The night air stings the lungs of Chizome Akaguro as he creeps along the rooftop. Glancing out the corner of his eye, he sees the silhouette of Spinner, dressed up as him, several rooftops away. Ahead of him, he cannot see his target, but knows she is there, waiting for him.
In the lee of the billboard across the building gap, hidden by the shadows cast from the lights advertising "Fatgum brand wagashi" ahead, the faint glint of light off a metallic shape gives the hero killer his final trajectory. Glancing up at the billboard as he prepares to leap, he grumbles to himself, "Product endorsement is not what being a hero is about."
"Yeah, but those things are darn tasty," a voice above him calls out.
Taken by surprise, the villain dives to the left, just as a small form slams into the ground where he'd been standing.
From the kicked up dust emerges the figure steps forth. The tiny figure cracks her knuckles as tall ears sweep forward in eager anticipation.
"Mirko," the hero killer spits out. "Another fake. Another one to be purged."
Movement under the billboard on top of the next building makes him jump backwards again. Mentally calculating out the distance, he realizes the danger he's in.
"A trap within a trap? How fitting for a pair of fakes," he cries out, drawing his swords. "Don't think I will go down that easily."
In a blur, he charges, not for the foe immediately in front of him, but towards the sniper on the next roof. Taking the gap with a leap, he rolls up to the woman there, slashing his swords with a practiced motion.
The figure pulls her arm up to protect her, but the blades slice through them easily… only to come away covered in gray sludge.
As the figure of Lady Nagant dissolves into putty, the half second of hesitation was enough. Stain feels the impact before the rifle crack hits his eardrums. Looking down, the blue and pink colored hair has wrapped itself around a dart, now sticking out of his chest.
Stepping forward, ignoring the sludge covered ground, he grunts out, "Fakes. You are all fakes," before collapsing, his eyes filling with the oversized grin of the BMI Hero above him staring out from the billboard into the cold, night sky.
As consciousness returns, Chizome hears the voices first.
"You sure taking him was the right move," the voice of Lady Nagant echoes. "Could be asking for trouble."
A new voice, one deeper and older, assures her. "You have enough blood on your hands, my dear. Justified or not, let me handle him."
"I… appreciate that, Doctor," she says with a sigh, as if the weight of the world were lifted from her shoulders.
Opening his eyes, Chizome finds himself staring at the open space of some kind of storage room or cell. Around him, the otherwise empty space is closed off, a single overhead bulb the only source of light. Testing, he finds his limbs restrained, some kind of leather straps.
"Foolish," the once vigilante says to himself, beginning to stretch the straps out using his body strength.
Some echoing footsteps, followed by a clang, and Chizome guesses that someone has left the next room. The groan of his own door draws his eyes forward.
In the doorway, a short and dumpy man stands there, looking over the villain behind round glasses. "Good, the sedative wore off just in time."
"I assume you're the Doctor, then?"
Teeth appear underneath the man's thick mustache as he flips open a folder and begins to browse the material within. "I am indeed, and you are Chizome Akaguro, or would you prefer I call you Stendhal? Stain perhaps?"
Stain just stares, saying nothing.
"I suppose it does not matter. Soon enough, you will be whatever I want you to be," the Doctor pipes up, waving a hand as he steps out of the room.
A large figure enters, stepping behind the tilted table the villain is strapped to, and begins to roll it forward. Falling in next to the Doctor, the three figures walk through a set of double doors and enter a vast warehouse.
"Welcome to my laboratory," the Doctor says, gesturing to the room around them.
All around Chizome, large glass cylinders are lined up, each holding a humanoid figure within. The nearest one is clear enough to see, their exposed brain on display for the world.
"What is this?" Stain demands.
The Doctor smiles. "These are my great experiments. In studying the Instant Villains, Bombers, Next-Level Villains and later the Anonymous, I managed to isolate the key to quirk duplication, replication, and application. I call them, Nomu."
"They don't look so impressive to me," Chizome admits.
When the Doctor stops to face the villain, the silent giant acting as an orderly does as well, turning the table in order to face the short man.
"Each one is a biological miracle. Multiple quirks, artificial quirks, copied quirks, with the ability to access each of them, these are the future of the human race," the Doctor explains.
Stain scoffs. "Just more fakes. The world will be purged…"
"Yes, yes. Purged of all fakes. I am well aware of your intentions, Mr. Akaguro. That is why I began feeding you targets all those years ago," the short man explains.
Wary, the villain falls silent, as the trio begin moving again.
"Your methods worked quite well for my needs, I will admit. However, you were still… a rogue agent, as it were. This is all for the best, in the end," the Doctor explains.
Considering the words a moment, Chizome finally says, "So, what? You torture me until I'm your puppet?"
"You? Oh no. You are a lost cause. Your replacement, however, he will be just what we need," the man says as they stop in front of another glass cylinder. "Allow me to introduce you to, well, you have met before, haven't you?"
Stain's eyes go wide as he sees the figure within. Floating there, a woman, her face serene even as the fluid bubbles around her, purple hair floating freely in the tank.
The hero killer identifies her, "Sway."
"I believe all we need at this point is the mental template, and the skills you've accumulated over years of illicit activity will be put to better use, with a guiding hand in control." The manic grin on the Doctor's face tells the villain that whatever is planned, it is not going to be good for him.
Chizome snarls in anger, "I killed her myself! How can you…"
"Oh come now. Look around you. Over there, Snatch, Slugger, Master Blaster, all of your kills, all mine now. After all, what happens to the dead is of little concern," the short man explains.
Stain spits out, "So, that's your plan, to kill me and turn me into one of these… puppets?"
"Nothing so mundane," the Doctor says. "You just need to have certain… parts of your mind altered. A minor task, now that Mrs Shinsou has been… improved."
Stepping away from the table, the Doctor begins to mess with the control panel attached to the tube.
His captor's attention elsewhere, Chizome pulls a hand free from the strap, and begins to slowly undo his restraints. Looking back at the orderly, the man, his face covered by a mask and wearing a cap, is unresponsive, his eyes unfocused and staring off into the distance.
Silently moving up behind the Doctor, Stain glowers, anger oozing from every pore.
Only a faint whisper of a breeze alerted the Doctor to the strike, just as Stain's foot contacts the back of the fat man's head.
Instead of a body collapsing, however, gray goop is sprayed over the front of the cylinder.
"Another copy," Stain mutters, watching the rest of the body collapse into the clay-like substance.
"Of course it was a copy," the voice of the Doctor echoes throughout the room. "Do you honestly think I would risk myself like that?"
Stain looks around, trying to find any sign of where the little man is hiding. "Face me you coward."
"Cowardice is not a crime," the Doctor explains.
Irritated at the answer, the villain scoffs, then starts down the row of tubes. Glancing between them in the hopes of finding an exit, or to find the inevitable ambush, Stain keeps moving.
When he spots a familiar head of yellow hair, his progress stops.
Stepping between two tubes into the next row, he slowly marches up to a cylinder, and studies the figure within.
"I see you have found him," the voice of the Doctor echoes throughout the room. "Not as impressive as one might suspect."
"How dare you," Stain snarls with abject rage. "He was a true hero!"
"He was a fraud," the retort comes. "A man pursuing a petty vendetta, using borrowed power, nothing more. Everything else was just a fairy tale, told to make people feel better."
"Lies!" The denial pierces the room.
The Doctor's laugh is poison through the chamber. "Nothing but the truth."
"So, you're turning him into one of these… Nomu?"
"Nothing so droll," the voice echoes. "A quirkless senior citizen is not a good foundation to work from. I was hoping to reclaim the Master's property from him, but he had passed it on already. No matter."
Stain looks around the room. "So, what good is he then?"
"Why, he's an ideal bait," the Doctor says, no longer using the broadcast.
Spinning around, Stain sees the fat man standing behind him, flat eyes staring out round glasses. After a moment of hesitation, the villain rushes, fist up and ready to strike.
Just as the knuckles are about to hit cheek, Chizome finds himself frozen in place, unable to strike.
"Now, there is no need for that. Not that you can strike me now," the Doctor explains, as the animated corpse of Sway steps out from behind a nearby cylinder. "Indeed, by this time next week, you will be exactly the hero I need."
Looking over the face of the villain, the man makes a decision. "Repairing your face will not be too difficult either. Don't want to scare the children, after all. Yes, I think you will do nicely, Chizome, Akaguro."
The dead eyes of Sway's animated corpse, now called a Nomu, bore through Stain as the former vigilante remains frozen in place, the impotent fury burning behind those eyes.
"I'd figured you would stop here. I was surprised you didn't try and break his body free. Be glad you didn't. It would have destroyed it, and that would have hurt you, wouldn't it? Such foolish Hero worship," the Doctor mutters as he turns and walks away. "I'll be back after my lunch to check your progress… Stendhal."
Puffing on his last cigarette of the night, Giran watches the upload progress reach 100%.
"There we go, all uploaded and ready," he tells the boy next to him.
Spinner nods, saying, "They may have silenced him, but the Creed of Stain will endure. Now, I must fulfill his wishes."
"Yeah, sure buddy. Just don't get hurt out there, okay kid?" The broker smiles slightly.
The lizard-faced teenager silently turns and walks out of the room, leaving Giran alone with his laptop. Closing the cover, the middle aged villain leans back in his chair and looks out the window to the hint of dawn creeping along the horizon.
Pouring himself a shot from the bottle of whiskey nearby, he raises it to the oncoming sun, and says, "Here's to a new day."