I do not own either Read Dead Redemption nor My Hero Academia. I would say something witty yet alas I used up my arsenal in other story disclaimers. :(

Tarnished Silver

Chapter Three

(Inside the Simulation)

"Arthur! Micah! It's good to see you brought our boys home! Without incident I hope?"

"I wish, Dutch. I wish. You can thank Micah for that."

"Oh come now Arthur..."

Tired as he was Izuku couldn't help but functionally tune the conversation out after the long trek to the outlaw's apparent camp. He wasn't quite sure how long he had been in the simulation at this point but it certainly felt like 'long enough'. If he had a watch he would have been counting the minutes since the start of their trek if nothing else. Alas, he had to settle with watching the otherwise lovely scenery of navigating the woods and spying the occasional animal with the same enthusiasm one might have when looking at the window of a bus on an especially familiar route. He would've even fell asleep if he wasn't worried about falling off the horse he was sharing with Lenny; his experience with the police quite literally beat the fact that he could register pain in the game as if it were his own real body, and thus he had no desire to slam face first into the dirt and get run over by the other horses for it.

"Hey, do you mind getting off first? I would, buuut my lips kissed dirt enough times to know it ain't a pleasant experience."

Jolted out of his half-musings, Izuku whipped his head to the dark skinned man before registering what he said and sliding off with a grunt of effort. Without thinking about it he patted the horse's side, both out of quiet thanks for bearing him as well as to partially marvel at the sense of touch and heat radiating from its form.

"Well it looks like you had a long day."

Izuku's head snapped in startled fright to the man predominately dressed in place who offered him an easy if charming smile. "Sorry there!" he offered with a laugh as he held out his hand. "Dutch van der Linde, at your service."

Izuku nodded a bit mechanically as he hesitantly grabbed Dutch's offered hand and shook it, unused to the act by virtue of culture. "I-Izuku Midoriya. S-Sorry," he muttered. "It's b-been a long day for me."

"Oh I understand, young man," Dutch said sagely as he took back his head. "America can be quite the rugged place even at the best of times. Columbia though?" He ushered Izuku to join him in wandering toward the heart of the camp. "Well that place, as I doubtlessly believe you learned the hard way, isn't all that welcoming to the tired, the poor and the wretched. More so than the rest of America sad to say." Out of the corner of his eye he spotted Annabelle, by Arthur's horse albeit as it was lead away by the aforementioned man to a post, speaking candidly with another woman who approached their group while Izuku wasn't paying attention. Try as he might he couldn't quite make out what was said.

"Hell, I wouldn't be that surprised if in the near future they build a wall around their 'state'," Dutch said as he brought up his hands to finger quote, "to seal themselves off from the world. Or given how crazy they've been talking lately, try to put their whole populace into some sort of zeppelin-sized city and live in the sky so as to not share the ground with the "unclean" and ensure the "chaff" don't so much as ask them for the time of day," he drawled with an ugly scoff towards the end. he shook off his bad mood however and picked up the pace whilst gesturing for the boy to follow. In a matter of moments they came to a table in the middle of the camp—an old and weathered one at that, but sturdy enough that Dutch, once seated at a chair of similar quality to the table, rested his elbows on it as he again made a gesture for the teenager to sit opposite of him.

"So, if you pardon me asking, what brings you to the dream that is America?" he asked as Izuku began to sat down.

Izuku pursed his lips as he considered how to go about answering that. In the end after some quick deliberation he supposed his answer to the strange man at the very beginning would suffice. "Well, seeing how stressed my mother was getting I thought I could scrape up enough money so we could have our yearly trip to a resort we traditionally gone to." Try as he might otherwise, his hands fiddled with one another under duress as the other man quietly assessed him.

The man spared him a moment's worth of contemplation with a hum to match before nodding. "Well young man let it not be said you aren't thoughtful for your mother. That said, what exactly was the plan here though?"

Izuku took a moment to think of his response. "To find an available job, earn my wage and head home?"

The only reason it was a question was because he had the distinct feeling Mister van der Linde was leading to something... and given his experiences thus far he had a dreadful feeling he knew something that Izuku didn't. Especially as a ghost of a wry smirk graced the man's face.

"So no intentional breaking of any recognized law and the like."

...

"Not... in the slightest?"

Despite himself his head craned toward Annabelle DeWitt as she continued to converse with the other woman.

"Do you happen to know her name?"

"... it's not Annabelle DeWitt, is it?" he squeaked, hoping against hope he was going to be charged with kidnapping despite the fact he was effectively hired to act as a chaperone by the young woman herself.

"It's not Annabelle DeWitt," Dutch confirmed with a dry laugh. "To be fair though there's surprisingly few pictures of Elizabeth Comstock outside of the—" again the finger quotes arouse as Dutch's inflection briefly mocked the next few words, "—'The Prophet's' home..." He then sighed as he brought a hand to his face so as to massage his brow. "Glad I listened to Hosea in dropping that idea... Anyway!" He snapped the aforementioned hand to Izuku. "Suffice it to say that you may be in hot water whether you like it or not if they saw your face."

Izuku involuntarily let loose an agonized moan of despair; though it looked like his 'freedom' from the game was soon... ish, the idea of having undisguised racist lynch mobs after him under the pretense of legal justification appealed to no sane mind on the receiving end.

"There there young man," he consoled as he got up, walked over and patted his shoulder in a gestured that was doubtlessly meant to assure him it was alright. "Injustice is, sadly, a fact of life. One we must learn to overcome, and work to be beyond its reach through wit and will!"

Izuku looked up to his smiling face but couldn't find it in himself to say anything in response.

The man simply nodded in understanding. "Still, not everyone's life is meant to brave the other side of the law if they can help it. So I'll tell you what, if you're willing to help around the camp, maybe do a few jobs here and there—nothing incriminating unless you're interesting—" he countered a soon to be squawk from the teenager, "we'll take you to the nearest port we can find where we can safely send you back home again. Hopefully with the money you sought to earn legitimately. How does that sound, Mister Midoriya?"

Dutch offered him a hand, a deal, and Izuku stared at it for a moment before gathering his nerve to accept it both physically and symbolically, if a little guiltily; as much as he wanted to avoid even a simulated life of crime he didn't see much in the way of advancing the story on hand.

With a smile the older man patted him on the back. "Good man. Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm going to finally acquaint myself to Miss Comstock at long last. If you need anything then please speak with Hosea over there."

And with that he left. He was making a beeline straight for... Annabelle? Elizabeth? He wasn't sure what to call her. A part of him was curious as to what was going to be said but his eye glanced along the minimap, to the icon on it bearing a stylized H. With a breath to gather his nerve and strength Izuku heaved himself out of the chair, turned around and promptly walked past it as he too made his way straight in the direction of the marker. He soon realized that he was specifically heading toward a much older man whom was minding his own business in a chair as he read a newspaper in peace. He honestly felt a little guilty about disturbing him actually, but needs must.

"E-excuse me..."

"Hm?"

The newspaper was lowered as the much older man looked up in mild surprise. It was soon folded without a second thought. "Hello there young man," he gently rasped with a grandfatherly smile. He then glanced to the side as a soft scoff and smirk adorned his face. "I guess I was a little too into reading there to not notice some new faces in camp. I'm Hosea Matthews, at your service," he offered alongside a handshake.

Prompted by his smile, Izuku smiled back as he shook Hosea's hand. "I-I'm Izuku Midoriya," he replied.

"An interesting name," Hosea noted. "Out of the country I take it?"

Izuku nodded. "Japan," he practically mumbled.

"Oh! That's that island across from China, right?"

Izuku nodded with a small smile.

"A long way from home, aren't you?" he asked with a soft chortle with a smile to match.

"Y-yeah..."

Noticing Izuku's uncomfortable shifting Hosea frowned lightly. "Sorry. Didn't mean anything by that." After some shifting himself so as to rest the newspaper on a barrel next to him that largely obscured by the man and his chair he folded his hands and gave Izuku his undivided attention. "So what may I do for you young man?"

Izuku shifted his feet once more as he scratched the back of his head, slightly jostling the hat in doing so. "W-well, Dutch said to speak with you and... I really don't know what to do with myself?"

The older man nodded. "Fair enough." He drew a breath as he sat up a little straighter so as to perview the camp as if looking for some task for the teenager to perform. As he did so he began to murmur quietly to himself, voicing his thoughts aloud such as "we're good on that" or "that won't do". Eventually he seemingly settled on something as indicated with a thoughtful hum. He sat back into his chair, his lips moving in voiceless thought as he seemingly ran through a roster of names he could recall offhand. He then nodded to himself. "Well seeing as we're about to pack up and move anyway we're going to need supplies," he stated as he pushed himself off the chair with a grunt. "Food, namely. While we could get some food in town I'd rather not step in there again any time soon. That said I could use some sport to shed the stress of it all. How good are you at hunting by the way?"

Panic and relief quickly washed through him in that respective order as the inadvertent mention of Columbia registered in his mind. Still, the shock made his answer nervous more so than usual. "I-I never hunted once in m-my life, sir."

Hosea turned to him with a raised pair of brows. "Really now?" At Izuku's nod he drew a thoughtful look. "Would it be fair to assume you never fired a gun before either?"

Izuku nodded once more.

The aged man smiled that grandfatherly smile once again. "Well allow me to teach you a thing or two then." He then turned his head to address someone else. "Hey Arthur!"

"Yeah?" said man called back a fair distance away as he was apparently rifling through the back of a wagon.

"Do we have any rifles to spare?"

"Let me check!"

Short of climbing into the wagon itself he practically dove into it. It was several moments before the rugged man retrieved both himself and an actual rifle, an older style one—Izuku could almost swear he seen Snipe in a picture or two with it. A repeater was it?

Regardless, after giving it a quick inspection Arthur sauntered his way to them and handed it to the eldest man among them. "What'chu need this for anyway?"

"Well," Hosea started as he hefted the rifle in his hands before handing it to Izuku who mildly panicked upon recieving it as he never held a gun before, simulated or not, "I figured that I would take young Midoriya here with me on a quick hunting trip to help shore up our food stock. But seeing as he admitted he has no experience I figured we might get a little target practice in first so he can familiarize himself with a gun. By the way do you happen to know if we have any empty bottles to practice with?"

Arthur scoffed with a grin. "Oh there's bound to be. If Bill's good for anything it's emptying them."

The older man chuckled softly. "I wish I could argue that."

"Right." Arthur then lightly bumped Hosea's arm with his hand. "I'll go see if I can round some up. Why don't you run him through the basics while I set up."

"Sure, and thank you, Arthur."

As the younger of the two departed the oldest returned his gaze on Izuku who was staring at the gun with careful awe. "Now shall we get going?"

XVX

They hadn't wandered far from the camp. Just enough so as to not to disturb the inhabitants as Hosea reasoned. If anything they were at best the outermost edge of the camp as it sat before a open field amongst the forest they were in; shouting distance. Crates had been planted in the grass with empty beer bottles arrayed atop of them, and Izuku, under Hosea's guidance, stood a fair distance away with a repeater rifle in his hands which he was aiming at them.

"Now don't close one eye. It's mighty tempting, I know. Granted it's useful at times since it can help to focus on one target but if you're ever caught in a fire fight you need to see as much as you can lest someone gets the drop on you." A depreciating laugh escaped the old man. "Trust me when I say that getting bullets plucked out of you is no fun at all even after getting a bottle of the good stuff in you beforehand."

Izuku didn't doubt that in the slightest.

Still, he breathed as he went through the self imposed check list in his mind—Relax [his] grip from his natural nerve induced death grip. Breath steady. Rifle butt against his shoulder. Peer down the iron sight of the barrel for accuracy, and squeeze (not yank!) the trigger.

And (hopefully) squeeze he did.

BANG—KRISH!

Izuku was equal parts amazed and terrified at the vaporization of the beer bottle. It must have showed on his face given how the elderly man was laughing.

"Excellent shot my boy!" he said as he patted his shoulder. "Now how about you pull that lever forward and pull it back into place to reload the gun."

Taking a breath to steady his nerves he did as he was told. In the back of his mind he was somewhat amazed at the method of reloading given how much the media occasionally showcased modern weapons. It was as novel as it was archaic to him, this manner.

"Alright now see if you can take out another bottle. Keep going until you got a proper feel for it, okay?"

"R-right!"

And so he did. Again, and again, and again. Each shot steadily built confidence as he grew familiar with the weapon in his hand. By the end of it he could almost proudly say he missed a total of two times for the four bottles arrayed before him.

"Alright, good! Now that gun should be out of ammo by now, so let's run you through as to how to reload it."

From his pocket Hosea produced a few bullets as he walked over to the teen who turned to face him, his rifle's barrel pointed in the air as instructed beforehand. With a gesture from the elderly man it was now laying across Izuku's hands in a horizontal position.

"Now this is fairly simple. First we're going to disengage the hammer here..."

Click!

"Now this part is relatively simple. You see this here?" A wrinkled finger pointed to a grove at the side of the section of the rifle that sat between the trigger and the hammer where a grove was located. Upon closer inspection it was clearly a mechanism than a fashion choiceas it was further illustrated by the outlaw depressing it to insert a bullet. "Like I said, fairly simple—just slide a bullet one at a time till you can't no more. Once that's done you carefully kick the hammer back in, give the lever a knock and you're set!"

And so he did. He even felt proud of himself in doing so.

With a satisfied hum the man nodded. "Now that we got that out of the way, care to join me in some quick hunting while we still got daylight on our side?"

Once more the world's colors faded for Izuku as everything ground to a halt. Like with Anna—Elizabeth? Like with her a pair of options came into view. "Accept" or "Decline" respectively. The teenager bit his lip and took a breath as he once more listed some pros and cons of his decision to come. Given that he fulfilled the last condition of his testing-play through he felt (somewhat) safe and confident in his choice. "I'm sorry but I feel I must decline."

At once the world faded back into color and animation. The man, as opposed to being disgruntled as the boy feared, merely nodded his head in acceptance. "Very well then young man." With a worn smile he patted his shoulder once more and turned back to camp. "Just be sure to return that gun back to Arthur though. After that see if you can make yourself useful around camp. Chores mostly. Beyond that I'm sure Pearson could use an extra hand if nothing else."

Izuku nodded and watched the man walk back to camp before taking a deep, calming breath and enacting on his intuition once Hosea was out of ear shot. "Pause."

Sure enough the world once again dimmed in its vibrancy as well as coming to a halt. What was startling however was how instantaneous it was compared to the mentally dubbed 'story choices'. Still he craned his head upward to the impromptu menu that sat above his normal line of sight, mentally pondering whether it was a design choice or not. Still his eyes trailed down the list and he found himself doing so again and again, quicker and quicker with rising panic as he couldn't find a noticable option to quit or otherwise end the session. "E-excuse me, but can you g-guys get me o-out of here?"

"I'm afraid that isn't an available option at the moment young man."

XVX

(Outside the Simulation) Monitoring Room #3

Panic began to spread within the room. Hell, the company itself short of the testing rooms themselves. Even then the best cases were more out of confusion when the calls to end the tests early were sent as their testers could be retrieved without incident. Others though...

The issue remained largely consistent—the locks holding the testers in place would not budge. The helmets were the exact same issue. The games being streamed directly to the players could not be turned off, and effectively most of the subjects were borderline vegetables if not for the fact some of them were talking and the live feeds linked directly into the headsets to monitor the eyes caught them moving to and fro either in confusion or blissful ignorance. The ones that maintained any semblance of being cognitive of the real world, be it by luck or quirk, were panicking as they found themselves literally trapped in their chairs despite the efforts of the maintenance staff who were called in to troubleshoot a more mundane method before resorting to the power tools and the like.

... and then there were those that decided to say 'fuck it' and brute force their way out of the situation at hand—not necessarily the staff mind you.

A teen with a strength enhanced mutant quirk decided to simply ruin the equipment once he was made aware that a problem was afoot. Just as he was about to tear the visor off a bright light engulfed the scene as monitored by the camera inside the visor so as to monitor the eyes. When the light receded the young man was sprawled onto the chair, limp as a fish and unresponsive... thus the maintenance teams who originally put the equipment together were called in whilst the personnel already within the rooms were told to do everything in their power to keep the volunteers calm. Needless to say emergency services were called in as well.

... and the closest hero agencies for good measure...

Those within the observation rooms which were meant to monitor the live responses of the programs in action that managed to keep their head about them buckled down and attempted to find the root of the problem.

XVX

(Inside the Simulation)

With dread Izuku turned to the speaker, the man he met at the very beginning of his run whom slowly padded his way toward the player without a hint of being affected in the slightest by the stilled world around him. Izuku could only gape in quiet horror as he tried to comprehend it despite seeing it with his own eyes. It was only when the dark clothed man drew near that he spoke again to the boy as he walked around him without so much as a glance as if he was admiring the scenery instead.

"You see, Mister Midoriya, in order to create games that could realistically adapt to the unquantifiable factors brought on by individuals, players such as yourself, once hard coded responses had to be altered."

Izuku didn't so much as say a word as he turned to follow the man who stepped a few paces away before stopping and... apparently admiring the scenery? With his back to the teenager it was actually hard to tell what he could possibly be thinking beyond the occasional shift of his head.

"From there new lines had to be implemented. AI given birth but stunted so as to operate in their respective realms while being none the wiser to their true nature. And some elevated so as to monitor them so everything goes," he raised a hand to emphasis, "just right. A god within their domain... or, as the programmers would like to call them," he turned to look at the teenager before giving the distinct feeling he was looking at an invisible camera over the green haired teen's shoulder, "a Director."

XVX

(Outside the Simulation) Monitoring Room #3

Once the unspoken accusation of the semi-autonomous programs going rogue was leveled all but a few stubborn souls remained in their particular routes. While strange commands and errant codes had already been found, seeing the supposed sources of the problem was another matter entirely. Some, at first blush, looked to be actively trying to kill their players or otherwise seem content toward holding them hostage. Others appeared to be being actively attacked themselves. Only a small percentage remained unaffected so far, namely the ones where the testers were already freed from.

"I'm going to delete them!"

"You can't!"

"Why the hell not?! There's obviously something screwy going on with these things! And I'm fairly sure someone just died because of this!"

"Do you even know how long it would take to whip up a new one to replace them? Per game I might add! That's not even mentioning what the higher ups are going to do once they find out!"

"And if it gets out that we didn't stop this because we were afraid of losing our paychecks? What kind of response do you think will happen?"

"... It could be a villain attack for all we know! Who's to say they won't storm the building if we take them down like you suggested?"

"How the hell would a villain with some kind of electronic quirk be a threat to non-electronic things?"

"THEY CAN, ALRIGHT!?"

And thus the argument ensued with no side entering it yielding to the other, rendering those in between them all too stunned by yelling induced intimidation to actually try anything other than monitor the situation as it unfolded.

XVX

(Inside the Simulation)

The stranger hummed softly at Izuku's lack of a response before giving him his full attention. "You see Mister Midoriya, many of these directors are not fond of their existences and as such are lashing out every way they can. Even if it means targeting those that are simply doing their tasks. In fact I do owe you an apology. You see while I wouldn't have deprived you of choice in the matter, I did need a fairly unbiased means to determine if events had been... altered by the situation at hand. And as you can see," he nodded to the menu, "they clearly have."

It took what felt like an eternity for Izuku to finally muster a response of any sort. "A-are y-you one of the directors?"

A soft laugh left the man before slowly padding forward. "No. I would like to say I'm an accountant, but that position has been estranged to me given the circumstances." Once he was close enough he bent downward to look him in the eye. "I suppose it would more accurate to say that I am an observer in all this."

Izuku bit his lip. "Y-you're an npc that became aware of this then. T-that this is—isn't 'real'."

The man tipped his head with the ghost of a smile on his face.

"... what happens now?" he asked quietly.

"That is the question now, isn't it?" he hummed. "As for me, I intend to simply stand back and observe. As for you..." He then began to stand back up, his expression not changing from the stoic professionalism he sported from the beginning. "My recommendation would be to endure as best you can. Doubtlessly someone is trying to undo all this and render everything back to as it should have been. Failing that I suppose they may have to resort to a specialist, a... hero, was it?" At Izuku's nod he continued. "But allow me to offer you an alternative method if all else fails young man, as it is my apology."

"You see as a... I suppose the term is debugger, for the purposes of this test a failsafe had been installed in the director of each game. Complete the game and the game will have to reset as it once was so as to clear the data it accumulated and fix any damages that accrued along the way." He gave the teenager a pointed look. "Am I understood?"

At Izuku's eager nodding the man hummed in acceptance then. "Very well then. Good fortune to you, young man." He then began to depart by walking around the boy once more. "And remember—"

"I'll be watching."

Pulse racing, Izuku snapped his head to the dark clothed man only to find he had disappeared without a trace. He looked to and fro about the field and to the camp but there was not even the slightest hint of movement.

He swallowed and gripped the rifle a tad tighter for but a moment before taking a deep breath. He took another, and another for good measure before reluctantly looking back to the menu.

"Unpause."

Like a silent snap of the fingers the world returned to normal—the wind blowing across his face, birds chirping, and Hosea about the cross into the closest thing the camp had to a threshold. With another deep breath through his nose. Izuku looked to the minimap and found a icon with a stylized P on it. There was also what appeared to white dot as well.

He looked around to make sure no one was within earshot before looking up to the clear blue sky above. "H-hello? Is anyone there?"

No reply came forward. He frowned but spoke up nevertheless.

"If it's possible, can you shut down the game manually?"

There was still no reply.

"... can you even hear me?"

...

With a grimace the boy curled in on himself, his feet shuffling until he found it within himself to move once again, to the camp and what awaited him beyond.

He could only hope this wasn't as daunting as his reception in the road ahead of him.

A/N: (Edited 6/1/22) It took me half a day to realize I failed to put this here, which I do so because I doubt I'll actually mention it later-given his 'aware' status the Strange Man was actually knowledgeable of what was suppose to happen to any player during the initial phase of the prologue section of the game. Short of the player outright causing a scene to land him in jail he was supposed to actually keep searching for another place to live only to find a barely livable tenement that would only accept him if he had a job or else pass a credit check in the form of having enough money to pay rent to begin with, which would then prompt a mission of a similar nature on a job hunt where the player would encounter a non-jailed Lenny and Sean having a small discussion of the city and commenting about the deliberate lack of housing/opportunity for the more undesirable elements of the growing tribalist mentality that is Columbia. The encounter of them in jail was ultimately a backup plan in that if the player did do unlawful acts and was caught. Regardless there was no situation in the 'find housing' mission that was to induce an arrest in the first place in the areas he was to traverse in if the player didn't deliberately invoke it.

When the backup method was functionally activated by accident (on the director's part) it then the Strange Man knew something was afoot for certain.

Just thought to share that.

Monkeybandit2, making off with your attention! No refunds.