Chapter 1: Trying Something Different

Saitama had a massive problem. No, it wasn't missing a supermarket sale (there wasn't one until next Saturday). No, it wasn't the sassy lost child that constantly nagged his ear off and turned Genos into modern art (again). No, it wasn't the skyrocketing price of his rent and his comparatively small hero salary (ok, those ARE problems, but they're not the biggest ones). He could solve all of these extra inconveniences rather easily, in fact, but there was one matter that he couldn't find a solution for.

His strength.

Now, one might think that this means that Saitama wasn't confident in himself and how strong he was, but that person would be wrong. You see, Saitama has the exact opposite problem of being weak. He's strong. Comically, impossibly, unfairly strong. His strength is such that no one in the known universe can oppose him, and he either wins every fight he's in with next to no effort on his part, or his opponents surrender without a fight.

This unmatched strength has caused his ability to feel real emotions to wane. Nowadays, fights don't excite him like they used to. He doesn't feel fear. He doesn't feel adrenaline. He doesn't even feel elation when he inevitably wins. There's just nothing there.

Even now, while facing down an invading octopus alien who's clearly stronger than most monsters he's faced, he's not taking any damage from this "black hole" attack the creature has used on him. Weren't black holes supposed to be inescapable, cosmic forces of nature?

Not against him, apparently.

Yes, Saitama had a massive problem, but maybe… there's a way out?

-Boros' Ship, Control Room-

"Not even a scratch on me." Saitama was already bored of this. This alien wasn't any different from all the rest of the monsters he'd faced and killed so easily. It was more powerful than a lot of the run-of-the-mill variety he had slaughtered, but it still couldn't measure up to him. It's attacks didn't hurt, and it looked like it couldn't take a hit (nothing could if he was the one throwing the punch, admittedly). He sat there, thinking back on every encounter he had had with different monsters.

"There HAS to be something that could be fun to do during times like these." Truth be told, Saitama had gotten sick of the never-ending miasma of boredom constantly hanging over his head. Try as he might, he couldn't hold himself back enough to not instantly vaporize whatever his fists came into contact with. He couldn't find a single monster that could take his blows, nor a monster that could damage anything other than his costume (and his ego if the topic was his bald head).

This problem was made worse by the fact that monsters liked to drone on and on about things that weren't worth his time. Dictatorial monologues, SuPrEmE BeInGs, he had heard it all.

"Do you feel the pressure yet, ape!? The agonizing sensation of having your body torn apart by powers beyond your comprehension!?"

Even this alien octopus (whom he could somehow understand) was getting in on the monologue shtick.

"Um, not really?" Saitama answered truthfully. He'd probably better end this before this guy does something crazy and hurts his own crew members.

"Haha, pretend as you might, I can see right through your primitive farce! Your face betrays no pain, but your mind screams in agony!"

Great, another self-assured villain. Saitama made to shut him down before he could continue on with his diatribe.

"But I'm not preten…ding." Just then, a light bulb appeared over Saitama's head (a rather hilarious image, if you asked a certain green-haired brat). All this time, he's just been doing the same thing, hoping something would change. Wasn't that the definition of insanity? Maybe… maybe he should try something different?

Maybe he should pretend.

It's not like anything else had worked. It was a worth a shot, if only for a few short-lived shits and giggles. He trained his face, trying to remember how struggling protagonists looked and spoke in all those superhero movies he used to watch as a kid. It was hard to replicate all of it: the gnashing of the teeth, the desperation, the wobbly composure. Eventually, he was able to get his normally blank face to morph into something that he thought resembled someone in pain. Taking a quick glance at the reflective interior of the place he was in, he was silently satisfied with his fake expression.

Now came the hard part.

"Hmph. At last, your feeble mask has cracked, human. The pain etched on your face and into your bones is but a fraction of the harm that is to befall you here today. I tried to warn you, but your bullheadedness has led you to your demise."

It was REALLY tough sitting through villain monologues, and to top it off, he had to speak back to keep up the ruse. He hastened his breathing pattern manually, hunched over, and flexed his muscles like he was resisting the pressure being put on him.

"I guess you're right… my bullheadedness has got me in a tough situation." Saitama rose up just a tidbit. Not too much to show how unaffected he was, but not so little as to have this alien start getting even more cocky. "But… you wrecked a lot of people's homes. You wrecked MY home."

He stood up a bit more.

"And I'll be damned… before I let some alien invader… come and trample…"

He stood up to his full height, feigning difficulty in doing so.

"On MY PEOPLE!" He shouted, surprised he could even still produce an outburst like that. The alien (Gargle-shop, if his memory served correctly) looked taken aback by this. The octopus snarled, sending out waves of his telekinetic power and raising rubble into the air. The atmosphere inside the control room became turbulent, and before long, the air started to rotate.

"You dare oppose me, human! Take this! Telekinetic shower of rubble!" The air coalesced into a psychic twister, flinging the bits of rubble all around the room and at Saitama. Saitama, to his credit, had the presence of mind to act alarmed. He evaded each scrap, timing each evasion just right to make it look like he was barely dodging.

A thought popped into his head while dodging. Superheroes always had some last-ditch effort that resulted in a moment of triumph, right? Maybe he should give that a shot as well? Anything's worth a try at this point, he supposed. With that, he began brainstorming on how to make it look cool when he defeated this monster. He could just punch him, or even throw the rubble back at him, but that wouldn't be very "heroic". He needed something more, how do you say, grandiose?

He brainstormed and brainstormed until it hit him.

"Ah ha!" He had his move. Saitama dodged another onslaught of rubble, and then began running around in a circle. He had seen a lot of the fast superheroes do this. They'd run around in a circle, disturbing the air currents and creating a vacuum that spawned a mini tornado. He could counter this psychic whirlwind with a twister of his own. He picked up speed, and eventually, the twister came to life. He got into the center of it and spun himself around violently to keep the momentum going.

The two twisters clashed, grinded, and whirred against each other, with Saitama's eventually starting to overcome the alien's. Gargle-shop's tornado eventually started to destabilize and lose it's rotation, shocking him. He began outputting every single drop of psionic ability he possessed, but still, he could not overcome the opposing force of the intruder. Eventually, a hole opened up through his twister, and into his vision came his opponent. The alien panicked, not knowing what to do.

Saitama leapt through the air, his fist at the ready. He tried to think up a cool one-liner to say before his punch landed, but he couldn't quite decide on what he wanted to say in that instance. He had already done the "you trampled on my home" bit, he needed something fresh. He thought as fast as his mind would allow, and then just decided to bellow out what he'd seen on one of those home movies years ago (superhero movies were doing a lot of the heavy lifting in this endeavor). He descended upon the octopus, shouting out his last rights.

"I'll see you in hell."

Then, Gargle-shop knew no more.

"…"

Saitama landed, not knowing what to say or how to act after the fact. His punch had (predictably) vaporized the freaky alien octopus thing, but that wasn't the main observation. What was this… sensation he was feeling? It was ticklish and seemed to compel him to laugh. Was this joy? Relief? Satisfaction? It had been so long since he had truly felt any of those, so he wasn't sure.

… No, wait. He knew what this was. Smiling ever so slightly, he just remembered. How could he forget? He had felt it when he first started out as a hero and would end up doing embarrassing things or being a doofus.

Amusement.

This whole situation was… funny to him. Some caped doofus one-shotting an alien who could produce force equivalent to a black hole? Ridiculous! He chuckled a bit, thinking back on all the seemingly intimidating monsters he had disposed of with a blank look on his face. Each time, he found himself cracking up at his own antics, until he was full-on laughing at himself and the ridiculousness of his life. It was like he was the main character of some action-packed parody anime or something. This "acting" gig helped him realize that.

The crew that remained alive were staring at him fearfully. The guy had just murdered one of their superiors and was now cackling like a madman. If Geryuganshoop couldn't take him down, what chance did they have!? Several of them made to leave for the emergency exits, hoping that they'd be spared.

"So, uh, where's your boss?"

Only to come face to face with the intruder himself. Saitama had stopped laughing and noticed that the crew members were leaving. That was fine, he wasn't here to indiscriminately kill every soul on board, he just needed to take down the big baddies. Using his speed, he sped in front of them and asked the question he needed answered. He still wasn't too familiar with this ship, so some directions would be nice.

After getting them, he sped out of the control room in the direction of the throne room. Pretending to be some sort of main character wasn't bad at all. Maybe he'd keep this up? He'd at least do it from time to time, since it was so unexplainably funny for some reason (any source of laughs he could get in his life, he would take). He got to the doors, leapt, and bust through them. The guy seated on the throne looked pretty badass, but he wasn't going to say that out loud. He stood up straight and proceeded to talk.

"Are you these guys' boss?"

-Bottom of the Ship-

The "Tornado of Terror", shorthand name "Tatsumaki", was currently bombarding the gigantic alien ship above her with it's own ammunition.

"Hmph! Just my luck! I roll out of bed and suddenly, aliens attack! Why couldn't it have just been NORMAL monsters!? Not only that, I have to cover for the rest of these weaklings!" She looked down at the other S-class heroes in disdain. They were supposed to be the best of the best, but none of them compared to her (she was rank 2 for a reason). Not all of them were present, but she despised most of them with equal disdain.

The shitty cyborg.

A walking tank-top fetish.

A Prisoner/Magical Girl who's not a girl.

A delinquent with a metal bat.

A speedy pretty-boy.

A literal dog.

A fatass.

And the list goes on. The only heroes she held any respect for, truthfully, were King (on account of his power and no-nonsense attitude), Silver Fang (he's at least respectful), and the only hero that outranks her (and her own personal hero, not that anyone needed to know that) Blast. One could probably also throw her younger sister in there, but that's a story for another time.

Right now though, Tatsumaki was a bit on edge. She had sensed several signatures aboard the ship, and many of them just… vanished. One in particular, another esper like herself by the feel of it, just vanished into thin air a few seconds ago. Of course, any hero who had managed to board the ship would kill as many monsters as they needed to bring it down. There was one big problem though.

No one should've been able to do so.

The only heroes on the scene were the S-class, and even then, not all of them had shown up. The rest of the S class were on the ground fighting some monster with multiple heads and regeneration (she had confirmed this by the brief glance earlier). So, who was this mystery hero that had secretly boarded the ship? No one could slip past her latent psychic abilities. If she wanted to, she could probably even read minds. The only people who could resist her were those with strong wills, or power that matched or exceeded her own (which was something she didn't think was possible).

"Who could it have been?" She slipped into her mind while redirecting the giant bullet shells. Was there anybody else at the meeting? Silver Fang, Atomic Samurai, Child Emperor, Darkshine, Demon Cyborg…

Just then, an image popped into her mind.

"What's with this sassy, lost child?"

There's no way…but he wasn't here. He could've just ran off, she tried to rationalize, but then who else could've gotten on the ship? He wasn't skilled enough to get by her, but then again… she completely ignored him! That's it, he didn't slip by her, he was just beneath her notice!

But then… that would mean he was doing a lot of damage to this alien ship AND it's occupants. There was just NO WAY that B-class nobody was even able to get onboard without getting himself killed. Tatsumaki found herself getting more and more irritated, unable to answer her own questions and going in circles.

"Grr, that's it! I'm getting on that ship and finding out who it is!" She needed to, for her own sanity, and if it was indeed Caped Baldy…

She'd twist him into a pretzel.