Three black armored trucks moved swiftly through the night. Carrying their cargo with discretion.
The cargo in question was a bunch of metal pods, and Inside one of the trucks were two high ranking heroes, Endeavor and Edgeshot.
The two heroes stood in silence in the lead truck. Neither of them said a thing.
"So, do either of you know what we're transporting?" Flying above the three trucks was the number four hero, Hawks.
"Doesn't matter. We have our orders." Endeavor said simply.
"Come on, don't tell me you're not curious. They suddenly pull us away from our work, tell us to guard these trucks, and when we ask what's in them, they say it's classified." Hawks pointed out.
"If it is classified, then it is not our business to know," Edgeshot said.
"Normally I would say the same thing, but these are pretty...human-sized. Don't you think?" Hawks pointed out. "And they're not prisoners, because they would tell us if they were. So what exactly are we transporting?"
There was a bit of silence for a bit, but before anyone could say anything-
KABOOM!
Suddenly the road the trucks were driving over, exploded.
Two of the trucks were sent off the roads, and one of them flew up in the air, and landed on its side, with one pod spilling out of the door.
"Crap! The road must have had some kind of invisible mines on them!" Hawks said, and then he heard the sound of two cars driving at them from off-road. "And here comes the perpetrators. To our left. About eight villains in two cars!"
The doors of one of the still upright trucks flew open, but seemingly nothing came out.
"Alright, boys!" Shouted one of the villains in the cars, standing up while addressing his allies, "Let's-gah!"
Suddenly, the villain fell down, unconscious. And before any of the other villains could do anything about it, they two were knocked out, their bodies going limp in the cars. As Edgeshot did his work.
However before the cars could go out of control, Hawk's feathers flew down and took control of them. Bringing them safely to a halt.
Endeavor and a few government agents stepped out of the truck. "Hmph, looks like I wasn't needed here."
Edgeshot reformed himself next to Endeavor. "They seemed to just be petty criminals. No one of impotence."
Endeavor looked up at Hawks, about to tell him to call the police so they could get the villains arrested when he found the man seemingly transfixed on something.
He followed the winged hero's gaze and looked down at the pod that had fallen out.
It was open and inside was a now awake, little girl.
Edgeshot also noticed this and was just as shocked at what their "cargo" seemed to be.
Hawks descended down landing in front of the scared and confused girl, as other agents surrounded her.
"Where am I? Where's my daddy?" She asked with tears brimming in her eyes.
Hawks looked back at Endeavor and the two heroes community wordlessly. Hawks would comfort the girl, and Endeavor would ask what the hell was going on.
"Don't worry kid, just stay calm." Hawks told her.
Meanwhile, the agents were freaking out, pulling out phones and calling their superiors to see what they should do.
One of the agents was running past Endeavor when he was suddenly grabbed by the number two hero.
"You! What the hell is going on!? What exactly are we transporting!? And why was there a little girl in one of the pods!? Endeavor wasn't normally one to question the government, but he would be damned if he would let himself be a pawn in some sort of child slave transport ring or something of that sort.
"I-I-I'd have to ask the higher-ups if we're allowed to tell you that sir!" The man said his eyes full of fear as he was stared down by an annoyed Endeavor.
Endeavor shoved the man away, causing him to fall on his ass. "Then ask them! And tell them that if I'm not given an answer, I'm going to find out myself!"
The agent scampered away and pulled out his phone as fast as he could.
While Endeavor waited for the man to finish his call, he realized that Edgeshot had disappeared. "Edgeshot? Where the hell-"
"I am here." Edgeshot reappeared next to him. "I went to check if the girl had any injuries. But what I found was...she's not human."
Endeavor raised a flaming brow, "What do you mean, not human?"
"She's a machine," Edgeshot revealed. "An android."
Endeavor's eyes went wide with shock, before looking back at the girl.
She definitely didn't look or sound like a machine. She cried like a child and clung to Hawks like any scared little girl would. She seemed like any other child.
The agent ran back to Endeavor. "Uh, sir. We've b-been given permission to explain."
Endeavor glared at the man. "Well then start talking."
The next day, in Izuku's lab.
Recovery Girl, Nezu, Izuku, and the boy known as Shinso Hitoshi were all riding in the elevator down to one of the levels of Izuku's lab.
Nezu got off the phone, storing it away in his pocket.
"Is something wrong?" Izuku asked.
"It seems that there was an incident with the first transport," Nezu explains, making sure not to say anything Shinso shouldn't hear. "And they had to explain the cargo to the heroes there."
"Was any of it damaged?" Izuku asked with concern.
"No damage," Nezu said.
Part of Shinso wanted to ask what that was about. But judging by how vague they were being, he had a feeling he wasn't supposed to know.
And he didn't really care anyway.
DING!
The elevator stopped, and then the door opened up.
The three stepped out into the lab, and Shinso took a long hard look around the laboratory.
There were many machines, most of which he didn't recognize, tools he didn't recognize, and even robots he didn't recognize. There was also a metal table, with different machines that looked like they belonged in a hospital, as well as tables containing more devices he didn't know the purpose of.
The most attention-grabbing thing in the room was a large cylinder, filled with some kind of strange energy. The cylinder looked like it extended into multiple floors.
"I'm guessing the table is for me?" Shinso asked.
"That's right." Recovery Girl said, moving over to the medical supply to pull out some gloves and a surgical mask.
"As I said Mr. Shinso, you will be here for quite some time. If you have anything you need to do in the near future, I would suggest you speak up." Nezu told him. "And of course if you have any doubts or concerns about this process then now would be the time to speak up."
Shinso almost rolled his eyes. "If I had any concerns I probably would have mentioned them before going down the secret elevator into the faintly sinister secret lab."
"My lab isn't sinister," Izuku muttered as he too prepared for the operation.
"I'm ready, so let's get this over with," Shinso said, getting onto the table and laying down.
Recovery Girl brought a stool over the operating area, so she could do everything she needed to without her height being an issue. "So eager, even when you'll be giving up part of your humanity."
Shinso rolled his eyes. "What good is my humanity, if people treat me like a monster anyway?"
The Recovery Girl sighed and brought over a face mask onto Shinso's mouth and nose area. "This society."
And those were the last words Shinso heard, before the gas turned on, he was knocked out.
Meanwhile, at a U.A. gym.
Uraraka was floating in the air, a few inches off the ground, her mouth shut as her face turned green.
Eventually, the nasua was too much for her to handle, and she brought her fingers together and fell to the ground.
BWAGH!
The poor brunette vomited in a nearby bucket, as Sukui, who had been on the side watching, walked over with a phone in one hand, and mouthwash in the other.
"You're doing better," Sukui told her, giving her friend the mouth was to get the taste of vomit out of her mouth. "Your time's increased by .7 percent."
After spitting out the mouth wash into the same bucket, Ochaco spoke to her friend. "Do you really need a stopwatch app? You're a robot."
"Android." Sukui corrected. "And I wasn't using the phone as a stopwatch, I was looking at the news. So far, no one has any useful information on the league, which guess I should have expected."
Ochaco gave her a concerned look. "You...want to go after the league. Don't you?"
"Of course I do," Sukui said it like it was the most obvious thing in the world. "Those bastards are a stain on my creation and my father's reputation. The sooner I put them away, the better me and dad can sleep at night."
And she wanted to find her brother. But she couldn't say that. Even if she knew the secrets of her creation and class 1A knew a bit of them, most of it was still classified to them, as well as the public.
"Well...we are only students right now." Ochaco pointed out. "Maybe we should focus on the sports festival for now."
"Well, it's not here yet." Sukui countered. "And it's not really like I can prepare for it. I can't develop muscle or train my quirk or anything. I mean...there is some training I can do, but it's not important for the festival. That's why I'm helping you train instead. Your welcome."
"Thanks." Ochaco shook her head at her friend's antics. Well, at least she's out of her funk. So that's good. I should probably keep her distracted so that she doesn't do something crazy.
"Although to be fair, not like I had much better to do." Sukui sighed. "Everyone else is busy training for the festival too and not all of them want me around, their loss, and Dad is super busy with some kind of super-secret project...again. So he's not gonna be available for most of the day, for most of the next few weeks."
"That sucks!" Ochaco sympathized with her friend.
"I mean dad's trying to make time for me but you know...work." Sukui gave another sigh. "I guess I shouldn't complain. You have it worse than I do when it comes to not seeing your parents."
Ochaco's expression fell. "Yeah. I miss mom and dad."
"Now that I think about it, why did you come here anyway." Sukui inquired. "Why become a hero in the first place?"
Suddenly Ochaco turned sheepish. Blushing as if she was embarrassed about something. "Well...promise you won't judge me about it?"
"Promise." Sukui gave her a reassuring smile.
Ochaco took a deep breath, and blurted out, "I did it for money!... I mean...my parents aren't really well off and we've been having money problems for a while, but they've always still managed to make me feel so loved and cared for, so I wanna give back and make enough money so they can live comfortably. I know it's not really the noblest reason but-"
"Stop!" Sukui brought up her hand to shut her friend up. "I'm going to stop you right there. First of all, the whole "noble reason for being a hero" is silly. So long as you do your job, and save people's lives, it doesn't matter why. Saving people is an inherently good thing. If someone saved my life and later they said they did it for money, I would still be happy to be alive. Also, being a hero so you can repay your parents, is plenty noble to me. Heck, it's basically the reason I want to be a hero too. So don't ever feel ashamed of the reason you want to be a hero."
"Aw." Ochaco kept blushing but with a big smile on her face. "Thank you. That...it means a lot to me."
Sukui, without warning, hugged her friend, encompassing her in a crushing hug. "Don't worry about it. And if anyone ever gives you crap about it, I'll beat the shit out of them!"
"Please don't!" Ochaco struggled to breathe in Sukui's embrace. "Why do you have to be so violent?"
Because dad decided it was a good idea to add Bakugo's shitty brain waves to my programming. Sukui thought. Hate that I had to go through that twice.
The error in her programming caused slight memory issues, so she had to learn that nasty piece of information twice.
Sukui let go of Ochaco, allowing the girl to finally breathe. "Alright, back to training! If you wanna look impressive at the sport's festival, you'll need to give your all! We're not stopping until you've vomited up your last three breakfasts."
"Uh, let's not go that far." Ochaco was pumped about the sport's festival...maybe not that pumped.
Many hours later.
Izuku walked into his living space, completely exhausted and covered in sweat.
The operation had been both physically and mentally exhausting. Hours of standing up, performing very careful and intricate work, was hard to say the least, especially since he was not used to more...biological work and the more than slight gruesomeness entailed. Not helped by the fact that this was just the first day of operation, meaning he would have to do this for several days, more if the testing didn't go well.
And that wasn't even the only project he'd worked on that day. He spent a few hours on Project Drake as well, although thanks to Mei he didn't need to spend as much time on that as he did Project Hybrid.
Mei had been ecstatic when he introduced H.E.R.O. energy and Project Drake to her. She looked like a child who had just tasted candy for the first time...and then was left in a candy store with a million dollars.
The girl was a natural with machinery, and while he did have to explain a lot of things to her, she got the hang of things pretty fast, allowing him to focus on the more complex and delicate parts of the construction while she handled everything else. A true prodigy, despite her...eccentric nature.
With her help on project Drake and Recovery Girl's help on Project Hybrid, those two projects would be able to progress smoothly.
The last project Izuku needed to worry about was Project Kin. Or rather, giving Sukui H.E.R.O. energy.
While he already adapted Sukui's "brain" to be able to handle H.E.R.O. energy, when he was fixing the bug in her system, the next step would be creating a body that utilized H.E.R.O. energy.
The issue was that Izuku wasn't sure how Sukui would use that energy.
He did adore her as family, but...sometimes the less admirable parts of Bakugo showed through.
Ultimately, he needed to give her this upgrade to see how H.E.R.O. energy interacted with a fully inorganic being, but he wanted to wait until he thought she was ready...hopefully during or soon after the sports festival.
Izuku crashed onto the couch. Mom is probably asleep...at least I was able to make sure she could relax...but I'm gonna be busy. Even once all these sports festival things are done, I'll still have to worry about Project Kyu.
The door opened, and Sukui walked into the common room, immediately seeing her father on the couch and smiling. "Hey, dad!"
Izuku gave a tired smile back. "Hey, Sukui. How was your day?"
"Pretty good, most of the girls were busy but Ochaco let me help her train, we went for food after. I'm trying to convince her to do Karaoke...hey dad can I sing?" Sukui asked.
"Uhh...well I made your voice sound nice, but I didn't really take singing into account when I made you, so you don't have any inherent sense for rhythm or tone or anything. So you'll need to learn that on your own." Izuku explained. "Sorry."
"No, no, don't apologize it'll at least give me something to practice." Sukui gave an overdramatic sigh. "One of the disadvantages of being made perfect is that you can't improve yourself."
Izuku wondered what she was talking about for a moment, before putting it together. "Ah, I guess it's a little frustrating not being able to train the same way everyone else does."
"They're all out working their muscles, improving their quirks, and all that. While I'm here, at the peak of my existence, as I will always be." Sukui bragged.
"Well you can't train your muscles, but you can still train your mind," Izuku told her.
Sukui gave him a confused look. "But...I have scanners and stuff."
"Yes, but those take time to work," Izuku explained. "In the middle of a fight, you might not have time to sit and process all your best possible options. Also sometimes you just choose not to use it. So you might want to get used to fighting without it."
Sukui thought about using her processors because Izuku pointed out how little she did that. "I guess you're right. But how do I do that? Not like I can just go outside and fight villains until I get better at it."
"Well, I could ask Nezu if we could use one of the training grounds, and I could make some unique villain robots for you to fight," Izuku suggested. "I could watch you and give some pointers...it could be like-"
"Daddy-daughter time." Sukui finished his sentence. "Yeah, that sounds great! But aren't you busy?"
"I'm sure Nezu will understand...we don't spend as much time together as we'd like," Izuku admitted sadly.
Sukui nodded. "Which is ironic considering why you built me."
"Yeah, but at least we can finally do something together," Izuku said with a small smile.
"We played catch." Sukui pointed out.
"Something other than that," Izuku said a bit too quickly.
"What do you mean!? That was fun!" Sukui objected.
"...If you say so Sukui. If you say so." Izuku said.
So the Sports Festival will be starting soon, and trust me, it's gonna get interesting. Real interesting.