Chapter Eight
The Monster is Coming
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Up until a few minutes ago, Uraraka Ochako was having a pretty good day.
As far as she knew she had aced her English test earlier as well as her Calculus test. She was confident she'd do well on the Japanese History test later this week. When she got home after school, the letter to her from UA University had arrived. It informed her that she would be allowed to take their entrance exam this fall in her application for the upcoming academic year, beginning in April. She knew she would have to keep several other schools in mind as well, given how hard that test would be. So, from an academic perspective, this had been an amazing day.
But then she looked at the rest of the mail. Most of it was the assortment of advertisements and bills ubiquitous to modern life. Buy this. Pay that. Rinse and repeat. But there was a worrying number of notices from collection agencies, as well as court notices and letters from their insurance company. There were even some letters from a few law firms. All those letters were to her father. It was a troubling reminder of how bad things had gotten for them as a family.
Her parents didn't like talking about the family's finances with her in the room, but she knew. They tried to hide how it affected them, but she knew. They were in bankruptcy, or at least in the process of filing for it. They had already sold their house and moved into a small one-bedroom apartment, as well as the family car and several of the company work trucks. The only vehicle they held onto was her father's personal work truck. His empire of contract work had shrunk back down into a one-man handyman business.
Ochako's mother had tried to tell her that they wanted their daughter to learn a good work ethic and to provide for her own future. That was their excuse for not having her on the family cell phone plan, for no longer putting money into her tuition savings account, and lastly for asking her to pay her share of the utility bill. The truth was they couldn't afford to do any of those things to support her anymore. She remembered listening through the paper thin walls of their apartment to her mother crying; the poor woman had given a brave speech about how working for her own future would make Ochako into a stronger woman, only to break down into tears once she believed her daughter was asleep.
Now that her mother had taken a second job, Ochako often got home before her parents could sort through the mail. It was only this fact that let her understand the severe gravity of what the two of them were going through. She knew that it had all started about three years ago with an insurance claim citing poor workmanship from her father's company. Apparently, one of the guys her dad had hired used the wrong grade of concrete for a retaining wall meant to hold up a hill. As a result, the wall didn't hold, and several houses had slid downhill.
As the employer, ultimate responsibility fell onto her father's shoulders, and he was too honorable to do anything but take the blame head on. He tried to take on the work to repair what his employees had broken, and to do it below cost. He even negotiated with the client and insurance companies together to make the client whole again. But his reputation as a contractor was already ruined. No one wanted to hire his company. In the end he had to let go of everyone on his team, including his best friends. Now he was just a local handyman. She figured out that he did that just so that creditors couldn't garner his wages.
Determined to make the lives of her parents better, Ochako had a plan. She was going to work part time for now so that she could cover tuition costs for herself, which thankfully was possible given how public universities were heavily subsidized. She was going to start a career as a professional hero, a faster track towards a high paying career than becoming a lawyer or a doctor. And then, once that was done, she would make sure that her parents had a house again, just like the one they had raised her in. She'd make sure they had a car again, just like the one they used to drive down to the beach with her. She'd make sure her family had the best medical insurance possible, so that they could get better care than the public insurance plans provided. She'd make sure that their lives were as comfortable as the life they had given her for so many years. As their only child, she felt this was her mission, and it was one she took on gladly.
That's what she kept telling herself, that this was her mission. Repeating that mantra in her head as she dressed, as she walked, and eventually as she rode the train, she barely noticed wafts of smoke trailing up toward the sky, rising from a point south of her route to work. Then, after arriving at the café, her work life collided with her personal life in an unpleasant reminder of how much she was sacrificing. There at table three was Sousuke, the cutest boy in her class. He was leanly muscled and had a hard edge to his personality but was generous and kind once you got to know him. Across from him was Kaname, a girl she barely knew.
Ochako bitterly resented that she had turned him down for a date this past week. Every day he offered to take her out she was scheduled to work, and she couldn't imagine herself juggling a relationship alongside work and school. Out of the three it was her personal life that she chose to drop, letting the other two aspects dominate her life. And now here was a great guy she previously had a shot with, who had flirted with her and who she reciprocated… or wanted to reciprocate with at least.
She stuffed those feelings down, smoothed out her French maid uniform, and approached them. Needlessly she introduced herself as per protocol. "Have you both had a chance to look over our menu?" She asked with far more happiness than she felt.
She watched as instant recognition passed over his features, as well as several other emotions. As many issues as she had with her looks and self-confidence, the reaction she garnered at work told her that she pulled off the maid cosplay perfectly. But then the moment passed. "Miss Uraraka, I didn't know you worked here. Kaname, this is my classmate, Miss Uraraka. Miss Uraraka, this is my girlfriend, Kaname." He introduced the two to each other without a moment of awkwardness and made his allegiance clear from the moment he opened his mouth.
He didn't even have the decency to blush at how hot Ochako looked in her outfit, she thought glumly to herself. "It's a pleasure to meet you." Is all she said.
"Likewise." The longhaired beauty stated simply. It was the only reply Ochako felt she'd likely get. A wall of words was raised between them, on one side they were clients, and Ochako the worker was on the other. "I'd like a jasmine milk tea, please. Oh, and a slice of truffle cheesecake."
"I'd like an omelet rice, and the prosciutto and melon please… oh, and an iced coffee. Please." The wall was raised here as well, with politeness added as a mere afterthought. Their brief social interaction over, Ochako reverted completely into the role of a maid-waitress and saw to their order.
She was saved from the awkwardness she felt by the bell on the door, only to be thrown into a brand-new fire of suffering.
She turned to see a tall beautiful young woman, perhaps a year older than Ochako, with elegant yet casual clothes, dark eyes, smooth light skin, and straight black hair. She was a classical Japanese beauty with generous curves, a gorgeous defiance of foreign stereotypes. She was the type of woman that turned the heads of men as she walked by. Being near her made Ochako feel short. Where this woman's figure was generous like an elongated hourglass, Ochako felt like her own curves were all scrunched into too small an amount of space. Although their bustlines were similar in size, Ochako felt like her own just made her look fat, whereas the breasts on this beauty merely accentuated her height and her thinner proportions. Add to that her expensive looking purse and designer brand clothing, and Ochako could not have been more jealous.
The hostess was seating another customer in a separate section, so greeting the new client fell to Ochako. As per the rules, Ochako performed a curtsy instead a traditional bow. "Welcome to the French Press. May I escort you and your party to your table, madam?"
The tall girl smiled. "Oh, it will be just me. Could I please have a seat by the front window? I'd like to read and it's the perfect light for it."
With exaggerated politeness Ochako guided the woman to the table with the best illumination from the window. As the woman reached into her purse, Ochako expected to see a light novel on a tablet application. Instead a hefty book entitled 'The History of Greek Philosophy' was brought out from the darkness. "That's quite a book… are you studying Philosophy at UA University, madam?"
Opening to a bookmarked passage at least a hundred pages into the thick volume, the customer smiled and remarked, "Oh I'm not a student there yet, but I am in town to look at their campus. This here is just for fun." She patted the book almost affectionately. "I've been taking an interest in the classics. Lately I've been stuck on the arguments of Aristotle regarding the Ship of Theseus."
Ochako had no idea what ship she was talking about, but at least she knew who Aristotle was. "So… what about the ship is so interesting?"
The young woman perked up as though jolted by an electric current, suddenly far more animated than she was before. "Oh it's a fascinating allegory, and one of the first of its kind in recorded history! You see, on a legendary journey Theseus' ship was damaged repeatedly, so they had to make many stops for repairs at various harbors in the Mediterranean. By the end of the journey, not a single plank of wood, or nail, or rope from the ship's original construction was left. The argument we are left with is: is it the same ship now that every single part has been replaced, or is it a different ship that has merely inherited the role of the ship it gradually replaced? They share a name and a purpose, but with every single facet of the ship overwritten or rebuilt, can they truly be considered the same ship?"
The sense of academic joy that suffused the woman's aura was endearing. Ochako decided then and there that this was a likable person. Anyone that was willing to talk this way to their waitress was a better-quality person than average. "That's interesting. I'm going to have to go with it being a new ship. I mean, when a house is remodeled that means that there was a portion of it left from its original construction. But it's considered a rebuild if there's no materials from the original house in the new construction."
The young lady could not have been more excited by Ochako's reply. "That's a good point! But, using a house again, what if the house was remodeled several times, and each time only one room was replaced. Eventually, the entire house was rebuilt, but no one remodeling can be characterized as a rebuild. Is it a new house, or did the nature of the original house simply grow and change?"
Ochako liked the thoughtful inclusion of her previous point and the back and forth nature of this woman's speaking style. Neither of them could be wrong nor right, but instead were building something together. It was lovely. "Interesting. Like if a family needed to add more rooms as they had more children, and they didn't want to move. That's why they slowly change the house they live in… or the ship they're traveling on… to suit them, one change at a time. So, in that case, yeah, I see how it could still be called the same house. But… we're not just talking about ships and houses, are we?"
A spark seemed to ignite between them, leaping from one set of eyes to another. "No, we are not." The woman's reply was calm on the exterior but there was frenetic intellectual energy burning underneath her words. "We're talking about people, the changes we go through. If you take someone and through the experiences that shape them, slowly alter them until there is a marked difference in who they are, are they really the same person? Say you take an innocent man and put him in a prison or a war zone, and the trauma alters his perspective on life radically, can he be called the same man from before that experience marked him?"
So that's what they were talking about: personal identity. What constituted a change to someone that would be so dramatic that you couldn't see them as the same person anymore? It was a heavy enough topic that Ochako wished her Quirk could make it lighter and easier to deal with, but sadly she could only alter the gravitational pull on physical mass, not weighty subjects of conjecture. "That's a deep question. I'd be happy to continue but… do you want to order anything? I can come back after I check on my other table." Ochako asked with only some anxiety as they were nearing the rush hour, and yet only two tables in her section were seated. Something seemed off but she couldn't place what it was.
"Oh! Thank you. Um…" The woman getting flustered as she scanned their menu made her seem less perfect and even more relatable. "Oh! I'll have a large chai latte, the quiche Lorraine, and then… a Napoleon for dessert!" And suddenly she was not relatable at all, as Ochako wondered how she maintained such an amazing figure while eating like a cow.
Using the curtsy that was mandatory for her continued employment, Ochako said she'd attend to the order straight away. That offer, however, was cut off when another customer entered. Everything about her was vivacious and loud, from her hair to her clothes to her infectious smile. She had pink hair, pink skin, black white-less eyes with yellow irises, and her head was crowned by two small yellow curved horns. The way she was dressed it was clear she intended to go dancing at a club later, as she was wearing an outfit that legally should be considered area-effect flirting. Even Ochako, as straight as she considered herself, had to admit the form fitting jeans this woman wore so low on her hips made her butt look amazing. Ochako was also mildly jealous of the belly button piercing displayed on the pink skin of her toned abdominal muscles.
The hostess was moving to seat her in the other section when the woman spoke up, "No, no. If it's not too much of a bother I'd really like to sit near the window. I want to see my boyfriend before he walks right past this place." Ochako swore there was a quiet 'teehee' interjected at the end of that statement, but it couldn't be completely proven. The way she emphasized the word boyfriend told everyone in the restaurant that this was a new relationship. No doubt they would make inappropriate public displays of affection, if the pink woman's clothing and personality were any indication.
And being at the window meant she was in Ochako's section. Great. Another customer, another curtsy. "Welcome to the French Press. Do you need time to look over the menu?"
"Oh, I'll have a strong Thai Tea please, actually make that two." She said nonchalantly as she got her smartphone out from her fake-gem-encrusted purse, which also shone with the same bejeweled coverage on the phone case. The implicit statement was obvious: I'm not planning on sleeping this evening, and I have a whole night to plan with my new man.
Ochako decided that this woman was adorably annoying but admitted to herself that she'd probably behave the same way under the circumstances. If she could afford the time and expenses to have fun evenings with a love interest, she'd want to throw herself into the experience with the same live in the moment attitude that this pink bubble of energy had on display. After another curtsy she promptly attended to the order before checking on the couple at her first table.
That was the moment that the day took a turn she could never have anticipated.
"Sousuke, this is really bad." She overheard his date say. Her tone was hushed, but the sound carried well in the quiet of the establishment. "Some of my friends live in that neighborhood… what if one of them is in the hospital?" What? Hospital? Neighborhood? What was going on?
Kaname, the girl Sousuke had brought to the café, had moved from across the table to sit next to him. But this wasn't a move for more intimacy. The two stared in rapt horror at events transpiring on the screen of her phone. Ochako swallowed down any jealousy she had over the fact that all she owned was a flip-phone. "Is everything all right?" She didn't know what else to ask.
"No." Sousuke's expression was haunted. Somehow, he seemed gaunt, emaciated in that moment, despite his hale athletic health. It was as if all hope had drained from his soul. "You know that explosion earlier today? It looks like it wasn't an isolated incident…"
Explosion? Earlier today?
Before Ochako could respond, a shrill noise erupted from behind her. She turned to see her newest customer angrily speaking into her phone. "What do you mean you can't come?! Huh?! Eijiro, you're not making any sense. The park? Why are you and your parents at the park?" Her cheeks were puffy with rage. "The building? What? What is going on? I can't make out what you're saying." Her expression of anger was fading into one of confusion and fear as the voice on the other line continued talking to her… until suddenly he wasn't. "The line… no signal?!"
Ochako noticed that whatever video Sousuke and Kaname were watching also cut off. The café didn't have a wifi router, so that meant that cell signal in the whole area was dead. She didn't bother to check her own phone, as the results would be predictable.
Nearby, Ochako's other client had put her book down to examine a sudden buzzing on her phone as well, but whatever alert she was trying to respond to produced frustration rather than results. "Um, Miss?" She called Ochako over. "Could you please turn the television to the local news? I think something is happening, and it looks like there's no signal anymore." Ochako hadn't even thought about the television here in weeks. It was always turned to scenes from the French countryside and was presented more for ambiance than for entertainment. But the restaurant did have basic channels in addition to the looped set of videos.
What greeted her on the news was hell on earth. She was assaulted by graphic images of explosions with debris raining down on pedestrians and passing cars, followed by a rising toll of injuries scrolling across the bottom of the screen. She barely noticed the other people in the restaurant, customer and staff alike, slowly make their way to stand next to her, transfixed by the images on the screen. For nearly an hour they caught up with events of the day.
"She looks like me." She heard the despairing whisper of the pink skinned woman next to her as they both stared at the lavender skinned woman on the screen. Watching her appear from nowhere was by itself not that unusual, but what followed was one shock after another. They were appalled when she pinned the young man beneath her and then melted herself across his body, trapping him and suffocating him. When that gooey mass reformed into a nightmarish metallic shell, their shock transformed into horror. There was a boy, a young man Ochako's age, trapped inside of a strange shell on top of an apartment complex in the district southeast of the café. And no one could approach that shell without explosions detonating nearby, as though the thing had a built-in defense system. It explained the smoke Ochako had seen earlier, smoke that she dismissed in her mind at the time.
Unsure of what possessed her to do it, she took the pink woman's hand in hers. The offer was received well. It turned out that her date getting cancelled due to a villain attack made her emotionally vulnerable, and that physically resembling the villain herself just added fuel to the fire. Careful to keep her pinky finger out of the grip between their hands, Ochako offered what comfort she could as they all continued to monitor the events unfolding.
"Oh my god," she heard the pink girl mutter. "That's Eijiro's apartment building…" Ochako almost wanted to cry, watching the sudden transformation of a vibrant outgoing personality turn into a specter of fear and anxiety. She gave the other girl's hand a solid squeeze, just to remind her that she wasn't alone.
"His poor mother." She heard her other bookworm-client remark, when the screen identified the man's mother as "Midoriya Inko, mother of Midoriya Izuku, the youth trapped in the unknown shell." No identifying information had been put forth for the villainess that had attacked him, nor had any group claimed responsibility for the attack. Ochako's heart bled for the poor woman who just wanted her son to be freed from his imprisonment. Seeing a still photo of his face placed next to the video of his mother's tear-filled face, Ochako couldn't help but feel deep empathy for the woman.
But there was hope. The news anchors announced that even now a rescue operation was underway. Several Heroes, including All Might, were on the scene. The small restaurant monitor shifted to a live camera feed from a nearby news helicopter, where Gang Orca could be seen studying the shell. Ochako heaved a sigh of relief alongside several others that the young man inside was found to still be alive: slowly but steadily he was breathing, his heart continued to beat, and there was still hope for him.
Out of the corner of her eye she could see Sousuke trying to encourage his girlfriend, comforting her. But she continued to withdraw into herself, and even gripped her own head as though in agony. "Hey… is everything ok with her?" Ochako asked.
Sousuke looked at Ochako with a brief expression of dread, a tiny slip of his mask of confidence, even as he held Kaname tightly in a soothing embrace. But his calm demeanor returned, that hard edge that Ochako originally found attractive: the image of a man able to face all the trials of the world while still gently holding onto what was dear to him. "Her Quirk is acting up… she gets whispers of the future from time to time."
Quirks that could pierce the veil of time were rare. That alone got everyone's attention. But the quiet whispers of the girl in Sousuke's arms suddenly had everyone very much on edge. "The Monster is Coming." She repeated the phrase, over and over, quieter and quieter. It was a disturbing mantra to hear, and under the circumstances it was even worse. It put Ochako and the others on edge, turning with renewed apprehension towards the screen.
Sure enough, things went from terrible to worse. Despite Kaname's dire mantra, none of the older teens expected to see a frightening woman appear to challenge the heroes on the rooftop. The brutal efficiency of her attack on Gang Orca and the heroes supporting him left them speechless. They all feared that he and the others were dead. Their spirits lifted when All Might jumped onto the scene, but they were troubled when they saw how the battle down on the streets fared. "They're so close to the park!" The pink girl remarked.
Ochako squeezed her hand again reassuringly. "The heroes are on the scene, doing their best to protect everyone. This will turn out ok." She spoke with more confidence than she felt.
The taller woman, still holding her book, joined in on reassuring her fellow patron. "With All Might and the others on the scene, they won't allow civilians to be harmed."
Their reassurances fell dead in their mouths when the battle between All Might and the strange dark-haired woman commenced. No one had ever seen a villain that could fight off All Might before. She moved like water, weaving just out of his reach and then attacking with terrible ferocity of her own. Her ape like lackeys just watched. It was all unnerving.
And then, in a moment they would all remember for the rest of their lives, All Might punched the giant shell off the building into the arms of Mount Lady. That moment of victory turned into despair when his hand was cut away from his arm. "No! All Might!" Ochako caught herself shouting. Her hands were both in front of her own mouth, no longer holding the hand of the woman next to her.
"He's still fighting… with only one hand… All Might!" The pink woman next to her cried out, her makeup running messily down her face, driven by small rivers of emotion.
The taller woman shed tears quietly, unflinchingly staring at the screen.
All Might was joined by another hero, Eraserhead. The two fought valiantly, using Eraserhead's bindings to bandage All Might's wounded arm. They bought time for Ingenium, the Turbo Hero, to save the incapacitated heroes on the rooftop. Commentary during the battle confirmed that the other heroes, though grievously injured, were alive and expected to recover. The room remained anxious. No one left the building, no one ordered anything, and no one took a break from watching the screen. Instead they gathered chairs from the various tables and sat together, customers and wait staff and cook staff, all watching the news with rapt yet morbid fascination. They were all emotionally invested in the scene, and their other obligations and worries were suspended away from their minds.
They gasped in horror when Eraserhead was sent flying helplessly in the enemy's direction. They cheered when Endeavor arrived to save the day, bringing half a dozen heroes with him. The room grew intensely quiet as the battle unfolded. Concrete debris flying, explosions, and the general chaos of the battle made it difficult to catch every single detail.
Several screams of anguish erupted when Ingenium was stabbed through. Ochako's voice was part of that chorus. Anguish transitioned to agony when he was punched away from where All Might and Endeavor grappled with the enemy. Everyone winced with empathetic pain as Ingenium skid along the rooftop, still run through with that terrible sword. And although they cheered when the enemy was finally killed off, they knew the victory was hollow and incomplete. Ochako and the other women in the room cried openly as they watched the heroes rush in to aid Ingenium. Turning her head, Ochako saw that Sousuke was crying too, he just turned his head to avoid being obvious.
But then, just as they felt this moment of victory and catharsis, that respite was taken away from them. An announcer's voice let the audience know that another member of the mysterious villain group had appeared inside the forward headquarters and had attacked a member of the Support Corps. This had apparently happened minutes ago, and only now that the fight between the heroes and the villain on the rooftop is over, did they choose to air this footage.
The scene transitioned to an awkward camera angle from somewhere inside the apartment building used by the Support Corps. The audience could hear a news reporter, the one that had interviewed Midoriya Inko earlier, urge her camera crew onward to capture everything. Everything in this case meant Inko again, but now instead of an interview it was a confrontation with a horror unlike anything Ochako or anyone else in the restaurant had ever imagined. This floating creature had no central body, no discernable organs, nothing of the sort. It was a cloak of leather faces, arms, and a mask. That was it. There was no rational explanation for what they were seeing.
Kaname continued to mutter her mantra. "The Monster is Coming."
"No." Ochako declared with force. "Leave her alone! You monsters have put that family through enough!" She pointed at the screen through hear tears as though the gesture would aid her outburst in accomplishing something.
It didn't.
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"Are you getting all of this?" Airi whispered to her camera crew. Together they huddled down, as quietly and as stealthily as possible. Nearby, several members of the support crew were working to send out signals of their own.
Midoriya Inko took a rational perspective of their situation and managed to suppress any urge she had to panic. Outside and across the street from them, the heroes were fighting for survival. Sondok was keeping everyone on the rooftop far too busy. Down below the street swarmed with gigantic ape-like monsters, who acted more like a coordinated military unit than a mob of beasts. Help would not be forthcoming. That left everyone in the forward headquarters defenseless against whatever this thing was. Just outside the door were most likely two dead guards, lower ranked heroes who were assigned to protect the support team headquarters. If they weren't dead, they were incapacitated enough to not hear or respond to the screams of panic within the room. Inside, just next to her, was a communications specialist laying on the floor after blood had been drained directly through the skin of his throat.
If this thing wanted to kill her and everyone else in the room, it could do so easily. That fact that the odd-looking monster wanted to talk was probably the only reason she or anyone else in the room were even alive right now. "Please, tell us what it is you want."
The eyeless mask dripped with crimson fluid as it tilted to the side. The scarlet bones behind it rubbed together discordantly. "It is our intention to protect the Prince until his metamorphosis is complete, at which time we are to escort him to the Eternal City of Malfeas. Once there, he will train at the great Coliseum-Academy of Santakral, where he will perfect his combat abilities and hone his essence skills. He will be instructed in no fewer than five styles of the supernatural martial arts before being considered truly proficient; and he must master at least one of the Sacred Shintai Forms before his coronation and procession. I am here to extend a royal invitation to you as his mortal mother to live alongside him at the palace of the All Thing, where he will reside during his early regency. There you will both have every need met and shall want for nothing. Every luxury imaginable shall be afforded to you and to your son, the shining Prince."
The short speech explained almost nothing to Inko. None of these foreign concepts came with the necessary context or definition. "Tell me more about the metamorphosis. What are you doing to my son?" It took every ounce of self-control to ask that question as calmly and evenly as she did.
The thing seemed happy to elaborate, disturbingly so. "The metamorphosis is a fascinating process. On a purely essentialist level, his soul is being reshaped in order to permanently attach the Primordial Exaltation, fusing the two together. With this accomplished, he will be endowed with powers directly used by the Creators themselves, and will hold their Charms, their spiritual genetics if you will, inside of his soul. This is the most important part of the metamorphosis, as it will make him the most powerful being ever to grace your world, or planet if you prefer. At least to this point in time. Now, as to the physical aspects…" The creature was about to expand further but was interrupted.
"Excuse me," Inko butted in, deeply concerned by what she just heard. "I want to be sure I heard you correctly. You're making him the most powerful person on the planet? As in… you're giving my son a powerful Quirk?"
The eyeless mask of the creature rattled about. The gesture was foreign to Inko. Was this anger? Frustration? "Let me start over with some basic concepts." It began.
Yes, that was frustration, Inko observed.
It gestured towards Sondok and the heroes battling on the roof next door. "Observe Sondok, She Who Stands in the Threshold. She is a veteran of more wars than have been fought in the entire history of your world. She is currently fighting against eight of your best Quirk-users, yes?" The mask turned towards Inko again, prompting her.
"Yes." She said. She winced as a rapid volley of explosions rocked the building across the street.
"The Quirks of your world are derived from physical mutations in your genetic code. They are terrestrial in nature and are thus inheritable through material means. Rarely you produce pseudo-exigencies in your world, but that is another matter entirely. Sondok, like me, is not a terrestrial being. We are Devas. We are souls of higher beings, beings much larger than you humans can comprehend. Let me put it this way: you and everyone you know possesses only one body and one soul. Sondok commands many souls, as she is a Deva of the Second Circle. She in turn is a soul, one of seven, of the great Deva Ligier. Ligier in turn is a Deva of the Third Circle, alongside twenty-two others like him, who are of the order and hierarchy of Malfeas…" It stopped elaborating to observe Inko's face, and whatever it saw told it to change tactics. "I see this is confusing you. The important part is this: our power is not physical like yours is. We are spirits. You are flesh. We are immortal. You are finite. You see now why we take such offense at having our Charms confused for your Quirks?"
It was then that a loud series of explosions rocked the building next door. Looking over, Inko was filled with hope as she saw Sondok grappled into a hold by All Might. She saw one of the other heroes were severely injured, laying next to the heart of the battle. If the situation were not so stressful, she could remember the names of various heroes, recalling how many notes Izuku had on them all. She recognized Endeavor, who together with All Might…
She watched in aghast horror as Endeavor burned the face… no, the entire head, off the enemy's now limp body. She quickly recovered, reminding herself that this woman was part of the plot that had her son trapped against his will, possibly being experimented on by these… aliens? Monsters? She couldn't decide if they were even human, or what them not being human would mean for her morally if she wanted them dead.
The conversational entity next to her, whose name she could barely pronounce, seemed completely unfazed by watching his comrades' untimely demise. "Our Quirks appear to be winning against your Charms." Inko was proud of the quip and could not help but smirk at the alien creature next to her. Perhaps now they could negotiate and get her son out of that shell-prison safely.
The creature paused before speaking again. Perhaps it was reassessing the supposed superiority of their powers versus the willpower and perseverance of humanity. Maybe the invaders would reconsider their aggression against humanity, against Japan. And if Inko played her cards right, there might just be a chance they could be convinced to give up pursuing Izuku. She knew enough about bullies and the history of the world to know that powerful empires preferred wars against easy opponents. If they could prove that the war would be costly to both sides, then they had a chance to talk the enemy out of fighting.
Didn't they?
The creature laughed. It sounded like a series of recorded laughs jumbled together, a remix of sounds taken from other people. Inko wondered for a horrified moment if there was a relationship between the discordant voice of this monster and the faces collected on its… cloak? Body?
"Sondok is going to be thoroughly enraged about this humiliation. I should pass my gratitude on to the humans who fought her so well. You've given me fodder to torment her with for at least another century." The thing laughed even harder.
Inko was horrified. Searching the room with her eyes she saw that her dread was well matched by the support staff and reporters cowering, hiding in various parts of the room. This creature was clearly insane. "Sir…" Inko hesitantly began, fearing the creature was insane. "Sondok is dead. Endeavor just burned her head off."
"Dead?" The thing chuckled, either at Sondok's body or at Inko's discomfort. "Dead? Oh no, human, you are frightfully mistaken." Inko wondered if in his macabre-humored insanity he had forgotten her name. "When a Deva's physical body is wounded beyond repair, they abandon it. She's alive and well and standing over there as we speak. Momentarily impotent and enraged, but still able to issue commands to her forces."
Observing Inko's doubt, the creature raised up his four brush tipped claws and wrote in the air. Glowing crimson symbols formed before Inko's eyes, pictographs from a language she had never heard of before. In half a minute he had strung together a sentence containing perhaps fifty such characters, each of them far more complicated than any symbol in any form of writing Inko had ever seen. Touching onto the letters, if they were indeed letters, set the entire sentence ablaze with soft green light. The crimson on green contrast was sharp and painful to look at. But then, suddenly everything was more difficult to look at.
Inko gazed around her and saw that this creature she had been conversing with was flanked by four large wasp-like insects. Their wings were like rainbows and their eyes were like crystal balls. But worse, when she looked across the street, she saw that the monster had been speaking the truth: Sondok, as he called her, was still standing among the heroes even as they fought to keep Ingenium alive. She seemed to be see-through, not nearly as tangible as the monster or his guardian insects, but very much healthy. There wasn't a sign that she had any injuries at all. The woman's only inconvenience from her recent bout was her missing crown and weapons, as beyond that she didn't appear burnt or bruised.
"No…" Inko could not believe what she was seeing. "She's right there… they don't even see her!"
The heroes around Sondok appeared oblivious as she was busy shouting orders to her soldiers, coordinating them with greater effort than Inko had observed earlier. When she was engaged in battle herself she seemed content to leave them to their own devices, but now that she was stuck on ethereal sidelines Sondok roared out commands rapidly and clearly, her voice echoing across the city like thunder. But no one, not any of the heroes, could hear a single word of it.
"They can't even hear her." Inko despaired.
A medical rescue helicopter was descending to extract the most injured of the heroes. Simultaneously, Inko could see many the ape soldiers gathering on the surrounding rooftops, joined now by over a dozen of the flying man-sized wasps. "You're staging an ambush…"
Mahbagodeth. She remembered that the thing's name was Mahbagodeth. "Please. Lord Mahbagodeth…" Inko turned and bowed low to the creature. "Please. Spare them. Call off your attack. Please. We can't hurt you. Please, show mercy."
The unreadable mask turned to regard her. "Indeed. You lack the technological capacity to do lasting harm to us. We have shown remarkable restraint up to this point, but your resistance has proven disrespectful and wasteful of our time and energy. We have held back our power in respect for the home of Prince Izuku, but that patience has met an obscene limit… Sondok even offered to allow hostilities to cease, to allow the one you call All Might to rescue the 'heroes' that disrupted the Prince's Chrysalis. When he rejected that offer and attacked Sondok, the eternal nation of Malfeas took such action as a declaration of war… why then should we hold back now? Why not wipe out this entire city?"
Inko knelt before the creature that threatened the lives of everyone and everything she knew and loved. She knelt before her son's captor. Her forehead pressed down to the floor as she squinted, wincing away her tears of shame. "I'll do anything… please… spare us. We're… ignorant, helpless humans. Please take mercy on us… we're like children, lashing out when the adults come and tell us that playtime is over. Please take our youth and ignorance into account." She sobbed on the ground, wishing she had never seen what this monster had opened her eyes to, wishing she was home with Izuku, wishing none of this day had ever happened.
The creature spoke coldly, harshly. "Wayward children still get punished for their defiance."
