AN: Waiting for my beta to approve chapter 22, in the meantime I started writing.
Chapter 23:
After the battle was done, the police and the rest of the heroes arrived. By that time, we regrouped with Nighteye, Mirio, Aizawa and Kimiko, who captured Chronostasis, since he was our best source of information now concerning the Hassaikai's affairs with other villain groups.
With the battle done, the younger heroes were all sent home, only the pros remaining to supervise the further investigation. Not all of them though, Fat Gum left with Kirishima, both of them needing further medical attention. They weren't the only ones, Tamaki and Mirio went to the hospital too. Since neither me, nor Kimiko had any major injuries, we went back to Corrosive's base. Corrosive came too, his skin was burned by his acid so the others didn't let him stay and they didn't accept the excuse he gave them: "This?! This is nothing! I burned myself far more a couple times before, I can't even feel these little stings!".
When we got back, Fumiko looked at him and said:
"Burns again?! Do you know how expensive that skin-repairing cream is?! I know we've got money, but you could just go to the hospital and have the hero health insurance cover it." Eri was sitting next to her, with our cat in her lap (I accepted that I wasn't going to get it back any time soon). It was silently purring in its sleep.
"Eri! We have great news!" announced Corrosive. She looked at us with eyes filled with uncertainty. Corrosive wasn't swayed by it however. "We have finally delivered justice to Chisaki!" Her next sentence was the first time I heard her speak.
"Does this mean that he's . . . dead?" the question was said in a nervous tone, and with a tiny bit of anticipation.
"He is." confirmed Corrosive. At that time I did not realize the significance, but the corners of Eri's mouth turned slightly upwards, forming a barely visible smile on her face.
I was in no mood for classes that day, a feeling echoed by Kimiko, and after a bit of prodding Corrosive agreed to let us stay for 'hero work studies', which he used as an excuse to teach us 'strategy' with The Settlers of Catan Redux 3 Complete Edition+. It actually wasn't half bad, we teamed up with Kimiko economically and used it to obliterate Corrosive, who alone couldn't do anything against us, Fumiko didn't help him at all, since she was still reading a book to Eri. After she was done with the chapter she was reading, she and Eri joined in as spectators, both of them commenting on the game, the former more than the latter, though by the time we finished the fifth round even Eri began to become more active (which meant that instead of saying something every thirty minutes, she would say something every twenty minutes). Corrosive grumbled that he had a lot of paperwork to do now and we were wasting his time, but it was just because he was a sore loser, I saw how much he enjoyed the game.
In the evening I returned to UA, and my classmates greeted me with a bunch of congratulations. They also asked about the Kirishima, Ochaco and Tsu, to which I told them that they had to go to the hospital since none of them had my healing capabilities. Apparently, only tales of the battle were featured in the news, with nothing being told about the aftermath. From some comments I also managed to gather that Chisaki's fate wasn't public either, everyone else who wasn't there only knew that 'he got what he deserved'.
The next school day went by without them, and after the classes I left for Corrosive's headquarters. Once again I arrived after Kimiko, and by now I was sure that Fumiko was intentionally teleporting her to the base first.
"Today I planned some real hero work for you two." he started "Yesterday the interrogation of Chronostasis started, and we managed to get more information about the other villain groups that the Hassaikai worked together with. Since they aren't simple criminals but villains, the pro heroes who participated were asked if they could check them out. I jumped at the opportunity and nicked one of them, since it is a great exercise for you!"
"So, we have to stop a small villain group?"
"That is a part of it, yes, but we also need to uncover if they have more of Trigger or perhaps an incomplete quirk-destroying bullet, so you can't just go in and murder them. Small thugs like them don't even deserve it most of the time. For this operation, I won't help you in any other way other than providing the information I received, you'll be alone on this one." This came out of nowhere. We glanced at each other with Kimiko, both of us already formulating a plan. I hoped the two that we created were compatible in the end, both of us could be terribly stubborn about which plan was the better one.
"You said you had information, right?"
"I compiled it into two folders, but since you're new I'll do a briefing:
Their name is Team Rotten Melon, their headquarters are near the port, where they are receiving the illegal shipments of drugs from China from a Chinese gang, who transport it using one of their own who has some form of teleportation quirk. The gang itself has four known members, details about their quirks are included in the folder. Your job is to catch them all at once when they receive the newest shipment, which happens to be tonight." He was done with his speech, I wasn't done with any plan however, so I turned to Kimiko.
"Let's get into our hero clothes before we discuss the plan."
"Okay."
Two minutes later we met once again in the main room.
"We should discuss the plan on the way to the warehouse." I started.
"Why are you so sure that its a warehouse?"
"Aren't villains supposed to like those places?"
"Just the stupid ones!" came from Corrosive, who sat on the other side of the room.
"Are these stupid villains?!" I shouted back.
"We know about them so of course they are!"
"See?" I gestured in the direction of Corrosive "He confirmed it."
"Fine, let's just go."
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.
.
"We aren't going to be teleported, are we?" sighed Kimiko.
"Nope. As I said, its just the two of you."
"Well, at least you thought us that transportation method. Come on, Doppo." I followed her out of the building, when she created a crow. It was small, really tiny in my eyes:
"How far is that city again?"
"3 hours. Come on, get in the crow."
"You see how small that is? What about my claustrophobia?"
"You don't have claustrophobia."
"Can't you just create a bigger crow?"
"Don't you remember what happened last time I tried to modify them?"
"It wasn't that bad." My voice didn't convince her, neither did it convince me to be honest.
"Just get in the crow." I sighed dramatically to show my acceptance over my impending suffering, and completely let myself go, becoming a puddle.
As the crow drank me, the last vestiges of sunlight were seen before I was fully swallowed, locked in the dark stomach of the bird with nothing but the acid to keep me company.
The next three hours were boring, the extreme tediousness of the situation not being helped by the stomach acid of the bird. It didn't hurt me, but it was annoying, like a constant itch that just won't stop, especially since I had no hands to scratch myself.
After three hours that felt more like three months, I felt the crow dissolve around me, and I fell down on the ground. I immediately rebuilt myself with my newly gained appreciation of being a human and living in a world full of interesting stuff not just endless darkness.
"We're here." said Kimiko.
"On top of the warehouse?"
"No, its that building down there." We were on top of a building, and as I went to the edge looking down I did see a warehouse perfect for a villain hideout.
"So we just wait now?"
"Yes, we should check the folders again, last time I only looked in it for the location." That suggestion from Kimiko was a good one, so I opened it once again to read the quirks of our enemies.
The first one had a quirk that enabled him to grow a sword from his arm. The theorized effects of Trigger would be the possibility of growing bigger swords and more of them.
The second user had a mutant quirk, one that made him look like a giant bull, its name being 'Minotaur'. The effects of Trigger would be a size increase and strength increase, which was observed with other mutant types who used Trigger before.
The third one could summon skeletons. Human skeletons, animal skeletons, anything you could think of. These summoned ones would be controlled by him, though he can only give them orders and not control them directly. Possible effects of Trigger would be an increase of their numbers, durability and intelligence.
The fourth one had a weak electrokinesis quirk, though he rarely used it for confrontations, he was the brain of the operation. For him, Trigger would probably enable him to supercharge his electricity, turning it into something much more useful, a version closer to Kaminari's quirk, though electric quirks tended to be different so we couldn't be sure.
After looking through the folder a couple of times, I got bored, and decided that I should have a conversation with Kimiko, just to pass the time.
"Hey, Kimiko."
"Yeah?"
"Remember that during operations we should call each other by our hero names?"
"Mhm."
"But we didn't tell each other our hero names."
"You didn't even tell me what team name you decided on."
"See? That's what I'm talking about! We need more communication, starting with names!"
"Okay. You start."
"As a hero, I'm the Terrifying Hero: No Face." she looked at me with an extremely unimpressed face.
"Isn't that way too edgy?"
"No its not! When I transform I have no discernible face besides eyes, plus I think its creepy."
"Creepy for a five year old at best."
"Didn't you watch the Sports Festival this year? My match with Todoroki should show you how scary I can be."
"Nope, I didn't."
.
.
.
"What's your hero name then?"
"Black Angel."
"And how is that not edgy?" It wasn't, not really, but I wanted to say it since she criticized it about my hero name.
"Come on you just want to make your name look better."
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.
.
"You forgot to ask about our duo name."
"What is it then?"
"Abyssal Crows."
"Next time I ask you to name something remind me of our duo name."
"Its not that bad." I mumbled, dejected.
With the conversation ended, only silence remained. It still wasn't dark, I wasn't about to sit for hours and wait for the villains to show up sometime during the night in total silence. Then, the theme that (I hoped) would make any conversation go on for hours and hours entered my mind, starting with the question:
"So, what are teachers in Ketsubetsu like?"
"You really can't just sit in silence, can you?"
"Not when it will go on for hours."
"I suppose attempting to stay quiet would be pointless then.
Ms. Joke is the most outstanding one, not because of her teaching skills but because she always tries to make jokes which are not funny at all, since she relies on her quirk to do the work for her most of the time. When she's bored of her failure as a comedian, she sometimes uses her quirk forcibly.
The literature teacher is extremely passionate about his work, he just loves books, writing and all that, sometimes he even invited writers to talk about their work. He's our homeroom teacher. He also teaches English, and while its interesting when he's talking about books, its just annoying when he's gushing over grammar.
Our heroics teacher is fine, he expects us to do the bare minimum, he thinks its the results that matter not the attitude, which is what heroics tests you on in Ketsubetsu.
Our history teacher is this really older heroine, she must be over fifty, and its comical how tiny she is, like 1,30 meters at most. She has this little notebook of hers, and just reads up the texts from there, its so boring I could sleep.
The mathematics teacher is constantly sleep deprived, since in his free time he is constantly working on one problem or another, to gain more prestige by solving it so he'll get hired next year to a better school, Shiketsu I think. He just rushes through our classes and couldn't care less about our actual performance as long as we don't fail."
"That's the longest I've heard you speaking for."
"Well, talking is a two-way street, please tell me about the oh so prestigious UA high school?" the sarcasm was palpable in her voice, and she probably expected me to defend UA, since for most people its a major source of pride that they're attending such a school.
"Eh, could be better.
Our homeroom teacher is Eraser Head, he looks sleep deprived too, with constant bags under his eyes, though most of the time they are covered by his hair.
Present Mic is the English teacher, and he simply doesn't have an indoor voice. He speaks constantly, and whenever he needs to stay quiet, he will scream in comments. Like if you're reading a text you wrote for class, he will scream in comments about it, or if there's a test going on he'll narrate it like its a sport competition. I'm sure that the principal put English as the first class to make sure that we are properly woken up.
Cementoss teaches literature, and he's fine don't get me wrong, but his unchanging voice is like the sound of the waves coming from the ocean, perfect to fall asleep to.
Midnight is our history teacher, and she has this hobby of moving suggestively, then asking a question to someone who was staring at her instead of paying attention, which I don't understand since to me it looks like she enjoys any attention she gets.
Ectoplasm is the math teacher, he is fine most of the time, except he expects us to care about math. He wants everyone to be good at math, which is sometimes a pain in the ass when he goes on a tirade about a complex problem, like how there's actually 48 regular polyhedra or something like that. its interesting, but when he actually wants you to understand it mathematically its jarring. Thankfully most of the time he realizes that what he said flew over our heads and goes back to the normal curriculum, but still."
"Honestly, could be worse." Kimiko perfectly summarized it.
"You're right about that."
.
.
.
I couldn't just stay in silence like that, so I continued the conversation with the same theme:
"What's your class like?"
"I thought that much conversation was more than what you're introverted soul could handle."
"I'm only introverted when I'm alone and have better things to do."
"Well then, my class is loud and immature and they are constantly complaining about being in the 'loser' school. Most of them only want the fame that comes with being a hero, and I'm not popular because I don't socialize and actually managed to get through the provisional license exam, the only one from the whole class. They'll go nowhere in life and will become pathetic town-level heroes that you see in the street and become grateful that you never became a hero." She said most of this in one breath, and what a rant it was!
"See? Communication helps!"
"Whatever."
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.
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She sighed:
"Tell me about your class then" and in quiet she murmured "And I thought he was a quiet one."
"Well, my classmates were immature, right up until the summer camp where three of my classmates died."
"Shocking."
"Yeah, thankfully it was nobody who was extremely important. I didn't know them very well, so I cared more about the fact that students died rather than the fact that the three of them died specifically.
They take it more seriously now, especially after getting an early start on hero work studies. Most of them are also very heroic, self-sacrifice shining in their smiles. They take being a hero seriously, though their endless optimism still brightens the dorm building."
"Now that we talked about our schools, can we get to the plan?"
"I thought you'd never ask!"
"We have four villains plus the courier. My plan is that we sweep in from above, and capture all of them with Minefield." I started describing my plan.
"And what would I do? We're a team, you know."
"I thought you had an idea for that, didn't want to create one only for it to end up useless since you already had a better one."
"Well, you were right. I managed to get a bit of poison from Fumiko, so if you can restrain them for enough time, my crows can fly there and inject them with it."
"How?"
"Their legs are sharp enough that they can pierce skin, so if I put the poison on them it should work."
"Ok."
We waited for a while, but finally villains began entering the building. Kimiko already set up her poisoned crows, and now that the targets arrived the game was on.
"Go in through that window, then activate Minefield." commanded Kimiko, and I did as she said. I jumped down, through the window, and in the air I let go of my skin. It fell, like the plates of a robot, the inner workings becoming visible. Instead of wires and electronics, under the skin my body nothing but the mesmerizing black color oft the void could be seen.
Before I landed, the last thing I heard from them was:
"Where's that fucker Parasite? He was supposed to be here too!"
I fell into the room, coating the floor with void, ensnaring everyone around me. The crows flew in, landing on the bodies of the captured villains. They gripped them with their talons, the poison entering their bodies. However, instead of just falling unconscious like they were supposed to, the villains all bit really hard onto something in their mouths, and suddenly their bodies started spasming. They managed to somehow inject Trigger into themselves.
The effects were instantaneous, skeletons rising around us, swords growing from the arm of one of them, the bull growing to a height of at least four meters, and the last guy just went on spasming. The skeleton one was already knocked out, though maybe that was intentional since his quirk appeared to work better than ever.
The Minotaur broke out of the void first, Trigger increasing his strength massively. Realizing that Minefield wasn't going to be effective, I switched forms the bear one, since it provided a lot of stability against the Minotaur.
The Mintoaur and the swords guy, came against me, along with the skeletons coming from all around, and I began to hope that Kimiko will make sure to capture someone alive, since I wasn't sure if my opponents would survive the confrontation.
The Minotaur charged into me, and unlike how I assumed, I was pushed into the wall of the warehouse. I wasn't about to let this stand. My control lowered to 80%, a bit of my logical thinking was sacrificed and I was in prime fighting spirit.
With one of my giant paws, I slashed at the bull-man, the other cutting into the sword-user. Swords were put in me, yet I did not feel a thing. They sank into my body, the blades being useless against me. The punches on the other hand, were much more noticeable, my attention being kept at the front by the Mintoaur. The Trigger's effects weren't fading, this wasn't the cheap Japanese knock-off, this was the real Chinese good stuff. It let them retain more of their thinking while increasing their quirks for longer.
- POV change -
The villains somehow managed to inject Trigger, so the poison idea went out the window. The dose was extremely precise, since if it was too little it would be ineffective, if it was too much it would cause permanent brain damage (or at least that's what Fumiko said to her). The Trigger increased not just the user's quirk, but their body as well, so that poison wasn't going to knock them out any time soon. Well, except for the skeleton-guy, but it appeared that he would have dropped unconscious anyways as part of the plan, since his quirk activated all the same, at least twenty skeletons being summoned.
Thankfully, they ganged up on Doppo on the other side of the room, so she was free to deal with the remaining two villains, the courier and the electric-guy. She knew that she should be probably extra careful to capture them alive, since Doppo wasn't particularly careful about where he cut into his opponents, like the brute he was.
The electric guy was vibrating, while the courier was already trying to escape. She wasn't about to let that happen, as she jumped right on top of him, knocking the Chinese villain down to the ground. Before she could knock him out however, her instincts went off and she jumped sideways, barely dodging an attack from the electric villain, who let out a giant shock at the place she was barely a second ago.
It appeared that Trigger enabled him to generate extremely powerful shocks at short distances. Better not get close then. The courier scrambled up, the effects of Trigger barely visible on his body. It was there though, in his rapid breathing, the sweat pouring down on him, his eyes darting from side to side, looking for an escape.
The electric-villain appeared a bit crazed, it was a common problem with overloading electric quirks, they decreased the mental functions of the user. He appeared to still retain knowledge about his surroundings, along with his purpose, but he was definitely not the 'strategic mastermind' of the group that he usually was. She still had a couple vials of poisons, in her hidden blade, gifted to her by Fumiko before the raid on the villain's base. They wouldn't be of use until the villains were at least restrained, the effects of Trigger still negating the effects of poison.
She needed to keep Electric at a distance, and for this she used a disorienting attack. From under her hood, crows were summoned from the darkness, flying right at the face of the villain. He didn't react at all, and the birds were fried with the electricity. She had a plan then, a plan that relied on exploiting the stupid state of the villain.
She summoned at least twenty crows, then she ran straight at the villain. He raised his hand and electricity began building up in it, but before she could be shocked, from under his arms crows began to fly upwards, the first few were immediately burned and dissolved, but the electricity around his arm couldn't keep up with the relentless assault, and the last three crows managed to bite the arm and move it upwards, his finger pointing directly towards his own face. The built-up electricity couldn't be stopped however, and he shot all of it towards his own brain, had it not been for his quirk he would have fried himself, but even this way he was knocked out cold, his brain electrocuted way past its limit.
She heard one of Doppo's screams, and they may have been a teeny-tiny bit creepy if she really listened to them, but she wasn't about to admit that. She looked towards him, and saw hands clutching the shoulders of his enemies, their bones cracking from the pressure. He literally headbutted the Minotaur, finally knocking that beast of a man out, the sword-guy didn't take much work either. The skeletons were mostly on the ground, their bones sprawled out.
Doppo fell forward, but he rebuilt his body, and started walking towards Kimiko. Suddenly, she realized that she neglected the courier, forgetting about him. Big mistake, Doppo was nearly next to her, when from the direction of the door the sound of a bullet being fired was heard. She was in perfect view for anyone shooting from there, and she knew that she wouldn't be able to transform in time to defend against the bullet.
Doppo was still coming however, and he extended his arm, the void breaking through it, and creating a shield behind her in the last minute. She turned and saw as the void was being destroyed by the bullet, obviously being one of the quirk-destroying ones.
It was an unusual moment to really realize Doppo's mortality. He usually appeared almost immortal, no injury having an effect on him, he would just shake it off and rebuild his body. During training whenever she was hit with Corrosive's acid it would hurt for hours, but she knew that Doppo was able to work in a potency two, three times higher even. Now however, the void he made of was being destroyed. It wasn't like with other heroes, whose quirks would be destroyed temporarily, but they could still live as normal humans. Doppo couldn't. If the void was destroyed, he would be gone, he couldn't live without his quirk.
He tried to detach the void being destroyed, to avoid the infection reaching his core, but since he only ever really trained in keeping himself together, it wasn't so simple. As a last measure, he grabbed his shoulder and tore off the entire thing, by compressing the connection point between his arm and his shoulder he was able to separate the void that made up his arm and the void that made up the rest of his body. His black arm fell down to the ground, destroyed in seconds by the bullet.
Instead of wasting time talking about the events there, she instead turned around and locked eyes with the courier, who was still standing shell-shocked with a gun in his hand. Before she could capture him, Doppo's right arm shot out what looked like a needle, cutting through his left shoulder, coming out in the back, then entering his right shoulder from the back, and coming out in the front, he dragged the villain back to them, where Kimiko immediately injected him with the poison, since the injuries lowered Trigger's efficiency against poisons. After the injection the villain quickly fell asleep.
"Let's get these villains to the nearest police station then." said Doppo, not acknowledging his first real experience with his own impending doom.
"Okay." mumbled Kimiko. She was still conflicted.
From one of his arms, Doppo created a decently sized wheelbarrow, where they put all the villains, the void latching onto them better than any other restraining item.
It must have looked weird, two junior heroes walking down the street with a wheelbarrow full of villains behind them.
"Sorry for being a jerk earlier this afternoon." Started Kimiko unexpectedly.
"Huh?"
"The name, mainly. its just, to be honest, I didn't really like you up until now. Like, you were what I wanted to be: good combat quirk, best hero school in the country, first place in the Sports Festival, and you even managed to start working at my favorite hero. I was kind of jealous, to be honest. You appeared to be a better me, actually helping Corrosive back during the raid, instead of getting captured by a villain who cuts you with his hair!" she laughed a bit at that last part "But then, you weren't what I thought you to be. It was hard to believe, seeing you act like a regular human and not an overly arrogant jerk like most UA students are with their over-inflated egos. I thought it would be any day now that you finally give up that mask of fake politeness and show your 'true self' or something.
This completely changed today: you saved me. I'm not stupid, I, too, realized what that quirk destroying bullet would have done. Fake heroes don't save others when it means that they'll get in actual danger.
From now on, we're not a duo in just name anymore." She outstretched her hand, and with a smile so bright on Doppo's face that it outshined Mirio's, he took it.
AN: Changed Eri's personality a tiny bit, since in canon she didn't want anyone injured because of her ever, even if she had to stay with Chisaki because of that. I didn't like that, so she's a bit more like the rest of Team Corrosive now. Just a bit though.
During the writing of this chapter, I kept listening to the same song from 'The Dreadnoughts', it was 'Boneyard' from their album 'Victory Square'.
This chapter is the first time I felt that I managed to write some genuinely good dialogue, since there was a lot of it. This chapter also sets up a new minor antagonist (aforementioned 'Parasite') who will be a problem for the Abyssal Crows.
While I was writing this chapter, I went on reddit one time, and in r/BokunoheroFanfiction I saw a recommendation post about this very fic! I'm the happiest I've been all week!
Just to clarify the 48 polyhedra bit, its a fun fact of trivia I heard from a youtube video made by jan Misali. I thought it would be fun to include it, so I did, and I'm pretty sure its factually correct, but if you have any problems with that information please watch the video before declaring that I am an idiot in the reviews.
With all those little notes done, thanks for reading and see you later!
