calderoneric758: The hero and villain is from fallout 3 wasn't it also the villain sister quirk seems horrible for th3 situation cause of the lube... enough said otherwise when will we see his gear already
Re: Well, they're one-offs, so…
As for the other thing, I'm building up to it.
LoamyCoffee: I'm just loving the references and how you're portraying the low level heroes and villains.
Understandably the girls are worried and I don't doubt that Takei will end up learning about Hitomi's circumstances.
But I think that this was a great chapter, Torino's a weird grandpa but he's seen the darker side of what Heroism can do to people. I was laughing that things between the heroes and villains were so casual that things like that happen. Like the town is so lax. Also loved Torino's POV and hearing how Takei views All Might.
Re: I just imagine with All Might around, that sort of stuff would go largely ignored by law enforcement.
But yeah, it was lots of fun making Sorahiko Torino his "weird grandpa", and he DOES make for an excellent segue into the darker sides of Heroism that go ignored. And since this is a Self-Insert, those views on All Might are my own, albeit, since my SI doesn't remember My Hero Academia from my/his own world, his thoughts on a "Symbol of Peace" are taken through the context of other Hero Anime. That and it seems really fucking stupid to have an entire country's fate rest on the shoulders of a single man.
With how-quickly things went to shit after All Might retired, it definitely showed how much people relied on All Might, and how they'd lost the ability to fend for themselves; kinda like All Might did all the "fishing" so no-one needed to learn how to "fish".
*AHA*
It was an unspoken rule in "Mon House" that everyone knew how to apply sutures. Apparently, Zombina literally "going to pieces" happened enough times in her career that instead of shelling out for a surgeon every time she busted a ring of stitches, that Mon just decided it'd be cheaper to learn how to do it themselves.
There were of course a few brass tacks to it that made the word "everyone" come with a pair of quotation marks. For one, Manako was immediately disqualified due to her lack of depth perception; even if someone else was on hand to thread the needle for her, her mono-vision wasn't exactly suited for anything more clinical than slapping on a band-aid. Tio, unfortunately, had what Kuroko's old music teacher called "stupid fingers" when it came to a needle and thread, and due to her "plus-sized" body proportions, she wasn't exactly known for surgical dexterity. Zombina herself could apply sutures as long as she had at least one working hand -and someone to thread the needle for her in that circumstance-, but she lacked the flexibility to run the sutures across her back, the underside of her thighs, and the outsides of her arms if she weren't then-currently bisected.
So by the end of things, quote/unquote "everyone" extended only to Doppel who didn't mind the morbidity of stitching a dead body back together, and Kuroko who at the least could run triage in the event of an emergency.
"Only to", at least, until I came into the picture.
Once we'd gotten home, me carrying Zombina's lower half in one-half of a Princess Carry through the lobby surprising absolutely no-one, I got a crash-course in applying sutures since re-attaching her hand was an excellent "starting point" "for a beginner". With the way her [Zombie] Quirk worked, you didn't even have to be all that exacting with her; all you had to do was re-attach the skin, and all the fibrous materials inside from muscles to nerve, as well as bone would all "heal" themselves. Once that was done, the stitches acted as an extra binding, and while she could technically "go without", any significant jostling would have her come apart, literally, "at the seams", all over again.
Something else I learned was that Zombina wasn't limited to her own body parts; she could actually attach other peoples' limbs to her body in place of any she misplaced or were destroyed. The only real caveat was that they had to come from female "donors", were non-Heteromorphic in nature, and they had to be within a certain age and/or size bracket. And it also turned out that while her Quirk was rare, it wasn't "that rare", as there was actually a repository in Japan for the storage of cadaverous body parts for those that needed "after-market replacements".
The irony of course was not lost on me…
As for the suture work itself… back when I was a kid, I used to do a bit of cross-stitching, so I wasn't completely oblivious to how a needle and thread worked. The only major issue came when Zombina moaned lewdly while I worked on her, a response I knew she was phoning in because of the stupid grin on her face when my own actually heated up a little.
My stitch-work wasn't pretty, and I'd probably get sued if I were a doctor applying this to a living person, but surprisingly enough it met up to Kuroko's somewhat-exacting tolerances when it came to putting her teammate back together.
"Hey, has anyone seen my left can?"
I took that as my cue to excuse myself for the rest of the evening…
*AHA*
"Hey… Take-chan," Zombina hummed the following morning.
"Yeah?"
"What're you doing?"
"Just a little tai-chi," I replied, some oriental music playing while I watched a tai-chi routine on my phone.
"Okay let me reiterate. Why are you doing tai-chi?"
"You know how the Chinese look 30 until they're 60? This is why?" I replied, kinda feeling like an Avatar: The Last Airbender LARPer who was really hardcore into playing as a Waterbender. "Course, thenthey suddenly look a hundred, but, cross that bridge, you know?"
"This a Japanese thing?"
"No, Chinese. Japanese have a whooole other thing going on."
Holy shit, did I just pull a Family Guy in real life? Verbatim? In real life?!
God, I wish I'd been able to record this!
. . . Then again, no-one would get the joke unless I spelled it out for them; which in of itself kinda defeated the whole definition of "joke".
*AHA*
Meanwhile, a universe away at The Great Clock…
"HAAAA hahahahahahaha!" Sigmund cackled gleefully, rolling across the floor while Clank could only watch with a confused tilt of his head.
"I don't get it…" Clank hummed idly, which only caused Sigmund to holler louder, falling out of his chair in the process.
*AHA*
"Why're you even on break anyway?" I asked, seeing how Zombina and I were the only ones in the 'Mon House' at the moment.
"It's an insurance thing…" she sighed tiredly. "If I have more than two bodily separations simultaneously as the result of a fight, I'm expected to take a full 24 hours of 'sick leave'," she said making air quotes.
"But how do you get anything done if that's the case?"
"Well, that only really happens if something like a car or a motorcycle hits me. And most Quirk users with that same kind of stopping power tend to really hate getting shot," she said as she cleaned some of her firearms on the coffee table, the TV droning on lazily in the background. "You want I can take you to the gun range. That ninja old guy might've been a bit of a dick, but he wasn't wrong about you being a potential target for anyone the Mon Squad helped put away."
"Would I even be allowed to carry a firearm? I doubt modern gun control allows for something like hold-out pistols for elementary schoolers."
"Well… I mean it couldn't hurt to know how to use one; if you 'just-so-happened' to come across one in a time of crisis. They do this all the time in America."
"America; the home of frat parties, trans fats, and the KKK?" I asked dryly.
As a currently-Japanese person and seeing how little most of America had changed in 200 years, I was starting to see why other countries looked down upon America, despite it being a world power.
Then again there were only two of those since the near-total dissolution of Communist China… And Russia had been able to hold itself together, but only after becoming legitimately Democratic instead of the act it had used to put on for the international community.
"You're making that face again."
"What face?"
"The fact that says you're thinking some heavy shit no 11-year-old should have to think about," Zombina answered. "Come on, take a load off. We've got all day together," she hummed patting her thigh invitingly.
It did look rather soft…
"Your tit isn't going to fall out of your shirt and land on my face, is it?"
And boy was that was a sentence…
"Hey, don't worry about it. This sweater puppy ain't goin' anywhere~"
*AHA*
Zombina's promise of course held true… for about ten minutes. Though amazingly-enough, that actually had been completely accidental, due to shoddy stitch-work on Kuroko's part on another occasion. At first I thought she'd just been drunk at the time since her room was usually littered with beer cans… and Zombina did nothing to dissuade me of the notion.
That of course I would learn later. In the present, there wasn't anything to stop me from completely flipping my shit when one of her E-Cup breasts landed on my cheek like a plus-sized mochi. However, I decided to give her a pass since she had gone to pieces after Gran Torino double-kicked her, and her fingers running through my hair was rather soothing…
*Tap*Tap*Tap*Tap-Tap-Tap*Tap-Tap*
"Oh? Looks like you've got another visitor."
Opening my eyes and looking up from my place on Zombina's plush thigh, pacing nervously on the aft balcony was a familiar blue-haired Heteromorph, her feet padding back-and-forth confusingly and tapping on the glass, which was just opaque-enough on the outside for the chicken-brain to not think it an open doorway.
"Tell her I'm not here."
The suggestion, and Papi probably, were just "stupid-enough" for that ploy to work.
"He's not here!" Zombina called out. "This is never going to work."
"Oh, okay, I'll come back later!" Papi said hopping onto the railing before spreading her wings and taking flight.
" . . . I literally cannot believe that just worked," she said after a moment.
"I can," I shrugged
"Heeeeyyy wait a minute…!" Papi said after landing back on our balcony. "I can see you in there!"
"This is not the apartment you're looking for," I said with a wave of my hand.
"This is not the apartment I'm looking for…" Papi replied dumbly.
If the police chief's kid wasn't a complete chicken-brain, I might've legitimately entertained the notion I'd just done a Jedi Mind Trick.
" . . . Did you just Jedi Mind Trick her?" Zombina asked incredulously, blue feathers falling onto the balcony.
"No. And that's what makes it even funnier~"
"Heeeeyyy wait another minute…!" Papi said after making a return trip.
"Bee-doo-beep. We're sorry. The number you are attempting to call cannot be completed as-dialed. Please hang up and try again."
"Wow. Comedy's Rule of Three much?" Zombina asked as Papi began to pace the balcony, looking for aforementioned 'phone' to 'hang up and try again'. " . . . I guess it's funny when it's played up for laughs, but when it isn't… it's kind of sad, honestly."
" . . . "
Was it wrong of me as a formerly-retarded person to take advantage of the failings of the brain of another retarded person?
" . . . "
Yeah, probably.
"Fine, let me get some shoes on," I sighed sitting up. "Hey Papi, sorry I couldn't get to the phone when I got your call. Meet me at the front steps in a few minutes, and I'll see you there," I narrated retroactively.
"Where did I put that phone…" Papi hummed confusedly as she looked around, a flip phone nestled in her back pocket.
*snrk*
" . . . Not. One. Word," I growl as Zombina put a hand to her mouth.
*AHA*
To my surprise, Papi actually was waiting for Zombina and I out front. That she hadn't completely forgotten about us in the interim, even though she'd been pacing by the time we'd gotten there, was proof she had some form of long-term memroy.
Though that did of course raise the question as to how she knew where I lived…
"Hey there…" I greeted slowly, wondering how mind-numbing this little outing would be.
"Onii-chan!" the bluette greeted excitedly wrapping me up in a feathery hug.
"Awwwwww~" Zombina cooed as Papi affectionately rubbed our cheeks together, taking a picture with her phone for posterity.
" . . . It's nice to see you too," I replied, returning the gesture since I recalled some experience being an older brother before I'd died.
Yet another thing that sucked about reincarnating -in my more-exacting case- was not being sure if I was actually a "good" older brother or not…
"Wanna go to the playground?" Papi asked excitedly.
"Sure. Why not," I shrugged.
*AHA*
Not so much the same park that Papi abducted me to before, where we wound up was more like a playground for small children. Swing set, jungle gym, slide, sandbox, the works. Kinda idyllic for a rural setting, actually. I think I was able to see the nearby school building in the distance, but I only assumed that was what it was since schools in anime tended to be the same general shape, color, and size…
"Wheeeeeeee!" Papi squealed as she ran toward the swing set.
"You're a good brother," Zombina smiled ruffling my hair.
"Yeah, tell me that in an hour if I haven't had a conniption yet," I hummed as I went over to the harpy's back and pushed.
While in the back of my mind I was worried about her feathers getting caught in the chain, something else I ruminated on was that the longer I 'lived' in this body, the less awkward it was for me to "act my age"; or in this case, the previous tenant's age. Maybe like with any sort of debilitating injury, there was an adjustment period to be had. And I didn't feel like I was "losing myself" or my original memories which I still had, if I'd even notice the evaporation of the latter, but maybe I'd sorted through the Denial, Anger, Bargaining, and Depression stages of Grief without even realizing it, and now I was settling into Acceptance?
Maybe this was something all Isekai genre protagonists go through and it's simply a matter of the media it's in that stops those aspects of the narrative from being properly conveyed?
Thoughts for another day.
Thanks to Papi's short attention span, every bout on the playground equipment to her seemed like the first time, and honestly, there was something relaxing about being a spectator to another's child-like sense of wonder. Given her lack of fingers she couldn't actually do anything in the sandbox other than getting granules and shit stuck in her feathers, but other than that it was a relaxing, if not uneventful day out.
*AHA*
A while later…
"I'm gonna go around the corner and get drinks. You want anything?"
"Melon soda~!" Papi squealed happily.
"Any soda that isn't grape-flavored."
"One melon and one 'not-grape'. Got it," the zombie nodded with a grin, walking off leaving Papi and I to our own devices.
"Ooh look! A quarter!" the happy harpy said bending over.
"Who drops American quarters in Japan?"
*RIIIIIP!*
"Oh no! My pants!" Papi squealed, shooting up and covering her allegedly-exposed derriere with her wings.
"Um… Papi… That wasn't your pants," I hummed, blinking my eyes as I tried to process what had just manifested in our midst. One second there was nothing there, the next, it had appeared in all the time it took to blink.
At roughly the center of the playground, so completely abnormal and inherently "wrong" it was making my neck-hairs do corkscrews, was some kind of… fracture in space-time. Resembling a stilled shot of shattered glass, the shards hovered around some kind of… rift the size of a large door filled with fluorescent energy, humming in a tune that was just barely past the edge of human perceptibility. Colored a bright neon purple and possessing a sort of depth to it that escaped the bounds of three-dimensional physics, in my mind I immediately akinned it to other such gateways like I remember from Familiar of Zero, Bioshock Infinite, or Rick & Mordy.
Initially I was wary, pulling Papi away and positioning her behind me, my heart pounding in my chest as my brain debated whether I should flee or gird my loins for battle. Of course, as soon as I remembered that this world was basically X-Men on crack, my pulse slowed a tad.
"Alright… Who here's fucking around with their space-time Quirk?" I asked aloud, breaking the silence that had dominated the playground.
No verbal answer was immediately forthcoming. Instead of that, my eyebrows rose as a regulation-sized black-and-white soccer ball –or as the Japanese call it, a "football"— fell out of the breach and rolled to a stop a meter or so from the somewhat-ominous-looking gateway. A chill going through me a moment later as the "glass shards" snapped back into their original places and the rift closed, the humming veins of energy receded until all that was left to show for it was a completely ordinary space, and a discarded playground toy.
"Well…" I gasped, not only realizing I'd been holding my breath, but that Papi was nervously clutching the back of my jacket. "That was… something…"
"Onii-chan…" Papi whimpered, her little blue thumbs clutching tighter. "I'm scared…"
"Don't worry, Papi," I said soothingly, reaching back to ruffle her hair. "It's probably just some kid somewhere messing around with their Quirk, nothing to be scared of."
"You mean it…?" Papi blinked, still trembling but looking hopeful.
"Yeah, I do," I replied as one of the more-energetic of the nearby children ran forward. Before the child could kick it however, triangular eyes glowing like firelight suddenly opened, followed by a fanged mouth like a beartrap.
The thing scarfing up the kid's leg up to the hip like a breadstick with a sickening *SNAP*CRACKLE*POP*, Papi and I could only stare in horror as the kid's body was folded in half, the thing continuing to devour its prey spattering blood and viscera in every direction. A body several times its own size vanishing in moments without a trace, nothing was left behind but an artistic blood spatter across the ground and a discarded child's sneaker, the thing licking its face with an off-purple prehensile tongue longer than its body.
"That is messed… UP!" I recoiled in horror, Papi's legs giving out from underneath her.
And that's when the screaming started.
I don't rightly recall who screamed first, or how many seconds it took for these people's illusion of a world completely at peace to shatter completely and utterly; but when it did, it shattered hard. The playground erupting into a cacophony of screaming, some ran, some hurled, and some did a combination of all three in no particular order while others completely locked up, frozen in fear.
The nearest "deer in the headlights" went first; in fact it was the mother of the very same victim who moments before had been ready to eagerly play some "football" after a dab of weirdness trickled into his life. So-traumatized by her child's death, blood spattering her face, she didn't even fight back as the thing lunged at her, devouring her headfirst like some sort of creepypasta Pac Man. The sounds of bones crunching and muscle tearing, was a sound I'd never forget, along with the sight of a whole person being devoured…
Its second meal sufficiently devoured, it took a mere moment to lick some of the fresh blood from its face before bounding across the field like the thing whose shape it was imitating, lunging toward those that froze in place. Its third victim had their arm eaten up to the elbow, and that's when panicked civies started throwing their Quirks around, projectiles of every shape, size, element, and material flying every which way. A few of them grazed the Soccer Ball from Hell, some even battered it away from its prey, but most flew wide from inexperienced arms and struck other humans instead, whereas the thing simply found new morsels to take bear trap-sized bites out of.
My brain doing a soft reboot as I attempted to process what I was seeing, when I noticed a peculiar odor, I looked down to see if I had soiled myself. Seeing that my pants were dry, I realized the scent came from the harpy collapsed behind me, the color completely drained from her face, tears trickling down her face while the ground below her moistened. And that's when I felt it…
My eyes panning forward, those firelight-colored eyes fell on Papi as the thing stilled, looking through me and toward its next meal. Prehensile tongue lapping up at blood smeared upon its "football-like" hide, the next moment it lunged.
At that moment I was scared. Terrified. Terrified beyond the capacity for rational thought in fact! And yet…! Compared to the little old man who kicked my ass the other day, this thing, whatever it was, may as well have been lunging toward us in slow motion…!
"It's time to let out… a WILD ROAR!"
Okay maybe not the best "final words" to say as I chose which hill to die on, but certainly not the worst…!
The edges of my vision tinting blue as everything slowed down, with my [Tactical Time Dilation] at full bore, I received plenty of forewarning when the thing was mid-leap, and where I'd have to be to intercept since it couldn't change direction in mid-air.
"HRAAAAAH!" I roared as time resumed, my adrenaline-fueled thumbs hooking the corners of its mouth and holding it at bay, the thing's attention soon turning solely onto me for the interruption. "What the… What are you?!" I demanded, more for my own benefit as the thing snapped at me, the adrenaline coursing through my veins the only thing stopping me from painting the harpy cowering behind me a very disgusting color.
"Oi! Handball! That's a foul, ya wanker!"
Ignoring the fact this thing could talk and had a British accent for some reason…
"HEY!" I growled as the thing's tongue whipped across my face leaving a trail of saliva. "No tongue until the third date!"
Rearing back an arm and striking it in the "face" with an adrenaline-fueled punch, in my terror-addled state I actually found it feasible to reach into its gullet and haul out its tongue at-length. Wrapping the thing up with it, constricting it into the shape of an American football, I then threw that sonovabitch into the middle distance as hard as I could.
*KABOOOOOOOM!*
" . . . Why the hell did it just explode?" I blinked as a plume of fire and smoke erupted from the park's edge.
"What… What was that thing…?" Papi said blinking tears in her eyes, her expression incredibly sober as the original blood spatter held her undivided attention, a single discarded shoe all that remained to tell it had come from a person.
"I… I don't know…" I panted, collapsing as the surge of adrenaline died out.
Those who hadn't already left still too shocked to move, moments later police sirens sounded. Police cruisers stopping nose to nose at all the entrances, hemmed us all in, though none of them seemed interested on doing anything else.
My ears burning as a familiar sound like turbines echoed through the hushed air a few minutes later, turning my eyes upward, I beheld a trio of large hovercraft like from Sternbild approaching. Two were sized like SWAT trucks and the third the size of a tour bus, all of them blocky like APCs and sporting all-yellow paintjobs with the letters R.D.A. plastered on the sides.
"Oh, what now?" I asked as the sides of the SWAT truck-like hovercraft opened, humans both in standard and Heteromorphic shapes alike rappelling to the ground. Clad in all-yellow form-fitting rubber hazmat suits with black visors and retro-futuristic equipment in tow, I was definitely getting some Monsters, Inc. vibes off of them.
Some of the hazmat-clad figures began approaching the children and adults still in the park, assessing for injuries or running triage on those who'd only had bites taken out of them. Others went over to the smoking crater I'd thrown the British-speaking football into, containing its remains into some sort of pre-fab cage. Two other pairings crossed strips of police tape across the playground entrances with a practiced ease, and that no-one seemed overly alarmed by their presence had me thinking they were a common fixture in this world; even if their hovercraft, the first I'd ever seen outside the old Hero TV Live recordings, were not.
"Takehiko Tokei," my name was called out from the tour bus-sized hovercraft, a number of yellow-clad figures loaded down with equipment approaching me. "Please remain motionless. Prepare for decontamination."
"Aw crud," I muttered as they dropped a large metal ring over my head and onto the ground with a heavy *THUMP*
A shower curtain an offensive shade of yellow shooting up around me and practically blinding me a moment later, the next moment my clothing was ripped away, the saliva on my face was slurped up with a vacuum cleaner, and I was assailed by deluges of soap and hot water, scrubbing brushes assaulting me from all sides with ruthless, yet surgical precision. When the assault on my person had ended and an offensively-yellow poncho was thrown over my head, my soggy, unhappy self was revealed for all to see.
"Takehiko Tokei, remain where you are. Everything is going to be okay," one of the nearby suit-clad figures told me reassuringly.
"Can… Can I get clean too…?" Papi asked pitiably from off to the side, her shorts visibly soaked from terror.
The yellow-clad figures turning toward one another, seeming to deliberate something on their own private channel, a few seconds later Papi was ushed into the ring alongside me and the curtain rose up again. The tearing-away of Papi's clothing prompting me to slap my wet hands over my face, from right beside me she cried, sqeualed, and/or giggled as water, soap, and brushes assailed her petite frame as well.
*AHA*
What happened next reminded me of that episode of psych where there was the biological weapons scare at the coffee shop.
Everyone on the playground who hadn't already bled out from the bites taken out of them were similarly cycled through decontamination, albeit, less abrasive and intrusive onto their respective persons. Yellow-clad figures with scanners combing every inch of the park for what I assumed to be pathogens, any rubberneckers who tried to get too close with their camera phones were actually shot; albeit, with rubber bullets.
Whatever the hell had just transpired here apparently warranted such an exacerbated response, the men and women in the yellow suits exerting legitimate pressure on the civilian populous, whereas most Hero v Villain fights on the news were treated like spectator sports. Those at the edge of the police barricade, Zombina too, looked legitimately scared, but unable to tear their eyes away from the carnage, like from the aftermath of a train crash or some other natural disaster.
While the civilians caught inside the park were allowed to leave, or were taken away on stretchers, I'll assume since I had come into extended physical contact with the "cryptid" or whatever people were going to call it, that Papi and I were receiving special treatment, the two of us ushered into the rear-most compartment of the tour bus-sized hovercraft.
At first, I assumed the whole thing was just the result of some Villain with an access to BOWs and a sick sense of humor. Now however… I wasn't so sure…
*AHA*
A half-hour into my incarceration later…
"Hey there, kiddo. How're you holding up?" Kuroko asked with an intercom on the opposite side of the glass partition separating us, Papi and I segregated to some kind of self-contained containment cell, the two of us clad in yellow coveralls after we'd dried off and been allowed to change.
"Oh, you know, just… processing…" I said as I rocked Papi back and forth in my arms. She wasn't bawling or anything, but what had happened had clearly shaken her, because ever since that little dust-up, she hadn't said anything stupid even once. And it reminded me that even though she had ADHD out the wazoo, she was no-different than any other child who'd seen something completely traumatizing.
If I hadn't already been completely traumatized by that one mad scientist trying to strip me for parts, I'd probably have checked out too…
"Takehiko… Takei…" she amended, trying to put me at ease. "Do you… Do you remember who these people are… or did your brush with that Villain at the orphanage make you forget this too?"
"No, can't say I do…"
"Kid… You're gonna wanna sit down for this…"
To Be Continued…
*AHA*
AN:
HAH! You didn't think I was going to include a series as-fun as Ratchet & Clank and only have it sit on the sidelines, did ya? No fuckin' way! Rift Apart offers way too much possibility for that to be the case, and the whole thing just screams "Alternate Universe"~ In fact, if it weren't for the "Dimensionality" in the most-recent title, I wouldn't even contemplate writing an Isekai-type story like this.
I mean sure, the "Dimensionator" could've been used more-directly for that, but that just feels a little lazy given how… direct/obtuse it feels as an Isekai McGuffin…
Obviously, the biggest inspiration for this story, this chapter in particular with this recent bit of foreshadowing, was the "UK Rift" trailer for Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart. It hints at the "AU" I referenced in the summary, more-so than the fact that Tiger & Bunny is a part of this world's History & Lore.
But anywho, tell me what you think of this sudden development in worldbuilding, and whoever's the first to guess where the "Football from Hell" came from will receive a faaabulous prize~!
SO! Give it your best shot, and I'll see you next time!