does. But the China of that period was WAY larger than it is today. They ruled half of modern Mongolia, all the Tibetan plateau, and all of Manchuria. It also claimed to rule Taiwan, though that was more fiction than fact. Regardless… China would never reach the size it once had been."
She flipped the sketchbook once more, showcasing a bunch of maps over countries that Izuku recognized from around the world. One was Japan, one Brazil, one Ethiopia, one France, and finally the Caribbean.
"Of course, the collapse wasn't equal everywhere. There was generally a trend. Large, heavily populated nations like Russia, China, The USA, Japan, REALLY didn't do very well, as their gigantic populations suddenly became a massive problem to feed. By comparison, there were smaller, less populated nations like Switzerland or the Scandinavian Kingdoms, who did… Decently well for themselves. However… This complete downward spiral didn't last forever. Things DID begin to stabilize after over a decade of non-stop chaos."
She tapped the block.
"Which, FINALLY leads us to the actual topic at hand. The origin of the Caribbean League."
"After around 15 years of non-stop chaos, things finally began to slow down, as the situation had drastically changed. For one thing, the countries that were still kinda in existence had now reached a level where they could actually feed their population. And with that, trade began to rise up again. Slowly, but surely. Of course, it didn't all happen at once. Spain was still a broken mess, at the same time as Japan was put back together again."
"There was also the simple fact that since Society had collapsed, there was suddenly way more Quirk users. Way more of them had been born, and people without quirks… Well, the end result of all of this, was that quirk users had jumped from 3% of society, all the way to 12%. Needless to say, at this point, any country that wanted to exist had given up on the idea of stripping quirk users of their human rights. But the question of quirk regulations still raged on, and would so, for almost 15 years more. Racism between quirk users and people without them didn't just go away either."
"And then… There was the final reason why the world was really beginning to put itself back together. You know the story about All For One yeah? A single, incredibly powerful quirk user rose in the complete chaos, and, as things finally began to stabilize in Japan, he began to gather an army of Quirk Users under his influence. And with those, he controlled huge parts of Japan from the shadows, as it finally began to rise from the ashes."
Izuku nodded.
"Yeah, it's… Not really something anyone could forget."
"Yeah… Anyway, here's the thing. When All For rose to such prominence… he wasn't exactly the first of his kind. Oh, he was in Japan, but by that point, there were plenty of people like him in the world."
She tapped Ethiopia.
"In Ethiopia, The rainmaker, a man with absolute, total control over the weather, did the exact same thing as All for One. Using his incredibly strong and useful quirk, he began amassing an enormous amount of followers, though Unlike All For One, this wasn't just quirk users either. The rainmaker made the entire Horn of Africa bloom, forever turning the empire he and his followers carved for themselves into the biggest breadbasket in the world. To put it bluntly, if his new empire hadn't suddenly become a breadbasket unlike any other, and he began to trade away that food with other nations, it's very likely that the societal collapse would have gone on for another decade. Of course… He wasn't the only one."
This time she Tapped Brazil.
"Similar story in Brazil. An extremely powerful quirk user shows up, rallies an army of superhumans behind him, takes over his crumbling nation, declares himself emperor, uses quirks to keep his nation running, being the only reason everyone has enough oil to keep going for example."
"Same thing happens in France, where the descendants of old Napoleon managed to keep the nation from disintegrating through the use of quirks, and rallying the quirk users Behind them. And on and on it went. Of course, it wasn't this dramatic everywhere, but you get the point. Frankly, speaking, what separates All For One from the rest of his ilk, wasn't his success, it was the fact that he chose to simply be a power behind the Throne, while the rest of the "Great Conquerors" at least tried to run their countries, with varying levels of success."
"But, before there was France, before there was Ethiopia, before Brazil… There was the Caribbean."
She tapped the island nation, slowly and deliberately.
"Before the Collapse, the Caribbean archipelago was divided into a dozen different nations. France, England, and the United States all owned parts of it, but for the most part, it was made up of a bunch of weak, independent island nations. And just like all the rest of the world, these nations collapsed. For 4 years, the entire archipelago was anarchy, death, and chaos. Then… Out from Haiti, came Maria Lincoln."
"She… I'm guessing she was the ancestor of The Big Man."
"She was. Maria Lincoln, just like All For One, possessed an amazingly strong quirk, and quite a bit of Charisma and intelligence. Her eventual Endgame, however, was the exact opposite of All For One. Whereas he simply ruled from the shadows and was content with that, she would rule in the open. She was the first of the great Conquerors, and she laid down the strategy so many of them would use, though none quite with her level of success."
"First, she rallied the quirk users of Haiti behind her. Then, she took over the country and then did something remarkable. She restored law and order. The thing that really separates her from the rest of her ilk, was that she focused on restoring the peace BEFORE she was down with her conquest. And that really did make a huge difference, as she and her quirk users began the work to rebuild Haiti, she became EXTREMELY popular. Like… I don't think there is a ruler alive today, who is as popular as she was when she restored order to Haiti."
"And from there… Well, it was a conquest. A gradual one, that wasn't quite as drastic and spectacular as the Rainmaker's, or the Napoleons, but on the other hand, it was quite a bit more stable. Her armies would move into her completely collapsed neighbors, restore order and peace with force while rallying the quirk users to her side, then using the power of those very same quirk users to rebuild everything that had been destroyed in the chaos."
"Frankly speaking, when the first vigilantes began to appear in America, they operated with the same kind of mentality as Maria did. She broke down the barriers between quirkless and quirk users by showcasing quirks as a positive thing for all, while also giving quirk users an actual purpose in society. It wasn't perfect of course, the fact she was a brutal autocrat kind of gave that away, but compared to the rest of the world, the empire she forged was a fucking paradise."
This… Sounded really interesting to Izuku. It also brought up a LOT of questions. He also did remember something he had read about while reading about the Amazing Spider-man.
"So… She built an entire empire, on the power of quirks, and united the Caribbean… But… in the 2130s the Caribbean was under American occupation right? How did that happen?"
"Oh, so you DO know something about history after all? Well, we'll get there."
She once again tapped the Caribbean. On her page.
"The Caribbean Empire had a… Kinda strange way it operated, where every quirk was utilized to it's fullest for the benefit of society. Electricity quirks were used to help power plants, quirks like that Momo girl were used to help create things out of thin air, teleporters helped move people and equipment in a single time, while quirks like ours were put to use to keep law and order. All for a better society. And the thing is… It worked. The Caribbean was the first place in the world that the barrier between Quirk users and non-powered humans began to break down. Sure, it wasn't an instant change, and again, it was a dictatorship ruled by a single family, but compared to the rest of the world, the Caribbean Empire was doing amazingly well."
"As the rest of the world burned around them, the Carribeans began to build a nation, and not only did they survive, but they actually thrived, as the archipelago began to take it's place as a great power. They also did something that they would deeply regret many years later. They helped out their neighbors."
"The USA was hit just as hard as China, Russia, or Japan, with widespread chaos and death threatening to destroy it. Unlike those nations, however, they had the good luck of being neighbors in the Caribbean, which meant that as the new empire rose to prominence, the nation had a trade partner just by, who was willing to trade them large, large amounts of food. Which allowed them to survive the complete and total starvation that wrecked lands like China or Russia. So, as they reached the stabilizing period, The USA had only lost 24% of it's total population, compared to half, which… Was pretty remarkable actually."
"Unfortunately for the Carribeans, as things began to stabilize around the world, their method of doing things ran into one massive problem, that only became even more pronounced as the world settled on the hero System."
"Let us guess." Venom suddenly piped in. "The rest of the world, that did not operate with this kind of system in mind, quickly found it couldn't compete."
Black Cat looked surprised, then nodded.
"Yeah, that's exactly what happened. As the entire rest of the world began to rebuild and get back on it's feet, they quickly realized that the Carribeans simply out-competed them in pretty much every area. Which was not surprising. They utilized their quirk users to their absolute fullest, taking full advantage of every single possible advantage they had. The rest of the world would have had one hell of a time trying to compete with that, even if it had been healthy. Try imagining them doing it when their entire industries and economies had gone belly up, and huge amounts of the population had up and died."
She flipped the page again, this time showcasing a very detailed series of sketches of figures Izuku instantly recognized. The very first hero team in history, the group of Vigilantes who had been responsible for making the concept of pro heroes a thing.
"And then… The first pro heroes emerged on the American east coast. Tell me Izuku… Do you know WHY the hero System became so popular?"
"It… Restored order, and made people feel safe?"
"That is absolutely correct~ In a world where the police forces of the world had grown incredibly hard and militaristic to cope with trying to uphold law and order, the vigilantes that styled themselves on superheroes from the comics of old proved to be a remarkably popular alternative. Not to mention, that just like the Caribbean system, many Quirk users proved FAR more effective at dealing with the challenges of quirk-related crimes than men with guns did."
"It also had one other, massive benefit. It drew a very clear, simple line between "Good" and "Bad" Quirk users. People who previously didn't have any way to utilize their quirks legally, suddenly found a real, legal avenue to do just that. The police were NOT a fan of the new system, but everyone else was. It worked, because it was simple, it didn't penalize you for just having a quirk. So long as you worked within the system, you could use your quirks, and you would even be rewarded for it. For the USA, who had been struggling mightily to keep any resemblance of law and order, the system was a godsent. It was popular across the board, and the simple fact that people who signed up on it tended to be locals, who worked within their home, generally meant that they had a vested interest in trying to keep their homes safe."
"What it in practice meant, was that the government just had to find locals with decent quirks, train them, then give them the money to live, and they would generally do a good job at restoring order, they would do so all the way until retirement, and most crucial of all, they were adored by the people they protected, which, I can assure you, the police and military at that time were NOT."
That… Was a strange idea to Izuku. That the police would not be liked or respected. But… It was a different time and place he supposed.
"These 3 things, the simplicity of implementing it as an effective system, the way it drew a very clear, easy, and "fair" line in the sand of how quirks should be used, and more important than anything else, the fact that it proved a very, very popular alternative to hard crackdowns by militarized police, is the reason why the Pro Hero System ended up winning, over other alternatives, like the ones Japan's Destro or Germany's Charlemagne advocated for."
Izuku had never really considered an alternative to the pro hero System. For him, it was just… The way things were. The way the world had always been, and should always be.
And yet… He knew enough of history to know that once upon a time, Destro had been a massive force in Japan. The only real, credible challenger the hero system had ever had in the empire.
"Everywhere that is… Except for the Caribbeans. In Europe, the third French Empire embraced the Hero system with open arms and as a result of that, it's still around today as a constitutional monarchy, while the aforementioned Charlemagne's attempt at a German communist utopia fueled by quirks, failed due to lack of popular support. Same story around the world. Destro was crushed in Japan, while other nations that tried alternative systems eventually collapsed, or was pressured into adopting it by it's neighbors."
"Which brings us back again, to the Caribbeans empire. The one place that managed to break the trend. Tell me Izuku, can you guess WHY the Caribbeans succeeded, while every other attempt at creating a true, quirk fueled society failed?"
Izuku thought about it for a moment, but it was Venom who answered.
"It worked because it was the first. The thing is, that such a society could easily work, but anyone who tried to follow in their footsteps would quickly be stifled by the fact that a society like the Carribeans, would act as a sponge for people with useful quirks. Why stick around in a country that despises you, when you could emigrate to a place where your powers are appreciated, and your work is rewarded? This, in turn, would lead to future attempts to create such societies to be lacking in the most useful kind of power sets, which the Carribeans would have in spades."
Black Cat and Mina(Who had mostly been laying back, looking really bored.) looked at Venom, with really, really surprised looks.
-We've seen that happen 64 times across the cosmos. It's a very predictable pattern. Such a society only works, if the emerging power goes on to conquer the entire world, so there are no potential rivals.-
"You're quite a bit smarter than I thought you were… Venom."
"But, yes that was indeed one of the biggest reasons. During the collapse period, and before the rise of Heroes, tons, and tons, and tons of quirk users emigrated to the Caribbeans. Especially teleporters. To this day, the Caribbeans is the biggest concentration of teleporters in the world."
Black Cat sighed.
"What it all meant, was that suddenly, as America lost it's position as the big top dog of the world, the Caribbean, the only country left that didn't accept the hero system, was doing very, very well, and even if it wasn't gonna become the next superpower, it was sharply on it's way to becoming THE power in the Americas. Needless to say, as the USA began to really recover in full, this caused a lot of tensions between the two."
"Then you also get the fact that the Caribbeans had taken land from the USA when it annexed Puerto Rico, at a time when America did not possess the ability to keep order within it's own borders, much less protect it's overseas land. The same went for France and England. Imagine if Taiwan had annexed Kyushu during the same period, and you get the idea of how awkward the situation suddenly became after order began to return to the world."
That… did indeed put it all into perspective.
"Anyway… Tension just rose over the years, and the question of what to do regarding the Caribbean Question was a pretty massive one in American politics. And we haven't even gotten into the mentality of the people at the time. During the period, most Americans had still grown up on stories of how the USA was once THE global superpower of the world. The societal collapse destroyed that, just as it did all the great powers of the age. China, Russia, India, the E.U-" "Wait, the E.U? What was that?"
"The European Union. It was an attempt to unify Europe in the 20th century. By the time the collapse came, it was an unsalvageable mess. Regardless, it was completely destroyed in the collapse, with new, smaller entities, like the Scandinavian Confederation, or the Third French empire taking it's place."
"Anyway, back to the Americas. As the years went by, and the hero System became entrenched across the world, the tension between The USA and the Caribbean Empire rose. There were a lot of reasons for that, and lots of idiots on both sides. On the Caribbean side, the refusal to change their method of doing things made it REALLY unpopular with the rest of the world. On the American side, there were plenty of people who dreamed of returning to the old days, when the USA was a superpower, instead of just a regional power in North America. Or at very least, they didn't want to be the secondary power of the Americas."
"Either way, things were gonna have to change one way or another."
She stopped talking for a moment, then gave a long sigh before she continued.
"I'm not gonna bore you with all the details leading up to it, but what you need to know, is that in 2109, the USA and the Carribeans went to war. It was brutal and bloody, with LOTS of dead soldiers and atrocities against civilians on both sides. But in the end, after a year of fighting the USA won."
Then her look changed to truly angry.
"Then they did something stupid, that is up there, with the dumbest moves in the history of the world. They decided that rather than treating the Caribbean empire like another sovereign state, they instead tried to carve it up into a bunch of smaller, weaker states. Essentially destroying it so it could never rise to challenge the USA ever again."
"That… Sounds pretty bad."
"It was. If it had been the 2050's, maybe it would have worked. But it wasn't. It was 2110, and the empire had LONG since formed an overarching cultural identity. Oh, there were lots of people who wanted more freedom in the empire, most people wanted a republic. But ripping the whole thing apart? There weren't many left by that point who wanted that."
Izuku imagined Japan being ripped to pieces by districts. He could fully understand why they wouldn't like the idea in any way.
"In any case… What followed was a very, very bad period for everyone involved. Americans or Caribbeans. The thing was… The Caribbean imperial army hadn't managed to defeat the might of the resurgent USA in the field, or on the sea. But what It had done was survive. And it would make life absolute hell for the occupying American troops, as well as Kill any attempt for them to establish new, smaller republics."
"So… That's the origin of the Caribbean league? But… They succeeded, didn't they? Like… The Caribbean is a united country today. Even I know that much."
"Yes and no. That was indeed the start of the Caribbean League. In those days though, they called themselves the Caribbean Independence League, and their beef was with the United States, not anyone else."
"In any case, what followed was decades, and decades of a massive, brutal, and destructive guerrilla war, as the C.I.L made full use of their quirk users to combat the occupiers. Imagine trying to kill an organization that has hundreds of teleporters. To corner a group that can retreat their entire operation the literal moment you manage to make contact with their base."
"The reality of the matter is that it's pretty much impossible, short of just dropping nukes. The C.I.L lost thousands and thousands of its members over the years, but because they weren't really bound by logistics the way the Americans were, they could lose base, after base, after base, and just make and set up shop somewhere else. They didn't have to worry about food, about ammo, about shelter, about transportation, as quirks provided all of that for them and then some."
"America killed tens of thousands of Caribbeans during the invasion, and they would kill many, many more during the occupation. And when all was said and done, when they finally retreated from the islands 34 years ago, they had lost a grand total of 673 000 men."
"But I'm getting ahead of myself. The war between the C.I.L and the Americans lasted for decades, upon decades, and during the fighting, the infrastructure of the islands was destroyed by both sides. It was a very bad time to be a common Caribbean. Caught between the occupying American Army, and the C.I.L, it was a very hard period and place to live."
"The war just raged on and on, to such a degree that back when I was a kid, pretty much everyone had given up hope for real peace between the two. The Americans could not accept anything short of a full embrace of a hero system on the part of the Caribbeans, and the C.I.L refused to compromise on the vision of Empress Maria. It was a war that would last forever… Until, suddenly, it ended."
Her look turned hard, and venomous.
"38 years ago, the command of the C.I.L fell to one Lincoln Thompson. He had many names. In America, we just called him Tombstone. Young, charismatic, and with a massively powerful quirk, he quickly established himself as one of the most feared men of the Caribbeans."
"And that's him? The big man?"
"Yes… the great "Hero" of the Caribbean. He was one of the many descendants of Maria, but he was also the one who betrayed her vision of a Quirk-fueled empire. In the end, he was the one who finally did bring peace to the region, and to achieve that, he agreed to implement the pro hero system in the nation, as he took his place as the first recognized emperor of the Caribbean in over half a century."
Black Cat just let the words hang in the air for a moment, before she continued bitterly.
"So, that was that right? Happy ending for all. The C.I.L disband, and is integrated as pro heroes, the Americans FINALLY gets to pull out after half a century of fighting, and the Caribbean is finally reunited under one, independent banner once more!"
"Oh, except for the fact the nation is bankrupt, they need to rebuild everything, and as per the treaty they signed with the Americans, they aren't allowed to use quirks to build an economy directly. So… What to do?"
Izuku tilted his head.
"So… The big man… Lincoln Thompson… Is the emperor of the Caribbean? Why… Why is he involved with a league of supervillains?"
"Well Izuku, here's the gist. There are two versions of what the Caribbean League actually is. One that is the official stance of the Empire, and the other than is the reality of the matter."
"The official stance is that the Caribbean League is composed of former C.I.L soldiers, who weren't interested in the peace that tombstone built, and are currently officially wanted in the Caribbean."
She snorted.
"The reality of THAT is that Lincoln killed every single cell that wasn't on board with his peace deal."
-Sounds like quite the charming fellow, this Tombstone. A real politician.-
"As for the reality of what the Caribbean League actually is… They are Mercenaries. They are a mixture of the WORST of the old C.I.L forces, and some new criminal muscle from the rest of the Americas. All the guys that Tombstone couldn't just easily transfer to becoming Heroes, went straight to this group. The racists, the mass murderers, anyone who couldn't easily be transformed into an upstanding protector of law and order, either due to personality or reputation."
"The Caribbean League is a group that he hires out on the Black Market. If you have the cash, whether you're a criminal, a head of state, or just someone very, very rich in need of… Unsavory muscle, you could, in theory, go to the Caribbean, and if you know where to ask, hire them for a ludicrous fee."
Izuku went cold.
For several reasons.
"And… the U.S.A just… Let's that happen?"
Izuku… Had always had a rather positive image of the land that was the origin of heroism. That opinion had been somewhat dampened as he heard about the conflict between them and the Caribbean.
But this… This was… Something else.
Black looked at Izuku with a look of surprising sympathy. Like she understood exactly how he felt.
"Yeah… They do."
She sighed.
"The unfortunate fact of the matter is that the USA really doesn't care much about the world outside it's shores anymore, except a few specific allies. What they care far, far more about, is to avoid another conflict with the Caribbean. Since the Caribbean became free, there hasn't been any more mass bombings of American soil, no more assassinations of American presidents, no more massive deflation with mass conjured gold. And the White House very much wants to keep it that way."
"And then of course there is the fact that they benefit from the Caribbean League. Because once a criminal jumps across the pond from America to the Caribbean? He either comes home in a body bag or not at all. The Caribbean league doesn't operate in the USA. EVER."
"Just to take one example, remember the Rhino? The guy you kiddos fought back during the invasion? Well, back in America, he made a rather terrifying name for himself through his rather nasty tendency to topple skyscrapers and flattening the heroes that challenged him. Then, he and his buddy Shocker skipped across the pond and joined the league, and suddenly Rhino is never gonna be a problem for the USA ever again."
"But…"
It just… Just, LETTING killers like the Rhino run loose so long as he wasn't a problem for YOU was… It was WRONG.
"It's just so, SO WRONG…"
"I completely agree." Black Cat said. "Unfortunately, state-sponsored terrorism isn't anything new. You should read up on the cold war sometime. And unless Tombstone is dumb enough to start sending the League to countries with Nukes, I doubt it will change much in the near future."
"So… It really all was just about money after all… That's… Kinda disappointing."
Venom really did sound disappointing. Black Cat, however, snorted.
"What, their role in the invasion? Yeah… No. I don't know what they wanted there, maybe they were just doing All For One a favor, or maybe they had some larger plan. But the Caribbean League doesn't work for the kinda cash that they supposedly took for the job. When I say they're criminals for hire, they take jobs that pay in the hundreds of millions, not the kind of cash I could shell out if I had to."
Izuku still felt numb. But… There was one question more to ask.
"So… They ARE connected to All For One then?"
"What, the Lincoln Family? Yeah, they go WAY back, all the way to Maria. Though regarding that, we don't really know the League of Villains plans either."
XXXXX
Sooo…. This chapter. I generally try to avoid giving flat out commentary, but since i am rather sure this will be the most divisive chapter of this story, either because my readers are really disappointed or confused with this backstory, or because in hindsight, i REALLY should have spaced this info out more, rather than revealing their entire background in one, single monologue.
When I first planned this story, I had this idea of having Izuku, Mina and Felicia kinda having a long, overarching commentary on it all, but that didn't really end up working when I reached the point to put it to paper. so, I kinda feel it's too crammed together.
Unfortunately, I've reached the point where i don't really have anymore scenes to add with the Carribean league, before we reach a certain point in the story, where i kinda really need you guys to know their background to really understand their motivations :P That's on me i guess.
In any case, I also wanted to give some insight into how I reached this idea for how to do the sinister six and the gangsters of spiderman in this story. When I first began thinking about this story and laying out how I was planning for it to go, I had two choices regarding the sinister six and Tombstone. Either I had to introduce them as one group, or I had to drop them. the simple fact was that i didn't have enough arcs to introduce them one after another like the original lee ditko run,or the spectacular spider-man did.
I refused to Introduce them as just henchmen to the league, because as one reviewer aptly put it, in these kinda stories, it's so easy for one side of the crossovers villains to play second fiddle to whoever the main setting's villains are, and man, he is right. That is such an easy trap to fall into.
and make no mistake, the Carribean League is NOT going to be playing second fiddle to the league in this story. They are their own faction, with very different goals and motivations. Their actions are also going to majorly pull this story off the rails in many ways, but i'm not gonna spoil how here. for that, you'll have to read the story itself.
So, that meant I had to be more creative in how I added them. in the end, i decided to draw upon an aspect of this series that isn't really touched much upon, namely that the rise of quirks lead to a global, societal collapse, ala the bronze age collapse. That gave me a lot of room to work with, because a global collapse would logically lead to the collapse of entire nations, and all the great powers of the world going down a peg. And from those ashes, new powers always spring.
So, that was the starting point. Then there was Destro. Destro is a REALLY interesting character within the context of MHA, but unfortunately, the entire faction based on his motivations was UTTERLY Wasted in the actual manga.
So I asked the question… Can I do this concept better?
In the end, i decided i probably could, so i worked the idea over, until i felt satisfied that they would fit in with the MHA universe.
So, that is the background of why I decided to go with this choice for the Sinister Six. my attempt at writing a group descended from an earlier challenge to the Hero system, whose agenda is against the heroes, but not exactly on the same page as Shigaraki.
Also, this probably goes without saying, but there will be plenty of spider-man villains who have absolutely nothing to do with this group.
In any case, I DO hope most of you will like the backstory for this group, though not as well explained as I had hoped it would be told.