Chapter 3: The House of Takoyaki

In the short time that Genos had spent living with Saitama, several things had become apparent to the cyborg about his master. His sensei preferred to take life easy, spending most of his time flickering between channels on TV, watching the news, or out patrolling. When he wasn't doing that, he was browsing magazines, manga, or the shopping channel looking for a good deal. So, to find his teacher sitting at the kitchen table staring at something blankly . . . was perfectly in character.

"Saitama sensei, what is that your reading?" The blonde teenager asked after several seconds of silence.

His teacher jumped slightly, evidently having forgotten he was in the building. He looked at Genos, blinking slowly as he registered what his (all but)self proclaimed disciple had asked. "Oh? You mean this?" Saitama raised a folded sheet of paper up and waved it around for emphasis. "I found it earlier by the door earlier. It's a letter, someone must have slid it under the door." He yawned.

Genos frowned, putting a hand to his chin. 'Saitama sensei lives in the abandoned district, who could have delivered such a letter? And who even knows he stays here? He has no friends or contacts I'm aware of.'

With a thought, Genos eyes began changing shape and started emitting light in various spectrum's. 'Paper composition, spruce wood origin, common printer ink(standard issue), written on with a blue pen, no visible fingerprints-'

"Hey! You don't need to scan it!" Saitama sat up straighter, giving Genos one of his unknowable judging looks as he noticed what the cyborg was doing. "It's just a letter." The bald hero sighed, turning the letter around so Genos could see the writing.

"Ichirou Fisher?" Genos read the name of the sender with one raised eyebrow, walking over to sit next to his sensei at the table. "Is that a friend of yours?"

Saitame looked at the letter again. "Nope, no idea who that is. I thought it was a mistake at first, but it's my address here. They've even got my house number, see?" He put his finger to the line of text in question.

Genos looked over the letter again. "Well, it doesn't seem to be trapped or poisoned . . . why haven't you opened it, sensei?"

Saitama looked away, trying to hide his awkward smile. "Well, I've kind of been worried that it would be, you know . . . " He trailed off, before pulling the letter close to his chest. "Well, let's just open it, ok?" He began ripping at the letters seal before Genos could reply, extracting several colorful pieces of paper from inside, along with a more normal note written in the same blue ink as the address.

Saitama stared at the note for several long seconds. Then his eyes went wide, and his whole body shuddered as his fingers clenched, wrinkling and partially tearing its edges.

"Sensei?! What is it?!" Genos shot to his feet, mind abuzz as to what could have brought about such an extreme reaction. Saitama, for his part, was looking between the note and the pieces of colored paper laying on the table with a look of awed reverence.

"Genos." He muttered, picking up a red paper slip. A broad grin spread over his face. "They're free coupons. A hero's discount!"

After the discovery of the coupons, Saitama had wasted no time preparing to go check out the restaurant in question. So, he'd put on his hero costume, and the duo had set off for the location written on both the letter, and the coupons themselves.

Now, as the two ran along the roadside towards the mostly destroyed city D, Genos, had taken it upon himself to do some research on their destination. "Saitama sensei, I've taken the liberty of looking up all of the publicly available information on this, "House of Takoyaki". It seems-"

"What are the reviews of the food like?" Saitama cut his disciple off, not even bothering to look at him. Genos, not having checked yet, took a few seconds to bring up the reviews and look them all over.

"The reviews seem mostly positive. It seems that most people found the food passable, though it seems most agree that the chef is somewhat inexperienced. Balancing it out is how they server larger than normal portions for a relatively low price, and the food is always made with fresh ingredients." Genos explained after having skimmed all the reviews.

"Sounds great!" Saitama grinned. "Normally I can only afford the cheep stuff at restaurants, but maybe I'll be able to get something decent here even after the coupons run out!"

"Uh, yes, sensei." Genos nodded. "But I've been doing some research into them, and I've noticed some strange details. I believe this may be a trap."

Saitama glanced at the cyborg with a raised eyebrow(veering into the road for a moment in the process). "Oh? What makes you think that?"

Genos's eyes flashed. "The House of Takoyaki. Opened roughly a week ago in city D. They seem to be trying to make money by catering to the construction crews. The restaurant is owned by one Ichirou Fisher, and his sons, none of whom have their names listed on the restaurant website. Supposedly, the restaurant completed construction only ten days ago, and began serving food only eight days ago. According to crews in the area, they have received unknown deliveries three times a day, every day ever since, and I have yet to identify what said deliveries are."

"Well, that doesn't sound to-"

"Further more, the restaurant owner and his sons all have very sparse public files. Apparently they all grew up in a small, recently destroyed fishing village in city U, and all of the children were home schooled. Further more, the village in question was almost totally destroyed recently, with few survivors. Supposedly, Ichirou took the insurance from his destroyed house and boat, as well as the life insurance from his late wife, brother, and step sister, and used it to open the house of takoyaki with his eight sons and six nephews, but-!"

"Genos!" Saitama cut off his apprentice. "Stop worrying so much. If it's a trap, its a trap. We won't know until we spring it. Until then, let's just go and see if the foods good."

Genos jolted, pulling his note-book out of it's compartment and beginning to scribble rapidly, not even bothering to slow down. Or look at the highway, for that matter. "Of course, sensei! Your wisdom is invaluable!"

"SHOULD YOU REALLY BE DOING THAT ON THE SIDE OF THE ROAD!?"

"So, this is it, huh?" Saitama muttered, looking between the coupon and the sign in front of them.

The House of Takoyaki was an . . . interesting, looking building, though not in a bad way. It was squashed in between two of the recently constructed sky-scrapers, it's dark wooden frame standing out among the surrounding concrete. Despite being a newly constructed building, the architect had clearly gone out of their way to convey an old fashioned style, with the small roof covering the front entrance and it's small front deck even having kawara style tiling.

The sign set above the doorway was a bright shade of yellow, with the name proudly emblazoned into it, and a cartoony red depiction of an octopus set under the text. Above that, the building had been covered in a large series of trellis, with potted plants set about the bottom so the vines could eventually climb up and cover the sides of the building.

"Well, it looks nice, anyway!" Saitame marched forward cheerfully, cape billowing behind him. "Now let's see what it looks inside." Opening the door, the duo were met by the cheery sound of a bell as it swung open. Inside they were met with an interior as old fashioned as the exterior.

Hearing the bell, a voice echoed out from behind the counter. "I'll be with you in a minute!"

For a moment, the bald hero looked around for other people, only to find none. "Huh, I thought it would be busier in here . . . " He , glancing looking

Genos tensed, going into rapid-fire explanation mode. "D-city has depopulated from a monster attack. It's only been two hours since the lunch rush, so there aren't any other customers." He explained. 'Three words to many! I need to improve my abbreviation skills! I could have easily cut out "the", "has" and "so"!'

Saitama seemed to accept this explanation, and nodded as he walked over to the row of seats up against the front-desk/counter. He looked around again once he'd sat down, but seemed to not find what he was looking for. Once Genos joined him a moment later, he turned to his apprentice. "Say, Genos, you see any menu's? I can't find any."

Genos shook his head. "No, sensei, I haven't. Would you like me to look one up online?"

Saitama pondered that for a moment. "Hmm . . . nah. I can wait until the waiter gets here."

A few seconds later, the curtain that separated the area behind the counter from the kitchen was pushed to the side, allowing a relatively tall young man with brown eyes and simple, slicked back black hair(which was contained in a hair net), to walk through. His soft yellow uniform, though simple, was immaculately fitted, with not a wrinkle to be seen. It did, however, have a distinct layer of white power covering it, which the man was trying to brush off.

"Sorry for the wait. I've been trying out new blends for our Takoyaki batter, and I-" The waiter began to explain, only to jolt back when he saw the duo, holding his arms up like he expected to be attacked. Several emotions came over the mans face over the next three seconds. Shock. Fear. Awe. Nervousness. And finally, a nervous determination as he relaxed into a more normal stance.

Seeing this, Genos turned his sensors up to maximum in an attempt to detect any potential threats. He quickly identified several wires running through the walls and surrounding furniture that seemed to have nothing to do with the visible electronics. He began a deeper scan, and found they were most likely phone-lines or something similar.

The waiter speed walked up to the counter and put on a tense smile, pressing a button underneath the counter that sent some sort of signal through one of the wires. "Ah, your that hero!" He began nervously, unaware that Genos was already on to him. "The one n-my father sent the free coupons to, right? He, uh, really wanted to meet with you!"

Saitama, for his part, was completely unconcerned. "Really? He want's to talk to me?"

"Yes!" The waiter nodded a pinch to fast to be normal. "You beat this really powerful monster right in front of him just a few weeks ago, and he's wanted to talk to you ever since! So when we got ourselves up and running, he decided to send you some coupons! Would you mind coming with me to meet him?"

"Eh . . . " Saitama thought about it for a moment, frowning. "Well, I guess it would be rude to leave without saying hello if he went through so much trouble. Sure, I'll talk with him. But only after we've eaten!"

"Thank you!" The waiter bowed, smiling nervously as silence fell over the small group. It dragged on for several seconds, beginning to grow awkward. The waiter, already nervous, had outright broken out in a cold sweet at this point.

"So . . . menus?" Saitama finally broached.

"AH! Right!" The waiter yelped, dropping to his knees and beginning to dig around underneath the counter. "I've got some right . . . here!" The waiter popped back up with two plastic menus, which he placed in front of them.

"Ah. Thank you." Saitama smiled as he picked took up the list of options, as well as the pile of coupons, and began to look back and forth between them. The waiter meanwhile, stood at the counter watching him with an expression so nervous, one would think a bomb was about to drop.

Genos frowned. 'This whole thing is too suspicious . . . ' He thought, turning up his biological sensors on a whim. He'd already confirmed that the waiter had a normal life-sign for a human when he'd walked in, but now the cyborg went all out with his examination, dissecting every available detail.

'Wearing contact lenses . . . lenses obscure eye-color, real eye-color is blue. Minor differences in skin color between the neck and face. Either he's been wearing a mask recently, or he's had some form of plastic surgery. Life signs . . . familiar . . . '

Every person in the world had a distinct life-sign. Yes, this life sign could change slightly in response to age, diet, level of exercise, and sickness, but they remained a good way to identify people, especially normal humans, at a distance. Genos didn't keep an exhaustive log of past life-signs he'd encountered, there was rarely any point to doing so, but he did keep records of any noteworthy individuals he happened to encounter. Meaning he recognized this one immediately.

Leaping to his feet, Genos powered up one of his incineration canons and pointed his glowing palm towards the sweating waiter. "Dr. Genus! Why did you lure sensei here?!" The cyborg snapped, the young man yelping and staggering backwards in shock so fast he overbalanced. Flailing his arms in a circle, the waiter tried to stop himself from falling over, but it wasn't enough, and he fell unto his butt.

Saitama quickly dropped his menu and lept to his feet, grabbing the cyborgs arm. "Woah! Genos! It's just a waiter, no need to get all worked up."

Genos turned to face his teacher so quickly that he temporarily created a wind in the room. "Saitama Sensei! This man is Dr. Genus!"

Saitama blinked. " . . . who?"

Genos, already having gotten used to the quality of his Sensei's ability to remember small fry(which is to say, poor), wasn't the least bit surprised. "Dr. Genus, the creator of the house of evolution."

" . . . uh, yeah . . . what was that again?"

"He sent the mantis that came in trough your ceiling."

In an instant, an angry Saitama was on the other side of the counter, standing over the now very panicked waiter. "PAY FOR MY ROOF!"

"So . . . " Saitama began, stuffing an experimental Takoyaki ball into his mouth and starting to chew, before continuing with his mouth full. "Your a clone."

The waiter nodded. "Yes, I'm number twelve, one of the oldest ones."

Saitama nodded back. "And you sent me these coupons-"

"Not me, it was Dr. Genus!"

"-Because you wanted to talk with me about Evolution-Hut?"

"It was the House of Evolution, and we've re-branded now, but yes." The waiter, number Twelve, wrung his hands nervously in his lap, not making eye-contact from where he was sitting. "The original felt that it was best that we approach you before we make any moves, so we don't risk you coming after us again."

Saitama nodded, popping another octopus ball into his mouth, and chewing. This time he took the time to swallow before he spoke. "Well, I need to talk to him about paying for my roof anyway, so let's go." He popped the last Takoyaki into his mouth and stood up.

Genos leapt to his feet. "Sensei, this is clearly a trap! And I've already repaired your roof for you, there's no need to talk to the Doctor! It would be wiser to just destroy this place."

Saitama turned to the cyborg, face deadpan. "The food here's pretty good, Genos. Besides, even if you fixed the roof, that just means he needs to pay you back instead of me. Now come on, if it's a trap it's a trap. We can handle it."

Genos went ramrod straight, all but giving the more experienced hero a salute. "Of course, Sensei! You!" He turned, and clone number Twelve found himself staring down an incineration canon for the second time that day. "Take us to Dr. Genus, and no funny business!"

"Right! Of course!" The clone shot to his feet so fast that he knocked his chair down, hands held up defensively. "There's an elevator in the kitchen with a secret button on the wall! You need to push it and then input the right code into the panel, then you'll be brought to the basement! That's where the Doctors office is!" He explained, backing up to the wall by the kitchen entrance.

Genos nodded once in understanding, and jumped over the counter, his mentor following him a moment later.

The terrified waiter lead the duo into the kitchen, where Genos ran a quick scan, and confirmed that that aside from some sensors, it was perfectly normal. Larger than one would expect for a restaurant that size, but normal.

Sure enough, in the back wall of the kitchen was a large, metal elevator door. Next to the doorway was and "up" arrow, but no down arrow, which would normally imply the building lacked a basement. Pressing the up arrow, the door opened almost immediately. This allowed the clone to rush into the chamber, where he pressed himself into the corner nearest the control panel to try looking as small as possible.

Number 12 swallowed nervously as he watched the two super-humans step into the elevator, and needed to take several deep breaths to calm his nerves. Then, turning slightly, he pressed his finger into one spot on the wall, and input the combination 5-6-1-2-5-3-2 into the panel.

The doors closed, locking the trio into a small box slowly descending into the depths of the earth. The clone was scared, focusing on the ground at his feet. Genos was watching him intently. Saitama was . . . picking his nose. Things went on like that for roughly thirty seconds, until they reached the bottom.

The elevator door opened to reveal a line of empty, sterile, white hallways leading off into the distance. Genos, through use of his infrared sensors, could detect the lingering heat of recent footsteps. 'From the temperatures, it seems they evacuated recently . . . '

Clone number twelve swallowed loudly, stepping ahead of the duo and motioning they follow. "Come on, the Doctor should be running tests in his lab. He'll be waiting for us." He explained, before beginning to speed walk away.

He lead the pair of heroes through more of the same white halls, the chambers quickly becoming a maze. "How old is this faculty?" Genos fond asking aloud once they reached a four-way crossroads. "It's only been a few weeks since we destroyed your last base. Was this on kept in reserve?"

Number Twelve jumped in surprise at the question, but answered after a moments hesitation. "No, we, uh, made this one recently. We work fast."

Genos raised an eyebrow. "All this from scratch? And without getting caught? How did you manage all that?"

The clone gulped and broke eye-contact. "We have a bunch of mutants made just for this purpose, so it wasn't hard. Besides, it wasn't from scratch, the Doctor was a big scientist back in the day. He still has a bunch of money stored in different banks from all of his patents. He just dipped into some of it to get materials. No-one questioned someone ordering construction materials in the worlds biggest construction sight."

Genos nodded put one hand to his chin and hummed. "So, you blended in with the construction workers in order to construct quickly . . . "

Twelve nodded, putting on a burst of speed as they rounded the corner, leading down a hall that had only a single, large metal door, which seemed to lack any handles, at the end of it. Not bothering to state the obvious, the clone rushed up to the door and knocked rapidly. "D-Number Zero! Those guests you've been waiting for are here!" He shouted, tapping his feet nervously.

A moment passed, and with a soft motorized hum, the metal door slid up into the ceiling above them. "So I'd heard, number twelve. Please send them in. We have much to discuss." Came the doctors voice from inside, distinguishable from the clones only by the more confident tone. "Oh, yes, and feel free to take the rest of the day off, you clearly need it." The voice continued a moment later.

Needing no further prompting, the clone ran back past Saitama and Genos, disappearing around the corner and leaving the two to share a look.

"Well? Are you coming in?" The doctor called once again from inside, and, with a shrug, Saitama stepped through.

The room was, predictably, white and as sterile as the hall. It was a massive chamber, easily taking up more cubic area than the multi-story building above had. Dozens of large computers littered the room, as well as hundreds of vats of varying size, the largest of which seeming to contain the body's of life-forms, though it was difficult to be certain, as the glass was tinted.

Sitting in front of one of the larger computers, watching a string of data fly across the screen, was the Doctor. Unlike the last time they'd seen him, where he'd dressed as if he was ready for a formal event, or a day at the office, now he wore more appropriate clothing for a lab.

In place of his original glasses, he now wore a pair of goggles that fully enclosed his eyes. His hair, which had been allowed to dangle down over his eyes before, was now held back by a hair net. A long, white lab-coat covered his figure, with a high enough neck-line that the only reason it was at all possible to tell what he was wearing under it was because it was a turtleneck.

Taking one last look at the screen, the doctor shut off the monitor and spun his chair to face the two hero's. His lips twitched upwards into a smile as he took them in. "Saitama. Genos." He crossed his legs and pressed his fingers together. "Welcome to the House of Progression."

AN: This chapter was a pain to write. It's mainly setup, which isn't that fun to write, and I made the mistake of trying to write it in Genos POV when I started it, which . . . yeah, shouldn't have tried that, I ground my progress to a halt. Even after finish it, I'm not really happy with this. It feels really sloppy to me, and I haven't been able to fix that.

Part of me wants to re-write it, but . . . I took long enough writing it the first time, so I'd rather not waist the time to re-write it, so you'll have to deal with it. That said, I can guarantee the next chapter will be better than this one, at least.