Disclaimer: I do not own One Punch Man.

Betaed by: Zim'smostloyalservant and Trackula


The Return and Rise of the Mosquito Girl

Chapter 1

The Return

Pain, that horrid sensation, pulled her to consciousness. The Mosquito Girl opened her eyes, an act whose difficulty and necessity informed her further something was wrong. The moment she regained consciousness, her compound eyes should have begun providing data on her surroundings. But it was absent.

And her glorious sense of smell was drenched in blood. Not the alluring promise of food and power, it was the stench of her own blood that should have brought anything from wariness to panic. But it was too painful to react so frantically. So, blinking, trying to banish the white glare dominating her sight, the Mosquito Girl tried to take stock of her situation.

When her vision resolved itself enough to see an acceptable distance, she could tell she was in an earthen crater, her face tilted to the side. Righting her face to look down at herself, she nearly passed out as the sight seemed to double her pain.

Broken, her body was broken. That was her situation. Her exoskeleton was cracked, deeply and pervasively. And the limbs themselves were twisted, her left arm the best off as it was only visibly broken in one place. As she forced her sense of touch into more focus, she found the top of her head was ravaged and her wings and abdomen were simply gone.

'What hit me!?' she wondered with horror. The cyborg? He had seemed beaten though, at her mercy. But her education, such as it was, had warned that a cornered prey could be the most dangerous.

But it was not important now. She was alive, so the victor either had not bothered to finish her; or had made a reasonable assumption she was dead.

Her gorged mode included hyper-regeneration; her guess was that the effect had held on long enough to prevent terminal injuries taking its course. But while stable, to put it generously, her blood sack was gone and she could not hope to hunt or call a swarm like this. Her tracking unit was in her blood sack, so the House of Evolution either thought she was dead or could not locate her. It could only be assumed she was on her own in this situation.

Mosquito Girl didn't want to die. Her four years of life was a short one, mostly spent in labs being tested, measured, and trained to various degrees. That she was valued as more than a piece of the Doctor's ambitions was a lie she had not been told. Her existence was a stepping stone and tool to the eventual rise of a New Humanity to replace the old. Her reward was the work, that she had been taught to enjoy beyond any thought of morality or fairness. So long as she did her job thinning the herd of humanity and testing its defenses, she would be cherished in the Doctor's way.

Failure had never quite crossed her mind, much less dying like one of those humans. The knowledge she would simply be labeled a failure and her defeat a simple event to be studied… it hurt beyond her wounds. But death was the greatest failure, it meant the disgrace could never be made right.

She had one last resort to make up failing her creator. The Chrysalis.

Unlike a blood power up, or a sugar power up, this hibernating state would use what was in her body already to regenerate vital systems. But it was supposed to be built up to by taking in blood, or at least sugar. She had less blood than ever now, with her sac destroyed. And she was supposed to bury herself for protection during the process. She was too weak to get any sustenance, and too weak to dig, much less bury herself.

Looking around, she spotted a large hollowed log that had fallen into her impact crater at some point. As shelter went, it was poor at best. But better than nothing.

With her least broken arm, she dragged herself across the ground toward it. She hissed with frustration when part of her right leg caught on something, stopping her until a piece of carapace popped off, freeing her but making her bleed again. Hauling herself into the log and out of sight, she slumped, breathing hard.

Even with this, she admitted, death was the most likely outcome. But there was no other option except to simply accept death and failure.

Willing her body to start secreting the substance that would form the chrysalis, Mosquito Girl let the pain slip away alongside her consciousness. Warmth awaited, threaded with ideas of food and soft resting places.

Unseen by the world, the experimental woman slipped away into dreams.

Months Later:

She awoke to confinement. Hardly able to move. Murky thoughts lacking memory, her first impulse was to break free, so she did. The log cracked under the first blows and exploded under the second.

The chrysalis was left amidst the debris, its pale gray stickiness coated with splinters and mulch, the shape of limbs pressing against it, but not breaking through. Then the struggles seemed to subside, and a single lump leaned back while pressing against the membrane.

Her proboscis shot out, piercing the membrane like a spear. With a jerk, her head burst though and she took a deep relieved breath. Blinking, she looked around, the sensation of the wind, the cooler temperature, and the ready air letting her mind calm.

Memory returned, facts falling into place as if the oxygen was blowing away the dust on page to reveal the words, and she smiled; she had survived! But the smile slipped as she realized something felt… off.

Wiggling her shoulders out the hole, she freed her arms and realized her body had not regenerated properly. Frowning, she freed herself fully to stand on wobbly legs by the chrysalis, balance aided by her wings' occasional buzzing. Going on her knees, she frowned and sliced the sac open fully with her diminished claws.

The husk was mostly destroyed, to her surprise. The data implanted in her expected it to be like her few growth husks, a hard, nearly-calcified remnant slit neatly on a seam that could practically be glued back together as a statue. What was left now was more like thick paper; had she not known what it was, she may have not been able to piece it together in her mind.

Clearly, her body had been pushed to use absolutely anything to see this failed regeneration through.

Sitting down, Mosquito Girl frowned and called out. A modest swarm quickly answered, flying around her. But when she signaled them to kill and supply her, they simply meandered in confusion. Of course the company was nice for her and them, but…

Her abilities were diminished!

Feeling the top of her head confirmed her secondary eyes were gone too. She had more hair, and what wasn't covered was smooth carapace on her dome. And she was smaller.

This was not good. She had been defeated at her highest power and now she was crippled even after hibernation.

Detecting movement, she spotted a deer peeking though the brush.

X X X

Weakened but not inept, she thought with a smile, licking the last of the deer blood off her fingers. She stood amidst the trees, deer corpses and a few birds littering the forest floor.

She was still fast and could fly agilely enough to maneuver between trees to chase down those made to live here. And her claws and proboscis, if reduced, still did their jobs.

Stiffness she had not noticed left as she gorged on blood, but no sensation of her body swelling or otherwise remedying its current flaws. But something did seem to snap back into place. The Doctor, as a precaution against him being arrested and imprisoned, had implanted a homing instinct in some of his creations that would lead them to him. She could sense him now, understanding what direction he laid in as clearly as if an arrow had been drawn in the sky.

Perfect, she could return and be fixed by her creator. Assuming he forgave her failure, of course.

X X X

Dr. Genus did not look it, but he was an old man. He'd been seventy and aged conventionally up to that point when he made the breakthrough that would lead to him restoring his youth. But being returned to his physical prime did not quite make him young again. Oh, his brain chemistry was humming along like a man in his prime, but he was still informed and filled by the experience of growing old and seeing the world change etc.

Though in many ways, his self-help books had revealed, he had in fact failed to mature emotionally, a childish resentment to the human race not measuring up to his standards driving him for so long. Likely rooted in feelings of insecurity over his own inability to relate and interact well with others.

In short, he had been through a lot of things over a lot of years. And he didn't have some cliche opinion of having seen it all — the world he lived in was quite literally a world where new wonders, but more often horrors, rose up on a regular basis to make a terrible mess. In fact, he'd made quite a few of those horrors and messes in his day.

So he wasn't surprised to be surprised anymore. Especially after the baldie.

Still, this one he had not seen coming. The Mosquito Girl was back, apparently?

At first, when she crawled in through a window as he and Armored Gorilla had been finishing up dry walling the closet in their kitchen, he had screamed, thinking some new monster had come for him. Armored Gorilla, the faithful servant — no, friend, he needed to remember the eight steps — moving to defend. But she had made her case, and he was inclined to believe it. With the House of Evolution gone, only he and the Mosquito Girl would know what she knew.

Still, what a sight, he thought, adjusting his glasses as he reclined in his chair.

She had gotten smaller. No, more than that, she seemed to have regressed to a prepubescent stage that had never existed outside the tube. Her shape, while still holding a certain feminine one, was definitely pre-development. Her limbs were shorter and more compact; it seemed the flawed regeneration had erred more to the human side there, her two fingers/claws/toes joined by similar thumbs. Her compound eyes were gone entirely; he would guess with the overall reduction in mass her body had sacrificed certain secondary systems to create a viable lifeform.

Despite everything, he had a certain urge to strap her down and start cutting and testing to see just how she worked now and retrace the steps of evolution to understand this better. But it was easily dismissed. After all, this unexpected survival and mutation was another case of his expectations of life being shaken.

And, well… she was looking at him with what he could only categorize as adorable apology in her big eyes. It was actually making him feel guilty for sending her out as a sacrificial pawn back then.

Hmm, was cuteness a power he had overlooked? Yes, that was it, she was cute now, a bit like that chibi icon of her one of the clones had designed before he was melted in that lab accident with the tuna.

"So, can I have some blood? I haven't had any human blood since the attack," she asked, all while making an adorable face with her eyes. Hmm, it was both horrifying and cute; yes, this could be dangerous. And not because for the first time in decades he actually had no bags of human blood on hand to offer anyone.

"Much changed while you were hibernating. The House of Evolution is no more…" he began recounting. Both the mysterious naked bald man who swatted her, and how that same man, now wearing a yellow and red super outfit, had defeated Karnage Kabuto. All without any cybernetics, mutations or genetic enhancements.

No, he had attained god-like power by working out! It made no sense at the time, and had prompted Genus to abandon his quest to drag the world down the path of artificial evolution. Seeing this evidence of how little he truly understood anything, the Doctor decided his initial hypothesis had been flawed. Rather than changing the world to fit his intellect, he would find a way for his intellect to change to fit into the world.

Hence his current project of finding a way to make sustainable fried food with a hyper-regenerating octopus to supply all the meat for their teriyaki stand. Immortality benefit, you could afford to start small and work your way up.

All his creations except Armored Gorilla were dead, and even after being repaired he had opted to stay with his maker. So now they both worked here, distributing unhealthy food to the masses.

"I get it! THIS IS A TEST! You want to know if I will remain loyal even if you wimped out and gave up on your life's work, or if I would decide you're not worthy and kill you to do it myself, like that jerk Kabuto said he would one day," she cheerfully remarked, smirking as she pointed a finger at him.

"Uh, no. That's not it at all," Genus answered. He looked to Armored Gorilla standing in the doorway watching, but the cybernetic ape just shrugged, looking quite baffled himself.

"Riiight," Mosquito Girl said, winking twice. Genus ran his hands through his hair — he had expected to have trouble convincing law enforcement or maybe any lingering creations like Zombieman of his reform to avoid retribution. He had not considered some kind of loyalty from a creation being an obstacle.

"Uhm, Armored Gorilla, why don't you get her something to drink? Something high in sugar since there is no blood," Genus decided to stall for time while his brilliant mind concocted a plan.

"So, what can I do for you while you're 'retired'," she asked, crawling onto the table on all fours to look at him from that angle.

"Please don't make air quotes, it's undignified," he muttered. It was a fair question, though; he supposed he was somewhat responsible for her. He had never expected his creations to function in society — Armored Gorilla had been engineered with mental stability and health as a goal, leaving combat power to cyberization after Karnage Kabuto and to a lesser extent Beast King proved unreliable in either obedience or following orders when worked up to any degree. The Mosquito Girl line was straight-up combat, conditioned mentally to regard any human that wasn't Genus as little more than a food supply or a threat.

With all his creations gone, he had expected a clean slate going forward, without having to deal with the fallout of his old conditioning process. This was a most unexpected variable.

Though Genus had a theory, which if true might mean the conditioning would not be nearly as much an obstacle as he-

The genius' thoughts were interrupted, because Armored Gorilla had returned and opened a can of Hill Dew and handed it to Mosquito Girl, who after a wary sniff took a sip.

Eleven Minutes Later:

Doctor Genus stood across the street from his wrecked stand, glasses askew, hair messed up, and jaw hanging slack. Armored Gorilla stood next to him, looking quite tired, with a nosebleed and minus his left arm. Atop the wrecked stand's roof, the Mosquito Girl had settled to nap, cuddled up with Armored Gorilla's missing arm like it was a plushy.

"I think, I have an idea," Genus said to no one in particular.

"Never ever give her caffeine?" Armored Gorilla asked.

"That too," Genus nodded.

Later:

Mosquito Girl blinked as she was handed the bee-themed purse, standing in the back alley of the wrecked stand. Genus, having somewhat sorted himself out, stood before her carrying a portion of the dignity he had held as the master of the House of Evolution.

"Right, here are your orders. You will go out into this world in peace. Get adopted by some human who isn't me. You will live a life to earn humanity's love and respect, so you can live happily ever after or something. And you will never drink anything with caffeine in it. And remember, don't contact me, I'll contact you," Genus commanded. Armored Gorilla leaned against the wall, rolling his eyes, while the Mosquito Girl saluted.

"Can I be powerful as well as respected and loved? Holding power over the weak humans with my awesome if smaller power?" she asked.

"Sure, why not. But remember, if anyone asks, I am reformed and told you to do the same," he pressed.

"Riiiight!" she said, winking and pointing. With a forced smile, the doctor returned the gesture.

"Now, you have a good amount of money in there, and a toothbrush and paste. Also a bottle of shampoo. So you're ready to go, find your place in this world, that isn't here!" Genus cheered with an edge of delirium.

"As you command, Doctor. Long live the House of Evolution! If it hadn't been disbanded because you have reformed into a model citizen of this stagnant society."

And with that, she was gone, buzzing off into the night. Genus slammed the door shut, and sagged down into a metal folding chair against the wall.

"We'll need to put up the closed for repair sign," he told Armored Gorilla.

"Was it really fitting with your reforming to basically abandon her like that?" Armored Gorilla asked as he pulled a bottle out of a cabinet and poured himself a stiff drink.

"What can I say? What can a man in the midst of a great change be if not a hypocrite from time to time as he tries to find his new self and role while leaving the old behind? As a father figure, I would be expected to guide her in things I myself am stumbling through. There is no sense in the blind leading the blind. Better to roll the dice of fate than choose a formula for mutual failure," the Doctor explained. Armored Gorilla nodded, taking a long sip from his glass.

"Are you're sure you just didn't want to deal with a prepubescent mutant girl, with the future prospect of dealing with a hormonal teenage one?" the cyberized mutant primate asked.

"Possibly! But my original statement remains valid. Besides, compared to you and I, how could she get mixed up in anything weirder out there?" Genus defended himself.

X X X

The apartment of the hero King, regarded by the masses as the strongest man in the world and respected even by most S-Class heroes, seemed to be nothing special. A high-rise single, which while not cheap per say, was hardly luxurious. It seemed the type of place a man who was well off but saving for better things might dwell in. Or perhaps a man lower on the chain had gotten at the expense of other things.

The lack of expense or luxury would not surprise his fans. It was well known King spent much of his time not engaged in heroics training in solitude. Their hero was regarded as a figure dedicated to strengthening mind, body and spirit; his lack of excessive interest in a material dwelling place beyond basics would fit their view of him. As for him living fairly anonymously among the people rather than some remote retreat, they would cite his status as a defender of the people. It was only natural he put himself close at hand to better spring into action.

The mess though, that might make them stretch a bit for some noble explanation. King himself would simply state he never saw much point in cleaning unless/until the clutter became an actual problem for his living situation. It would just get cluttered again after all, right?

Truthfully, he liked his apartment, enough that after the Giant Crow destroyed his exterior wall trying to assassinate him, King had chosen to have the place repaired instead of moving. It was his sanctuary, he supposed. The S-Class hero had often been more comfortable with solitude than people, and the immense fame and pressure to fill his role as the seventh-ranked S-Class hero and lauded as the strongest "traditional human" had made socializing so much more strange and stressful. But as the Crow had demonstrated most clearly, even here his status as a hero could intrude on him.

So while annoyed and nervous, King was not surprised when he awoke and realized someone was in his apartment.

It was for times like this he wore pajamas rather than just boxers. Getting up, he walked into the kitchen area, which had the lights on, fully expecting to be greeted by another woman, girl, or man wearing nothing but an apron.

He stopped, surprise freezing stoic on his face. It was a a girl, and she was indeed wearing a plain white apron while pouring a bowl of cereal. But beyond that, expectations were not met in the situation.

"Good morning, hero King," the Mosquito Girl greeted him, "I've decided to adopt you as my dad."

Without a word, King went back to bed, to wait for a dream this weird to pass. He must have played that dating simulator too long, maybe expired noodles also had something to do with this?

X X X

Mosquito Girl's antenna twitched as she considered the situation. That was not a response she had planned for. And she had planned for ones that included reflexive attempts on her life.

Hmm, should she study more? Use King's computer or go back to that internet cafe with the rude people?

Nah, she decided it was better to be direct. Had King regarded her as a threat he would have destroyed her. But as expected, he had not. So step one complete!

Waking into the sleeping area, she saw he had indeed gone back to bed. Hmm, should she leap on him? No, a more direct, simple approach would surely impress him, she decided, drawing her proboscis slightly out of her head.

Shortly:

Apparently she was stronger than she had thought; she was strong enough to prick the Hero King. Though apparently he had to flail about to avoid a reflexive retaliation that probably would have seen her splattered again. Or had it been an effort to intimidate her, she wondered smiling.

X X X

King sat on his bed, looking at the little monster intently. The pain in his butt, which had now become literal, showed this wasn't a dream.

A monster, however small, and possibly insane. Well, actually, most monsters seemed to be dealing with a short deck, but this was a kind of crazy he wasn't familiar with. It was too much even for him to hope Saitama would show up and solve this.

When she perked, he realized the King "Engine" was running.

'Okay, it's just another monster, just deal with it like always, and try not to die,' the Hero King told himself, standing up to loom over her. He walked toward her slowly, giving a menacing air, his face promising death, eyes alight with what might have been bloodlust. All the while, the King Engine hammered a mighty pulse-pounding beat.

She just looked up at him curiously. So he had no choice but to resort to the King Hand!

X X X

Mosquito Girl watched with awe and didn't flinch when King put a large hand on her shoulder. He hadn't attacked, so it was clearly a test. After all, despite how great she was, he might not know that. So a little testing was in order, of course.

When nothing happened and his expression changed somehow, she decided she had passed. It was time to make her move! The super finishing move to secure a father if you were female.

X X X

The bug monster girl was hugging his leg. She felt… weird, through his pajama pants.

"I think this will work out great, Dad," she told him, looking up. She had cutesy eyes, and was that a faint buzzing?

'…F*ck my life,' King cursed internally.


Author's Note:

And here we have another arrival from my weird idea pile. While I have some chapters planned and another one rough drafted, I have no overall plan for where this story is going. So its basically using this idea and having some fun with this weird world and its colorful cast; rather than planning some epic tale.

And so after a year with what I'd call less than satisfying output we close out with a bit of a bang. Hoping to close the book on positive note and open the new one on a hopeful note.

So, I hope you have a Happy New Year; and if the robot apocalypse does happen, best of luck with that. And its the singularity redefining the world as we know it, I can only hope its still a world where we an create and appreciate fanfiction and other wonderful nonessential pastimes.

Long days and pleasant nights to all you dear readers!