Rule #53b: Truth is stranger than fiction
"So guys, how have your internships been going?" Mineta hummed as they followed the signed postage pointing towards the aforementioned laboratory.
Toru shared a nervous glance with Aoyama, where she found the boy looking just as pale as she felt. Down at their feet, Mineta waited expectantly. "E-er, nerve racking?" She bluffed, not quite lying. "We've mostly being doing investigatory stuff"
The purple-stained boy spared a curious glance up at the pair. "Like detectives?"
"O-oui" Aoyama nodded, swallowing the stammer in his tone as he agreed.
"Cool"
"What about you?" Toru asked. "What've you been up to?"
"Oh, y'know, just the usual superhero stuff; stopping bad guys, saving the day, having fun" Mineta shrugged, "Though, there was this one guy who was really weird"
"Oh yeah?"
"Yeah, he kept calling me Dick!" Mineta exclaimed, an expression of affront pressed into his face.
"Isn't that a name in Europe? Or America? Or something?" Toru puzzled.
"See, I didn't know that at the time, so I just thought he was cursing me out" He pointed out, "But Mt Lady said that it might've been a name, which I guess makes sense 'cause he also called me a whole other bunch of things too"
"Oh yeah?" She prompted as they turned the corner, her lips curling up at the corners.
"Yeah, but he also hit his head pretty hard, so it might've just been the concussion talking" Mineta scratched at his cheek as he recalled the awkward interaction with the tank of a business man.
"Oh, did he?" Aoyama bit his lip in an effort to suppress the grin that threatened to sever his face.
Aoyama, on the other hand, seemed rather happy that the conversation had taken a turn towards something a little less interrogatory as he let his eyes search the space, lips curled upwards at the notion. The way, Mineta described the scene, he could picture it clear as day. Although, whether or not that was because he knew it wasn't the first time that someone had called the ravenette as such, was another situation altogether. There had been several instances over the school year (before his Mina-patented brainwashing) where such a thing had happened—mostly amongst the females of their class—but none had outright said so to his face.
Mineta spared his taller classmates a raised brow, beady eyes squinting up at them as he tried to puzzle out their reactions to his little anecdote. They'd both been annoyingly tight-lipped about their internships, where the rest of their classmates had been open and almost bragging. But they'd said they were investigatory stuff, right? So, maybe…Mineta's eyes popped open in realisation as it sunk in. Oh…OH! Maybe they were already in the MIDDLE of an investigation that was SUPER important! Afterall, it was THEIR agency who had reached out for aid for this mission, so they'd CLEARLY had some prior—maybe DANGEROUS—knowledge about it? He thought to himself, chin held in his hand and eyes narrowed on the path ahead. But what was it? What made them so tight-lipped about this mission?
Unfortunately (or fortunately, depending on who you asked), Mineta was so lost in thought that he didn't see the upcoming outcropping of wall in front of him and walked face first, into it. "…Ow" Mineta whined as a bit of an afterthought as he rubbed the space where the blossoming bruise was already starting to bloom. Beyond his shoulder, Toru muffled a laugh into the crook of her elbow, unable to hold back the barking laugh that echoed about them.
Whilst Aoyama just patted Mineta on the crown in consolidation, before he moved to push open the double doors that sat next to the awkward outcropping of wall. It was only thanks to glitchy lettering that hung on the plaque above the door—the one matching the sign from whence they'd come—that they presumed this to be the aforementioned laboratory. Or, one of them, at least.
CREAK!
The door gave an ancient groan as the hinges cried out in pain as they made their way inside, cringing at the loud noise that had announced their arrival. Thankfully, there didn't appear to be anyone inside but as the sidekicks stepped across the threshold, all semblance of humour died. Everything was lit by the glowing purple capsules that stood at a height that was at least twice the teenagers' size. They rested on the far right side and seemed to hold dark silhouettes floating inside; ones that lay hidden beneath the purple glow but still appeared as smudges through the darkness.
Bulky machinery complete with sprockets, cogs and exposed wires lined the other walls; their modern-looking digital displays doing very little to bring the room out of the steampunk era. There were surgical tables held up by wiry cogs & sprockets to the left of the room; laid end-to-end until each metallic table was conjoined to another and stained a hellish brown. And erupting from the center, lay a circlet of heavenwards-reaching capsules that glowed so bright they were hard to look at. Thick wormy cables lined the sleek tile floor, kept neatly out of the walk area and lined the path to the monitors. It was all very steampunk and extremely nightmarish.
"…Welcome to Project Trigger, I guess" Toru shrugged, halfheartedly. Her voice was quiet and childish, like a child lost in the dark. She certainly felt like it as they hesitantly moved to investigate the laboratory.
"This…this must be the place where they're producing the Trigger drug…" Aoyama breathed as they shuffled about on hesitant steps as they moved to inspect the glowing tubes. "Using these—these…nomu-creature-things…to do it!"
"They kinda look like mosquitoes" Mineta hummed, peering up at the one he remained frozen in front of, the one that lay on the row closest to the door.
Toru and Aoyama shared a confused and concerning look with each other, as they roved through the villain's laboratory in search of answers. On closer inspection, the capsules held a series of deformed bodies, although only one tube was clear enough to see more than just the humanoid smudges that the others held. What they saw, took their collective breath away and not in a good way. The thing inside could hardly be called a person, anymore.
Toru thought that it was like looking at a younger Korosensei; something that was stuck halfway between the point of human and monster. The big squishy pink brain was exposed (as was characteristic of nomus), but these loooong twisting tentacles also erupted from the nape of the neck and swayed gently in the current of the capsule. The creature's eyes (for, it surely couldn't have been human anymore) remained closed as if they were sleeping; their chest rising & falling in gentle motion as the nutrients in the purple substance and the wire protruding from their various orifices kept them alive.
"Experimentation" She frowned, turning away from the capsule and over to the monitors hoping to hack them for information. As she hovered there, pressing her face close to the computer, Aoyama wondered off in search of further clues as to what had the villains and the heroes so interested in this place. Well, more interested than several sub-levels hidden beneath the layers of water and earth. "Let's see if we can find something in his files"
"Prism?" Mineta asked, not moving from the forefront of the capsule which seemed to have captivated him.
"Mmhm?" Toru hummed, eyes trained on the monitor before her, as she plugged Ritsu into the nearest USB port.
"This…good doctor of yours, has he ever done…this kind of thing before?" He asked, head tilted in question and eyes still wide and unblinking.
"I only know of a couple of times" Toru absently replied. "My junior high teacher and a couple of my classmates had those tentacles—remember I-Island? It was like that—but there was nothing to this sort of degree. I mean, the tentacles made them angry, for sure, but nothing like…like this"
"Maybe…maybe the drug is an off-shoot or a side effect of whatever it takes to make a nomu?" Aoyama suggested, "These…creatures…maybe—maybe its what they're bred for?"
"I guess…?"
"Even the name is a clue" He continued, speaking with an air of knowledge as his voice carried over the sound of furious clacking computer keys, "To trigger someone, is to do or give something that causes someone to feel upset and frightened because they are made to remember something bad that has happened in the past"
"Like flicking a switch to a flashback to a traumatic event?" Mineta posited, unawares that he had very much hit the nail on the head for his two lying companions.
"That's—that's right" Toru nodded, "And this Trigger drug must flick a switch too; one that makes people's Quirks stronger and unwieldy"
"Then let's find out why" Ritsu piped up as files flashed across the monitor.
"You're in?" Toru asked, perking up at the AI's interjection.
"You dare doubt me?" She teased, before flitting through the chosen files. "There's a shit ton of files on these things, but I've just gotten access to the most recent files pertaining to that fellow over there…"
"Do we really need to go through all of this, right now?" Aoyama asked, the hint of a whine in his tone.
Toru spared a look over her shoulder, brows furrowed in puzzlement. "Aren't you just a little bit curious?"
Looking at him now, it easy to see how uneasy the blonde-haired hero was with all of this. From the half-twisted expression on his face, it looked like he was seriously debating whether or not he should flee from the room and leave them there to their foils. Aoyama stood there, hands clenched around his forearms; arms crossed across his chest as he grew steadily antsier. HIs foot tapped repeatedly against the floor, beating out a tune that she did not know and she was sure that if he had been sitting down, then his leg would've been unconsciously bouncing in place to that tune too.
"Not really" Aoyama shook his head, "I presume that it has something to do with that monstre
over there. And I, find myself, unable to…enjoy the idea of someone being treated as a science experiment"
"Fair" She acquiesced with a nod. Toru found that she couldn't blame him on that one. "I'll leave the experimenting bits out, then—"
"—Non, non, just de vendre la méche" He waved his hand, urging her to go on.
Toru blinked dumbly at the blonde, not quite sure what he meant. "Uh…?"
"Tell me—tell us—what it is you've found" He clarified with a huff as they convened at the monitors. Mineta stood on one side—finally pulled from his place in front of the capsule—whilst Aoyama stood on the other, trying to fight against the urge to run.
Toru simply nodded, a half-smile gracing her lips as she spun back around to face the monitor, deciding that the reluctant acquiesce was probably the best she was going to get out of the twinkling hero. So, she turned back to the files that Ritsu had accumulated. There, she let her eyes scan across the documents, only noting the more palatable anecdotes aloud, whilst she kept the more gruesome ones to herself. What was a little more nightmare fuel, right? Toru's brows furrowed as she frowned deeply, her own gloved fingers tapping out an impatient tune on the desk as she read, pausing every now and then to spare a glance back at the capsule where the nomu lay, before turning back to speed read through the files.
Mineta furrowed his brows in concern at this. "What? What is it?" He asked, worry evident in his voice.
Toru swallowed thickly, "Let's see, let's see, let's see…well, they're definitely nomus…" She hummed as her eyes darted back & forth across the screen at almost alarming pace. "They call 'em Trigs on account of the whole drug-serum-thing—whoa! Look at the stats on these things! Super strength, telepathy, razor-sharp claws, super regeneration, trigger serum—these things are living weapons!"
"They're engineering an army!" Aoyama exclaimed, shock written clear on his face that had fallen several shades in parlour.
"But why?" Mineta asked, "Whatever for? You only need an army if you're going to war!"
Toru and Aoyama shared a glance, but neither said anything to the contrary. Instead, Toru simply shrugged in reply. "I—I dunno…"
"Wait—! There's—there's something else!" Ritsu piped up from the computer, "It's about the Trigger factory—ugh!"
"What? What is it?" Toru asked, worried.
"The file's triple-encrypted!" Ritsu groused as she did her best to bypass the security measures, but she was having very little success. "I—I can't—! This is gonna take some time"