Chapter 6: Crimes of the Demons
Izuku rested for the last part of the day, deciding that it would be better to take it slow. That and his mother soon called him after she saw him on TV. She mainly asked if he was okay, but he confirmed to her he was just fine. He found that his healing factor had mostly healed him after the fight with Vulture, though he hadn't been injured that much.
As such, he spent some time making a few more cartridges of web fluid and made sure his costume wasn't damaged. After this, he decided to try and summon his bio-electric powers again, only to see find nothing. Despite all his attempts, he found he could only make himself invisible and his regular spider powers.
After this, he pulled out a new notebook and began to write about his encounter against the Vulture, doing a full analysis on the villain. He tried to think up all the problems and mistakes he did, writing down a few pages as he wrote how he would get around the villain if he ever fought him or someone like him again.
His mom came home a little later, quicky hugging him as he told her he was okay. It wasn't long till the rest of the day was done, the teen vigilante soon going to sleep. And as he began to fall asleep, he thought back to all he had done and the road ahead, knowing this was just the beginning.
The Next Day...
Izuku did his morning routine in a quick and formal fashion, soon fully dressed as he checked his classes. He saw he was still ahead and decided to work on his costume instead. He found that while there was no damage from yesterday's fight, the suit still got dirty, and was now looking up new material online to help with that.
That is, till he saw the price tag. After this, he went back to his notebook, reading everything he had written down. 'Hmmm...what else can I do? I know I need to make a reputation for myself, but there should be something else.'
He glanced over at his computer and decided to try out an old past time of his: Watching hero interviews. He took the next hour watching several interviews all about All Might, the hero talking about how heroes should inspire hope and good. To be better, and to help others while showing a big bright smile.
"I hope I can be a hero like that someday..." he said to himself as he finished watching the fifth video. He saw there was a few more left on the playlist, but decided to turn the computer off. "That's enough for today."
He stretched his arms out, glancing over at the clock and saw it was almost noon. His mother had left an hour or so ago, and Izuku decided that he would do a quick lunch and then out to patrol. And as he did that fast meal, he put his costume on and swung out into the city.
"Aaaah..." Izuku sighed as he went down a few blocks. 'This feels so good.'
And as he did this, he landed on a rooftop and pulled out his phone, checking the police scanner. He stayed there for a few minutes, only for nothing to come in. "Guess crime isn't happening today." He commented as he put the phone away, quickly zipping down another street.
But as he did this, he swung over to another one of Musutafu's banks, one of the oldest in the city. It was a huge building, several stories tall despite its old marble-ish look. And as he landed on a roof across the street from it, he glanced down and saw two black vans drive up to the place. Raising an eyebrow at the sight, he then saw a group of masked men all get out of the vehicles.
The group were all wearing black and white suits and had black and white masks on, the masks all looking like demonic creatures. Izuku saw eleven thin looking ones along with one buff bulky man all walk up the bank's stairs, the sight making Izuku going wide-eyed.
"They're not...surely they're not just gonna go and rob the bank in broad daylight looking like that, right?"
But then they slammed the bank's front doors opened and gunfire started to ring out, making Izuku flinch. "Guess they are. I gotta say, either they're really ballsy or really stupid."
And as he said that, a loud noise rang out behind him.
BOOM!
He glanced back and saw a pillar of smoke now appearing several blocks away. "Or...they just did a distraction for their bank heist." He looked down at the bank next, "I...better go try and stop them."
He then shot a web line at the bank before swinging down, aiming straight for the already busted in front doors. "Coming through!" He exclaimed as he swung in, his legs slamming into one of the thugs.
"What the?!" yelled one of the gang in a language Izuku didn't recognize, all of them turning around to see Izuku web up to a wall, sticking to it while staring down at the masked thugs. Behind them was a ton of terrified people, all of them cowering on the floor or under the bank's desks.
"Hey there! I'm Spider-Man, nice to meet you. You wouldn't mind just giving up and not robbing the bank, would ya?"
"Get him!" another yelled, Izuku's spider sense blaring as he saw four of the masked thugs point their rifles at him.
"Uh-oh." Izuku gulped before leaping off the wall, quickly firing a web at one of the rifles. It instantly jammed it as the other three began firing, Izuku dodging the bullets as he swung across the room. The main room was giant one, which Izuku was glad for, as it gave him flexibility as he began to swing around.
"You three, take care of him. The rest, get the money!" commanded one of the two bulky thugs, the trio of gun wielders all still firing at Izuku as the others began to storm past the bank's desks.
"Hey! No illegal transactions while I'm around!" Izuku yelled before firing another web line at one of the gun-wielding thugs, this time grabbing the rifle before yanking it away with a quick tug. The other two kept trying to hit the vigilante, only for Izuku to fire webbing at both their feet before pulling on the web lines, knocking them off balance. Seeing this, he quickly shot more webs at the two, sticking their whole bodies to the ground before landing on the bank's floor.
One of the thugs then charged at him, this one being the one Izuku had kicked in the back at the start, and now the vigilante saw that the thug's fists had started to glow black and white. "What is that?" Izuku asked as he ducked under the first attack, only to backpedal as the thug tried to jab at him twice. This was followed by the teen throwing an uppercut, knocking the thug off his feet and over the bulky thug behind him.
"What are you doing?! Get him now!" the bulky thug roared, two more charging at Izuku. But as they were about to each him, he ducked under both punches from the thugs before doing a spinning leg sweep, knocking both off balance. And as they hit the floor, he fired another batch of webbing, tying them to the floor.
"Holy cow! Did you see that?! I did like a kung fu move there! Or a-"
BOOM!
Izuku turned to see smoke now appearing beyond the bank's main desk, meaning only one thing: They had blown up the main safe. He was about to cut into a run, only for the bulky thug to walk in front of him, making Izuku come to a stop.
"Out of the way, you...uh...big round guy!" Izuku shook his head at that, "Okay, not a great quip. Anyways, I'm not gonna let you-
"You will pay for this, Spider."
Izuku blinked at this, "Oh hey, I can actually understand you." But as he said that, he saw black and white energy pour out of the bulky thug's fists, "And you're a lot scarier than the others...say, you wouldn't mind not fighting me and sitting down for a cup of tea or something, would ya?"
"Die!" the thug roared before slamming his fists into the floor, Izuku's spider sense blaring at this. But it was too late, a shockwave firing out of the floor and hitting the vigilante.
"Augh!" he yelped as he was knocked back, hitting a wall a second later. "Ow..." he moaned as he slumped down, only to look up and see the bulky thug was now charging at him. Going wide-eyed, he fired a web up to the ceiling and yanked it, flinging himself over the thug just as he punched the wall behind Izuku.
Izuku then swung over to the opposite wall before hopping back down to the floor, panting as stared at the thug. 'Okay...that hurt. I'll need to hit hard to beat this guy.' The thug then charged at him, quickly swinging another fist at Izuku. The teen ducked under the first jab, soon dodging another before throwing a punch right at the thug's gut...only for the thug to not budge an inch. "That's not good."
WHAM!
"Waugh!" Izuku cried as the thug backhanded him, knocking the vigilante across the room. He collided with a desk, almost splitting it in half as he let out a groan, "Ow...guess I didn't hit hard enough."
"You will die here, Spider." the thug growled as he began to slowly walk up to the still knocked down Izuku. The teen looked up at him, his eyes slightly blurring at the sight.
'Get up Izuku! Get up! You gotta get up!' He inwardly yelled, his spider sense screaming at him as the thug got closer. At the same time, he began to hear a barrage of voices, his eyes slowly turning to see the rest of the gang that had gone to the bank's safe now running out into the room. They were all carrying duffel bags of money, the sight making Izuku start to get up, 'No...they're getting away! Come on, get...up!'
And as he thought this, sparks began to cover his right hand. His eyes began to focus again, soon staring straight ahead as the thug was now mere feet away. The bulky man then leapt at him with a glowing black and white fist, the sight making the teen tense up before shifting his body as he got up and charged at the villain, "Back...off!" Izuku roared as he pulled back his right fist, the hand now sparking blue lightning.
BAM!
The punch slammed into the thug's face, instantly knocking him off his feet. Izuku came to a stop at this, going wide-eyed as he saw the thug go flying into the opposite wall. "Whoa..." Izuku gasped before looking down at his right fist, now seeing it spark like crazy.
And then the lightning stopped. He blinked for a second before trying to summon what he felt at that moment, only for the fist to spark again. "Yes! I got it!" He then turned to his left fist, glaring at it before lightning started to spark around it as well. "Yes!"
But as he began to celebrate, a new sound made him see the bulky thug peel himself off the bank's wall. However, Izuku just pointed his shooters at him. "Nope, we're done fighting. I gotta go get the rest of your pals." A barrage of webs came next, webbing the thug up to the wall.
He then fired a web to the top of the front doors, quickly zipping over. But as he got outside, he saw one of the vans the gang came in was now racing off. "No!" Izuku yelled as he pointed his web shooter at the van-
Psst!
And no webbing came out. Izuku blinked at this before mentally facepalming. 'No! I forgot to check my shooters before fighting them!' He quickly took out the cartridges and replaced them, only to look back up and see the van was now gone. They had gotten away.
"Dang it..." He sighed before turning back to the bank. But before he could go in and check, he heard police sirens ring out in the distance. He quickly zipped up to a nearby rooftop, soon seeing several red, blue and white lights coming for the bank. He glanced down at his hands, now seeing the electricity spark across them. "Well, at least I figured this out."
He leapt off the roof at this before swinging away, "Guess my work here is done. Still...who were those guys?"
Naomasa knew something like this was coming. Whenever a talented vigilante appears, tons of trouble always seemed to follow. To be fair, that happens anytime new heroes come onto the scene, but vigilantes always seem to help make more trouble than usual.
Despite this, he was now watching security camera footage of Spider-Man fighting a gang of masked men in a bank, and he had to admit he was impressed. Spider-Man beat basically half the gang, and seemed to take down five of the six with ease. It wasn't till the big guy started fighting the vigilante that things got more dicey, only for the detective to go wide-eyed as he saw Spider-Man knock the thug away with some kind of energy punch.
And then he saw Spider-Man cheer about it. Like it was some part of his quirk he didn't understand, but knew he had. "Strange...he seems to have multiple quirks, but also seems to be surprised that he has them. Why?" Naomasa whispered to himself as he watched Spider-Man beat the thug before swinging out of the bank...and that was all the footage he had.
"The robbers must have got away." He commented as he pulled out a small pad and wrote some notes. "Guess I have more to add to this case."
As he said this, a head poked into Naomasa's room, "Yo Naomasa!" The detective turned to see his fellow officer, the cat-headed Sansa Tamakawa. "How's it going?"
"Oh, you know. The usual." Naomasa sighed as the officer walked in and saw what the detective was watching.
"Spider-Man, huh? You've been assigned to his case?"
Naomasa shook his head, "No. There's no direct case yet, mainly just the usual when it comes to vigilantes. Did you get anything out of the bank robbers?"
Sansa shook his head, "No. We got a translator come in to help interrogate them, but all of them are acting like they have no idea where they are or what they were doing. They also can't do that energy quirk anymore. You know, the one we saw them all do in the footage."
"So...some combination of energy transfer and brainwashing quirk?" Sansa shrugged at this, making Naomasa sigh, "Ugh...that means we need Eraserhead to check them with his quirk. They might still be brainwashed...and they're a brand new gang, aren't they?"
Sansa shook his head. "Not quite. We've had like...four reports on them for the past two months, all random small time events. They're not brand new, but relatively new. Though they haven't done anything quite like this. They mainly just appear for a bit and then disappear. This is the first time we've caught some of them."
Naomasa raised an eyebrow at this, "Did we get anything out of 'em?"
The cat man shrugged, "Not much. Just a name. They call themselves the Inner Demons."
"Well, that's a villainous name, and it goes with their masks. Though it figures that this happens on the week Eraserhead starts up his class."
"We can get him over here later. He's already responded to our call."
"True...guess its back to this then." Naomasa groaned as he pointed at the footage of Spider-Man.
"Yup. Though I gotta say, surprising that he's a vigilante. I mean, look at him take those guys out. A bit messy, but I'm guessing he went in with no information and it mostly worked."
"Yeah..." Naomasa muttered as he tapped his pad with his pencil. "He's got a very powerful quirk and he's talented...but his timing is something that happens when it comes to vigilantes."
"What do you mean?"
"I mean that the hero entrance exams are done for the year." Naomasa sighed again, "Every year after the UA entrance exams happen, one or two kid vigilantes appear."
"You mean, they fail the exam and go into this?" Sansa asked as he pointed at Spider-Man as he showed him take out two of the thugs with ease. "You think he failed? Really?"
Naomasa nodded, "Oh yeah. Just cuz he's strong doesn't mean he can crack the exams. Anyways, what usually happens is that the rejected students will try their hand at vigilantism, only to fail, realize they're in over their head, and give up. That or they get caught. However, considering what we've seen with Spider-Man..."
"He's probably gonna stick around." Sansa finished, "That is worrying. Think you can ask UA for their records on all who failed the exams?"
"I already have. Nezu said he can get them to me soon."
"Nice. Well, I gotta go. Need to talk to DeWolff about that other case."
"Got it. I'll be in here." Sansa nodded and left the room, leaving Naomasa as he bit the top of his pencil's eraser as he rewatched Spider-Man hit the thug with his new electric punch, "And why do I get a feeling those records aren't gonna help?"
It wasn't long till Izuku returned home. Despite the happiness that came with figuring out his bio-electricity powers, he was depressed that part of the gang he was fighting got away. This was followed by him going to the computer and trying to look up the gang he had just fought.
But after two to three hours, he came to the conclusion that they must be new. After all, they were quite flashy with their debut at the bank, making it quite obvious that they were new since there were no reports on them despite being so flashy...or just really ballsy. Seeing this, Izuku began looking up other spiders, trying to figure out if any had something similar to the bio-elec powers, but found nothing.
"Guess its something special with you." he commented as he stared at the dead spider in the bottle. "Figures. Maybe I should name the attack after stuff other spiders can do?"
He glanced back at the screen, his eyes squinting, "Says here a lot of them use venom and poison..." He looked down at his hand, seeing a small surge of power in it. "Maybe...Poison Power? Or Venom Power?"
He hummed at those words, "Yeah, that's good. Venom Power sounds really powerful...and cool."
He then clicked another tab, which changed to the playlist from earlier, this one showing another interview with All Might.
"So All Might, what is the one thing you think heroes should do more?"
The hero shined a huge grin at this, "I think out of all the things that heroes should do, which many have forgotten about in these days of heroes, is charity! Helping others that can not help themselves is a sign of a true hero!"
"Charity..." Izuku repeated as the interview kept going, "I could do that. It sounds really important. Though...I can't really do that much since I have a secret identity and...vigilantes do have problems with money." He leaned back in his chair, only for a small bulb to go off in his head. "But that doesn't mean I can't get some experience in it before becoming a true hero."
He looked back at the computer and began to type away as he said to himself, "I'll just...have to do it as Izuku Midoriya." And as he typed 'charity events' in a search engine, it popped up something he didn't expect. It showed a picture of a building on a news article about a charity organization that had been made a while back in Musutafu.
"Food, Emergency, Aid, Shelter and Training, also known as FEAST, is an organization for the homeless and underprivileged." The teen read before nodding, "Huh. Maybe I could start there tomorrow."
