"Hmm... another failure..."

A shrouded figure in a lab with numerous monitors and beakers full of strange liquids watched from a monitor of the incident yesterday. With numerous books and notes on animal evolution and anatomy.

"Heightened aggression, but otherwise still relatively... 'human.'", he spat out that last word in disgust as he took note of a nearby vial.

"Perhaps this one should do the trick.", he grinned as he went to reproduce the vial's contents.

Three blue webbed fingers closed a briefcase as the end of his shift drew near.

While this person's anatomy was blue and froglike in nature, he was dressed in formal business attire. Complete with a red tie and sharp grey suit jacket. He scanned his computer one final time with narrowed pink eyes before shutting down his computer and standing up from his desk to head home.

His coworkers noticed and called out to him.

"Hey, Asui! We were thinking of going out to celebrate finally closing that deal with that company. Wanna come along?"

The frog in question grimaced slightly at the offer. While admittedly hanging out with his coworkers sounded like a great time, it would get in the way of his... nightly activities.

"Not tonight...", he said with his natural croaky voice, "I have to do something later."

"Oh...", the person who offered was slightly disappointed, but kind of knew it would turn out this way, "Well, the offer still stands... let me know if you changed your mind."

The frog then nodded before leaving the building, leaving his coworkers to discuss his actions.

"He is alright, right? I feel like someone should confront him."

The man who offered sighed, but it was much too fond for it to be discouraging. "Naw, that's just the way he is. He is one of the best workers in accounting that I have ever met, but even I don't know what he does after work. It can't be anything bad though, since he seems the same when he comes into work, if not a bit sleepy."

The other just nodded, curious about what his froggy coworker does on his pastime.

As the blue frog-like person stepped onto the sidewalk to head to the nearest train, he opened his phone to check on the latest news. He gained a slight smile as he saw the picture on the lock screen, a picture of him and his cousin, Asui Tsuyu, grinning widely at the camera on the day of her graduation from UA.

At first, he never understood why she ever would want to be a hero. Although the idea did cross his mind a few times when he was younger, the dream slowly seemed foolish to him after seeing a lot of reports of heroes being killed and leaving their families behind in sorrow. To him, it was a dangerous profession that meant putting harm to yourself for the sake of others.

His opinion of heroes changed one day in Nabato city, when tragedy struck.

He was only supposed to be there for a business trip, as he was relatively new in this field of meeting with clients to discuss their major assets. Yet for some odd reason, swarms of heroes had come to evacuate as many people as they could, causing Ezumi to reschedule his meeting.

While he had no idea why they were in such a hurry to get them out of there, he didn't fight it or cause a panic. As Tsuyu often told him was a contributing factor for conflict whenever she had spoken about her times in UA.

Sudden quakes beneath his feet caused him to stumble as thundering footsteps seemed to draw closer. He barely got to catch a glimpse of the perpetrator as he was knocked down on his feet by a man who seemed to be the size of a mountain, knocking down numerous buildings in his wake while screaming, 'Master!'

He coughed up a bit of dust from the wreckage before a wide-eyed expression formed on his face at the spectacle, shaking at the total carnage left by the monster. He was brought out of his shock when he heard a cry for help from a nearby wrecked building and rushed to see what happened.

He had to ditch his shoes as his webbed feet gave him better footing for this concrete maze that the monster created. The cry became louder until he saw the cause of it, a little girl crying amid some rubble. The damage caused the building to collapse inward, causing the building to groan and shift with unstable weight, slowly threatening to crush the girl.

"Mom! Dad! Where are you?!"

The blue frog didn't hesitate to slowly creep forward to reduce any more shifts from the unstable structure until he was a couple of meters away from the girl.

"Hey kid! I'm going to get you out!"

The building shifted some more, letting them both know that time was running out.

"I'm going to grab you with my tongue! Ok?!"

The girl managed to make eye contact with him, and while she didn't seem too off-put by the method of rescue, she still seemed unsure.

"I-I'm scared..."

Not knowing the next course of action, he wracked his mind around on what to do to comfort the young girl. The only thing that came to mind was his cousin Tsuyu, and her blunt nature even when she was talking about hero stuff. Hoping for the best, he decided to be honest with the girl.

"I am too... But I want to make sure that you are safe. So we can both see our families again!"

The girl took a moment before nodding for him to continue as the building shook once more, and he shot his long pink tongue out of his mouth to wrap around her torso. Drawing her close to his body, he booked it out of the building with her clinging on for dear life. He jumped out of the opening he entered from just as the building finally collapsed, covering them both in dust.

Coughing as he tried to shield the girl's eyes from the dust, they finally made it towards others who were in similarly bad states, with two people looking around frantically.

The girl lifted her head from the frog's chest as she heard the familiar voices, and wasted no time in calling out to them. The three finally being reunited after this time of frantic separation.

"The nice frogman saved me!"

The mother looked up to express tremendous gratitude despite the fountain of tears streaming down her face.

Just as he was about to say something he heard another scream for help. Then another. Then another.

Looking where the mass amounts of voices were coming from, he looked up to see the total destruction of tall skyscrapers, apartments, houses in the wake of the monster. All with people who are desperate for some help or aid to come to them.

Looking back at the reunited family, he finally understood a part of why heroes took the risk of working in such a dangerous profession. Now that he thought about it, he didn't even hesitate when he heard the cry for help. He just started moving.

Perhaps being a hero wasn't a decision made by a person, but rather a calling. The ability to save and protect those in need of saving without hesitation.

Shaking his head slightly to stop reminiscing about the past, he stood on the train scrolling on his phone until he saw a report on two heroes who managed to stop some infighting between two animal-type quirks. With Tentacole keeping a villain captained before the 'Flaming Cat Hero: Incineroar' stepped in to assist and resulted in the capture of two villains.

While he was glad that the two were able to contain the situation, he found it a bit odd that the incident revolved around four mutants to begin with. Based on the area of the incident, he knew that there was a higher population of mutant-quirked people than where he was currently living. Yet, what were the odds that the four involved had mutant-type quirks to begin with?

Perhaps he was overthinking it.

Stepping his way out of the train, he made his way towards his apartment. The outside of the building was tall in height, but relatively plain. Though it was much taller than the surrounding buildings for some odd reason.

The inside of his room was just as plain as the outside, with relatively standard pieces of furniture littered throughout, along with numerous empty jugs of water littered along the floor.

'I probably have to stock up on water soon', the frog mused as he turned on the television before making his way towards the kitchen. Trying to decide what to eat as he waited for night to fall and listened to the television.

"In other news, pro hero Tentacole and Incineroar managed to stop a skirmish between two other mutant-type quirk users today in the shopping district. With everyone making it out relatively ok."

"Nothing like a skirmish to liven up your shopping don't you say?", the other newscaster joked before getting back on topic, "Though isn't this the tenth attack involving mutant type quirks in this area this month?"

"That's right, although we are uncertain about what the cause might be, we sure be assured that the heroes will be able to step in whenever they need to."

"And now for the weather..."

Ezumi frowned at the information while he waited for his food to heat up on the stove. He didn't like how they were depicting mutants as some sort of troublemakers, since he knew that they had it bad with their quirks making them look so much different than that of a 'normal' human.

While he doesn't get much trouble with it now, he had a bit of trouble fitting as a kid due to him being so frog-like compared to the other kids. Of course, he knew it was just kids being kids, with them being startled with every new and odd thing that showed up in their life. Heck, even he was guilty of giving the occasional stare as a kid towards someone else with a different animal quirk than him.

But to put the idea of them being troublemakers in the media?

While they didn't outright say it, it did plant the idea in his head as he listened to the report. He wondered how others would respond to the report.

He shook away those thoughts as his meal finished heating up, already preparing his plate as the sun started to set.

When night fell, he got dressed into his gear before opening the window to his apartment and clinging onto the wall with his webbed feet and hands before slowly shutting it and leaping off onto a nearby building.

His gear was relativity plain, as it was just a reinforced, yet flexible black jumpsuit that was just baggy enough to hide most of his amphibious body. He often wore his long pink tongue around his neck like a scarf to hide his face and to be ready to grab. There was also a black hood that he always wore over his head to hide the fins on his head.

While hoping his way towards a certain warehouse, he heard a cry for help down in one of the alleys below and moved to intercept.

Creeping over the building he was standing on and looking at the scenario below, the vigilante saw that it was a standard mugging attempt. With two thugs ganging up on a woman and forcing her into a corner. What they wanted the vigilante didn't know, but knew they needed to be stopped either way.

Landing as softly as he could behind them, he walked up to them before gently tapping the closest one on the shoulder. "Hey now, surely there's a more reasonable way to make a living."

Startled, the man swung to attack him in the face, but all he had to do was lean a bit back to avoid being hit. As the man continued swinging and throwing punches, he realized that the criminal was getting faster with each strike made. Looking closely at the person attacking him, he looked like a normal person. Or at least one that didn't have a mutant-based quirk on him.

Though he knows he couldn't deal with him for much longer, as the other thug was still with the criminal. The moment an opening was made, the anthropomorphic frog threw a punch into the man's gut. Forcing him to stop and wheeze for air, before sending him unconscious with a flying kick that sent him to the wall on his left

"Don't move! Or the lady gets it."

Turning around, he saw that the other thug had a knife against the woman's throat. With her shivering at the cold blade touching against her neck.

The vigilante narrowed his eyes and put his hands down, though he was already in a stance to attack. His right thigh was facing away from the criminal, and he slowly moved his right hand to hover above it as the thug continued to ramble on.

"That's right, nice and easy."

Unknown to most people, there was a light blue four-pointed star on each thigh that allowed him to expel water from his body for use in combat. It took a lot of trial and error, but he learned to manipulate the water he expelled to form numerous shapes and objects.

Making a dagger made of water, he threw it at the hand holding the knife. The dagger just grazed the of the hand, causing him to drop the knife in pain as the frog extended his tongue around the man's arm and dragging him away from the victim towards him and quickly knocking him out.

He quickly went over to check up on the woman as he crouched down to look over her for any injuries. Due to his voice being naturally croaky, he found out that he only had to change the pitch of his voice to sound like a different person.

"Are you ok?"

The woman looked to be fine, if not a little bit shaken from the encounter, as she gave a shaky nod to the vigilante.

Sighing a bit in relief, he then made his way to the two who attacked her and started to tie them up with some spare rope that he carried on him. With the woman staring at him in awe.

"Make sure to call the police, and tell them of any injuries that you have so that they can help you."

The woman nodded as she took out her phone to call the police, while the vigilante kept an eye on the two unconscious threats. With the authorities on their way, he started to make cling onto the was just as the sirens started to near before the victim called out.

"Wait! Thank you for saving me. But what should I tell the police about you? What hero are you?"

He stopped as he heard the question. He supposed that he shouldn't be surprised that she confused him for a hero, but it was still a pleasant one. Though he knew the police already knew about his alas, there was no point in trying to hide his vigilante identity from the woman. As he is pretty sure that the authorities will come to the same conclusion once she described her encounter.

"You can call me Greninja.", he said before he leaped onto the side of the alley and jumped onto the building before disappearing under the night sky.

He finally made it to the warehouse he was looking for without any other incident, which was a hideout for someone he knew who was also in the vigilante business. Creeping his way into the warehouse, he saw a blue foxlike being meditating in the middle of the floor. Said person had a short, round spike on the back of each forepaw, with a third in the middle of his chest. Most of his fur was blue in color, except for the four black appendages that hang down from its head and the black fur on his paw-like feet.

"You took a while."

The blue amphibian rolled his pink eyes as he entered and pulled down his hood, "I got sidetracked."

The fox never opened his eyes during the entire exchange, continuing his meditation as the frog went ahead to sit across from him in a similar fashion.

The person in front of him was a man named Hirano Atsuki, who was also known as the vigilante "Lucario." Who has been in the vigilante business longer than he was. It was actually during one of his vigilante patrols back when he started that Asui met him in, and joined him on the occasional raid or team-up. He got most of his techniques involving vigilante business from him, like where to find someone with gear and the best meet-up spots to get information from others.

"You are troubled by something."

The frog had to hold in a sigh at being found out.

A part of the fox's quirk was reading the aura of living things around him, which involved the feelings and emotions of others. He never really understood the ins and outs of it, but it was a big reason why he was so successful at staying hidden from heroes whenever they started to get near him. It was also a method he often used when chasing a down particular target.

"I've just seen a lot of incidents involving mutant quirks. Don't you find that a bit odd?"

Finally opening his eyes so that red ones met concerned pink ones he nodded, "I have been noticing that a lot. Though so far, I haven't been able to find any leads except for this.", he said as he tossed a small object towards his partner, who caught it with a webbed hand.

Opening it, he saw that it was a small bullet that was modified so that it functioned like a dart. With a pointed needle on the end to inject whatever was inside of it.

"Where did you get it?"

"It was during one of my patrols. When someone with a bear-like quirk was fighting with someone else with a rock-type quirk, and after I dealt with them, I found this lodged into one of the shoulders."

The frog stared down in thought, as the story seemed eerily similar to the one he read about on his phone. Though the report didn't mention anything about a dart being found. Maybe it got lost in the skirmish?

"What are you going to do with this?"

"I'm actually on my way to meet up with a hero to talk about it.", his mentor stood to grab his cloak that was hanging on a nearby rack, "You are welcome to join me if you'd like."

A smirk grew on the frog's face, "Do you even have to ask?"

Soon the two were on their way to meet up with a hero to pass along the information regarding the dart, with the blue frog running along the rooftops making huge leaps across with Hirano running along while occasionally closing his eye. No doubt trying to get a read on aura flowing around him.

"Are you sure we can trust this hero with this information?", Asui couldn't help but have some doubts, "What if the first thing he does is try to turn us in?"

"There's no need to worry, I have asked others about the hero we are meeting up with. And they have said that he was trustworthy."

They slowed their approach once they neared their destination, a vacant rooftop of an abandoned building that had a good view of their surroundings. Though they didn't see any hero waiting for them.

Lucario sending out a paw outward to try to get a reading before finally sensing something, "I know you are there; you can come out now."

For a second, there was no sound or movement made, until a cloth latched onto the edge of the building to hoist a person upwards. Said person had frazzled, unruly purple hair with tired purple eyes that looked like it could use a couple of hours of sleep. The person's gear also was a dark purple jumpsuit, almost to the point of being black while a mask covering the bottom part of his face.

"I'm impressed, that's the first time that doesn't work.", he looked at the two with a bit of a wary look, "I got a tip that someone wanted to meet with some info, but I didn't know there were going to be two people at this meeting."

"It was kind of last minute.", Greninja said to the hero. And while he was curious about what his quirk was, he was more interested in leaving the tip and getting out of there as fast as possible.

Underground heroes tend to be more tolerant of vigilantes whenever they leave helpful tips and information over a vast period. While the aura-based vigilante was more than comfortable with this standard procedure as he had done this numerous times with various other heroes, the water-user was not. Lucario built up a reputation for knowing the best hideouts where illegal dealings happened to occur and passing it along to the heroes, Greninja was just tagging along.

"Alright...", he said a bit uncertainly before looking back at the blue fox, "I am letting it slide since 'Lucario' here is a reliable source of intel from what I hear. So without wasting any more time, what did you find out?"

While Greninja thought he was being quite blunt about the whole vigilante thing, he supposed it was for the best to prevent any escalating conflict from occurring. Lucario also didn't waste any time as dug the evidence from his clocked pockets and handed it to the hero.

"As you know, there has been a rise in the number of attacks or fights with those with mutant type quirks. Well, I stopped one of these fights one night when I was in patrol, and I found this lodged onto one of the bodies involved in the fight. It may not seem like much, but I thought it was something to get checked out."

Greninja gauged the reaction of the hero, not sure what to expect. Maybe having their concerns brushed off? Laughed at the idea of mutants being targeted?

It was a bit worrying when the eyes of the hero widened a bit as he took a closer look at the bullet. Looking at it through various angles before sharpening his eyes to the fox in slight confusion, "You sure this isn't Trigger? Or some other drug involved?"

"It might be. The only thing that was different than the other cases that I dealt with was that the two were unusually more aggressive towards one another. But as far I as can tell, their quirks remained relatively the same."

The purple-haired hero looked back at the bullet with another gaze, a look that Greninja recognized.

"You know what it is. Or at least you have an idea of what it is."

The hero glared at him, though the frog could tell it had no heat behind it based on the lack of response from Lucario. "I do... Or at least I have a good idea what it could be."

The vigilantes shared a glance with one another before looking back at the hero expectantly.

"There was a case before I got into the hero course. Where a group of heroes participated in a raid involving the rescue of a little girl from the Yakuza. Really, I didn't know much about it until after I asked Deku about it."

The hero lifted up the bullet for all of them to see, "But that was not the only thing they were doing there, as they were in the working on producing quirk erasing bullets."

The two vigilantes' eyes widened in shock, "How come we never heard anything about it?"

"Probably to keep mass panic from spreading.", the hero shrugged before getting back on task, "But the point is, that they used a bullet just like this one to test out their product. Thankfully, it didn't seem like there were any more since the league fell. But it does raise a bunch of questions."

"Do you think you could find out what was in it?", Lucario said stepping forward.

"Hopefully, but whatever this is, I know to tell the heroes to look out for it if they ever deal with one of those fights again.", the hero said before nodding softly at the two again and looking at Lucario, "Thank you for tell me this, I can see why you are trusted by many of the underground heroes."

The purple-haired hero made his way towards the edge of the roof before the frog called out, "Wait! What is your hero name?"

Greninja couldn't tell, but it seemed like the man was grinning underneath that mask of his as he looked at him with mirth, "Mindwipe."

"Mindwipe? Why do they call you tha-", the frog suddenly stopped, with a blank expression on his face underneath his black hood. He suddenly broke out of it to see the hero salute before throwing his scarf and swinging away.

The fox only sighed, "At least the meeting went over well. I can tell he's new, so I didn't know how that would end of."

Lucario walked past his friend, who could only look at the aura-user with a stupefied expression. As he seemed relatively calm throughout the entire conversation apart from when he learned about the new info. Though he did wonder what his partner's thoughts were on the topic though.

Thankfully he didn't have to wait as he stopped before the ledge as he looked out in the distance in concern as Greninja stood next to him.

"I don't know how important that vial is to the case, or if it even involves anything at all. All I could do is keep doing what I am doing now. And help through any way I can.", Lucario said before he turned to the frog with an amused smile, "That being said, do you think you are up for some more patrols? If not, you can head back."

"And leave you here with all the fun? In your dreams."

The two leaped off the roof with grace as they continued their search for any trouble makers lurking about, though Ezumi still couldn't help but think back on the encounter with the hero and what they have learned about.

He could only wonder what could happen next as he continued to leap out into the night.

Hirano Atsuki

Alias: Lucario

Quirk- Fox Aura

Able to detect and feel the aura found in his environment, the user can manipulate the aura through his body in order to weaponize or make himself stronger. However, being able to read auras to understand how living beings are feeling may cause him to feel unwell if it is negative.

平 (hira) meaning "level, even, peaceful" and 野 (no) meaning "field, wilderness".

忠 means "sincere." 希 means "hope."

Asui Ezumi

Alias- Greninja

Quirk- Amphibious Plasmolysis

Along with a frog-like body, the user is able to expel water from his body to use in combat. Through training with his quirk, the user can also manipulate the water to form numerous objects. Extensive use of this will make the user dehydrated.

Ezumi- 江 means "river, 純 means "pure."