Izuku groaned as he sat up in his hospital bed, his body felt like it was attached to twenty cinder blocks. Feeling up and down his own body, he noticed a surprising lack of concrete shards sticking out of his flesh.
Another groan pulled his attention to his left as Izuku watched Delsin push himself up off of his bed as well, also concrete spike free.
"You okay Delsin?" Izuku asked his conduit sibling.
Delsin began to pat both hands against his chest with a disgruntled look on his face, "Well I think that my stomach is where my lungs are supposed to be, but other than that I feel fine."
Izuku snickered and took his brother's hand in his own, using one another to get themselves to their feet.
"Where are we?" Delsin asked.
"The longhouse. I think," Izuku answered, the longhouse looked completely different, cluttered with hospital equipment and teeming with the sounds of steady heart rate monitors.
"Betty!" The two conduits said in unison to each other.
The two began to walk through the lodge, narrowly dodging a shoe that had been thrown at the TV in an attempt to turn it off.
"How long were we out?" Delsin questioned.
"Enough time for that red-headed bitch to do this," Izuku whispered as he stared at a silhouette of an Akomish man with his leg suspended in the air, with what Izuku could assume was concrete jutting out from the elevated appendage.
The two rounded a corner and came across a wall of x-rays, all showing parts of the human body covered in concrete.
"Oh my god. How could someone do this? How many people did she hurt?" Delsin frantically asked.
"All because I couldn't stop her," Izuku's face was mortified.
"All because we couldn't stop her," Delsin amended.
The two kept walking through the longhouse, before they finally found Betty, laying in a bed with her concrete encased leg propped up on a pillow, surrounded by all manner of cards and flowers and with a big banner hanging above her that read: Get Well Soon, Betty.
"You two are awake." Betty happily whispered as she saw the two young men approaching her.
"So did Augustine do this to you?" Delsin had managed to hear the name of the woman that had caused all of this chaos before the shoe had hit the power button on the TV.
"Yeah. But did you think I was gonna rat you out to that ornery trot?" Betty grabbed Delsin by the hand and had him sit on the edge of the bed, while Izuku stood at the head.
"Besides, at the time it seemed like all the cool kids were getting their legs pierced," Betty attempted to joke.
"So that means that everyone here-" Izuku was cut off by Betty smacking his leg.
"We're Akomish, we protect our own. Nobody blames you for what happened here, and you shouldn't either," Betty said, earning a scoff from Delsin, and a guilty look from Izuku, "Hey, you can't be ashamed of what you are. You can't help it, you were born that way."
"All that matters is that I'm one of them now, we're one of them now!"
"Neither of you are one of those...beady-eyed bio-terrorists who go around killing people just for the fun of it. You are both good boys, you just so happened to have a bit of smoke and sound coming out of your fingers," Betty reassured, but to no avail as both Delsin and Izuku moved away a little bit.
"Whole reason that we're in this mess is because I've got smoke/sound coming out of my fingers," Delsin and Izuku, respectively, mumbled out.
"Well, if you two are gonna be such buzzkills, then I'm gonna have to get some more sleep, so that I can get better. And I can rest now, because you're back on your feet," Betty said before she passed out against her pillow.
Delsin and Izuku sat still for a moment, before Delsin leaned over and placed a kiss on Betty's head, "We're gonna fix this, I promise."
It wasn't even half a minute later that the two were roped into a hug from Reggie, who had burst into the lodge just as they were about to leave.
"Damnit, I thought I had lost you two for a second!"
"Eh, it's gonna take a bit more than a little concrete in the legs to keep us down," Delsin said as he tossed Izuku his boots.
Reggie eyed them both suspiciously, "Well, I'm glad to see that fast healing seems to be a part of your new…thing. Speaking of which, the craziness with the hands, is that gone?"
"Yeah I don't know man, there's no smoking in the longhouse, remember?" Delsin joked.
"Right, what about you Izuku?"
"Probably not, but I wouldn't want to test it in here. It'd be rude to the people trying to make their recovery," Izuku answered as he hauled his boots on.
"Recovery? Hey, guys, these people aren't getting any better, they're dying," Reggie told them with a sad look in his eyes.
"You don't know that," Delsin somewhat angrily stated.
"I don't, but the doctors who came in here while you were out do. They said that the only way those shards are coming back out is the same way they came in."
"What?! But that was Augustine and her concrete power!" Izuku ranted.
"Yeah," Reggie nodded depressingly.
"Well then screw it," Delsin slammed the cabinet that had held their shoes and his vest shut, "Looks like the three of us are heading down to Seattle and we're gonna go get her."
"Woah, woah, woah, woah, wait, what? Do you think that you can just charm her into coming back here with us? Look I know you took a bump to the head but you two didn't exactly hit it off last time you met." Reggie tried to talk Delsin down.
"Reggie, this is our fault, we made this happen and now we have to go fix it," Izuku stated simply.
"No, damnit, you two just got back on your feet, look I know you want to help but the doctors have already said that-"
"That the only way they're coming back out is with the same power I get it!" Delsin finished for him.
Suddenly, a lightbulb went off in Izuku's head, "Which means; we don't actually need that wrinkly hag, we just need her power," he devilishly grinned.
Delsin grinned right back as he realized what Izuku meant.
"Ok, now you've lost me."
"I'm a goddamn power sponge, remember? If I got smoke, why can't I get concrete?" Delsin laughed.
"Yeah, but what if smoke was just a fluke? Huh? Think about it, you'd have to go through like, a thousand D.U.P. guys just to get to her," Reggie countered.
"Sounds like fun," Izuku grinned as he cracked his knuckles.
"This is why you got suspended so many times," Reggie groaned.
"I'll explain everything in the truck," Delsin said before running out of the longhouse.
"What truck? You don't have a truck, I have a- Oh it's my truck," Reggie groaned once more.
"Indeed it is big brother," Izuku laughed as he followed the copy conduit out the building.
--
"Alright I've got this all figured out," Delsin said, the three brothers were driving down the road in Reggie's truck, Reggie in the driver's seat, Delsin in the passenger's and Izuku in the bed of the truck, leaning through the window, "We'll hit up the town, I'll load up on the all the you can eat conduit buffet, we'll swing by the space needle, always wanted to see it, and then we're back home to save some lives."
"Yeah, you do realize that when we 'hit up the town' it's probably gonna hit back," Reggie told the youngest Rowe brother.
"What does that even mean?"
"He means that once we get there, the citizens of Seattle are not exactly gonna roll out the red carpet for us, they already have a handful of conduits there, so I doubt that they'd welcome anymore," Izuku explained.
"But we're gonna be different, man. We're gonna be out there helping people," Delsin argued.
"Doesn't change the fact that some of these people have had their lives ruined by bio-terrorists," Reggie argued back.
"That is a pre-programmed mindset dude, just because a few of us are bad doesn't mean that all of us are-" the copy conduit stopped halfway through his sentence as he saw the giant concrete roadblock, with the word D.U.P. painted on the side in big yellow letters.
After a few seconds of gawking at the huge roadblock, Delsin regained his composure and opened up the passenger door, "Looks like we're walking."
The oldest Rowe brother groaned as he let his head fall on the car horn, before he too got out of the car. Izuku hopping out of the bed of the truck right behind him.
As the three progressed towards Seattle, their path was littered with dead trees and toppled cars. Eventually coming across a large broken metal box, a bright teal glow wafting off of it.
"The hell is that thing?" Reggie questioned.
"I don't know," Delsin admitted as he walked closer to it, his hand reaching out to touch it.
"Delsin, don't touch it! That thing could be radioactive for all we know!" Izuku shouted, but it was too late. Delsin's hand made contact with the machine and the light began to circle around his arms, and lift him into the air.
Delsin fell back to the ground, landing on his feet as smoke exploded from his hands and forearms.
"What just happened?" Reggie asked.
"I...think I got a new power," Delsin chuckled, the three heard a buzzing noise and saw a small black and yellow drone hovering above them, "Let's test it out," his raised his open palm and aimed it at the drone, a bullet made of smoke flew from his hand and blasted the drone down to the ground.
Delsin smiled to himself as he gazed at his smokey hands, "I could definitely get used to this."
"Hey look, there's another one," Izuku pointed out, his brother taking off and repeating the process that had given him the first ability.
"You got it out of your system? I can hear some people yelling for help up ahead," Reggie said before taking off.
Izuku and Delsin shrugged to each other, before following him over to a long blue bus with a few silver crates on top.
"What's the matter?" Izuku asked as he watched Reggie walk off the bus.
"This bus was meant to bring medical supplies into the city, but they got cut off by these concrete things," Reggie explained when pointing at human sized slabs of concrete sticking up from the road.
"Looks like we're gonna have to clear them out," Delsin said as he tore one of them apart with a stronger blast of smoke. Izuku placed his hand against another one and shattered it with a pulse of noise.
The two made their way through the concrete slabs, before jogging over to the bus to see that the door was closed and Reggie was sitting in the driver's seat.
Delsin pounded on the door but Reggie wouldn't open it, instead opting to pull out his phone and call Delsin.
"Hey man, what the hell, open the doors," Delsin said into the phone.
The sound conduit watched as the two argued back and forth about something that he couldn't hear, with Delsin occasionally pounding on the door, and Reggie seemingly yelling at one of the people on the bus, before Delsin hung up the phone with a bitter 'whatever'.
"What was that all about?"
"Apparently the people on that bus saw us using our powers and got scared of us, didn't want us on the bus."
"Well, I guess that's par the course now, they don't see us as human so we should probably get used to being treated like animals," Izuku depressingly sighed.
"Yeah, we're gonna fix that real soon. Now come on, the bridge leading to Seattle should be right through this tunnel," the copy conduit huffed before running off, with Izuku quickly following behind.
The two conduits were in a dimly lit tunnel, one that was littered with abandoned cars, when they heard a car alarm blaring loudly.
"Hey, everything ok over there?" Delsin yelled out.
"Shit, a bio-terrorist! It's one of those freaks!" A masked man yelled, before pulling a pistol and firing at the conduit brothers.
"Wait, don't-"
BANG! BANG! BANG! BANG! BANG!
Delsin's attempt to stop the man was silenced as five bullets entered into his chest, and his body fell backwards to the ground.
Izuku yelled out for his brother, his powers inadvertently increasing the volume of the scream ten times over, coupled with the echo of the tunnel, the car jacker's ear-drums began to burst one by one, causing them to fall to the ground.
"Holy shit," Delsin breathed out from behind him, Izuku let out a quiet 'sweet Jesus' before giving his brother a light shove.
"I'm really glad that we have this whole fast healing thing," Izuku lamented.
"I know, but, is it just me or do you feel this weird hollowness inside of you?" Delsin asked.
"I don't think now's a good time for a therapy session."
"Not that kind of hollowness idiot!"
"Well now that you mention it, yeah, I kinda do," Izuku admitted. Suddenly, one of the car jackers groaned and attempted to push himself to his feet.
"Don't worry, I got this one," Delsin outstretched his palm, but no smoke came out. Delsin stared at his hand, confused, and thrusted it out a few times.
"Well," Izuku sighed, copying Delsin's hand motions, "This is quite unfortunate."
"So Reggie was right! This was all just some random fluke!" Delsin yelled out angrily, his fist aiming to collide with a car that had been flipped, smoke billowing from it.
Before Delsin's fist could make contact, the smoke from the car began to get sucked into his body. Delsin laughed psychotically as the smoke then began to waft off of his skin.
The car jacker was on his hands and knees now and tried to reach for a discarded pistols, the copy conduit fired a shot of smoke at the man, knocking him out for good, before laughing to himself more.
"Fuck yeah! Reggie was wrong!"
"Gee, I wonder how many times you've said that in your life."
"Well at least I know I still have my powers," Delsin sighed.
"If you have yours then I should have mine still, so where the hell are they?" The two then finally heard the music that had been playing from an abandoned car nearby, "Let me try something."
Izuku stuck his hand into the open window of the car and outstretched his palm towards the stereo. Before long, the machine began to glitch out, then went dead silent, and the familiar buzzing sound returned to Izuku's hand.
"I get it," Izuku whispered.
"You get what?"
"Our conduit powers need ammo to work, your body doesn't produce the smoke you use, my body doesn't produce the sound I use, we draw it in from our environment. Guess it's a good thing that we're going to a city like Seattle then," Izuku explained.
The sudden sounds of loud explosions from the other side of the tunnel pulled the conduits attention, but their eyes widened as they realized:
"The bridge!"
The two took off running through the tunnel, almost falling off of the broken edge of the bridge.
The two turned their attention to the Seattle skyline, watching as helicopters flew towards it.
"Fuck!" Delsin yelled out while staring at the destroyed bridge "How the hell are we supposed to get across that?"
The copy conduit stumbled slightly as he felt the ground rumble due to the powerful sound wave that Izuku had used to throw himself over the gap, and safely onto the other platform.
Delsin tried to use his smoke dash to get across, but ultimately came up short and fell to the collapsed part of the bridge.
"Hey, Delsin, look behind you!" Izuku exclaimed as he pointed at another one of the large glowing machines. Delsin quickly reached out and touched it, being lifted into the air for a few seconds and dropped, he quickly scrambled on to of an abandoned car, and smoke gathered around both him and the car, before he was shot up next to Izuku in an explosion of ash and cinders.
Eventually, they came across another roadblock, not only was a part of the bridge lowered, but there was also a large gap between the end of the bridge and the platform that they were on.
Izuku had to use two blasts of sound to get up, but got up all the same. Delsin not so much, having to get another power in order to cross.
"Please be something useful," Delsin prayed, before pressing his hand against the machine.
"You good down there?" Izuku called out.
"Yeah, I'll be up in a second," the part of the bridge he was on began to rumble and tilt, "I'm not good! I'm not good! I'm not good!" Delsin yelled as he threw himself on to a nearby car and flung himself into the air, then using a constant stream of smoke from his hands to propel himself to safety next to Izuku, who was currently staring at his older brother hanging from the ledge of a nearby pier.
"Guess he's glad he's got that good pitching arm," Delsin joked, before smoke dashing in front of his dangling brother, who responded to his appearance with a demand of help.
"How the hell did you even get like that?" Izuku questioned as he helped the eldest to his feet.
"It's a long story," Reggie replied, "I see that the both of you are getting the hang of your new... symptoms."
"Yeah, the only downside is...nope, can't think of a downside, these powers are pretty cool," Delsin laughed.
"No downside, huh? What about those heavily armed guys that want to hurt you now?" Reggie rhetorically asked as he pointed at a D.U.P. checkpoint, to which he was answered with silence, "Yeah, now for all we know we may be able to sneak you guys past there without a conflict-"
Delsin spoke up before Reggie could finish, "Are you kidding me, I mean did you see what I did on that bridge? We can take these guys!"
"I know, I did. Look, let's just see if we can sneak you past their checkpoints, it'll make getting around the city a lot easier," Reggie said.
"Okay, fine. We'll do it your way, all subtle," Delsin grumbled.
"Now, can you both promise me that you'll play it cool?"
"Hey, I am arguably the most calm out of all of us," Izuku interrupted indignantly.
Delsin scoffed, "Tell that to the guy you beat with a fishing pole."
"These D.U.P. guys may not have enough power as... natural bio-terrorists do, but the government still infused them with enough power to do some damage, so be careful," Reggie continued.
"Well, that puts an end to any fun we were gonna have on this trip," Delsin griped.
"How long did you say we were out again?" Izuku asked, slowly spinning as he walked to fully gaze at the checkpoint in its entirety.
"One. Week," Reggie answered.
"Goddamn, do these assholes ever sleep?" Izuku questioned, bewildered.
"Once we get in the city, I'll contact a few of my buddie on the force, so I'll need you two to lay low. You can lay low right?" Reggie sarcastically asked, before stepping up to a finger scanner that would determine if whoever was using it had the conduit gene.
Reggie made it through no problem, the screen above their heads clearing him with a green checkmark. However, when Delsin placed his finger to the scanner, an alarm blaring and an automated voice warning the Delsin was a conduit.
Delsin chuckled as he turned to the D.U.P. agents that began to swarm him, "Best of three?"
The nearest D.U.P. was quickly flung against the ground by a flying drop kick from Izuku, followed by an opened palm punch, with the added force of a sound blast, to the chest of another one.
Delsin smiled as he smoke dashed into another D.U.P. soldier, using his chain to wrap around his neck and throw him to the ground.
The final soldier kept his gun trained on the two conduits, forcing the two brothers to stay completely still with no way to subdue him.
BANG!
The D.U.P. agent screamed out in pain with a bullet wound in his shoulder from Reggie's gun, joining his brothers in arms on the ground.
"Well," Izuku panted out as he turned back to his two brothers, "Welcome to Seattle."
Welcome back to the shack of depravity friends, next story on the upload schedule is Eridium. That's it for now, peace.