Rumi cracked her neck as she finished her morning workout. While it may be true that she would never reach the strength she had before losing her limbs, the former rabbit hero wouldn't use that as an excuse to let herself fall out of shape. Especially now.
The other night had made it abundantly apparent how weak she'd gotten over the years. Some random challenger from out of nowhere had pushed her further than anyone else had since her retirement. From what she could tell about the guy, he didn't even seem to have a power-type quirk, his natural strength was just ridiculous. It was clear to Rumi now that she'd just been a big fish in a small pond, and if that was the case, the answer to her problems was clear.
She needed a bigger pond.
Maybe Shihai, her boss, could recommend some new circuits she could fight in. As long as he continued getting a cut from her earnings, he probably wouldn't care where she fought.
Releasing her long white hair from its bun, Rumi picked up her towel off of a nearby rack before moving toward the exit. She had some decisions to make and there was no better place for decisions than the shower.
The building that she and some of the other fighters were staying at was roomy, if a little dirty, but it met all of their basic necessities and even had a few creature comforts like a rec room with a large plasma screen television.
As she walked through the hall, her metal leg creaking beneath her, a familiar face turned the corner, walking in the opposite direction.
"Hey big guy, off to go train?" Rumi smirked at her old friend. "You're gonna need it, your punches were looking a little slow out there."
"Heh." Kendo Rappa chuckled at that. "I'm not the one who nearly lost her title to a nobody."
"Oh, is that how it's gonna be?" She raised an eyebrow at the man.
The two fighters had known each other for some time now, having fought in the same ring for years as rivals. Even before then, back when Rumi was still in high school, the pair had met briefly when they worked alongside an underground hero on a secret mission. To this day, they couldn't see eye to eye on which was superior; punches or kicks, but they had formed a friendly rivalry nonetheless.
"If you're gettin' weaker, you'd better retire now. I don't want a death match against a foe who can barely stand."
"Oh please, save that talk for when you can actually withstand more than a couple of kicks." Rumi rolled her eyes before moving to pass the man, only for a large hand to grab her bionic arm.
"Seriously…" Rappa said, now in a much lower voice. "You should go."
"What? What are you talking about?" She asked, pulling her arm away.
The large man seemed to consider his words for a moment, looking up and down the hall before he spoke again.
"Somethin'… Somethin's been off lately." He said quietly. "The other night, I asked Shihai about fighting one of my old opponents again. His response was…weird. He acted like he'd never heard a' the guy before."
"I doubt Shihai remembers our names half the time. He ain't exactly 'World's Best Boss' material."
"That's what I figured at first, but I looked deeper into it."
"You?" Rumi gave him a skeptical once-over.
"Shaddup. Anyways, I asked some a' the bookies and their responses were even weirder, none of 'em lined up and they seemed nervous to even answer."
"Gee, maybe it had something to do with the 7 foot tall punching freak interrogating them."
"Joke all you want, but I think there's somethin' more goin' on here. That guy I wanted to fight, he ain't the only one who's missing. At least three other fighters disappeared in the past two months."
Rumi crossed her arms, studying the man's demeanor and expression, looking for any hint of deception, only to find none.
"If you're scared, why don't you just leave?" The rabbit woman suggested.
"I ain't scared." Rappa gritted his teeth, pointing a beefy thumb at himself. "I'm pissed. This place has few enough worthwhile fighters as it is, we don't need to lose any more. I'm just givin' you fair warning, not everyone here can defend themselves so well. Maybe have some a' yer hero buddies look into it."
"I don't have any 'hero buddies.' I got out of that business."
"Whatever." Rappa waved his hand dismissively. "I said my piece, so we're done here."
The large man pushed past Rumi before turning in toward the gym. The former rabbit hero watched the man leave with a curious look. She supposed he cared about her in some way, this was just how he expressed it.
Underground fighters disappearing? That couldn't be anything good. Some piece of her, a piece Rumi thought she'd lost following the war, told her to reach out, to tell the other heroes about this like Rappa had said. However another, more reasonable, part of her reminded her that she could no longer access the Hero Network, not to mention her current 'retirement plan' wasn't exactly legal.
Still, that little part of her gnawed at the back of her mind.
—
The tension at the Uravity Hero Agency was thick enough you could cut it with a knife. As the agency's four inhabitants sat at the kitchen table eating breakfast, nobody seemed to want to speak or even make eye contact with one another.
"Well isn't this fun?" Himiko Toga finally broke the silence between the quartet, holding up her cuffed hands above the table. "I haven't sat down for a nice family meal since the League disbanded!" Grabbing a bagel from the center of the table, she spread a dollop of cream cheese across its surface with a plastic knife before taking a large bite. "Mmm! Oh my god, you have no idea how much worse prison food is. They wouldn't let me have utensils so dinner was always some kind of gelatin. Blegh!"
Uraraka glared at the girl sitting across from her, the meal in front of her all but forgotten.
"Something to say 'Chako?" Toga gave the girl in question an innocent look.
From his seat next to Ochako, Izuku looked between the two girls nervously before trying to return his attention back to his meal. The brunette let out a puff of air through her nose before pushing her seat back, the metal legs scratching against the hardwood floor, and standing up.
"Alright, if no one else is going to address it, fine." Ochako turned to Izuku, who let out an audible gulp. "Deku, what exactly is she doing out of prison?" She pointed a finger at the blonde who, in turn, gave an exaggerated gasp of shock.
"Well-" Izuku tried to answer, only to be cut off by Toga.
"If you must know, Zuzu broke me out of prison because he's madly in love with me. He wanted the two of us to run away together, but I wasn't having any of it. I told him, 'Zuzu, if we're going to make this work, our relationship will have to be based on honesty. So we'll need the blessing of my best gal pal, 'Chako, before we can start our new life.'"
Not even sparing the blonde a glance, Ochako continued staring down Izuku for an answer. Rubbing the back of his neck awkwardly, the boy decided to explain.
"There's been a lot going on lately. A lot of people are trying to kill me right now and I needed information on who put out the bounty, so I needed someone with insider knowledge."
"And you picked her?" The brunette's eyes darted to the fanged girl across from her who was currently drinking straight coffee creamer. "Her?"
"Ochako-" Hatsume tried speaking up in Izuku's defense, only to be met with a padded finger pointed at her face.
"Don't think you're innocent in all of this, Mei." Ochako said accusingly, turning to the pink-haired girl.
"Wha-? Me? What did I do?" Hatsume looked shocked.
"You've been in contact with Deku for all this time and you never spared me a word of it. He could've been dead for all I knew!" The brunette looked genuinely hurt. "I thought we were friends, but you've been lying to me about this for years!"
Hatsume's mouth opened to say something, but no words came out. Instead, she simply lowered her head in shame.
"She only did that because I asked her to, Ochako!" Izuku stood up on his engineer's behalf. "And I only reached out to her in the first place out of necessity!"
Unseen by anyone else, Mei winced at that comment.
"And Toga was a 'necessity' too?" The brunette crossed her arms.
"Toga was a risk I had to take, I was about to take her back to her cell when we were attacked." Izuku stated.
"Please," Ochako placed her hands against her temples, clearly frustrated. "Tell me you got something worthwhile out of this."
"We sure did 'Chako!" Toga grinned. "Giran may not have helped us out, but Zuzu and I got some real 'hands on' experience out of it!"
"Quiet!" Both Izuku and Ochako aggressively yelled at the blonde who simply pouted, slumping back into her seat.
When Ochako saw the look in Izuku's eyes as he stared down the older girl, her brow furrowed. Clearly something had happened between the two of them, something that made Izuku deeply uncomfortable. Shooting a quick glare back at the resident criminal, she turned back to Izuku.
"So, nothing then?"
"...Not nothing." Izuku shook his head, causing Toga to sit back up.
"Uh, Zuzu? I told you, Giran isn't gonna play ball."
"You told me everything I needed to know." Izuku smirked. "His files are on his computer, right? We don't need Giran's cooperation at all, just his data."
"Let me guess," Toga tilted her head. "You've got a quirk for that?"
"Better." Izuku replied. "A friend."
—
Unbeknownst to the quartet inside the Uravity Hero Agency, a third party stood only a block away from the building in question. The streets were empty this early in the morning, making it the perfect time to strike.
From inside of the building's air ducts, a brown spotted serpent slithered out onto the street below. Making its way across the street, the Burmese python made out the figure of its master before snaking up the man's leg and coiling around his shoulder.
"Good boy, Kaa." The snake's master said, patting his pet on the head. "How many did you see?"
Looking forward at the structure ahead of him, a man in his mid-20's with tanned skin pulled back the hood of his jacket to reveal a thick head of wavy brown hair. Pulling a smartphone from his pants pocket, he looked down at the screen to see a blip on the screen, pointing only a few meters away from him.
This was Cooper Kipling, codename: Bogan, a bounty hunter from Australia, now in Japan on assignment to take out the country's most wanted vigilante. Cooper's quirk, Menagerie, allows him to control animals using pheromones his body naturally emits, though he is limited to only five animals at a time and the commands can't be very complicated. To supplement this weakness, Cooper has spent his life traveling the world in search of rare instances of animals who possess quirks, one of which being his best friend, Kaa.
"Tssss." The python hissed, turning to his owner.
"Four of them? That's annoying. But the target's in there?"
"Tssss."
"No, humans do not all look alike!" The man protested his snake's comment before shaking his head. "Whatever. You placed the camera, right?"
"Tssss."
"Attaboy." Cooper smiled, giving his serpent another pat on the head
Kaa was an adult Burmese python possessing a compression quirk, perfect for Cooper's purposes. Kaa's quirk, Incubate, caused any organic material that entered its mouth to shrink in size before being stored in an egg-like membrane for later use, essentially functioning as a gross, fleshy Pokeball.
Swiping his phone to a separate app, camera feed began to play on his phone showing four figures sitting at a table, eating breakfast together. Three females, one male. The male possessed messy green hair and a single arm.
"Yep, that's our man." Cooper said to his companion, holding his hand out in front of the python's mouth. "Looks like Giran's agent knows what she's doing. The tracker led us right to him."
Kaa responded by beginning to hack up something in its throat. A moment later, a pink orb with a leathery texture exited the snake's mouth and landed in the man's palm. Lightly tossing it onto the street below, the orb began to grow in size, its membrane breaking apart to reveal the creature stored inside; an African elephant with a strangely metallic trunk.
"Alright, Hathi." Cooper said to the elephant as he covered his ears. "Give'em hell."
—
"So that's the plan huh?" Ochako asked. "I can't say I like it, but under the circumstances…" She trailed off, looking down at the floor.
"Yeah, not a whole lot of options." Izuku nodded. "I'm not… I can't just let people keep getting hurt because of me. If someone wants me dead, they've probably got bigger plans beyond just me. I can't run away from this, Ochako."
"I'll help you." She said firmly. "You've been fighting this on your own long enough, and I couldn't call myself a hero if I let you keep fighting alone."
Giving the girl a sad smile, Izuku placed his hand on her shoulder. Ochako's cheeks flushed as she stared back into the boy's emerald eyes.
"You already have helped me. More than you know." Izuku replied wistfully. "But you need to focus on protecting everybody else. I signed up for this. They didn't." Before Ochako could get out a word of protest, Izuku removed his arm from her shoulder, clutching his head. "GAH!" He screamed in pain.
Immediately, everyone at the table stood at attention, their eyes full of concern for the boy.
"Deku! What's-?" Ochako began, only to be cut off by a deafeningly loud noise.
*PPPFFFFTEEEEE!*
All at once, every window of the building shattered, sending a storm of glass shards flying directly at the quartet.
Her hero training taking over, Ochako quickly flipped up the table beneath her, the girl's quirk making it weightless, and used it as a shield to protect her and the others. She wasn't entirely protected however, as a rather large shard buried itself in her left calf.
Turning to the others, the brunette's eyes widened. Hatsume was fine, having been shielded by the table, but Izuku had been hit in the back by multiple shards and was struggling to pick himself up off the ground, his already injured body now being damaged even more. As concerning as that was, it wasn't the most scary part.
Somehow in the chaos, Toga had disappeared.
"Mei!" Ochako shouted, turning to the engineer. "Help Deku!"
"On it!" Hatsume yelled, crawling to the boy's side before producing an aerosol canister from her belt. Shaking the can, the girl placed a hand on Izuku's back. "I'm gonna start pulling them out now. This'll stop the bleeding but it's gonna hurt. Badly."
"Ergh… Do it." Izuku said through gritted teeth, flinching as the first shard of glass was pulled from his back. Hatsume quickly sprayed a pink mist onto the area, sealing the wound but causing the boy even further pain.
'Dammit!' Ochako thought, turning her attention back to the area of the initial sound. 'Deku's in no shape to fight, so I'm stuck on my own. Which do I prioritize? Toga? Or the attacker?'
Peeking her head over the table, the brunette spotted a black fog entering the room from the now wide open windows. As soon as it entered the room, the fog quickly coalesced into a solid mass, taking the shape of a large jungle cat with pitch black fur and glowing green eyes. With a loud shriek, the predator leaped at Ochako, its claws bared and ready to strike.
"Guess that settles it!" The girl said to herself, lifting the table before slamming it into her attacker.
While her quirk canceled out the gravity of an object, it didn't do anything to affect that object's mass. So when a 130 lb Ochako Uraraka rammed a 180 lb wooden table against a 100 lb panther, the jungle cat felt it, sending the predator flying out of the window it had entered through with immense force.
*REOOW!*
Ochako watched as the panther shrieked, evaporating into fog a moment before hitting the ground. The fog quickly retreated, moving toward a man standing out on the street, taking solid form once more as it hid behind what was clearly its master. The master placed a comforting hand on the large cat's snout as it purred at his touch.
"I think you hurt Bagheera's feelings!" The man called out from his spot on the street.
Panting from exertion, Ochako furrowed her brow at the man.
"Your cat tried to kill me!" She called back. "I'd say it was warranted!"
"Hehe, I like you!" The man laughed. "Name's Bogan! I came here for Deku! Not a sheila in her nighties! Though I wouldn't mind grabbing a bite with ya afterwards!" He offered, before his tone became a bit more serious. "I don't suppose that initial blast killed him, did it?"
Ochako remained silent, clenching her fists.
"Didn't think so! Look, I'll cut ya a deal, hand'im over, and I won't have to kill everybody in there!"
"Do you have any idea how many agencies are on this block alone!?" She asked rhetorically. "This place will be swarming with police and heroes any minute! You're already done!"
"Oh I know exactly how many! One!" The man held up his index finger, calling out Ochako's bluff. "This country's been short on heroes ever since your 'Villain War' three years ago! Why d'ya think I came here in the first place? Easy money!"
The brunette gritted her teeth.
"And I don't think anyone'll be interrupting us, sheila. The other heroes've got much bigger problems at the moment!" Bogan pointed his thumb behind him into the distance.
Squinting her eyes, Ochako could see the form of a large orange primate, an orangutan, the size of a large building clutching several cars in his hand as though they were toys while a full-sized Mt. Lady tried to wrestle them from his grip. All around them, several pillars of smoke alluded to even more chaos going on across the city.
"My offer still stands! We can avoid a slaughter right here and now." The man called out, a devious grin on his face. "I'm not an unkind man!"
"No, you're a monster."
—
"Alright Stumps," Mei Hatsume leaned back, wiping the sweat from her brow. "That's the last of them." Shaking the can in her hand, the engineer found that she'd completely emptied it, closing Izuku's wounds.
"Gotta…help…Ochako…" The green-haired boy said as he lifted his chest from the ground.
"Are you crazy? I may have stopped the bleeding but your body is still a mess! If you fight right now you'll just tear open your wounds again and bleed to death!"
"Doesn't…urgh! Matter!" He managed to get to his feet before stumbling, only barely managing to catch himself on a wall.
It was then that Ochako ran into the room, having equipped some of her gear in the time she was gone. While she was still in her pajamas, around her waist was her utility belt equipped with the hyper-density drones Mei had built for her, and around her wrist was one of her pink circular bracers, immensely heavy and capable of firing steel cables to capture people or objects.
"Deku!" The girl's brown eyes lit up with concern for her friend. Running to his side, she placed a supporting hand on his back.
"Get outta here…Ochako." He said with a pained huff. "They're here…for me."
"Not happening." She said before activating her quirk on the boy. Before he could react, Ochako pushed the now floating boy toward Mei. "Get him out of here. Take the fire escape." The brunette gave the engineer a serious look.
"Ochako…no." Izuku tried moving to no avail.
"You've always been the one protecting me, Deku. It's about time I returned the favor." Looking back at Mei, the girl posed one final question. "Can I trust you with this?"
Mei nodded in response, dragging the weakly struggling Izuku by his remaining arm through a window and out onto the metal staircase outside. The girl grimaced as she took one last look at the brunette hero before climbing down the steps, each letting out a metallic clang as her boots met them.
When the pair made it to the street below, a resounding boom shook the building behind them. Izuku let out a faint groan, but Mei could tell he was already unconscious. Turning back toward the building, the engineer let out a soft plea that her friend was okay before carrying the boy behind her to safety.
Unbeknownst to her, a shadowy four legged creature stalked the girl from behind, its glowing green eyes following her every move.
—
*CRASH!*
The street outside the Uravity Agency shook as a massive elephant collapsed to the ground, standing beside the animal was one pissed off brunette dressed in Thirteen themed pajamas staring down the bounty hunter sent after her friend.
Cooper let out an impressed whistle as he looked down at Hathi's unconscious body. Clapping his hands together, he took a step toward the girl in front of him. In response, the hero took a cautious step back, raising her guard at the man.
"Gotta say sheila, you certainly pack a punch to ya. But I'm afraid ya may be outta yer league here." He said before pressing his teeth to his lip and letting out a loud whistle.
On cue, a large shadow began looming over the girl's form. Looking up, Uravity managed to leap out of the way just before a glimmering mass crashed into the ground where she had been standing only a moment prior. Appearing as a large blue crystal at first, the girl's eyes widened as she watched the crystal begin to move on its own, revealing four legs and one very angry face.
"Meet Baloo." Cooper introduced the animal. "He's a Kodiak bear from Alaska with a little quirk called Corundum. Makes him bulletproof, fireproof, pretty much everything-proof. Oh, and you definitely don't want to get caught between his teeth. Very sharp."
"Thanks for the advice." Uravity replied, backing away only to suddenly be cut across her back by a large set of claws. Wincing in pain, she turned around to swing at her attacker; however her fist only met the empty air.
"And this," Cooper continued. "This here is Dizzy." Next to him, a bird taller than the man himself flapped its wings as it landed on the street.
Though, calling the creature a bird was a bit of a stretch. Dizzy was a South American turkey vulture with a heteromorph quirk that caused it to resemble her more prehistoric ancestors. Beneath her feathers were a set of hard leathery scales, razor sharp teeth lined the inside of her beak, and her talons more resembled a dinosaur's than a bird's.
"Urgh!" The brunette stumbled forward in pain. The back of her shirt had practically been shredded to pieces, and the same could be said for the skin beneath. "Just *huff* How many pets do you have?"
"Oh, I've got plenty more where they came from. But if I were you, I'd be more concerned about who isn't here."
Uravity looked confused for a moment, scanning the area for any other animals before a thought finally hit her.
"Where's the panther?"
"Bagheera has other duties at the moment." Cooper smiled, pulling a large knife from his jacket and taking up a combat stance as the two animals next to him snarled at the girl before them. "But I'm sure we'll get along just fine without him."
Uravity, to her credit, didn't back down. Instead, the girl reached for her support belt, grabbing four pink cylinders off of the side, two in each hand, before tossing them into the air. The cylinders righted themselves, becoming perpendicular to the ground as two small propellers jutted out the side of each one.
'Drones?' Cooper wandered.
"Callisto, Ganymede, Io, Europa: Engage combat protocol." The girl said, causing the green lights on the front of the drones to flicker, changing to a sinister red. "Ballistics level 4 authorized." A series of clicks sounded out before a small turret emerged from the bottom of each drone. Each quickly locked onto a nearby target, a red laser indicating their line of sight.
Suddenly, this 'slaughter' was beginning to seem a little less one-sided. A bigger grin than ever grew on Cooper's face as he tapped his pet snake's head. Money was nice and all, but it was the thrill of the hunt that kept the man in this line of work.
And this was looking to be an interesting hunt.
