Chapter 005 Part 1:
Mutant? Do you mean Zoan?
(or D taking role-play a bit too far)
Unknown Villain lurked the streets at night, sniffing the air and looking for her prey. She watched every shadow in case Moria or their predecessor decided to stab her with one. The Shadow-Shadow Fruit existed after all, so you could never be too careful… He could have possibly escaped from a mental institution for insane villains that is crap at containing them, you never knew. In her unprofessional opinion, Moria deserved to be in one.
Her thoughts left her and she concentrated on finding a trail, jumping between building roofs and flying across the gaps made by the streets… These streets were hers to patrol, and she had sworn to get rid of the scum that inhabited these tight alleyways. When the police got lethargic and the Pro Heroes slept, she was out there, fighting the fight. It wasn't the good fight, for it was brutal and merciless, unlike like the ones shown on television. Those were always glamourized, but she knew how it really was. They were gritty, and painful, and hard, but someone had to fight them.
She smelt a sweet aroma and salivated at the thought, but licking her lips produced a delicious copper taste for some reason that helped her regain her senses. Still, this merited investigation. She ran towards the sweetness and stopped above an officer of the law with a really dapper hat but a torn overcoat, waving a mango around… As a technically-a-Villain, she had a complicated relationship with the cops, but she was sure that all the other Villains she beat up would be incarcerated after she dropped them off. That was how it worked in theory, but the world never was how it should be like, which is why she avoided being seen. He wasn't the commissioner after all, and didn't know how to compromise.
She concentrated on the hat wear, and memories flooded her mind. He was known as True Man… and was her nemesis. While he only told the truth, she told some lies. While he was always a police man, she was sometimes a civilian, a Villain or a menace. He always wore that dapper hat, and she sometimes stole it and wore it herself. He was an absolute while she was a non-constant, two sides of the same coin of Justice.
With her incredible hearing, she easily identified the sound of police sirens in the distance, so she left the man in the dust. She had seen her target earlier today, stalking the streets and running with wild abandon, so the loud noises were probably him being found... Duty called, she had no time to inform him of her actions. She jumped from building roof to building roof, ignoring the slow moving streets. She had no time for street lights or grandmas at the wheel, for her mission was urgent.
With her powerful legs, she managed to soon reach the commotion. A car had swerved and crashed against a hydrant, and there was an individual running in the streets at high speeds against the police cars in a manic race… one which Justice was losing.
Unacceptable. Justice would always prevail, one way or another.
She instantly jumped down from a twenty story building without hesitation and kicked things on the way down to land safely, only to take off like a bullet for the Speeding Maniac… What else could she call him, a man in an apparent black straight jacket with sharp teeth and a visor. She did not know why, but she loathed his existence. If Dapper Hat was her nemesis in the force, then Speeding Maniac was her nemesis in Villainy. The three of them the three sides of the same triangular coin of Justice. She had a long history with the Villain… having bumped into him once in an alleyway… disfigured her into the abomination she… Vengeance…
The Bat Woman shook her head to clear her mind, she had a mission to do and couldn't idle around. She surpassed the police cars and was approaching her target, but a woman crossing the street was up ahead, she was uncaring of… The dastardly Villain didn't even try to avoid her and in fact tackled her out of the way, letting her fall in the path of the upcoming cars. Shit. Pumping her legs to go even faster, she accelerated to her utmost limits to reach the woman before anything could happen.
As soon as she was next to her, she planted her feet into the concrete and stopped. Her legs groaned in pain due to the sudden loss of momentum and her hair trailed in front of her, hiding her face from view. As soon as she could move her burning legs again, she turned and grabbed the woman before jumping out of the street and onto the sidewalk. The police cars speeded past, and she was about to continue the chase before a hand on her arm stopped her… she wanted to continue running, let the adrenaline keep her going, but something inside stopped her. She didn't like that part, too tame and meek, a prey for her feral predator.
She still looked behind her and saw how the redhead wasn't a simple scared animal about to thank her or ask if she was fine, but a woman on a mission, gaze filled with steel.
"That Villain always ends up in the capital central loop highway with connections to Naruhata." she informed the speedster, "Don't simply race him, go where he's going to be and wait for him there. It's a kilometer in that direction."
She gave a firm nod before spreading her wings and flying up a building before quickly running and jumping towards her new destination. A trap for her unsuspecting prey, a much efficient way to hunt. As she hopped and ran upwards a tall building… she mused about that woman. Police? Sidekick? Perhaps even an off costume hero? She carried a bag with unknown contents, now that she thought about it. She saw the shine of metal and mechanical parts, so maybe an engineer? But why would such a person know about the Villain's patterns?
She soon found the highway and waited in ambush, hidden in the shadows. The night cloaked her figure, making her one with it. She liked the comfort it brought, cold and uncaring… of her troubled past and even more troubled present. Why, oh why, did her guardians not understand her plight, her need to do what she did? It was in her blood no, in her very soul to do so, to be the knight of the dark, to be Justice, True Justice, unlike the marines.
Her musings were cut short when she heard a demented cackle. The road was separated by a divider, so she climbed it and waited for her prey to approach. Soon, she could see a black pinprick coming, followed by a silvery shine too small for a car… An accomplice, perhaps a cyborg? No matter, they would both fall all the same to the hammer of Justice.
Her patience was rewarded when the Bat Man finally came into view. She did not have time to watch the other speedster, or else her target would run past her. She jumped in their path and intercepted the Villain by crashing into him, both rolling along the pavement before they skidded to a stop. She tried to bite his throat out in the struggle, but only clicked her fangs together with nothing inside.
The demented one proved himself her physical superior, easily tossing her aside with a well-placed kick to the stomach, launching her like a football towards the silvery man. The armored man did not hesitate however, jumping over her person and directing a high punch to her quarry, which was easily dodged by ducking and their race began anew, leaving her behind in the dust.
She followed with her gaze the… Hero she just witnessed ruin her infallible plan, then jumped on a moving truck going in the same direction as them marked with his name.
"Team Idaten," she read. "Ingenium." she spat.
She already hated the man and her blood boiled just thinking about him… If True Man was her nemesis in the police force, and Speeding Maniac was her nemesis in the Villain sphere, then Ingenium was her nemesis in the Pro Hero world. It was quite simple, really. She used her legs to run, while he used his arms to run. She simply couldn't tolerate such a crime against running from existing, and she was sure there would be friction between them if they ever met again. They were all part of the same cubical coin of Justice, though she wasn't sure which part was who at this point.
Still, despite her animosity, both her targets shared an advantage over her; height. Their legs were simply longer, and she couldn't hope to keep up, despite how much snarling she did about it. They were already leaving the truck she was on behind, and her speed when flying was slower than when running… Game over, better luck next time. She fumed for some time on top of the unsuspecting driver, muttering expletives at ending third in their race and all the scrapes and bruises she got thanks to that kick. How rude.
Still, her good hearing let her know when the Bat Man made the Motor Man crash, if she understood what the driver said correctly. She jumped down on the highway and ran towards him, easily outrunning the truck… Maybe she wasn't as fast as those two, but being faster than a car was a good consolation prize. If only her headache would go down already…
She quickly found Ingenium without his helmet sitting on the side of the road, airbags coming out of his shoulders. She smelt… no blood. He seemed to be smiling through the pain, but at least all his joints were pointing in the right direction, so it wasn't as bad as it could have been.
She fixed her new cape so it covered her face, wrapped her wings around her body and approached him.
"Motor Man Ingenium." she intoned in her deepest voice.
Her nemesis looked up and smiled at her, which she didn't really understand and made her incredibly confused, grounding to a halt her train of thought.
"Ah, you wouldn't happen to be that guy's little sister, would you?" he asked, full of fake cheer. "You see, I would really appreciate it if you could perhaps give me his phone number or an address? I… I really want to race him again?" he asked more than said.
...Her nemesis may, perhaps, be suffering a concussion… Or be an idiotic prey… Or both.
"…Yeah, guess not, huh?" he managed before slumping defeated against the wall he was resting on. "Sorry about not stopping to check on you, I told my team about you but they didn't see you when they went looking. Couldn't get a good look, but that kick sounded nasty. Are you alright? I got bandages on one of my pouches and some painkiller if you want," he said, before he straightened his back and looked her dead in the eye despite her cape and hair obscuring them. "No, rather I insist you take some, and you should also get checked out by my team, burn marks from high speed drifting can get nasty if you don't treat them. Please, for your own good." he pleaded, full of big brotherly concern.
…Damn stupid nemesis, worrying about her when she's supposed to be the one looking after him. He's the one who crashed! She was not blushing, that was the normal color of her cheeks. She was a serious Villain with a troubled past, she did not appreciate him treating her like a little girl and caring about how her side hurt or how she had teared up a little after the crash.
"I am vengeance," the beast tried to convince her and assert itself.
"I am the night," the human automatically answered, grounding herself in the familiar.
"I am Womanbat," they compromised, both to herself and her audience.
She ignored the worry of the Hero, and said her piece.
"The Speeding Maniac possesses the same… ability as me, Bat." she announced while spreading her wings. "Even if you manage to match him in speed, he will simply fly away afterwards. I tried to ambush him on my own, but I was too weak."
She let him stew her words in his mind for a little bit, apparently he already had an idea of their shared power if his lack of surprise was any clue.
"You cannot fly, and he's faster than me on the ground. But I can match him in the skies, and you could challenge him on the earth. He may believe himself champion of both, but together we can prove him wrong."
The Motor Man was analyzing her, taking every detail of her appearance and trying to determine if she was trustworthy. From her high school uniform to the blanket she called a cape and the injuries on her body from the chase. Despite her size, her clothing and speech made him reevaluate his thoughts on her age, or at least that was what she wanted him to think.
"…I already have a flying member on my team," he commented, testing the waters.
"Good, because I don't want to be a part of it," she sneered, more Bat than Woman. "The term Villain falls short to describe that monster, and I'm only willing to work with you because my hate for him outmatches my disdain for a man who runs using his elbows."
He felt vaguely insulted, but was mostly concerned about the first part of that sentence.
"Sorry, but we thought he was simply recklessly speeding, why would he be a monster?" he asked, trying to understand this 'Womanbat'. "If you know of any other crimes he committed, could you please tell me?"
She briefly thought about her answer, and remembered all the rage she felt that night. From her outrage at the endangerment of civilians, to her frustration at failing to match her opponents, and the bitterness she felt when she was kicked and thrown around as yesterday's garbage. But above all, she remembered the beginning of the night.
The utter agony she felt when this awful night began, bones snapping, contorting, changing beneath her expanding muscles, uncaring of how she felt every twitch and movement. How the bastard that caused it ignored it all and continued to run away, even as her screams pierced the silent night. How a friend tried to calm her down, only for her to lash out without thinking and running away in shame.
She was no longer trying to forget what happened and struggling to remain coherent. She remembered it all, and both sides saw red.
"What he did?! WHAT HE DID?! I'LL SHOW YOU WHAT HE DID!" she shouted while beginning to fly in the spot.
"LIKE THE MONSTER THAT HE IS, HE COULDN'T STAND BEING THE ONLY ONE WITH THIS CURSE SO HE DECIDED TO SPREAD IT! THE LIGHT BURNS MY SKIN, MY EYESIGHT DECAYS BY THE HOUR AND MY HANDS WERE DEFORMED INTO WINGS! THE ONLY REASON I'M TALKING TO YOU AND NOT KILLING HIM RIGHT NOW IS BECAUSE I NEED TO CATCH HIM ALIVE TO TORTURE A SOLUTION OUT OF HIS WRETCHED MOUTH!"
She flew around Ingenium, making herself appear bigger and more threatening, no longer simply a Zoan Bat Woman, but a different creature, one more ancient, one more… mythical.
"AND IF THERE'S NO CURE TO THIS MADNESS BY TOMORROW, THEN I WILL TEAR HIS THROAT OUT AND DRINK HIS BLOOD!" she stated, all her instincts telling her to do so already. "SO, HERO, YOU'RE EITHER WITH ME OR AGAINST ME! BUT KNOW THAT BLOOD WILL FLOW AND PAINT THE STREETS RED! THE CRIMSON LIQUID, THE ICHOR OF LIFE, THE-"
She wobbled in her flight, her mind screaming two conflicting actions and slowly tearing it in half. She tried to simply fly away but Ingenium interrupted her.
"Wait!" he tried, reaching a hand out to her.
"I CAN'T WAIT, THAT'S THE ISSUE!" she shouted, both voices shouting with as much frustration as the other, "THE CURSE DEMANDS FLESH AND BLOOD, AND THIS THIRST WILL BE QUENCHED ONE WAY OR ANOTHER! TONIGHT, TWO VILE VILLAINS LIVE! TOMORROW, NONE SHALL GRACE THIS WORLD! HOW THAT IS ACHIEVED, WE SHALL SEE!"
Finished with saying her piece, she flew away into the moonlight, leaving a determined Hero behind.
…After enough distance was made, D dive-bombed into an empty alleyway, braced herself against a dumpster and began to hyperventilate.
"What?" she asked herself, because confusion was good. Being stupefied meant she wasn't concentrating and her mind couldn't fight itself.
"What just happened?! What the HELL did I just do?" she continued in a panic as she tried to stop the copy and failed to do so.
One half bit the inside of her cheek to taste blood, while the other was wondering if she had copied a Bat-Bat Fruit or a goddamn Mythical Vampire-Vampire Fruit… Actually, would that be a Human-Human Fruit, Vampire Model?
She tried to stop copying the Chiroptera Fruit but it failed again, sending another wave of pain through her body. She heaved and drooled, and was suddenly happy that she hadn't eaten anything since coming to this world because it would probably be outside right now.
She… she copied a SMILE Fruit, didn't she? One that was stuck on a form and was trying to overpower her personality. She couldn't control the transformation and it was overriding her Copy-Copy Fruit, forcing itself to stay. Were these the carnivorous Zoan instincts that they always talked about, or was it part of the defective SMILE? Because if it was the first, she wasn't sure how any Zoan remained coherent.
This was so Naomasa's fault. Oh, let's go to a nearby orphanage in the middle of the night, what could possibly go wrong? Well, apparently, a lot.
She wanted blood, needed it, so she bit her own wing to taste the heavenly liquid and calm down. Thinking back, she had less than a second when the Bat Man collided with her to accidently copy his Fruit, so perhaps this was an incomplete copy? Now that she thought about it, her other side was awfully sure that the solution rested on Speeding Maniac, but from its point of view, wouldn't there be no problem to solve? Perhaps it wanted to complete the copy, which could also possibly allow her to turn off her Fruit since she was stuck in the middle of the process, waiting to finish and incapable of reversing back.
Still, there was another problem. Was there a time limit for the Copy-Copy Fruit? And if it was reached, would she lose her copied abilities or get them to override the original ones? She didn't have the answers to make a decision, so her best bet was finding the Bat Man again.
The Erase Man came to mind, but she quickly discarded it. She remembered how, when she had copied his Erase-Erase Fruit, he had erased her erasure. She couldn't drop it after she gave up and caved in, and was only able to do so when he stopped glaring and her copied powers returned. Probably because he was both erasing the copied power and the power to copy. So, if she went to him, she would probably scream in agony at the process being reversed, and scream again when the transformation re-occurred. Maybe she could stop the copying as soon as he stopped glaring, but she had blacked out the first time so she wasn't confident about not doing it once more.
While her mind was a mess of what ifs, her body went on autopilot and hunted for an unsuspecting prey from above the buildings. She found a lanky guy in an All Might hoodie with a stupid face, walking without a worry despite it being the middle of the night in Naruhata's possibly seedy sections. A perfect target, he wouldn't even know what hit him.
Before she jumped, D realized she could possibly try to copy another ability to override the current one, and then jumped anyways. It was the most efficient way to touch him after all.
So confident was she that when the young man effortlessly dodged her assault without even looking, she didn't have time to correct her fall and face planted into the asphalt. Her head and the floor had a disagreement over which one was harder, so her mind decided to take a vacation away from the clearly wrong party.
As her consciousness faded away and her vision turned black, she heard the most familiar and idiotic 'Huh?' of her life and had the strangest thought.
"…Luffy? I think I head-butted the ground and he won… Can you head-butt him for me to establish dominance? Thanks…"
She then promptly passed out to Luffy's even more confused 'Huh?'
Chapter 005 Part 2:
The Cruller's (goddamn it, it's the Crawler!) strange-strange night
(or is it wrong to pick up girls in the alleyway?)
Haimawari Koichi, better known as Gentle-Man and trying to rebrand into The Crawler and failing, stared at the woman who just fell off a building.
He thought a thug was trying to get the jump on him and dodged without thinking, but now he felt bad about not catching her.
"Hey, is that little girl okay?!" Pop Step shouted as she landed with far more grace thanks to Leap. "Come on, help her already!" she said after checking her tongue was clean of Trigger.
Koichi visibly struggled between what to do. He wanted to help her, yes, but wasn't sure if he should do that before or after head-butting the ground. She asked really politely after all and it seemed to deeply matter to her, but if he did it before then the concussion would hamper his rescue attempt, but he felt she wanted him to head-butt this specific piece of asphalt and he wasn't sure he could find this particular spot again later.
"She's a teenager," he corrected absentmindedly while scratching his face, "She's got a high school uniform on."
Pop visibly gawked at him, then pointed at the unconscious lady.
"Do you even have eyes?!" she shouted while tugging his hoodie's ear, "Just because someone has a uniform on doesn't mean they are what they wear! Or are you going to tell me that you and gritty are both Pro Heroes all of the sudden?!"
She made a good point, but why would she wear a high school uniform if she wasn't a high school girl? If anything, she could be an older lady that simply wanted to relive her old youthful days, and told Pop Step so. She looked at him weird, but he couldn't decipher what it meant before Knuckleduster landed with an oomph.
"She's no Trigger junkie, so let's move on already." he ordered them, impatient and itching for a fight, "Just call an ambulance or something."
"Okay," he agreed without question, "Can you lend me your phone, Pop Step?"
She looked at him dead in the eyes and patted her leotard-covered stomach, then the sides of her bare legs.
"Where would I keep a phone, Koichi?" she deadpanned, "In the pockets of the hoodie I don't wear, or in the pockets of my invisible pants?"
The Crawler considered the question, remembered how she definitely had a phone in a crossed pattern sleeve with a little star where you open it, then answered.
"In the pockets of your invisible pants," he decided, "I didn't know you had them on, but I guess that's the point of something being invisible."
Pop choked on air and then made strangling gestures towards him, but Knuckleduster interrupted her and made everything worse.
"You are a woman, you have nature's pocket, so obviously you put it in between your breasts."
Koichi made an 'ah' sound of realization and nodded, finally understanding everything. He then was hit in the back of the head by Pop Step alongside Sensei, and suddenly he understood nothing.
"I don't have my phone on me! I forgot my purse! How is it so difficult to get through your thick skulls?!" she explained, and why couldn't she just say so?
"Well…" he came back to the matter at hand. "My phone is a limited special edition All Might 'A phone call is here!' so I don't carry it around, it could get broken or fall off. Sensei?"
"Don't look at me, if I want to make a call I simply loot the phone of the last thug I punched."
The trio looked at each other, then at the unconscious person between them. Sensei punched her in the head for good measure, and began searching through her pockets.
"Was that really necessary?" the idol asked, then kicked the phone thief when he looked under the skirt for inner pockets. "Have you no shame?!"
"Someone punched her in the head and she could have a concussion, getting a phone is the priority and something as small as shame shouldn't stop us possibly getting one." he told her in a no nonsense voice.
"YOU PUNCHED HER IN THE HEAD!" Pop Step screamed.
"Irrelevant." he answered as he finished looking. "She doesn't have one either, and she doesn't have a natural pocket to keep one in."
"If she had one, would you have looked for it there?" Koichi asked, curious.
"Of course," he said as Pop Step fell off from her Leap directly on top of his head for an axe kick.
"NO SHAME!" she shouted. Knuckleduster was unaffected and uncaring.
"So, do I take her to a hospital?" he asked to make sure.
"No, you could further her injury because of your speed and sharp turns, and the nearest hospital is too far before she bleeds out." he mulled it over for a second before continuing. "Crawler, we're taking her to our base and treating her there with the med kit."
"By 'our base' do you mean my apartment?" he questioned.
"Yes."
"You can't just take an unconscious girl to your house!" Pop Step complained, "We're kidnapping her!"
"We're relocating her due to her inability to tell us otherwise." Sensei explained.
"That's literally kidnapping! You just used different words!"
As they continued to bicker, The Crawler made a choice.
"She needs our help," he said, silencing the other two. "I don't care if I'm technically kidnapping her or if she hates me afterwards, I'm going to help her anyways. I already break the law by being a Vigilante, so why not break another one?"
That made Pop Step visibly reconsider, so he took the bat woman in his arms and made sure her head was firmly in place. She felt so tiny and fragile like that, he could understand why people would think she was a little girl. But for some reason he got the impression that she was older than she looked, like he heard her whisper it in his ear, but that just couldn't be it. She hadn't said anything besides her weird ramblings when she fell.
His friend looked at him like she just remembered something important, and nodded at him.
"Go." she told him.
He did, just after he head-butted the ground. He promised, after all.
(A Batman reference in my One Piece X MHA crossover? Banish the thought!
Where does Pop Step keep her phone shown in chapter 2 and 3 of the manga? The answer is in chapter 4, where you're shown she has a little purse on the back of her belt. However, there were two whole chapters where I honestly thought she used her nature's pocket off-camera. It even had a handy boob window to retrieve it, so it made sense in my head.
Ironically, D got that Erasure wouldn't work on her for entirely the wrong reasons. She copied a Mutant Quirk and became a Mutant, so Erasure wouldn't work on her since she doesn't actively maintain a copy, she just becomes what she's copying, and Erasure can't erase Mutant Quirks)