Armored Gorilla brought a small plate bearing two filled cups of tea on top of it to the small table in the back room of the takoyaki stand, currently being used by his master and Mosquito Girl, both of whom were sitting in individual chairs. Once, most of his bulky, apish frame for which he was named was made of and encased in a suit of thick, cybernetic armor, but these days he simply wore a body that simulated a normal gorilla's natural appearance; save for the few, metal, tube-like protrusions expanding from his neck. Gently putting the platter down in between them, he stared at the fellow mutant with a troubled glare, before nodding to them both and stepping back a few feet so he could observe the coming conversation, which Mosquito Girl proceeded to start.
"So... why the odd choice of places to be at?" was her first question, as she again took a gander at the small building she was in. "Are you hiding from someone? Is this a secret base you're currently using to conduct more experiments?"
"No, it is not," he said back. "I'm finished with all of that. The House of Evolution is no more to me."
Mosquito Girl's eyelids fluttered open, before drooping in a disbelieving way. "What?" she finally spoke, flatly.
"The House of Evolution is no more," Genus repeated. "I've seen the 'error of my ways' so to speak, and have mended them accordingly. I sell takoyaki now, and I use the bounty of my intellect to provide an endless supply of ingredients. I have a genetically-engineered, tentacle-regenerating octopus in the back room that I use for the meat, for example."
She looked unconvinced, and scratched the edge of the table with a claw, shaving a few paper-thin woodchips from it. "Is this a test of some sort?" she chuckled girlishly. "It's a test, isn't it? To see if I'm still loyal to you? To see if I still behave with your orders alone?"
"No, it is not." His words were hard and serious. Finally seeing the truth in his eyes with the change of his pitch, Mosquito Girl's composure morphed dramatically in a single instant. "Y-you really mean..." she started to stutter, grasping the magnitude of the situation like a drowning man with straws.
"Any destructive use I have for you is at an end, yes," Genus answered for her in a sigh. "I want you to commit acts of violence in my name or in general no longer. The cyborg and the bald, caped man who defeated you also defeated me and my strongest creations in one fell swoop not long after, and I've seen things in a different light since then."
As she heard the description of who she now knew was the one who nearly ended her life, her shocked countenance mollified into one of dull fury. "So a bald, caped man was the one who almost destroyed me?" she asked under gritted teeth, an ugly, toothy grin stretching from one end of her white-tinted face to the other. "Heheh. He must have used quite the sneak attack on me to just send me rocketing away in one hit."
"He is no ordinary man, Mosquito Girl. He is a hero with unparalleled strength. Enough strength to crush all of his foes with but a single sweep of his fist, as he did to you," Genus explained. "And his strength didn't come from genetic manipulation, enhancive super drugs, or even random mutation. I've learned how he trained to be the way he was, and it has changed the way I see things forever. I've decided to move away from achieving what I once thought could be human perfection - something truly meaningless to obtain - and now I only want to put my efforts into helping society."
Things went silent between the three for a good while following the man's speech to his youngest creation. Mosquito Girl looked like she was stewing on his message intensely, when Genus spoke again. "You should take a drink of your tea, before it cools off," he mentioned.
Her mind turning to the brown liquid in the small cup below, she eyed the drink cautiously. "I can... ingest human foods?" she inquired, looking back to him.
"Yes, of course," Genus replied, lifting his own cup to his lips and taking a long sip from it. "There are still enough human genetic traits within you to do so, and you'll absorb the nutrition from all normal food without any ill effects. You won't gain any additional power from it as you can with the blood you consume, but your enhanced metabolism will still require at least some of that as well."
Mosquito Girl looked back at the drink with an untrustworthy and distasteful glance, before wrapping a hook-shaped claw around the cup's handle. Bringing it up to her face, she inhaled the vaporous smell it gave off with a quick sniff of her nose, and upon deciding that it was indeed safe, took a small sip from it. Her tightening facial features and small smile told Genus and Armored Gorilla that she seemed to like it enough.
After she had her fill and put the half-full cup back down, Genus went on with the point he wished to make. "While I may no longer have responsibility over what your actions will be from now on, would you like to do as Armored Gorilla did, and stay here with me? You will still have work to do, I can keep you safe, and-"
"No."
From where he stood, Armored Gorilla's eyes widened slightly in surprise, while the former scientist-turned takoyaki seller looked mostly indifferent, but no less intrigued by her decision. "And why is that?" he asked calmly.
Mosquito Girl looked to the gray walls of the room, was silent for a good few seconds, and caressed the long, thick, braid-like pair of antenna that fell from either side of the front of her head with her claws before replying. "I don't know. You say that... I have my own word to follow now. It sounds like it'll be kind of... fun to go by my own rules. To do as I say from now on. And I have a feeling it will be infinitely more interesting than selling something like takoyaki for the rest of my life."
"But you must constantly be wary of those who wish to find out who you are, and to successfully adapt and survive, you will not be able to view humans as prey anymore. Unless you want to be taken down by a hero, you must become more human," Armored Gorilla commented in a monotonous, but caring fashion, clenching one of his fists for emphasis. "And in doing so, you would have to find other ways of obtaining food on your own, and the right amount of blood to keep you healthy. If I may be honest, your recorded recklessness and lust for performing violent activities will hinder you greatly."
Mosquito Girl's wings flittered on her back briefly in annoyance, and her expression did not look very amused by the talking, robotic simian's words. She eventually lost the bland face when she turned back to Genus. "If that's the case, then where's the best place someone like I can start with my new, little uh... 'normal life'? There are so many cities, and I don't really know which is which or what's what."
Genus folded his fingers into a tent over the table, and thought deeply for a moment. "If I were you, I would start in Z-City," he told her. "There are many job openings for minor forms of business in that particular city due to the frequent monster attacks, and the rent for the apartments in the residential and lower district are cheap and affordable for just about anyone. If you want a good place, one you'll have the fairest chance of fitting into, begin there."
Mosquito Girl looked quite perplexed at his suggestion. "Isn't Z-City where you wanted me to attack when you first sent me out?" she inquired. "That's exactly where I ran into the blonde cyborg."
"Yes, that is true, but the people there are not as numerous, especially in the aforementioned lower district. The fewer people that are around, the lesser the chance you'll be found out," Genus responded. "Your natural ability to do so will come in quite handy, so long as you keep your instincts and bloodlust in check. That is the one thing I'm afraid that you'll fail to accomplish."
The half-human, half-mosquito mutant laughed aloud with much enthusiasm, before allowing it to die down to a small titter. "Oh please, Dr. Genus. I may get a thrill from being in situations involving the need to put my claws to good use, but I can control it."
"And you're sure of this?" Armored Gorilla asked for his master, almost skeptically. Mosquito Girl smiled a smile that revealed her pointed canines.
"Absolutely," she said. "And even if my identity is discovered and a hero tries to kill me, I'm sure I'll be able to tear them to itty-bitty ribbons before they can so much as lay a hand on me!" she smiled wickedly, brandishing her claws in the visible sunlight shining in from the window.
Genus and Armored Gorilla both sighed together and pinched the bridge between their eyes in mutual doubt.
The (visibly off-duty) hero, Saitama, casually strolled around the small grocery store as he shopped. His plastic bag swung back-and-forth in the air as he held onto it, stopping only when he saw a fruit, meat, or vegetable that caught his eye, and if it turned out to be something he wanted, he tossed it into the bag without a second thought.
This activity continued for the next hour, and after approaching and paying for what he wanted at a cash register, exited the store in a slow walk. Silently lamenting on how uneventful the day was rapidly becoming, he hadn't made it more than five feet from the store when a peculiar noise went out. It was like someone was hitting a steel club against a sheet of metal.
"Huh. What's that sound?" he asked himself, looking in every direction along with several other confused civilians until he finally sound the source of the disturbance standing a few dozen meters away.
The banging sound was coming from the trailer of a nearby eighteen-wheeler truck that was parked next to the store's receiving area. The logo on its side, representing a cheerful-looking shrimp or lobster of some sort, told anyone that it belonged to a seafood company.
With a final bang, and a bursting noise of twisting metal, the entire side of the truck seemed to explode and peel apart like a tin can. Showering out from it, like water from a spilled bucket, came a seething, wriggling, mindless mass of what Saitama quickly realized were freshly-caught shrimp the trailer once contained. Then, like a rock on which the surf of small, crustaceous bodies fell from, a lone shape stood among their smaller, writhing forms. A shape that bore the appearance of a giant, reddish, angry-looking lobster.
"BEHOLD, THE SPLENDOR AND TERROR THAT IS LORD JUMBO GAMMARUS!" it shouted from its feathery mouth in a throaty, male voice, stumbling before the astonished onlookers and Saitama. Like whips, its long, coiling antennas thrashed and felt around on the ground in front of it. Sitting on what could only be described as its 'head', just in between its eyestalks and above its long, pointy, nose-like rostrum, was a small crown made of coral that had been grown into shape. Without pause, the monster continued its tirade.
"I am the lord protector off all lobster, shrimp, krill and prawns!" the creature shrieked, as though in a desperate attempt to gain some form of attention from the people lining the sidewalk, its multiple sharp-tipped legs making a vivid tappity-tap noise as they slowly went on romping about the city street. "I am the vengeance that has come for humanity! Long have your pitifully wretched kind tormented mine for vile reasons! Needlessly brutal oil spills that have ruined our habitat! Fisherman that have hunted us relentlessly! We've had to deal with things like whales and basking sharks before you lot came along, but no more! Now I am here, and now I shall rain down the wrath of a trillion fallen crustaceans!"
Its long eyestalks and the bulging, black spheres attached to their tips looked around quickly for its first victim, and like a moth to a flame, noticed a shining shape standing nearby. When the human came into full view, he could see the sharp brightness was originating from his bald head.
He snapped his the larger of his two reddish-brown claws in the air in a menacing way as he walked up to Saitama's indifferent figure, preparing to bring the massive limb down upon him. "And you, little man whose head reminds me of a glimmering pearl, shall be the first to feel my CRUSHING CLAW!"
All-in-all, today truly was going rather well, Saitama thought with a hum, as he hauled the a fresh, oversized lobster over his shoulder with one hand, whilst the other held onto his grocery bag. While all of its limbs were mostly intact, the creature's cranium and most of its upper body in general had been decimated by the scarcely-swung fist of his. But that was fine for the hero, considering that in the few times he's had lobster, those parts were the ones he never ate.
As he continued his walk back to the apartment, the metal sound of a rolling bicycle's wheels went out, and he raised his head from the brittle asphalt he spent his time staring at below. Pedaling away on the rapidly-approaching bicycle was a familiar individual wearing a set of light armor, a green helmet, and a pair of dark goggles over his eyes.
"Oh, hey, Mumen Rider," Saitama greeted with a cheerful smile when he was within hearing range. Stopping with a screech of the breaks, and kicking out the bicycle's stand, Mumen Rider acknowledged him.
"Greetings, Saitama," he responded speedily. "I heard there was a creature spotted in this section of the city's market area. Disaster level wolf, and it may become tiger. Have you heard anything abou-"
It was at that moment that he finally caught sight of the large, lifeless cadaver his fellow hero was holding. "Is that...?" he began to ask, pointing a gloved finger at it.
"Some creature that called himself the 'Prawn King' or something," was what Saitama shrugged, hoisting the thing onto a better part of his shoulder. "Sorry if I beat you to him, but he was standing right in front of me."
Mumen Rider couldn't help but lower his head and chuckle for a moment. "Perfectly fine by me, so long as nobody got hurt."
"No one did," Saitama confirmed.
"Then you have my gratitude," the rider of the Bicycle of Justice spoke with a nod of thanks. Kicking the stand back, he gave a small salute. "I would love to spend some time to catch up more my friend, but my thirst for Justice never rests, and I still have an entire city to scour. See you another time, Saitama."
He was about to leave as Saitama waved back, and the cape-less baldy looked at the License-less Rider as he quickly rode off with a squeak of his bike's pedals. Once he was out of sight, he turned around and continued with his journey back home.