Chapter 38: Calm Down Jamal-

The nights were starting to warm up again as the summer holiday was beginning to near. Eraser had mentioned something about some summer camp that he would be attending with his class, but he wasn't really listening.

The part he did catch, was that it was supposed to be a secret from Hitoshi for the time being, so Izuku felt that it didn't really matter too much that he didn't know what the heck he wasn't supposed to tell and therefore could not spill the beans.

It was a foolproof plan.

He was patrolling as per usual. It was a quiet night in terms of crime and Izuku decided to take to the ground rather than the roofs since the activity was so minuscule. Of course, as soon as he started patrolling on the grounds, he walked into an already occupied alleyway that two people seemed to be having a conversation in.

One was a shorter girl with buns and the other was a taller boy with spikey hair. He couldn't really see them clearly from so far away, but he had a feeling that getting a closer look wouldn't be in his best interest, so he turned to leave as quietly as he could, but as he did, he heard the voices from the alley call out to him.

"Hey, you there! You're Serpentine right?" The girl's voice asked. She sounded a bit on the young side, probably not much older than Izuku, but she sounded way too excited for his taste.

Izuku groaned at the two of them recognizing him. He was getting really tired of people knowing who he was. "Unfortunately."

The girl began to skip up the dark alley towards him with the tall boy following behind slowly. He seemed to be smoking and held himself in a way that screamed pretending not to care. Izuku had to refrain from rolling his eyes, because he knew that doing so would most likely result in some sort of fight and he really wasn't in the mood for that at the moment. "Hey look Dabi! He's a lot cuter up close," The girl he could see a lot better now due to her close proximity leaned in close to him as she circled his body.

She was dressed in some sort of school uniform but had various knifes strapped around her body which took away from the innocent school-girl look. Her slitted yellow eyes and fangs also distracted from the persona she tried to express.

"You can only see half of his face."

"Oh shush!" The girl giggled as the guy rolled his eyes and brought his cigarette up to his lips again.

Now that Izuku could properly see him, he looked a lot more intimidating up close. His skin was covered in burn scars that were held to his untouched skin by staples that irritated the skin around them. His dark hair hung over his striking blue eyes and sinister smirk that still held the cigarette. "What a coincidence that we'd run into you Serpentine."

Something about the guy was incredibly familiar, but Izuku was having a hard time putting his finger on it. He stared him down in hopes that if he concentrated enough, he could figure it out, but apparently the guy-Dabi-didn't like that and sent an icy glare at Izuku. One that he knew he had seen somewhere before.

"Todoroki…"

He hadn't meant for the word to leave his mouth, but sometimes he still struggled with not muttering what was on his mind.

Of course, he chastised himself as the walking skin-graph grabbed him by his collar and slammed him against the alley wall. He mentally cursed himself for letting up on his training to keep his mouth quiet. "What did you just call me?!"

"I didn't call you anything-"

"Think you're a funny guy huh? How did you find out? Did my father put you up to this?" Dabi continued to scream in Izuku's face as the hoodie he was holding in his hands began to singe due to his quirk accidentally activating.

As much fun as Izuku was having being pinned to the wall and getting yelled at, he was quickly losing his temper and thought that it would be in everybody's best interest if he tried to defuse the situation before things got out of hand.

He grabbed onto both of the guy's hands, using his body and the wall behind him to push off of in order to twist himself to where he ended up behind the guy and pushed him against the wall with both of his hands behind his back. "Look buddy, you can try and burn me all you want, but that lost its effectiveness after the first hundred times, so you might want to try for another party trick."

Dabi growled with his face still pushed against the wall and started to threaten the vigilante but was cut off by suddenly being let go. He turned to see Toga sitting on top of Serpentine's back as she pinned him to the ground and leaned over to talk closely in his ear.

"Uh, uh, uh~" She teased on top of him, "As cute as you are, I can't let you go around and hurt my colleague like that. Our boss wouldn't be too happy about that, would he Dabi?"

"I didn't need your damn help, you blood freak."

"Shh Dabi," She leaned even farther forward and traced the vigilante's face with the tip of the knife that was in her hand, "You're starting to get annoying."

"Who even are you guys?" Serpentine grunted under Toga's weight. It wasn't that she was particularly heavy, it was just the way she was pressing down on him while dangling a knife in front of his face.

"My name is Toga, and this is Dabi! We're part of the League of Villains!"

The vigilante groaned and lightly hit his head on the concrete beneath him. "Of course-"

"We've heard a lot about you Serpentine. Why don't we have a little chat?" Dabi walked forward and squatted down so he could smirk at the frowning boy's smushed face.

"Whatever, just get this girl off of me."

"Toga."

"Aww, you're no fun Dabi," She pouted as she sat up and jumped off of the vigilante.

Izuku stood up and rubbed the side of his face where he felt a few drops of blood trickle down from Toga's knife. "Alright, what do you guys want?"

Dabi placed his hand over his chest and let out a scoff, "So harsh…you came into our alleyway buddy, it's not like we sought you out or anything."

"When you see two suspicious figures in a dark alley, you go and check it out."

"Suspicious? Are we suspicious?" Toga turned to look questioningly at Dabi, who merely shrugged in response. "Your words are so hurtful," She whined, "Not nice or cute at all-"

The girl walked closer to Izuku with a small pout before her expression quickly changed and was suddenly holding a knife to his throat while she pinned him against the alley wall.

"Unless you're into that." Her eyes turned seductive, and she licked her fangs as Izuku felt himself quickly becoming very uncomfortable.

"Alright," Dabi's voice broke through the bubble of awkward that surrounded the two of them, "That's enough from you." He grabbed the scruff of the back of her shirt and lifted her away from Izuku who breathed out a breath of relief.

He set her down a few feet from Izuku as she pouted and crossed her arms. "You're no fun Dabi."

"Yeah, yeah," He turned back to Izuku and gave him a slight look of pity. "Sorry about her, she can be…a lot."

"Uh huh-" Izuku glanced at the girl who, when she saw him looking at her, gave him a smile and cute little wave while still holding her knife. "So, you guys are the new recruits Shigaraki was talking about?"

"I guess. Heard about your encounter with the boss, nice job pissing him off and escaping."

"Thanks, it's kind of my thing."

Dabi let out a low chuckle, "You know what? I think I'm starting to like you."

"I like you too!"

"Shut up Toga."

"You're so mean Dabi-"

The boy cut her off with a scoff and pulled his phone out of his pocket. He looked at any notifications that he might've got and groaned. "Ugh, the boss wants us back." He turned to the still pouting girl whose face cleared at the mention of Shigaraki. "We should go."

"Okie dokie!" Immediately her smile returned, and she skipped to Dabi's side. "Sorry to leave so soon, I was really looking forward to talking some more."

"Don't listen to her," Dabi pushed away Toga's leaning in face, "I expect we'll be seeing you around?"

"Let's hope not."

"Alright then, Serpentine. It's been fun," The two of them began to leave the alley and Izuku waved as they waved back and disappeared.

Wow…he really wished that villains hated him more. For whatever reason they all seemed to like him, and it was really starting to piss him off. Ugh, he'd have to go home and tell Eraser about meeting two new League members which he already knew was going to be such a fun conversation…

Maybe if he died, he wouldn't come back and then he wouldn't have to deal with weird over-interested villains or protective heroes. He thought about it for a minute, before sighing and deciding that it was too good of a dream to have. He knew all too well that life just didn't favor him enough to let too much of a good thing happen to him and he would come back and then be scolded for killing himself again and he just really didn't want to deal with all of that.

Back home it was then.

Izuku was walking along the sidewalk. Usually he would've taken the roofs, but it was a quiet night and Izuku was already on the ground, so he might as well use it.

He got a few stares as he made his way home. People weren't used to seeing Serpentine so out in the open and so it was only to be expected. Didn't make it any less annoying though.

It had been about fifteen minutes, he thought, when he heard some commotion and broke into a sprint to wherever the trouble was. The disturbance sounded like it was only the next street or two over, so he shouldn't be too far away and-

Suddenly Izuku was knocked off of his feet due to the huge mass of a body slamming into him and sending him flying down the street. He rolled on the road a few times before he groaned as he pushed himself to his feet.

The thing that hit him must've been the abnormally large villain standing across from him. He was tall and bulky with a think neck and a large horn protruding from his nose that looked kind of like a rhinoceros horn.

As he glared Izuku down, he growled and began to charge him again.

"Oh crap-" Izuku shot up and quickly dodged to the side as the rhino villain zoomed just past him. "What did I ever do to you man?"

Rhino didn't answer him, instead he just charged Izuku again. He dodged again and circled around in order to land a hit from his pipes on the villain's back, but when he brought them down they didn't even make a dent in the guy. Just bounced off of his back like it was rock solid.

The villain slowly turned to Izuku with pure rage in his eyes.

"You know what? I'm sorry-" Izuku was quickly grabbed by one of his arms and flung down the street again. "Alright," He groaned, "I might've deserved that."

The villain went to charge the vigilante again when a blur of white zipped in front of him before circling back around and landing hit after hit on the guy before he could even react.

The blur was moving too fast for Izuku to get a proper look at it, but he knew enough about pretty much ever pro hero to know exactly who had come to his aid. "Ingenium?"

"You must be Serpentine. Eraser has told me a lot about you." The hero called out as he continued to beat down the villain. "Don't tell him I told you though, he'd kill me-"

"Are you so cocky to think that you can divide your attention like that Tensei?" Another voice called out from the other side of the street and Izuku turned to see a guy leaning against a building with a smirk.

"Welcome to the party. You're late, you know."

"Yeah, yeah, tell me about it later." The guy rolled his eyes before he took off himself and joined in the impossibly fast fight. It wasn't long after that that the two took down the villain and Izuku made sure to secure him and quickly call Tsuki to tell him about the villain.

"Nice work," The younger boy nodded at the pro.

"You too. It's been a while, where you been Crawler?" Ingenium friendly elbowed the boy and gave him his own smirk.

"Wait-you're the Crawler?!" Izuku couldn't help but chime in. He knew that there were other vigilantes but the only one he had met was Stain and he didn't really give him much hope for the other ones.

"The one and only!" Ingenium hyped up Crawler who groaned and rolled his eyes with a small smile on his face.

"Alright Tensei, that's enough, I missed you too."

"And you're Ingenium," Izuku thought that his mind might explode, when a thought hit him, "Wait a minute-what are you doing here? Your patrol is during the day, and you shouldn't be patrolling yet anyway, not with the injuries you got from Stain."

The pro groaned, "Ugh, not you too! Everyone keeps getting on my case, but I'm fine!"

"Oh yeah, I heard about that. Congrats on being the first hero to escape from the hero killer."

Tensei gave his friend a dead look, "Thanks."

"So, I guess the rumors of you two teaming up were true." Izuku meant to mumble under his breath, but he apparently wasn't quiet enough and both guys broke out into laughter.

"I told you we shouldn't have posted that picture of us with that villain!"

"But it was pure gold! How could you expect me to not let everyone else appreciate you looking like a complete idiot?" Crawler held his stomach in laughter as Ingenium glared half-heatedly at the vigilante.

"Are you two talking about the selfie of Crawler with you being drug around by that huge villain in the background?"

"Sure are! Did you see the stupid look on his face? Priceless!"

"Anyways," Ingenium gave Crawler one last pointed look before turning back to Izuku, "Technically pros aren't really supposed to support vigilantes in any way, but as I'm sure you've figured out for yourself, the majority of us actually are quite fond of you guys. As long as you don't go too far off track," He smirked to the side and elbowed Crawler in the ribs with a laugh.

"Shut up, who would bother you if I went villain? It's a full-time job."

"Crawler and I teamed up some a while ago and ever since this guy hadn't been able to stay off my back!"

"I wonder why? I leave you alone for five seconds and you go and get yourself attacked by the freaking hero killer!"

"Oh whatever-"

The two friend's banter was cut off by the sound of a few pairs of shoes running towards them followed by someone calling out Ingenium's name.

"Those would be my sidekicks; you'd better go before they get jealous."

"As they should be. We all know I'm your favorite."

"Yeah, yeah, see you later," The two bid each other goodbye after shaking their hands and doing some quick handshake and then it was just Izuku and Ingenium waiting for his sidekicks to arrive.

"You guys seem close," Izuku's stated quietly. It was nice to see pros who had good relationships with the people around him. It gave him a sort of hope in a strange way, for his future.

The pro turned to him with a warm smile, "We are. Even though he's not an official hero or anything, I know that I can trust him with my life, and he knows that he can do the same with me. I'm still trying to get him to join my agency, but the bastard hasn't given in yet. I'll get him one day though. Speaking of which, I wanted to personally thank you for saving my brother."

That startled Izuku a bit. No one was supposed to know about what actually happened, but he supposed that being a pro hero that was related with someone who was involved and attacked himself would give him certain ins. "Oh, you heard about that?"

"Course I did. I know that Tenya can be a handful sometimes, but he's a good kid at heart. So, thank you for helping him out of that dark place and giving him a second chance."

"What? I didn't do anything; I just was trying to stop Stain from killing anyone else."

"Well, whether you did it on purpose or not, you saved my brother in more ways than one." The hero lightly ruffled Izuku's hair as he gave him another one of those warm smiles of his, "You did good kid. I can see why Eraser likes you so much."

"Um, thank you." Izuku wasn't used to receiving compliments, let alone thank you's, so this was entirely new territory or him. He thought back to the times that Eraser got on him about not being able to accept a compliment and figured that a simple thank you would probably work in this situation.

"No prob kid. You should probably get going, but I hope to see you around more often now that I'm picking up some night patrols."

"You are!?" The young vigilante practically bounced on his feet at the thought of working with Ingenium. He really liked the guy, and even more so now that he actually knew him and how nice he was.

"Yep! So, make sure to leave some bad guys for me, okay?"

"You got it!"