"Shi?!" Izuku gasped.
Shi had repaired Dimentio's mask and was found wearing it the next day. Izuku begun pacing.
"But...Olive and Puppetmentio couldn't unfuse, so can Dimentio and Olive? What if they get stuck this way? What'll we do then?"
Olly blinked. "'Puppetmentio?' Is that the Puppet Dimentio that the Chaos Heart Entity destroyed?"
"Yeah, I thought it was easier to write that down instead of writing out Puppet Dimentio." He put a short hesitation before the last word, clearly emphasizing his annoyance. "So, Shi has no memories? Makes sense, as they were all probably destroyed with Puppetmentio."
"Puppetio," Olly said. "It's easier."
"No, that sounds too much like Piper's name, Puppetino."
Olly hesitated for a moment. "Pupper!" He said with a smile.
"No!" Izuku faced back to Shi. "Well, I'm Izuku Midoriya."
"Hi!" They waved.
Olly leaned over to Izuku. "I saw their face yesterday. They really do look like a clown."
Izuku begun to introduce the rest of the class when Shi entered the classroom. They kept glancing to Izuku until he stopped.
"Why do you keep looking at me?"
"Deku, this is unnecessary. We remember everything. Why did you all assume we had no memories? Just because the first one was a puppet, doesn't mean that we don't remember what Dimentio did to it."
"What? Why did you play along then?"
"We were trying to be polite?"
Izuku face-palmed himself.
Aizawa entered the room and took one look at Shi as he went to his desk. "At this point, I'm not even going to ask. Just sit down, all of you." He pointed at Shi. "You sit in the back."
"Aye-yie, sir!" They saluted him.
At lunch, Izuku confronted Shi about his concerns. They stared at him in unbelief for a moment before bursting into laughter. Izuku could tell that was Dimentio, because the laugh sounded insane.
"You're a riot! You think we can't unfuse? Pfffhaha! We know how! After all, Dimentio unfused Super Dimentio!"
"Then do it," Bakugo said, who had overheard the conversation.
"Fine! We will!" They didn't change. "Well?"
"You have no idea how to do it, do you?"
"No! We do! We've done it before!"
"Correction, Dimentio's done it before."
Shi screamed at him, revealing his fangs. "You're so mean!"
"Okay. And?"
"Grrraaahh! Leave us alone, you big meanie!"
After school, Shi left first. They could tell something was wrong with their abilities; and they wanted to find out what. They found an empty spot in the park and sat down, cross-legged, in the grass. They took a few deep breaths and closed their eyes.
"What's wrong with us? What's wrong with our power? If only we could sense the issue..."
"Something wrong? You look like you're sleeping in the middle of the day. I can see why, though. It feels groovy out."
Shi opened an eye, and there stood Hole Punch. He had his arms crossed. He had his usual goofy smile on his face, but his eyes held a special shine to them like they hadn't before.
"What're you doing here? Super DimentOlive, was it? Didn't you trap alla the world in that crazy world? And didn't cha rip Tape's head off, then bring him back to life? Where're your sleeves? Did you even have any before? Are those stripes on your arms lights? Groovy! You could join me in a dj gig later!"
"Can you leave us alone? We're trying to-"
"Meditate? Booooring! Sciss does stuff like that all the time. I had to force him out of the house this morning!"
"Did you say...'dj gig?'"
"Mhm! Somebody caught wind of my groovy disco track remixes and asked me to dj their party! Your lights could add an extra flair to it! I'd love it if you came with me!"
"Well...Sure, why not! Maybe having fun with you could get our mind off of something that's bothering us; and maybe that might help us recover our ability to unfuse!"
"Woo-hoo!" Hole Punch pumped his fist. "You won't regret this, tall boy!"
"Our name is actually Shi now. And you are Hole Punch, right?"
"Yep!" He winked, then flipped his sunglasses over his eyes. "See you at Izuku's place, at seven! Party's at eight! A ride's supposed to pick us up before then!" He rushed off, waving.
"Bye, bye!"
On their way back to Izuku's apartment, now in a new, good mood, Chokaku stopped them.
"Shi!"
"Huh?! Chokaku? What're you doing here in Hosu?"
"I live in this city..."
They changed the subject. "How's the hearing aid working for you? We have been learning though, just in case!" They signed 'Hello there' and 'I'm hungry.' "That's uh...that's all we could learn before things happened."
Chokaku laughed. "I just wanted to say hi! I haven't seen you in a while and was wondering if you'd been doing okay. I did see someone who looked suspiciously like you, though. He was a purple jester, and he was definitely shorter than you. By a lot."
"Dimentio?"
"I don't know. But I'm glad to see you're doing better! You look a lot happier too."
"We...yeah. We are. Thank you for checking up on us."
"Have a good day!" He ran off, kicking a soccer ball.
Izuku waved to them when they entered the apartment. "Shi, today's game night. Want to join? You vanished from school for a while. Are you okay?"
Olly shuffled the cards and dealt them. "Here!" He handed Shi the Ace of Diamonds. "You can play, if you want."
"Nope, we've got to meet with Hole Punch in an hour or so, and we need to get ready. Thanks for the offer though." They flicked the card back to Olly.
Olly looked at it. It had changed into the Joker card, but with the diamond symbol still in the corners and the center.
"Joker of Diamonds? Is that even a real card?"
"No?" Izuku shrugged.
They took off their coat in Izuku's bedroom. "If you want to be as famous as us, you gotta work...Watch us work."
While singing "As it Was," they changed into the show uniform the puppet version had used while working with Machigai. They stopped in front of the bathroom mirror and slowly removed their mask. They touched the scar on their eye.
"The Chaos Heart did this to us...We were an idiot, weren't we?" They put their mask back on and left the house.
Hole Punch was already out there. "Hey! I expected to see you out here sooner! What are you wearing?"
"You wanted our lights, right? You can't see the lights on our legs when we're wearing our pants."
"You look like you're wearing a bathing suit..."
"You're not much better. Is that a gold chain necklace?"
"Hey! It has my favorite record on it! It's really small, but it actually works!"
A limosuine pulled up to the apartment and a teenage girl stepped out. She judgingly looked at the apartment, then at Shi and Hole Punch. She was surprisingly busty, her dress wine red and strapless, a black shirt under it making up the sleeves and collar.
"Are you the dj?"
"Yep! This is not my house, though."
Her shoulder length hair bobbed with her movements. "And you must be Shi. Mom's talked about you a lot, you know. Not often she actually finds a guy she likes for real. Well, here's your ride. Get in, or we're going to be late."
Hole Punch slid in first, then Shi after. They felt uncomfortable, like they've met this girl before.
"So," Hole Punch began, "who's party is it?"
"It's mine. My name's Sonata. My mom decided to throw this party for me. She heard you did music for villain organizations, so she had me call you. She doesn't like doing the work herself. I'm eighteen now, so she's going to try and have me 'use my Quirk' or whatever. Not like I have the guts to tell her I'm Quirkless."
"That means you have no powers, right?" Hole Punch leaned back in the seat, draping his right arm over the edge. "We can always make your mom think you have one. I have a feeling she won't get off your back until you show to have one."
"You're right about that, but the thing is, how are you supposed to make it seem like I have one?"
"We have illusion abilities," Shi mentioned. "But we kind of promised we wouldn't use them anymore..."
"It's either, mom gets off my back, or she hovers over me forever. Just for an hour. That's how long she'll be there, okay? A single hour."
"Wait, who is your mother?" They took a sip from a small cup that had been sitting next to them ever since they entered the ride. The drink inside tasted like wet socks and broken dreams. They tried to shake the taste off. "Woo, what is this stuff?"
"That's Vodka. And my mom's known as Siren. You might know her?"
Their arm sent out a small spark, and their grip shattered the glass. The drink poured down their hand and sank into the carpet lining the ground of the car.
"S-Siren? She tried to flirt with us!"
"Can you cut it with the 'we' and 'us' talk? It's creepy."
"Wait," Hole Punch said, leaning forwards and resting his hands on his lap, "Siren as in, 'Draw them with a song, feed them to Davy Jones' Locker' kind of Siren? Does your mom have a song Quirk?"
"Yeah. See why I said it'd be hard to convince her? You can handle music, sure, but I don't want to hear your singing voice."
"Fair. Heard I'm bad, heard I'm good. It doesn't make a difference to me, it's just their opinions."
"We don't like Siren. She makes us feel all violated." They rubbed their hands up the length of their body and shuddered, bells jingling.
"She does that," Sonata sighed. "But I would really appreciate it if you two would do this for me. I know I'm supposed to be a villain like my mom, but I don't like the way she treats men. They're like her brainless servants. If it helps, I'll try my best to keep her away from you. How does that sound?"
"We're non-binary," Shi muttered. "So does liking someone with no gender mark her as a lesbian? Or does it mark her as acesexual?"
Hole Punch slapped their back with the back of his hand. "They'll do it! I kind of like you, Sonata. Plus, your music name is groovy!"
She smiled. "Thanks, you two. If we can pull this off, I'll forever be in your gratitude."
