Junk Emporium

by Jokiba

In the world of My Hero Academia, Quirks are king! But what happens when a woman disillusioned on them receives The Celestial Forge and decides to provide her new skills as support to heroes?

Junk Emporium

Melakias

Summary:

In the world of My Hero Academia, Quirks are king! But what happens when a woman disillusioned on them receives The Celestial Forge and decides to provide her new skills as support to heroes?

Chapter 1

Junko groaned as she leaned back and crossed an arm over her eyes. Her brain felt like mush and had been that way for a few days already. Luckily the office's light could be dimmed and the curtains pulled over the windows. There wasn't much need to pay attention at the moment. The joys of working when you graduated high-school but decided to not go to college.

Peeking under her arm she looked at the clock on the wall, a relic from earlier times, powered by a small solar panel installed on the outside and a battery that didn't last through two days of rain. Meaning she always had to make sure to re-set it to the correct time after rainy weekends. It was silly to keep such a thing, but it was just another piece of the place.

She complained internally and uncovered her eyes, the slightly tanned skin of her arm peeled off her eyes before she stretched both arms up and hopped off her chair. Sinfully enjoying the popping sound of her limbs and back as she twisted from a side to another. A shiver went down her spine as the fan swayed and faced in her direction. It was similarly old like the clock, good enough to work and do its work.

Just like everything else at the scrapyard. Electronics, furniture, things that people didn't know what else to do. In more than one way she felt she belonged here. In the age of Quirks and Superheroes she was just above the quirk-less, in many ways she would have preferred to not have a quirk at all, instead she had an interesting quirk that didn't work for heroing or stand out in any specific way.

She wasn't smarter, faster, stronger than others, she couldn't throw fire, water or wind around. She could not turn into animals, objects or change sizes. Her quirk was quite simple in a way; she could eat anything, well , almost anything. Something in her mouth let her bite through solid objects, softening even the hardest metal into a soft substance for easy swallowing. It would feed her, but for the same reason, it would quickly fill her as any normal meal, meaning she couldn't eat her way through a wall or other solid barrier.

It was one of the reasons she liked working at the scrapyard, no one would even bother if she nibbled on some of the junk, that way she saved money in food. Snacks? She liked to nibble old keyboards keys, they were like soft candy. Bringing Lunch? Why would she? She just needed to grab some loose plate of metal and eat it like a chocolate bar. Even dinner wasn't an issue, no one would bat an eye if she took loose cables and a plastic dish home.

One of the other reasons was the source of her current headache. She looked down, once again finding the rusty-looking key. It had appeared a week ago, just like that, one day she looked down and it was in her hand when she tried to open the door of her house. It certainly surprised her, specially as it fit perfectly well in her key-lock and opened her door to a large warehouse instead to the outside of her apartment.

The place looked like the kind of room they stored planes, just lacking said vehicle. She instantly knew this place was hers and everything inside of it. Before she could lose herself in this new experience pain suddenly stabbed into her brain. She knew everything about this place, it was connected to her, an extension, she couldn't tell where it came from, where an effective pocket dimension was formed from.

It came with electricity and plumbing, she would always have an outlet or a faucet at hand that fit her needs perfectly. It also came with a fully stocked workshop with enough space and tools to face any kind of DIY project and even fix any kind of electronics she could normally buy. The room had some restrictions, she wouldn't be able to just open it anywhere, she would always need the key, and even if lost she it would come back to her in twenty four hours, safely back in her pocket and ready to be used.

No one would be able to use it, or find any lock it would fit into, and unless she let them through the door would create a force wall that would stop anyone or anything from entering the warehouse. It was a nice space, her knowledge of the place told her it was about twenty thousand square feet, it was mostly bare and there was no way to peer inside if not through the open door.

Next to that she also gained the knowledge how to take apart objects or hardware and repurpose them for any personal creation. She could easily take a truck and with the right tools, thankfully provided by her new workshop, she would be able to reduce it to piles of base materials, scavenging anything useful in just a couple of days with no prior experience.

The sudden influx of knowledge to her unprepared mind hit her like a mallet, making her cringe and hold onto the door frame. Calling to work and telling them she had eaten some bad sushi and she would be taking the day at home. The fact that her boss didn't ask for confirmation made her feel weird, she wasn't sure if he wasn't worried or didn't care, but quickly put it out of her head as she tried to make sense of all the new info she had in her head, all the skills to dismantle any mechanic or electronic component, how to break welding for easier management of large piece.

Apparently this knowledge was geared to deal with items that had seen more than a bit of use, skills in taking advantage of pieces wore off from use and time. It would actually be harder for her to take apart a perfectly new car that it would take her to dismantle a fridge with five years of use for some reason, even if both were in perfect state.

It had taken her a couple of days after that to return to work, blaming the sushi affecting her harder due to her normal diet. But she had to come back at the end, it also had provided her a safe place to experiment with her new skill. And it hadn't left her wanting. She did sometimes use downtime hours at work to reduce some of the most bulky and hollow of the objects left at the place to make space, like old office cabinets and similar metal structures.

But now it was something else, she could almost see the weak spots in their structure, the points she could aim with a hammer and break the welds instead of forcing the always stuck nuts and other similar spots. It helped a lot to take her mind off the pain and eased her brain, giving it something to do with all the new knowledge and absorb it? Make it hers? Maybe it would be better to say she was gaining the muscle memory for the theory she had. She wondered if this is how some mental quirks worked.

Her boss had actually been quite happy when he saw her on the third day after coming back. He told her that it was technically a part of the job but most people preferred to sit at the desk and take the incoming stuff, denying when people brought just trash and inventory the things that could be used. Basically make people remember this was a scrap yard and not a junk yard.

She was walking to the door when a new sensation hit her, it was similar to the first time, but instead of having her power connect to something, she felt three sources come closer to her. Along with them she also felt some kind of well of power, it had apparently reached some kind of minimum necessary level.

The first option felt like it was too large? Or was it too far? The feeling was hard to describe, and she decided to call it too big. The source felt like technology and understanding, it felt advanced and like it would split her head in half way worse than her skill to scrap things had. Luckily she didn't feel even capable of taking it, the feeling came with a sensation of payment and if her well of power was one unit, this would need a whole six units to pay for. She didn't even know how to increase the content of her well, so she discarded it and looked at the next.

The second option was still too big, she would need four units instead of six, way more than she currently had, she still peered at it. It was the engineering knowledge needed to build...Giant Robots?!? yes, yes it was, she could see them, tall humanoid easily weighing multiple tons and needing a similar amount of high quality materials to produce, they weren't top of the line, most of the components designed to aim for mass production. Well, if she ever wanted to make mechas this was a great start. But she decided it wasn't worth it right now.

The third option was slightly different than the others, the price seemed to fluctuate between half a unit to two and a half, it seemed to have levels, five in total, each costing the same half unit, she could take it, it would only provide the first two levels but that seemed to be a good idea. She peered closer, already deciding to take it, it seemed to be the knowledge of how to Tailor, just the first level would already give her enough proficiency to take cloth, needle and string and sew herself a whole new wardrobe as long as she had the materials.

She would most likely prick a finger once or twice in large pieces, but no standard clothing was outside her reach. As she peered closer it started to slip into her, the knowledge of how to sew, all about patterns and fittings, cutting cloth and putting it together, tips in taking advantage of folds to make the clothing more resistant to normal use.

It felt incredible, the experience not being nearly as painful as the first time, she was glad it wouldn't leave her useless for a couple of days, she, doubted she could convince her boss she had come down with a flu after being sick with food poisoning.

The knowledge started to expand and some details started to confuse her a bit. The designs looked almost medieval, did she gain the knowledge of how to sew cosplay? No, she knew it wasn't that, because as the designs moved to other things besides clothing she started to learn she could make bags that were larger in the inside, flying carpets, clothing that kept anything inside cold or hot, flexible armor that could be used without restricting movement and providing defense comparable to some low-end armor with just cotton and a few dyes.

As the second level started to slide into her brain the knowledge expanded, boots to sneak around, capes that would let you think faster, shirts that would make you more charismatic. The list went on and on, she knew the basics of these items, she was sure some support equipment companies worked with less, at least for the basic uniforms some capes used.

A plan started to form in Junko's head. She thought it was a daring plan, she always felt disillusioned of quirks, heroes and the media. It always felt personal when people talked about them. But this skill, the previous one was interesting, and if she wanted to keep working at the Scrapyard it could be pretty welcome, with it she didn't doubt that with a couple of weeks she would be breaking down even the largest pieces down to much more useful materials.

It was even possible that next time her well had enough points she could find an ability that synergized with her first one, but she liked this one more, she wouldn't stop working at the scrapyard for now, it was a solid income if not the biggest, it helped her pay the bills and food costs.

As she thought the sensation came again to her, it looked like the time she spent looking at her options had recharged her well, three options came to her, wait, no, it was just two plus the old Tailoring option, she didn't doubt it for a moment. Taking the tailoring knowledge to the fourth possible level, the last one would only cost her half a unit. She hoped the option to take that last level would stay next time she reached the necessary threshold.

Junko took a deep breath and accepted the two new levels, the knowledge of what she now liked to call mystical tailoring expanding to new and incredible levels. Just to start the bags she could make could take up to four more times the amount of items they could before, the light armor was easily better than some power armor she had seen in the market a few years ago, letting their user run for longer, taking quite a bit of damage and protecting their owner.

Sadly she could see the top end of the items would be outside her reach, the armors and other accessories needed materials she had no current way to acquire, not only was she sure there was no place to acquire Shadow Silk or mage-weave. But she was also sure that anything capable of replacing those materials would be too expensive for her to buy… at least currently. Better work up to those levels in her projects.

Junko slowly felt herself slide back into normality, her brain felt full but not painfully so. She suspected that she was either getting used to it or having acquired it in two more manageable bursts. Her eyes wandered down, looking at her clothes ideas filled her head, specially as her first skill of scrapping appeared to extend to her clothes, she would need some thread and needle, but she would be able to remake her clothes into a simple light armor that while not bullet-proof, would stop most small blades.

She liked the idea, her mind provided the assurance that her workshop had everything she needed besides cloth, thread and needle falling easily under the category of tool, it was normal thread, she knew she would have to acquire some more exotic types if she wanted to face harder projects but given her lack of access to the necessary materials she would leave it out of her mind at the moment.

She looked back at the clock, still ticking, not much time had passed, she could tell her choices hadn't taken longer than a couple of minutes, the rest of her time was spent pondering her options. She was glad she was currently alone and no one saw her simply stand in place for nearly thirty minutes. Junko snorted softly and stretched her limbs once more, it was long enough they had fell asleep even while standing.

She checked the clock, still a couple hours till closing time, she decided to head to the new scrap and see if she could get something useful out of them and take it home with the excuse of a meal, her eyes aiming for the electronic boards in the best state. Her skill guiding her away from burnt out, useless and crappy components. Nothing too great but it would let her start some spare parts for when she gained the need. Some of those boards also provided her with a few grams of gold each, enough that with the tools in her workshop she may get enough for a small project in tailoring.

Junko couldn't wait to start, ideas piling up in her head, a little thought reminding her that power could be addictive and she knew this was why. But she liked to think she was taking things carefully so she would be careful. It didn't mean she wouldn't enjoy being able to create things out of a fantasy book. She wondered what would come next, what would that last level in tailoring bring.

The girl walked with a bit more energy to her step after closing the scrapyard, heading home with today's dinner and a bit extra that some could call dessert, she was already licking her lips at the ideas.

Chapter 2

Chapter Text

Chapter 2

Junko smiled and looked down at her new clothes, it had taken her the weekend, but she had to admit it had been a lot of fun. She felt like a child again, experimenting with her quirk for the first time, taste testing everything she could bring to her mouth.

After leaving her work on Friday afternoon she had made a detour to the mall to buy a few spare sets of cheap clothes. While she was sure there would be no great failures, she didn't want to show at work on Monday with clothes that looked straight from a celebrity's Halloween set up.

She had started with some of her oldest jeans and ratty shirts, putting them through her scrapper skill and breaking them down into large patches of loose cloth. She was sure her skill had a bit of extra besides knowledge as she ended with enough material to reproduce each shirt from barely any unusable scraps. Some of the fabric looked actually better now than when it had been part of a shirt.

Junko had broken down three shirts before she decided she had enough material to start trying. She was really tempted to go out with some of the more fantastic designs that were in her head, flowing robes, heavy capes, dresses that hung from her shoulders and accentuated her female figure. But she decided otherwise, she had never been one for dresses or skirts. Give her a pair of pants any day of the week.

Her well of power had filled enough she had acquired the last and ultimate level in tailoring before starting to work. Ancient secrets, masterful techniques, the skill with thread and needle that would make any man or woman jealous. Skill that needed decades of constant work to even reach and hone. She had it all at the tip of her fingers, she now just needed to familiarize herself with it. Only hands-on experience would fit.

Her knowledge told her everything she would need to know on how to make her new clothes, every pattern needed to turn the loose pieces of clothes into reinforced under-armor. It wasn't perfect, first of all it was under-armor, meant mostly to cushion heavier pieces of armor and provide a last line of defense for the body, meaning that without proper armor it wouldn't work completely, the second problem is that was under-armor looking like normal clothes, it would make wearing armor on top of it uncomfortable. But since Junko didn't expect to use it for it's actual use it wouldn't be exactly a problem in her case.

After the first few successes she quickly immersed herself in her work, wearing her new and certainly more comfortable clothes. It took her a bit before she noticed her new clothes fit her perfectly, a bit too perfect, there was no pull or loose in them, falling on her figure exactly as they were meant to, this was quickly answered by her tailoring skill. Any clothes she made using it would resize for their user, meaning that besides extreme cases, one size would fit all.

This would be hard to hide as good technique, she would need to design all the clothing already fit to their wearers and recommend not sharing it. Maybe once she was better set up she could offer all-fitting clothes, but for now it was a bit too strange given her quirk.

A weekend of work and more than a few hours lost looking in the internet with a new interest into fashion had left her with a nice collection of almost perfectly normal-looking clothes. Three pairs of pants, two of them reinforced to prevent any breaking while working at the Scrapyard. A dozen varied shirts, the first two were pretty plain, but the other four she had aimed to mix and match the fabrics for some interesting designs, her favorite shirt had even come out with a bit of a charisma bonus.

On a more private matter, she had to say that magical underwear was certainly more comfortable than normal one, she had made enough to last her for a while and would never admit her new bras had been the best part even for her modest chest.

The last piece of tailoring she had made, and she was sad she hadn't thought about it earlier was her bed sheets. It was easier given their natural rectangular shape, but it had been quite a bit of work sewing the patterns by hand. It wasn't outright enchanting, but giving the fabric a bit of extra through work and needle.

She would need to get an electric sewing machine, doing it by hand was okay but her skill did extend to more than just manual work. With some luck someone had thrown an old one recently and wouldn't need much work to restore.

Junko pondered while laying on her bed, the new sheet had reduced the total amount of sleep, or was it better to say her new sheets had improved her ability to rest? She liked the second, even a thirty minutes nap would feel like a full two hours rest and two hours of rest would feel like a complete night of sleep. Basically a four times efficiency increase.

If her power was going to grow and she would be spending more hours with projects, extra hours awake would increase how much she could do. She wondered why her power hadn't increased in all the weekend after acquiring her last level in Tailoring, her mind providing the title of Zen Mastery.

Junko decided there was no reason to bother about things obviously outside her control and she should instead take a shower, make breakfast and head out for work, spending two hours lazing in bed and dreaming about future projects with fantastic materials she had no true idea of how to acquire had been fun and a nice reward.

Half an hour later, showered, changed into her newly tailored clothes and a hearty breakfast had Junko nice and ready for work. Making sure her warehouse key was safe with the rest of them she turned off the lights and went out, locking the door behind her she started walking.

"Hi Little Tetsu." Junko smiled as she turned to the old lady greeting her.

"Hello Mrs. Kappa," the young adult greeted kindly to the old lady sitting by the entrance of her apartment block "Ain't it a bit early to be out?"

"Nonsense dear, I may be over seventy but I still feel full of energy on days like this," she looked up, the heavy dark clouds promised rain. "My quirk always gets me all fired up even when my body's not the same anymore." the woman giggled in her own way as she tilted her head, the dish on the top of her head overflowing out and splashing slightly on the ground.

"If you say so Mrs. Kappa, remember to not get drenched then, I doubt your grandchildren would like you to be sick, no matter how healthy your quirk can get you in this weather, it will pass and with it the effects of your quirk."

"Don't need to remind me, they do it all the time, and I told you before, they are my great grandchildren, I'm an old woman already. Now go, I've known you long enough to know you should be heading for work, have a lovely day and don't let the rain catch you."

Junko thanked the old lady that lived a couple floors below hers and started walking in the direction of the Scrapyard, with rain she wouldn't be able to do much outside at work. Most likely she would have to drag a few small electronics to the garage and work there. It looked like the weather wasn't on her side for her search for a used sewing machine.

As she walked she felt once more the now familiar sensation, her well had filled up but instead of a unit it had a unit and a half did that mean it wasn't such as the minimum amount but a time threshold? Junko wondered what was behind these kind of powers, so far it all seemed to do with making stuff, what was the extent it would go?

She felt three new skills come to her but something surprised her, they all were too big for her, even the smallest one needed two whole charges, meaning she was half away and would not be able to reach any of them. She wanted to pout about it, a whole weekend of work and now that she finally would get something new there was nothing there for her.

She huffed softly and kept walking, deciding to at least do some window shopping, looking at them in order from largest to smallest. The first one was worth six units once more, this was so far the biggest cost she had seen, even the two times she gained charges while trying to master Tailoring none of the other skills had been worth more than three.

When she looked closer she felt repulsed at first, the skill could change things and people, it was a battery of knowledge in how to remodel objects through different kinds of work. Junko quickly pushed it away, it was definitely strong, but a shudder went down her back at the idea of working on living things, she preferred to stay on cold metal and soft fabric for now.

The second one was worth four units and dealt with increasing output of large construction by four times, this was huge, tho it appeared to be geared to the construction of large robots, once more. There was a little promise of being able to be used for other things but didn't seem too useful in anyways for her.

The last one was worth two units and in a way it would have been great to acquire, she would have liked to be able to reserve it, but the mere idea of trying to keep it made the skill slip through her mental fingers as she turned her attention back to the skill. It was aimed to the design and production of uniforms for trained groups.

She knew some heroes, like Gang Orca, liked to dress all their sidekicks in a uniformed manner, so a skill that helped cover the design process of said clothing would have been quite acceptable, maybe once she was better know and had a better set up than aiming to dress a couple dozen men in identical clothing by hand.

Junko walked to the train station and took the first one going in her direction, only having to ride it for a couple stops was a blessing. She wasn't one to like to use this kind of transportation, so many people packed in a spot always felt bothersome. A part of her wished she would be able to build a bike or something better soon.

She would need to look into what was needed to expedite a driver's license. And get a place to store it, tho the idea of dragging a bike into her warehouse for storing wouldn't be a bad idea, she would need a safe and hidden place to keep the secret. Or maybe she would learn the secrets of teleportation and wouldn't have to walk to work or back like mere mortals.

The girl giggled in her mind as he walked to work, noticing that her boss was there already and approaching him, giving the sky another peek, the clouds still looking dark and full of promises of rain.

"S'up boss." Junko greeted the older man.

"Junko, glad to see you early, hope you had a good weekend," The older man reached for one of the tools in the box near him, Junko quickly reaching the wrench to his calloused hand so the man could continue picking apart the used washing machine. "thanks, oh! Someone decided to start cleaning the beach near here and will be bringing all that trash, I will be kinda busy seeing who can take the excess so you will be in charge of receiving it."

"You mean the other scrapyard?" she joked as she remembered the beach her boss was talking about, the place had turned from a beautiful beach into a complete pile of trash as someone had dropped something and instead of being cleaned the rest of the people added more and more till no one bothered with it.

"Yeah, that stuff is all rusted from the sea water, but if you can see to reduce it into manageable parts I may be able to add a bonus to this month's payment. Recycling centers will pay much better if they gotta work less." She nodded along.

"Sounds great, when would I be expecting the first stuff to come?"

"Next week," The man got up and gave the metal plate a kick, making it loose and fall, Junk felt her scrapper skill almost clapping at the ability the man had to break down the electronic. "Shouldn't be too hard and I doubt they will bring more than two or three things a day, I will show you later where I want you to make some space in the garage so they can deposit them and you may work on them."

Junko liked how that sounded, while her job usually didn't had much to do, it wasn't the best place to experiment with her abilities, this would keep her busy and get plenty of interesting stuff from the junk, after all, one man's trash is another man's treasure.

Chapter 3

Chapter Text

Chapter 3

Junko enjoyed manual work, if she had been born a boy people would most likely say she was a natural born mechanic, but being a girl meant people called her a tomboy. Junko was glad she didn't care much for that kind of people's opinion.

In high school she only had a few friends, people she shared some mutual interests, stuff like music and anime. But having had not much interest in 'girl things' kept her separate from most female class interests and caring for heroes besides hearing of them from the mouth of other people had cut down her interactions with the rest of the class.

Once she had graduated she moved out from her mother's house, took the job at the scrapyard and started talking with the old ladies at her apartment building. Besides messaging with a couple of friends from high school she thought she was doing quite well.

She felt a warm sensation as her well filled up once more, reaching two and a half charges and three new sources approach her, just from the sensation she knew only one would be away from her reach currently.

She quickly looked around and sat at her desk, making it look like she was busy as she peered at the first ability, the largest and the one she wouldn't be able to take. Another six charges and looked quite strong too.

It felt innovative, like nothing was really away from her reach if she wanted to develop the technology for it, it also felt incredibly destructive, like it wouldn't be hard to reshape the moon with explosives. A shudder at the idea of so much power. Pushing her away she turned to the other two sources.

The first of them was small, a tiny one charge skill that felt specially solid, it appeared that taking this wouldn't give her new knowledge besides of how to use a special set of tools for repairing items. Their capability seemed to be undisputed. Of course what really caught her eye was the third skill.

Junko looked at this ability and liked what she saw. Worth two charges was in her reach and would give her vast knowledge of technology and engineering, and how to work it with magic. She liked how it sounded and without much doubt she took it. Leaving her well with just half a charge as the source seemed the swell before flooding her head.

Instantly she regretted it. The skill carried much more than just knowledge of technology and engineering, it carried advanced knowledge of math and multiple sciences. Even as her brain slowly started to assimilate she understood she now knew physics, math, astronomy and more than a few others at doctorate level.

This skill was vast and deep. It wasn't like she knew how to build a computer, but she had all the tools now, she would need to sit down and design it, but the capacity was there. And all that was without touching how the skill was resonating with all her knowledge of Mystical Tailoring. She was quickly working out how it all fit together, the synergy between the two skills already showing her how all her current works could be improved.

Junko pulled the closest drawer open and pulled a bottle of aspirin along with a glass she quickly filed with water and downed one of them to try and ease the headache pounding in her head.

Her brain was going at a thousand kilometers per hour. After her new skill went over everything she knew about tailoring it moved for her previous skill of scrapping, the knowledge of engineering and other materials gave her the understanding of how and why along with expanding it all into a more vast and basic understanding in how to pull things apart. No longer she would have a difference between new and rusty.

She felt a feral grin form on her face, if her skills would react between each other it meant that each new skill she gained would mean more and more. She relaxed her face and hid the fact she now was thinking easier and faster. All the knowledge collating inside her head, relations between the different branches of science building up, comparing things and finding new solutions for old problems.

With her new found knowledge of math the young adult quickly got to work on the Scrapyard's backlog, finding it much easier to crunch the numbers from the books. She was glad to see her boss was a good man and there was nothing wrong. A few errors here and there but there was no sense besides them being that, errors. She at least hoped that was true and she was not uncovering some horrible illegal trash dump rings.

She would leave that thing to the police.

Junko hummed, checking there was no more paperwork to clear before heading to the garage and starting to make order on the scrap around, putting her skills to work once more, breaking down old broken electronics, separating glass, metal, electronic boards in separate piles. At this rate she was sure her boss would need to get some containers to send the materials for recycling sooner rather than later.

As she was moving to the next electronic she found exactly what she had been looking for. In front of her was a barely battered sewing machine. Her skill quickly told her how to pick it apart but she stepped that eagerness down, instead giving her newest skill a try and see if she would need to fix it.

She carefully opened it and eyed the inside of the machine. It looked like a pretty simple model, she didn't see much wear or tear on the motors and the moving parts. She wasn't sure about the electronic board, she would have to try that in her workshop. She quickly stored the machine by a quick use of her warehouse key, throwing some other electronic parts just in case.

Junko smiled and made sure her boss or any passerby didn't see her opening and closing the door and quickly got back to work. She soon spent the rest of her day breaking down and categorizing scrap. Keeping herself busy with work till it was time to close. Once more picking some nice pieces for her dinner before marking things done, turning off the lights, closing and heading home.

As she headed home, Junko felt the now familiar sensation come back to her. Three large sources, all of them the same size, all of them costing six units each, meaning that her current one and a half units stored in her well meant nothing. Seeing that she still had two stops before she was to get down, the young woman decided to spend a few minutes peering at them.

The three of the stars could be considered huge in more than just sense, the three of them had a similar theme going, they all were about doing things large, two of them offered how to do giant robots, again with those giant hulks of steel that she had no idea what she would do with, the third dealt with making weapons larger, stronger and incredibly more destructive.

Of course that wasn't all, but it was funny to find her new power had offered three similar powers for the same cost. She noted that the first power would more likely increase her intelligence by quite a bit while the second would teach her a collection of techniques to analyze technology and reverse engineer the best things while discarding the problems. The third seemed to extend some kind of general increase for all her creations.

The doors of the train finally opened for her stop. Junko orderly coming out of it, looking up she noticed the heavy clouds still covering the sky, making the weather forecast given to her by Mrs. Kappa still possible.

And talking about the old lady there she was. Still outside the building block apparently enjoying the downcast weather.

"Ah! Little Tetsu, it's good to see you twice in a day, looks like the rain didn't catch you at work," the woman laughed softly covering her mouth, a few drops of water flinging off the dish on her head.

"Yes Mrs Kappa, I'm glad it didn't, I enjoying rainy days but only if I can stay home," Junko chuckled softly "You look bothered by something, anything I could help with?"

"It's nothing, dear, it's about heroes and I know you aren't interested in those things."

"Please, Mrs Kappa, I may care little for heroes in the news, but if it's bothering you, then I would like to at least know. You never know when someone can help you unless you ask." Those words seemed to make the old lady laugh quite a bit.

"Oh~ Using my own words against me? I remember telling you that shortly after you moved in." The old woman hummed "Well, you see, it's my youngest Grandson, he recently graduated as a hero in one of the small academies near here. Different from the big ones like U.A. or Seiai, his academy lacks a support department, simply offering students contact points to where to acquire their costume and support gear."

"Actually, Mrs. Kappa, I think I could actually help this time." She smiled upon this bit of fortune "I've been taking lessons on sewing and tailoring, I would have to check prices for the fabrics, padding and other things, but I think that if he shows me what he's looking in a hero uniform, I could provide him something to cover his bases.

"I've been looking for some ways to earn money, I would have to check the prices they are going for right now, but I wouldn't mind leaving it at just the production costs if he could recommend me to other people who are in need of similar work."

The old woman looked at Junko for a few moments "I see no reason not to put you two in contact, when it would be good for you?"

"Any day past work he can contact me to my number," the young woman gave the older one where the prospective hero could reach her, phone number and email address "I still have to fix my sewing machine and see if I can find a good provider of materials."

"Well, I will leave you to that, I'm sure he will be calling you in two to three days, have a good evening Junko."

The Young woman nodded and wished the same before heading up to her apartment.

Junko locked the door and turned on the light, she was feeling giddy, the chance to start working on commissions for other people. She knew there were dangers in taking work like this, but she had no other way, she did not graduate herself from a support school and she pretty much doubted that getting employed by a larger support company would be a good idea.

If her abilities kept increasing at this pace she wouldn't be able to hide the fact, especially as her warehouse was one of the most important points. As her new skills came she was sure that sooner or later one would be just impossible to hide if she was working under someone else.

Junko turned on some music as she sat down to eat a quick dinner. Making sure to make enough noise around so her neighbors didn't suspect much. She hoped she wasn't getting too paranoid, lowering the music and heading to her Warehouse.

She also set up an alarm, she didn't want to leave the music on all night and bother her neighbors. With that out of the way, the young woman quickly grabbed the bounty of the day, the sewing machine looked to be in pretty good condition and it was small enough to easily move it around and place it on her workshop.

Swiftly starting to pick it apart she maintained a good sense to not scrap it and instead keep to simply clean and fix all she could see, it appeared a gear had come loose, making the fixing pretty simple.

Of course things didn't stop there, once deep inside the motor she started to...upgrade it. Her knowledge already pointing places the machine would fail similarly again. She internally blamed the cheap production but she had heard enough conspiracies about programmed obsolescence.

About an hour of work quickly went through, oiling, tightening and putting the machine back together. Junko would bet it worked even better than when bought, she also looked to a side, a pile of spare parts she wasn't entirely sure where they had come from. Her skills and knowledge told her she wasn't missing any part, she once again blamed cheap design as she must have removed some unnecessary stuff from it when putting it back together.

She connected the newly fixed piece and crossed her fingers before turning it on, she grabbed some of the loose fabric pieces from and tested the machine, it worked perfectly and Junko felt herself fill with pride inside for the achievement.

Quickly after making sure it was all working she got to work on trying making herself some new clothes with the machine, finding the whole process much quicker and smoother, her tailoring skill giving her all the tips on how to use the different sewing patterns the machine had for better reinforcing the pieces of clothing.

Junko also felt her well filled once more, reaching two and a half charges, this came with the sensation of three new sources approaching her, the first two were too large for her, both were worth four charges, both felt strongly of technology, and would most likely give her quite advanced knowledge too given their size.

But she discarded them, she had no way to get them, instead turning ot the last one, it was tiny, one of the smallest sources, worth only half a charge, it felt kinda poetic, a stray thought went through her head what if she discarded it too.

Quickly she took the idea back as it physically hurt her, forcing her to quickly take that small mote of power and feel the pain evaporate. Leaving her panting as she recovered.

A strange sound brought her attention to a side of her workshop, it was a strange computer setup, lots of bits and bobs and connections of multiple types. Her power quickly provided her the explanation, it was a diagnostic tool, but only worked for technology and nothing too advanced unless she worked the specifications into the system.

Junko gave it a try, scanning her new sewing machine, letting her power guide her hands in working the tool. It came out as perfectly normal besides it noting it had been modified and repaired. With a smile on her face Junko looked at the time, slipping out of the warehouse and turning the music off before laying down to sleep.

Her dreams were filled with metal, magic and massive galaxies of power.

Chapter 4

Chapter Text

Chapter 4

Junko woke up startled by a new sensation, it seemed three of her skills had changed in some way. She turned to look at her time, she had slept three hours, which surprised her given that would mean she had just taken a twelve hour sleep. Blinking to clean the seed off her eyes she got up, wondering if this change to her skills was the culprit of her extra hour of sleep.

She slowly stretched and warmed up her limbs as she made sure to not make much noise before taking a pit stop at the bathroom before heading to the warehouse and try to figure out what exactly woke her up.

As the fog of sleep finally left her brain, Junko realized some of her skills had seemed to grow or bud in some way, they hadn't changed but each one carried a bit of a tail, two in the case of her first skill. There's also a new thing in her warehouse, her power informed her a corner of the larger room had shifted and now it was deemed Lockers while her workshop was named Workshop. Creativity wasn't a skill for the warehouse apparently.

Chuckling softly she wandered over to the Lockers, finding three customized lockers, the first one her power told her it was definitely linked to her first skill, it was made of weathered metal, a simple design that should survive the apocalypse. Inside she found a set of normal clothes, of perfectly normal make, their design a bit old if her tailoring knowledge told her correctly. There's also a small bag filled with about a hundred old bottle caps, she had no idea what these could be for, a simple and similarly weathered looking radio that she thought could fit perfectly in the scrapyard and finally a laser pistol.

Her eyes opened like saucers at the weapon, it's boxy design was interesting, her power quickly telling her all the specifications of her new gun and the fusion cell that would power it for twenty shots. Her Scrapper power quickly got to work in telling her how to reduce said gun to a pile of components and her third skill quickly got to work out the details, slowly forming the base of the technology the gun used. The very lethal gun, deciding that it would be a terrible idea to use said gun without a really good target or turning it less lethal.

She decided to leave it there before moving to the next locker, her power telling it was related to her latest skill, the diagnostic tool, she could see a similar type of design between the locker and said machine addition to the warehouse, very sci-fi if she had to give it a descriptor. Inside was a single set of clothes that her power and her tailoring knowledge, told it was perfectly made for her body, a great practical design that would work for her job and for just going out without looking too out of place. The materials were of high quality and there was nothing her tailoring skill could do besides maybe reinforce the fabric with some reinforcement, which she may as well later.

She moved the last locker, which was certainly the odd one out, a very delicate work on wood with a vintage design, but different from the first one, it looked perfectly maintained. The whole thing was quite beautiful in Junko's opinion and quite dream like in some way. She opened it and checked inside, her power quickly explaining what the content were.

They were called Spell Cards, her power explaining they were a set of magical items designed to turn very, very lethal fights between uneven opponents into a much more balanced and non-lethal fight, of course that was only for the combatants, there was plenty of collateral damage for any skill that packed a punch. They were apparently completely customizable and the users attacks didn't need to be based on magic, and they would easily also accept multiple types of technology. Well, if she needed a way to use the Laser Pistol she now had it.

Her power quickly gave her an explanation of their use in Danmaku but she gently tuned it out for now, it would be there, she would just procrastinate on it till later. Her power also told her that all the elements in her lockers would be fix themselves across a few days if broken, return if stolen and re-spawn after a few more days if completely destroyed by being thrown outside creation.

Junko felt her mind had enough boggling for now. Closing the locker and turning around, walking away from the morning surprise her power seemed to spring on her. It also made her wonder why they came now and not before. Did her power change? Did she reach some kind of threshold?

It also made her wonder why only three of her four skills had deemed worthy to get a locker while her Tailoring hadn't. What differentiated it from the rest, her power didn't give her any kind of explanation about it, she decided that whatever was behind her power had been so far benevolent to her, tho a bit rough on that first time.

'Oh dear, should I say my first time with my power was that rough on me? What would people think about that?' She mentally chuckled at the thought and took the pile of recovered electronics from the Scrapyard to see what she could get out of it, what would be trash and what could work again later.

Slowly she spent the early hours of the morning working through the pile till she had a respectable amount of gold that would certainly go for some delicate work in enchanting some of her clothes, maybe reinforcing her personal suit, it looked good enough to pass as some kind of hero costume and she doubt anyone would bat an eye if she used it as her professional clothing. She also recovered a good amount of other metals, copper would work well for some low-powered enchantments.

She also salvaged a pile of other materials and pieces that would work well in an array of simple projects she was already thinking about but currently didn't know enough to make them work. And what strange sensation when just the day prior she had the combined knowledge of a small group of professionals injected into her brain.

Junko sat back and started daydreaming of what she would be making, ideas for how to make them. She didn't have a lot of things to work with. First of all she would need some way to work with the scrap she got from the yard. Specially if there would be stuff incoming from Takoba beach, the place was as filled as the scrapyard, and most likely twice as rusted given the salt water.

She would need some stronger tools for anything she took home and didn't scrap down while at the yard. Also she needed to think of her work offer with Mrs Kappa, she would need something to show that she was being serious. Like a bulb lighting up above her head an idea came to her.

She quickly grabbed paper and pencil, starting to draw the planes for what she wanted, she needed something to work the fabric on, a mannequin would be great for it, specially if she could make it resize too.

Slowly her mix of knowledge with a bit added from her Tailoring knowledge gave form to her first true project, it had to do with how the frame she would lay the fabric on top of would be controlled to change the figure it formed. Junko looked at the time and frowned it was nearly seven am and would have to leave in about an hour.

She put the pencil down, this was okay, she wasn't sure she had anything she would need to construct the mannequin, she would keep an eye on anything she felt that she would need while working. The young woman huffed as she stretched her body, waking up her legs after sitting on that chair at the workshop for so long.

That's when she had to grab the table to keep herself standing, she felt her well once again filled enough to be brought to her attention, it looked like it had reached the four charges. Which surprised her, the last time there had only been two, did it pass while she was sleeping, she imagined it would have woken her up if there's something she could buy and most likely all the options passed her.

The first was small, just one charge from her well would cover it, to her mind it tasted of metal, oil and rubber, it was certainly related to mechanical knowledge, but she didn't feel much interest in it, she would leave it for now.

The second was already one of the biggest, six whole charges and felt strong, really strong, if she had to compare it to something was like her third perk, the one that had increased her intelligence but so much more. Oh so much more. If the one she had taught her everything she needed to know to teach at university level this would easily let her earn a Nobel Prize in just a few years with just the scientific knowledge, but she could tell, it also covered what she was sure was magic.

She really wanted it, she was sure it would synergy really well. But she had no way to get it, sighing softly she turned to the last source. Her heart almost stopped when she peered at it with her mind's eye.

It was huge, too big to really tell, she wasn't sure if it was eleven or thirteen charges, it was definitely over ten charges, it was more than what she had gotten till now. How could she even get something this size.

If the second option made her want to beg for the extra charges, this one made her want to scream and complain. It didn't last, her rage quickly losing steam as looking at it again she saw it wasn't that simple.

It wasn't one huge source, but four of them packed really tightly, three of them hidden under the biggest one, it still was worth eight charges but the other three were only five charges together. Now that she looked at the option as multiple sources together she gained the ability to peer closer.

The first she noted that all of them weren't exactly magic, but something slightly to a side, it felt like change of form through the use of a drawing medium. The first two aimed to be capable of creating more complex mediums and the other to simplify the medium's complexity without losing power.

The other one was similar but different, certainly bigger than the other two together, it carried knowledge she would describe as nature, different to the first two, it felt more like leading the change instead of forcing it.

The largest source hurt her mind from simply looking at it. It also scared her that it was leaving pretty clear that there would be an extra price for taking it. It also promised that she would need no medium to reach and change things, options, power, knowledge it spoke of TRUTH .

Junko swiftly peered away, it was too much and the sensation of someone smiling at her didn't disappear. She wasn't sure what to do, she liked the small ones, and most likely taking two of the small ones would let the third and that thing linger. And she wasn't sure she liked the idea of that sensation lingering and getting its attention once more.

The temptation was there and it was quite strong. The lure to take that and pray it wouldn't feel that wrong the second time around. Would there be other skills like that? Sadly, her ability started to throb in her head, warning her to choose already.

Complaining about it would help, this was her life now and more would come in the future. Preparing her nerves she looked at the third option and quickly. Choosing the two cheapest and reducing her four charges into just two. She hoped the next charge came soon because she could feel that unnerving smile peering at her from just outside her warehouse.

The sensation made her skin crawl as she was pretty sure nothing existed outside of the walls of her warehouse. Shaking the feeling out she quickly turned off the light of her workshop and walked out of the warehouse, closing the door and pocketing the key before she headed for the morning ministrations.

Taking a shower, changing clothes, eating breakfast. Junko went over them almost mechanically as her mind investigated her new perks.

Her mind was also filled with the concept of Alchemy, how to use geometrical patterns and the knowledge of the elements to transmute. In other words the knowledge to understand the structure of an object, deconstruct it and reconstruct it into a whole new form. It was closer to science than magic given her knowledge. Both skills synergized together naturally, multiple circles already forming in her mind that would easily be used during combat.

It drew heavily from the old idea of alchemy, that was before science defined as such, in how things could change, it also relied heavily on the concept of equivalent exchange. She wouldn't be able to turn something into more, it would always be equivalent, never more, never less.

Her mind mixed her skills, especially her third skill that mixed Technology and Magic, this wasn't magic, but it was far from Technology while being a science that it got to work on it. Breaking down the techniques for simplifying the alchemical circles and settings some basic rules in how the complex ones worked.

Finishing her morning routine led Junko to finally go out, still feeling that smile was being unnerving. It made her question a lot of things, especially where it came from. It was definitely not a quirk, it had too many unexplained things.

These skills had more than just knowledge, especially as they confirmed the existence of magic and gave her plenty of ways to prove it. And this latest set of skills had something intelligent behind them.

"Ah! Little Tetsu, great to see you again." Mrs. Kappa shook the girl out of her musing.

"Morning," she managed before having to cover her mouth to yawn.

"Long night?" she giggled softly and smiled once more "Don't worry, you are young, once you get to my age you will be tired all time. Anyways, I talked to my grandson, and he confirmed he will be getting in contact with you tonight around seven, hope it helps you two."

Junko smiled and nodded, thanking the old lady before saying her goodbyes and heading for another day of work at the Scrapyard.

Chapter 5

Chapter Text

Chapter 5

Junko's day had quickly gone down the drain. From the elated start with a new set of skills under her belt and the good news from Mrs. Kappa. The smiling sensation disappeared too. But things had quickly changed as what she had started to relate to her ability started by going numb. And quickly it had turned into a headache.

It was a weird sensation of feeling pain in your brain but not your brain. It didn't stop her from using her abilities, but it certainly made it hard to pay attention to the details they tried to show her like when she usually concentrated on them. Her boss wasn't around today, he had left her a note to take the day easy and just see to take care of incoming scrap and keep an area clear for the beach's scrap incoming next week, and that he would be seeing to get some things set up with the companies that dealt with the most troublesome of the items like refrigeration systems and other products that contained hard-to-dispose of elements.

She decided that taking it easy was okay for today. The weather was still heavily overcast, the promise of rain still up there and Junko hoped it waited till she got home before it broke down. Public transport was always a pain on rainy days.

She slowly worked on some of the most recent scrap and junk that came in from the weekend. Most of it was useless, obviously taken all from the same place given it all looked to follow a theme. Junko wondered if it had been a hotel or something similar given the amount of coffee makers that had been thrown away. Most were completely useless given their cheap making and the little care that had gone in disposing of them. She was pretty sure there was not one intact piece of glass between all of them.

Not that it really mattered much longer to Junko, her alchemy skills covered a lot of the basic elements, letting her transform more than some simple scraps into usable components. What she still hadn't done was try it at all. Between the incident when getting the skill and having to work. It still had given a few details of what to expect, specially that it would be pretty showy for any kind of application. It wouldn't tire her physically but it would demand much from her mind and most likely if it wasn't for her intelligence increasing skill she would not get so much out of it with only the two basic skills in alchemy.

Piece after piece she passed the day, taking a couple hours after the manual work to work on the scrapyard's books. With all her work scraping down the electronics they had actually made enough space to maybe take some of the materials from a bit farther besides what they would be getting from the beach.

Closing for the day was a boring affair, her boss had called to tell her to just close and she would most likely not stop at the yard for a few days as he would be visiting multiple recycle centers to deal with the broken down scrap.

Junko looked up, the sky had cleared quite a bit, no longer threatening to ruin her way back home with bothersome rain. In her opinion rain could happen when she didn't need to go outside. Taking the train and walking home was a quiet time for her to finally think as the constant numb pain in her not-brain passed.

She also felt like something had changed, like pieces had been picked up and put back together in the correct way, or at least made fit better. Junko wanted to rush back but decided that nothing would change for a few more minutes of walking as she got to her apartment block.

Not seeing the old lady today she went up and entered her room. Turning on her laptop she checked to see if Mrs. Kappa's grandson had contacted her, seeing no mail yet she decided to check her warehouse.

Looking down at the key on her hand it felt like the first time; she stepped up to the door of her bathroom, much safer than using the one to the outside and ending surprising someone passing by. She slipped the key in and pushed the door, the first thing that came to mind is how small it looked now.

Instead of the open space she now stood in a much smaller room, not that much larger than her bathroom actually. Her power came clearer to her, it was an entrance hall and while flexible it wouldn't be larger than five cubic meters. It was basically a room before the rest of the place, a door leading to the main warehouse. In front of her was a small table with a card on top.

' Okay, this is starting to freak me out. ' she slowly walked closer and grabbed the piece of cardboard and quickly regretted it. The surface was covered in something that made her brain itch and understand .

It was an apology of whatever was behind her power , well at least that cleared things, apparently the skills should have been copies and not let the original know about it.

Junko shivered at the memory, it was too fresh to repress and she wasn't sure she would ever forget it, better keep it as an object lesson.

It also stated that she was getting some kind of compensation in exchange for fixing that mistake, and while she wouldn't be able to get the remaining pieces of the Alchemy skill, there was still plenty she could reach and cover the lack of it.

Sincerely, the Celestial Forge .

She rubbed her eyes, trying to clean something that wasn't there from them as she looked around, the note wasn't there anymore and while she got answers, she wasn't sure if she really wanted the new questions attached to them.

At least she had a name for her power, she wondered why Celestial Forge, she lacked a forge so far, she blamed just bad luck since she liked what she had gotten so far. She decided it was enough waiting and walked forward, going through the door she entered a hallway, her power gratefully added it wasn't exactly a hallway and more of a mental representation of her choice of where to go. She could basically open any door in this space and would lead her where she wanted to go.

Her mind supplied that she could visit the workshop, the lockers and the storage. The last one apparently was just the leftover space her power had placed all the scrap she had accumulated. She took a peek inside the last too, seeing nothing besides a large room with a pile of scrap while the lockers looked pretty much the same.

She stepped into the workshop, once more finding it looking pretty much the same, just this time, like the locker room, it was now in a room instead of the huge hangar/warehouse from before. Her power noted that the room would shift slightly if she needed more space for a project and anything could be sent and retrieved from the storage easily.

Her power swelled, two charges, bringing her well up to four charges and three large options came close and into her reach. All of them were worth the exact amount she had, so she would have to choose one of them.

The first would build up on her already supernatural knowledge of tailoring, she would make more with less, she would need less tools and her clothes would be significantly more protective.

The second power also worked on her tailoring knowledge, it showed her a way to layer the clothing multiple times with other materials to increase the defense of items and the amount of enchantments she could add to a single piece.

The third power was in a way similar to the alchemy she knew, but it carried some heavy implication of technology in how to do it. Providing an instinctual use of it to achieve any kind of transformation.

Junko felt really conflicted, all the options sounded amazing to her. While the first two would improve her ability in tailoring by quite a bit the third was certainly the most versatile one. Even without knowing what it was she felt like it would be the most useful.

The choice made, the change was instant, an encyclopedic knowledge of the Alchemiter was injected into her head. She also instantly knew that a new locker had been added plus the new machines now appearing in her workshop just in front of her eyes.

The first item was a Cruxtruder, the slightly pyramidal structure would create cruxite for the alchemization process, the second item was a Punch Designix and was meant to punch captchalogue for the use in the next item, the Totem Lathe would take the cruxite and carve the punched captchalogue cards to use in the last item, the Alchemiter, this item would read the carved cruxite and use Grist to create and recreate items.

This was huge for her, the knowledge imparted by her skill showed her ways to turn the four machines into a single one for ease of use plus all the uses. With some creativity this would most likely get access to some exotic ingredients for the higher recipes in her tailoring.

She noted she should check her locker but remembering she needed to keep an eye out for that contact she stepped out into her apartment and went directly to the computer.

She smiled as saw the mail from Cape Kappa, she imagined that you wouldn't be the most creative when you looked like a yokai already. Reading through it was interesting. Junko had to admit she had kept her knowledge and contact with heroes to a minimum, never had the pleasure or displeasure to chat with a hero.

Sending a few messages back and forth she quickly told him that yes, she was interested in helping, that she would be checking prices for the fabric but she promised that she could offer her services for really low as a first time thing.

Hearing about a much usable quirk for superheroics was also interesting. Mrs. Kappa's grandson's quirk gave him quite an increase in general physical ability while he remained wet or at least moist. The interesting part was her collection of skills coming with the idea of inverting an impermeability enchant to keep the inside of the suit always wet. Given the basics of the original enchantment it wouldn't even be that hard.

Half an hour of messages going back and forth ended with Junko confirming a meeting time on Saturday with the young man, she hoped Mrs. Kappa would keep the gossip down since it was a favor for the old lady she was doing.

Having gotten his general measures had let her start sketching a few ideas. The hero had wanted to keep it simple which wasn't a problem for her. A few more messages confirming things ended after about an hour of conversation. Leaving Junko quite hopeful about her start in the support industry.

She also spent the downtime between messages checking online providers of materials, using them to approximate a basic price with a plus for her work time, rounded up to hide the fact that she wouldn't actually take that much time in making the product.

Humming Junko walked back into the warehouse, taking her dinner with her as she went directly to the workshop, pulling out her earlier resizable mannequin. The refining of the design wasn't hard, taking about half an hour and another half an hour in designing and choosing the best alchemical circle to produce the mannequin.

After that she picked enough materials from the storage, placing them in the circle and crossing her fingers internally she touched down on the circle and activated it. Instantly bright blue sparks jumped around, the drawing lighting up as the energy collected upon all the metal and cloth.

Quickly the whole mass grew brighter and started to shift, the non-descriptive human figure forming up, no seam visible as the cloth was perfectly molded to the metal figure underneath. If she dressed it and put a wig on the head, she was sure people would think it was an actual person when looking from behind.

Elated at her success she walked closer and reached for the knobs on the side of the figure, turning the first made the figure go from neutral to male, back to neutral and then to female, hips, shoulders and chest changing between the forms.

The second knob increased the height of the figure from five feet up to almost seven, she was glad to see her design worked perfectly.

The last knob was a general body mass, making the figure swell and shrink.

Junko giggled like a schoolgirl, it wasn't perfect and she knew it, there were plenty of non-anthropomorphic body types in mutant quirked people. But given the case she would need to make a new one even if it would be temporary, hopefully she would get enough use of this one.

As some kind of segue to the celebration she felt her well fill and reach one charge, enough to trigger the need to choose.

She was surprised, while the first ability was worth four charges and the second one was worth three, the third was free, costing zero. It would not change her well. This wasn't a hard choice at all.

Since she had to choose one and the first two were out of her reach she quickly chose the third and let it become hers.

She watched a new item appear next to her workshop, it looked like a giant washing machine. The mental information of it called it a Transmogrification, or Transmog for short and it would let her throw two sets of armor in, sacrificing one of them to apply its looks into the second, or was it sacrificing the others to apply the stats and effects to the first?

Didn't matter, the result would be the same and the machine would keep a database of looks of armors thrown inside, letting her only have to burn one set of armor of a type once. It also came with a warning to not try and take it apart. It worked because it did and opening it would only leave it unusable for a few days before it fixed itself like everything else provided by her power.

Chapter 6

Chapter Text

Chapter 6

As soon as she finished celebrating a job well done she remembered that she still hadn't checked her new locker. Quickly she rushed to the lockers, finding a new one looking like a strange white house.

The first thing she found inside was a white shirt on her size with a rusted gear on the center of it. The second thing was a collection of items that her power called a Sylladex, Fetch Modus and a Strife Specibus. If she understood it right, this was the closest thing to a game inventory she had seen.

The Sylladex was the base for the other two, it worked with what her power called Captcha Cards, a semi-physical way to store objects, the Fetch Modus was literally a way to access the cards stored in the first and the Strife Specibus was a specific spot for anything she wanted to choose as a weapon.

She quickly chose the Array mode in the Fetch Modus, keeping it easy to use instead of the convoluted options that were offered, who would use a random setting? The idea of not knowing what you were pulling out sounded unnecessarily dangerous.

She left the Strife Specibus for now, she was tempted to choose the Spell Cards from the other locker but decided there wasn't an immediate need for it. She wasn't looking to get into any fights any time soon.

She wanted to try the alchemization already, so she started by cracking open the Cruxtruder, the top opening easily and a reddish brown cylinder of crystal slid out. That was all that came out of it, a part of her was actually relieved by this even if she wasn't really sure what exactly she was dreading. The counters on each side of the object simply flashed ERROR a couple times before turning off.

She decided to try it on the mannequin, the worst that could happen is that she would be forced to make a new one, at least now she knew it worked and she could even aim to make it better , calling the first a prototype. She walked over to the finished project and quickly captchalogued it. She noted she had only half a dozen cards to start but she could make more easily later. Her power told her it wasn't especially expensive and there were plenty of ways to shortcut the whole thing.

She went over to the Punch Designix and retrieved the captchalogued mannequin, placing it in the machine's read slot she activated, a loud and quick chunk made her jump a little as she retrieved the now punched card. Her power explaining it would be unusable for anything else.

Taking the punched card and the cruxite dowel she approached the Totem Lathe, passing the dowel through it with the. The now carved dowel looked like a strange decoration, but she could see the logic of the design carrying information. She carried the carved totem to the Alchemiter. Placing it the machine told her she would need six Building Grist to re-create the object.

She currently lacked said candy-looking currency but her power quickly supplied that she could recycle other items to retrieve their value in grist. Interestingly, her first skill of scrapping added to this action. It would increase the amount recovered from items she hadn't created and would negate the amount reduced from damage.

She felt her well swell to two charges but none of the options were in her reach, being currently busy she let them slip and returned to look at what she was doing. She retrieved some of the random metal scrap she had been collecting and quickly turned it all into grist.

It surprised her as the pile of scraps exploded into a certainly larger pile of multiple types of grist, most of it being Build Grist while there were a few others and even a piece of more exotic one. She quickly picked it all, her stores enlarging to take the influx of alchemization currency.

' Well, that takes care of that problem of lack of currency. ' She thought to herself as she looked at the now empty spot, recycling it all right now was an idea, but maybe keep it for now, she would need to get her hands on a polaroid camera to alchemize a Captcharoid Camera and save herself the need to sacrifice the camera and the items she needed for the alchemization.

Junko walked back to the Alchemiter, the lathed totem already in place she paid the price, quickly the telescopic arm moved, reading the information from the cruxite and alchemizing a totally new mannequin, for second time in the day she did a little dance, the process working perfectly.

A smile on her face as she checked and created a second one just to be sure, making a completely identical one appear. She grabbed one of the copies and quickly recycled it, getting exactly the amount of grist she put into it back. Confirming the process worked as intended was great news.

She grabbed one of her captcha cards and stored it in another, finding no problems with it she picked the second card holding the first and punched it before quickly passing it through the Totem Lathe, getting the necessary Cruxite for the Alchemiter to create a couple dozen extra cards at the cost of a single grist each, with that done she added them to her Sylladex, increasing her storage by multiple times and saving herself the chance of running out of cards by accident.

Doing a mental tally she was nowhere close to being able to create the Jumper Block Extension needed to improve the Alchemiter so she would leave it for now, what she had to do was take care of buying some supplies and materials.

She would be dipping in her savings quite a bit given the prices of the more high end materials, but once she had them she would be pretty much set. Honestly she only needed about a square meter of each type, but it would be best to not tip her hand just yet.

Looking at the time she noted she would leave it all for the morning, making a note on her phone to not forget about it before storing it away and heading out of the warehouse and plopping on her bed to sleep for the night.

Two hours quickly passed and Junko woke up refreshed. She got up and did a quick pass through the bathroom before she grabbed a snack and headed into the warehouse, trying to do the minimum amount of noise before heading into the workshop.

Her newest skill set the idea of the guidelines about the Alchemiter, specially the mechanics in costs of production, recycling and alchemizing. As usually production wasn't an instant and free process, worked-on products were worth more than their base materials. Meaning that using alchemy she could easily start working in an excess of grist.

She alchemized a spare mannequin before using her skill to scrap it down, quickly breaking it down to a pile of cloth and metal pieces, she stored the materials into a card, punched it and lathed a totem. The pile of materials came up to only four grist, a difference of just two wasn't much but it made fifty percent in profit and while it would be bothersome to do this with such a cheap item, if she got something worth enough she could quickly increase her grist, she would have to see to get something done with the exotic kinds because this only cost her building grist, it didn't even use shale.

She still proceeded to alchemize materials, turn the materials into mannequins with the alchemical circle, recycle said figure into grist and create more materials to repeat the circle. Of course the process wasn't the fastest or the more efficient and after a couple of iterations she decided to stop and redraw the circle to create multiple mannequins instead of just one.

It wasn't hard to upgrade the circle to create ten at the same time, increasing her gains from two to twenty grist with each iteration. She was sure she could upsize it even more but it would start to give her a headache if this was already starting to wear her down.

She still managed to produce about two hundred and fifty grist in total, a good amount for her first time this early in the morning. Junko decided to stop before the headache turned too bad. Heading to take a shower and clean the sweat she was covered.

Deciding that a bit of a break before heading out to work was a nice idea the young woman leaned out of the window and looked at the sunrise. Her apartment was on the eighth floor, giving her a very nice view between the other buildings. A few minutes of calmness before the city became active.

Just as the sun started to peek her power swelled, three charges and three options coming close for her selection.

The first option was three charges and offered knowledge of how to make different kinds of armor, it felt quite advanced if she had to describe it.

The second option was only one charge and seemed to increase her aesthetics for any weapon she made, promising to make anyone jealous of the craftsmanship, nice but she didn't really make guns, at least not yet.

The third option was also three charges, and it instantly made her stop her pondering and concentrate on it. It let her reduce up to fifty percent the amount of materials she needed for any project. She quickly picked it, there was absolutely no reason not to pick it compared to the other two skills.

The skill quickly bloomed on her mind, it wouldn't be an automatic decrease to fifty percent, but even the first time she made something it would be easy to not use part of the assigned materials. With practice she could use half and if she didn't mind using all the materials she could even replace some rarer ones for normal ones sometimes.

She also felt a new addition to the lockers, her power supplying there would be five items inside. She didn't want to lose a second, wondering what else she was getting after such broken skill.

The new locker was...rustic. It looked made from iron, wood, bone and leather, it certainly was well made and well taken care of. Inside she found first a large iron hammer, she doubted she would ever use it, her power offered some info but nothing that really meant much, all she got from that was it was basic, and with the right skills she would be able to make much more.

The second item was a bangle her power told her it would restrict her supernatural abilities to the strongest specimen in the word, given she knew All Might was a thing that meant pretty little plus all the other heroes. She ignored it, didn't change much for her right now.

The third item was a set of papers that basically legitimized her support equipment company.

' Okay, what the fuck? ' she picked them and read through them quickly, finding no error in it, she would need to check online for later, but her power had just set her company for her.

The fourth item was next to the lockers, same as the fifth one, they were a pair of extra-dimensional chests capable of storing, one could store up to a thousand pieces of armor and or weapons while the other could store up to a thousand stacks of ninety nine items. She would have to move the two to the storage.

' Wait, the chests were both the same item, then… '

"Oh~ So you are my new Partnyar?" A female voice made Junko scream and turn around, finding what appeared to be a Siamese cat with a light orange colored fur detailed with brown on the paws, ears and face. It also appeared to be standing on their back legs and talking with an almost comedic accent.

Yes, her power told her, this was the fifth bonus, she was Armila a Felyne from a land far, far away, she had offered herself when the call for a job have come, with no family she had offered herself and been taught all she would need in a similar way she had been before sending her here.

Junko felt a bit conflicted from knowing so much of her new companion before even greeting her properly.

"I think so," she ran her tongue over her teeth "I'm Junko Tetsu, Junko's my name, Tetsu my family but you can call me Junk."

"Nyace to meet you, I'm Armila, but you can call me Mila." the palico nodded and run her paw over her face, an action Junko could only call adorable and very similar to what she saw before in a lot of cutesy cat videos.

"Well Mila, welcome to my warehouse, and welcome to Earth too if I understand it right." Junko smiled and invited her to follow, walking out of the lockers and back into the apartment. "My power kinda gave me an idea, but what can you tell me about yourself?"

"I'm ten nyears old, and before you ask we, Felynes, can live up to fifty nyears so while I'm an adult I still have a long life in front of me. I'm an orphan, raised along others in similar situation, humans, felynes and wyverians, I grew doing random chores and jobs before taken in by a merchant two nyears ago from who I learned the basics of the trade,"

Junko felt she was once more out of her depths, in front of her was an actual alien, Mila was a different species, intelligent as most humans and definitely not a quirked individual. This kinda confirmed that her power, the so called Celestial Forge worked from outside reality in more than ways. She wondered if her latest skill came from the same world as the felyne, did that mean her other powers came from other worlds that existed out there.

"So when I saw a message over at the guild's board looking for felynes with nothing holding them back for a job offer at some really far away place I decided to paw it." Mila kept telling her story and Junko listened to her, it was still early to leave for work and she had to admit this was more or less the most time she had spent with someone else in long time. "Imagine my surprise when I enter the room that was set to meet the contractor and I find myself in a huge empty place and something offering to teach me all I would need to know before sending me to a new world."

"Wait, they didn't let you go back?"

"No, no, they totally offered it, they even explain they would erase my memory of their meeting to keep my mind safe." A shiver went down Junko's back at the idea of such nonchalant memory manipulation, but she suspected it was necessary when dealing with things that were pretty much in the eldritch category. "But I'm pretty sure that nyaone that took the job would go back, and I have to say I don't regret it."

Chapter 7: Interlude 1 Mila

Chapter Text

Chapter 7 – Interlude 1 Mila

Mila eyed her new partner, she was sure the woman was as surprised as her, the shock of what she had learned in the last couple of hours before getting to Earth was quite a shock. She thought herself quite learned under Mathias, the old man was a solid merchant and had taught her all about bookkeeping, keeping stock, setting prices and other knickknacks of the job.

She was pretty sure Junko hadn't realized that when she talked about her meeting with the Forge representative was only about an hour ago. Maybe she was also feeling it distant, the amount of information, while unbiased, carried some memories to help her acclimate to her new world.

The being had called it the Servant package. She wasn't sure what it meant as it was some kind of inside joke for the being.

She now knew about computers, tvs, fridges… well she kinda knew about fridges already, more than one city had developed something similar using monster parts to keep fresh supplies from spoiling. But she had learned a lot about technology, ways to achieve great feats of advancement without the use of bloody parts of exotic beasts and strange ores.

She didn't lie when she said that she doubted anyone would refuse the chance to come, even if most would want to find a way back afterwards to bring said technology back to their village, be it for keep in their greedy paws or to share with others.

But she took it as a way to start new. A completely new life divorced from her previous one, not that she had much of a life besides just going through the paces. The being had taken care of all the important things, she had all the papers and identifications that proved who she was and that she had always lived on Earth.

Mila's attention went back to Junko, or Junk as she appeared to prefer to be called. The young woman had the look of a lot of craftsmen she had met in the past while working under Mathias, there was always a slight manic glint in their eyes.

The young human woman was telling her a bit about her life and setting things for cohabitation in her apartment, Mila apparently didn't need much, spending most of her day either at work or in her workshop lately.

"I'm sure I could make you a bed for your size in any design you would want," Junko continued. "I'm not sure what your preference is so you'll have to tell me that but I doubt it would be much of a problem at the moment."

"Don't worrya, I'm well rested today so I don't need one for now, I can wait till you come back from work."

"About food, I have to say I don't have anything in the pantry or the fridge at the moment, but you can use my laptop to order some delivery," Mila's new knowledge supplied what Junko meant by that.

"Sounds okay to me."

"Once I'm back we can head to the market to buy some stuff to have," Junko appeared to lose herself in a memory and added in a low voice, barely audible for the Felyne's ears "It's been so long since I went to one."

Mila decided to not comment on it as Junko looked at her clock

"Looks like I have to get going, are you sure all will be okay?" Mila told her once more that it was okay.

Watching the human rush around a bit before leaving the Felyne some money for the delivery before writing down the number of the scrapyard and her phone before heading out. Finally leaving the Felyne alone.

"This is my new life nyaw," The biped looked around before pulling a key from her pocket, a perfect copy to the one owned by Junko. The palico was sure the powers that be had warned the woman about her ability to enter the warehouse, she would be sure to not touch anything that looked important but she needed to know what she would be working with.

She walked into the entrance hall, she had passed through this room before on the way out, nothing of note really. She had stepped into the lockers room before, but hadn't looked around, a stop into the room, the different lockers, one by one she checked inside each one, noting nothing really impressive but the knowledge imparted on her told her it was all freebies.

She felt kinda insulted by that description since she did fall into that category. The information was amended that they were accompanying perks free of cost, not that they were less important.

Mila shuddered at the sensation before she walked to the storage area. Not much to see, it was mostly empty at the moment, just a few piles of random scattered scrap and junk in her opinion.

The workshop was where the meat of it was. The knowledge that had been put into her head contained the description of all the things around.

The main workshop looked pretty similar to those she had seen in the craft, some of the tools were unknown to her, mostly the ones that were to work with electronics.

Everything else was pretty alien to her, even with the knowledge of what each thing was.

But what was clear to her was that all of it had great promise as a source of profit. Even just the Trasnmog would get a lot of people interested back… home. She would need to get used to it with time, Junko was pretty welcoming and she had to admit that working as a trader with a skilled craftswoman.

She walked out of the warehouse and locked it behind her before she pulled the laptop, miraculous little piece of technology, onto the couch and sat comfortably on it before opening it. Her paws moving almost automatically in what she understood was the way to use it. Muscle memory she never had before guided her in finding what she wanted.

Familiarizing herself with the computer took a bit, mostly experimenting with all her new knowledge offered at each stray thought that passed her felyne mind. Soon she ordered sushi, hopefully it wouldn't go wrong with some good old raw fish. All the info she could find about the place in the fifteen minutes she spent looking around was good.

After that she pulled the pile of notes Junko had left near, sketches and information about a project she had started before they met. Using the internet to find all she could about the materials the woman had listed was more than interesting.

Mila lost herself for nearly an hour before the ringing of the door bell shook her out of the information hunt she had dived into.

Having to drag a chair over to the door to open it was a bit bothersome, but finding that the delivery guy didn't bat an eye at her being a Felyne felt good. Paying for the food and thanking the man she turned back after locking the door.

While Felynes didn't have a use for money, she had been taught all about the importance of coin for humans and wyverian. Sitting down with food on her lap she happily clapped at the smell of fresh fish prepared with quite a skill, while she doubted it would compare to some of the felyne cooks she knew and had eaten with, this sushi promised quite a bit to her nose.

Eating with gusto took her a while, happily taking her time enjoying the flavor of the first food she ate in this new world.

Once done she put the plate away and went back to the laptop. She pulled the list of data she had been building, once again diving into the marvels of the internet. Knowing all about it was nothing compared to having all the info she wanted about the markets at the reach of her paw.

Back in her last world she had to spend at least a couple days to scout the market for the information about products, stocks, current hunting grounds being farmed, etc… even with the guilds doing plenty of it for her, most people preferred to keep a personal eye on the competition.

She imagined it would be a while till other support companies became an issue, plenty of heroes graduating every year to keep the business going. She did made a list of producers and suppliers, they would need them pretty soon if Junko wanted to go ahead with the costume.

She quickly lost herself again, time passing quickly till it was the sound of the front door opening that pulled her out of a deep dive into reading an article about the psychology of vigilantes and the use of quirks that didn't appear to have promise for heroics in very effective manners.

"Hello Junk." She greeted the young woman, apparently surprising her enough the human actually squeaked in a very similar manner she had seen some small animals do.

"Oh! Hi Mila, sorry you surprised me, I was in automatic and kinda forgot you were here." she started to get comfortable by taking her shoes off and hanging her stuff after closing the door behind her. "I hope your day was productive."

"You have no idea!" The palico was feeling quite upbeat about all the work and the feeling of getting used to the technology.

"That's good, let me take a shower and clean today's sweat off, had to deal with some big things and the weather's getting hotter quickly."

Mila nodded at the woman's actions and went back to what she was doing, slowly closing the article she was reading, while interesting she hadn't found much support on the theory and the site was sensationalist to begin with.

The palico turned to look at the significant pile of notes she had made during her afternoon of internet diving. Her ears perked at the sound of water and nodded she would see to get clean later too.

Soon Junko was out of the shower and sitting on one of the chairs as the felyne sat on the couch with the collection of notes.

"To start, I have to say that I've never been this excited about a new work, there's just so much possible pawfit in what you have already and I'm still finding more things.

"We could easily just set up a service to reinforce costumes using the Transmog you have in your workshop, we would need to make or buy more armored ones but then apply the looks of the hero costume on them."

"I could see that, but I don't think it's a good idea to do it right away, maybe once our company is better known, coming out of nowhere with service to turn flimsy looking costumes into full reinforced armor would bring way too much unneeded attention to us."

"Will have to agree with that. I spent most of the afternyan making a list of providers for the materials you had listed."

"What? Already?"

"Yes, the first lesson my teacher taught me about craftsmen or craftswoman in your case; always have a way to acquire the materials to keep your kind entertained."

"Why does that feel mildly insulting?" Junko pouted and looked at Mila.

"I don't know what you mean, I'm just saying that skilled people should be kept occupied or they may start getting antsy."

The comment made Junko's pout disappear and chuckle at the comment.

"I can see that, I've been spending so much time in the workshop, practically everyday is something new to work on."

"Exactly, that's why I got a few providers to try, none of them have pawblems delivering here or to your job place if you think it will be okay."

"Better receive it here, I think that will be less of a hassle, otherwise I would have to captchalogue it to carry it around and…" Junko snapped her fingers. "I should see if I can get you a Sylladex."

"That's to do with the large white machines in the workshop, no?"

"Yeah, it's really useful for carrying stuff and having it at hand. And talking about carrying stuff, we should head to the supermarket early before it's full of people."

Mila was pretty sure Junko said it for both of them.

"Sounds like a good idea, but I think my current wardrobe may get too much attention."

"You're right, people may think you are a hero or a kid costumed as one." Junko hummed "Well, I could make you some clothes, for what I can see you are wearing loose clothes but the general design looks pretty straightforward."

The young woman stood up and headed for the warehouse, the felyne quickly following her, the pair passing through the storage as the woman grabbed some spare fabric before sitting on her workshop and starting marking, cutting and sewing it together.

Mila was impressed, ten minutes and the human in front of her had turned some scraps of fabric into a fully functional set of pants and shirt. Functional and pretty fashionable given what she had seen on the internet.

"Ha! Not bad for a quick work, and it will stop small knives too!"

Mila was right, Junko definitely had that glint of madness.

"Come on, try it!"

Mila could only nod with a smile and take the clothes to the locker room where she changed into them before heading back.

"So? So? I know my clothes came out really good and comfortable, but it's the first time I made them for someone else and with a different body type."

"They are okay, don't worry, I'm sure that if you didn't want to enter the support equipment business you could make a killing making clothes."

"Yes, but I don't know, it feels like it wouldn't be right, I can do so much already, even these," she showed her clothes. "Could save the life of someone doing good."

"Nothing against it, back in my world things aren't as safe as here, no matter how much I searched I didn't find anything as big and dangerous as some of the beasties that roam around."

"I have to imagine they gotta be big if the hammer that came along you is any indication."

"I saw it, an Iron Hammer, pretty basic to say, not even made from any elemental parts."

"Well, I'm glad for that, I don't think I'm ready for wetworks. Keep me to dry metal and fabric for now."

"It's okay, can't say I don't understnyan you, I did decide to become a trader and not a craftsman."

"Well, we should get going, we need to fill the pantry with what you will need, and once we are back you can see about ordering the materials as I work on your bed."

Chapter 8

Chapter Text

Chapter 8

Junko had to admit the outing with Mila to the store had been quite fun. They hadn't brought more attention than a few looks and she was sure it had to do more with the quality of Mila's clothes than anything else. Having rushed a bit in making them had Junko slip and get a bit too good in the quality. It was lucky Mila was the size of a large cat, standing on her back legs made her look like a child while she carried herself like an adult.

A pretty energetic adult that kept looking at everything, but an adult nonetheless. The Palico had kept her curiosity to a minimum, and whatever they said about cats she knew to not get in danger. Given what she understood from Mila's world, things were quite a lot more dangerous even in cities.

All in all, the trip to the supermarket was a pretty chill time, spent mostly Junko answering Mila's questions about things, trying to not look like tourists and Junko being pretty happy there was no villain and hero fight to sour the early evening.

"So many people," Junko turned to look at Mila as the Palico spoke, breaking the silence of storing the groceries. "I don't think I've ever seen that many people in the same place, even during festivals."

"Then you will be knocked out when there's an actual festival here, we are lucky there was no hero going around, that's when people really start congregating." Junko closed the fridge. "Okay, can you start with the orders, I will go to the warehouse to start with your bed."

"Sounds good to me." Mila hopped onto the couch, dragging Junko's laptop to her lap and started working.

Junko left Mila to her part as she went into the workshop, carrying a set of her bed sheets she proceeded to captchalogue, punch and lathe onto a cruxite, paying the price to create four copies of the sheets, one set to go back to the wardrobe, two were quickly recycled into grist and the last one she used for her bed project.

The woman quickly got to sew, her current work quickly looking not too dissimilar to a cat's bed like those sold in a vet's store or those she had found looking on the internet. Given that Mila liked the design she simply worked with it. Of course she put plenty of her skill into the object, thread and needle sewing magic into the fabric.

Soon she had an empty bed that would be as comfortable for sleeping as clouds looked like. It would also not get dirty or deform. She finished by captchaloguing one of her apartment's pillows and replicating it a few times to create enough stuffing.

Perfectly on point, as soon as she finished the bed and felt the magic all snap together her well filled up. Three small stars approaching her power's reach.

What surprised Junko was that instead of a single charge she had four. She didn't exactly know where three of those charges had come from, but her power was giving her an 'all okay' sensation. Deciding that looking at a Gift too hard she turned to look at the sources she was getting presented.

The first source apparently, once again, had to do with giant robots, she had gotten those quite a bit already. But since she didn't think she needed to know how to make them she decided to pass. The second one was all about a technique to use some mystical source of power to harden the construction of buildings and objects, sounded interesting, but without the energy-source she would be having to look for it. She passed it too.

The last one was definitely the most interesting one, it apparently was some kind of mix between computer and morph-able set of tools of some kind. With all of the stars worth the same and this one sounding the most interesting she quickly picked it before it started to become a headache.

She felt a change on her wrist, she was now sporting a pretty simple-looking digital clock that lighted up when she paid attention to it. Soon she was wearing a translucent, futuristic glove made of orange light.

It was called an omni-tool and it was packed full of information and functions that she felt quickly overwhelmed by such a reward from such small perk. By itself was one of the most powerful computers in the world, capable of interacting with other technology and hack systems that were light years away from Earth's, literally if the notes on the Andromeda Galaxy were correct.

It had everything: a flashlight, camera, video-games, it could project holograms and fabricate multiple types of technology if the materials were at hand, it could absorb non-organics and turn it into a substance called omni-gel for construction and organics to create medi-gel to heal about any kind of physical wound that wasn't instantly lethal.

And yes, it did have the ability to be a phone too!

The little thing just didn't end, her power informed her that it was barely above the basic model carried in the worlds it came from, the version she had acquired had a pretty powerful scanner ability that could be used to identify material sources and problems in the area. It also had the designs for the fabrication of something called an Omni-blade, which was a disposable melee weapon. The little piece of technology would create the blade and recycle it once used for minimum loose of material.

Junko had to sit down and spend a few minutes looking through the omni-tool, there was just so much, once again as Mila had said, even just one of her perks offered her so much. And it was the felyne that shook her out of her daze.

"It's done, how's it going on your side?" The shorter woman walked into the workshop, finding Junko with the omnitool deployed "That's nyew."

"Yeah, I just got another perk, this is an omni-tool, and we can add it to the lists that would make us rich but in no safe way." Mila turned it off "I will also add it to the list of things I have to make a copy for you."

"Oh~ Is that my bed?" The felyne rushed over to the bed and started to check it out "So soft." Junko was sure she could hear a deep purring coming from the happy palico.

"I take it's good?" Junko chuckled.

"So good, thanks, Junk." The cat woman smiled.

"Glad to see my first customer satisfied, tho I believe that will be more of tomorrow."

"I'm surrre it will great." The felyne rubbed her face against the enchanted bed.

Junko decided to leave her to it as she headed to the locker, remembering she had to move the chests and check the new addition to the room.

The new locker looked all futuristic, but it carried a more military vibe compared to the first one. It was also much wider, the reason was pretty obvious once she opened it and found a complete set of basic armor and the under-suit. All set and ready for her to wear and survive exposition to some pretty exotic and aggressive environments. Her power listed some specification for the armor she quickly dismissed.

Along with the hard-suit she also had another futuristic handgun, a semi-automatic pistol called an M-3 Predator, it apparently broke physics in a similar manner to what the armor and the omni-tool did. And just as lethal as the laser pistol she already had. One of these days she would sit down and study them properly. She was sure there was plenty to get out of it. With any luck she would find more info about it in the omni-tool database.

The last thing was a rock, a pet rock her power supplied. She felt a bit insulted that her power didn't think she could keep a pet. But also glad she wouldn't have to think what would a pet do with Mila around. Discarding the train of thought was the most sensible thing to do.

She turned to the pair of chests provided by the same perk that brought her new friend along; she grabbed the handle of the weapons chest and dragged it over to the storage area before doing the same for the materials one.

She even tried storing some of the scrap into the material chest, it was weird how using it brought some kind of mental menu that let her see everything inside and draw exactly what she wanted.

As she walked back to the workshop she felt her power fill another charge, quickly reaching four once more, three sources approached her reach.

The first was the largest, costing three of her charges, but she felt a bit sickened by it, it dealt with turning monster parts into weapons. And while she understood it was similar in Mila's world, she didn't know where she would get those on Earth without ending up as a villain.

The second one was one charge, and it appeared to be all about guns. It definitely sounded interesting enough, she decided to look at the third one before choosing.

The last one would leave her with only two charges. But it offered to increase her skill in something to the levels of some mythological tales. Yes, she liked what she heard, having the skill of legends could make her quite well legendary. But she had to choose, she wanted to say magic, so far she was building quite the set up.

Sadly her power denied her choice, it apparently was too vague to count as a skill. She quickly wondered if Tailoring or Enchanting would do, and both were quite in her reach, both being more specific skills. There was apparently a bit of an exchange between hos specific and how good she would become.

"Hey Mila, what would you say I should get better at, Tailoring or Enchanting?" She asked to the Palico once she was in the workshop.

"If I understand it right, enchanting, I think you are already plenty good at tailoring," The cat purred contentedly from the bed. "Yeah, if enchanting is the other in the quality of your work, then you should definitely bring it up to your level in tailoring."

Junko nodded, accepting the logic of it and clicked the choice over. There was no change at first, but once she looked at the bed Mila was sitting on she could feel she could have done things better.

"That will come in handy." Junko covered her mouth as she proceeded to yawn "I think that's good enough to call it a night, what do you say?"

"Hmm, nyah, it's been an interesting day as a start for my life here." Mila carried her bed to the apartment's living room as Junko headed to bed, wishing her new companion a good night of sleep.

Their first day together ended completely fine, and the next few days passed quickly; the new partners worked well together.

With their next few days the pair fell into an easy monotony. Junko still worked at the scrapyard, not the most exciting still, but it was a steady income plus it let her acquire, as some would say, some materials every day.

Mila, meanwhile, got quickly used to her new world, her second day spent mostly in setting up their support company, with the papers provided by the Celestial Forge they didn't have to do more than confirm they were real and set up a bank account, a mail account and a couple phone numbers.

She even went ahead with Junko's permission to get her own cell phone, even if Junko was sure she would be making her own sooner or later.

On the third day they got the new materials. Junko had a lot of fun that afternoon. Just captchaloguing the rolls of fabric gave her a near infinite of it. She had also gone ahead and done the same to the pair of phones they have bought, recycling one for the grist it was worth.

That had led to a quick cycle of farming for some exotic grist types along with increasing their stores of the candy-looking currency.

On Friday, they rested. Well, not really. They actually kept working, but took it much easier. With the materials at hand Junko proceeded to use her resize-able mannequin to craft the costume for Cape Kappa. She also used her alchemy to make a few armor plates and a simple looking belt.

Both of them were glad to see it coming out so well. Mila agreed it looked as good as any other costume from the professional heroes out in the market.

Mila showed quite the skill with the camera of her phone, saying that it was a necessary skill. A good show of the product would always sell more.

"You have no idea how many hours of clerk duty I spent reordering the merchandise to make sure people saw it all. Matthias always said a sale was half presentation, half price and half a white lie." Mila's comment made Junko chuckle.

"Yeah, I think I heard something similar, a good salesman is one who can sell you the need to buy."

"Hmm, yes, I think you should start designing some other costumes, look for some popular heroes and modify those designs. Maybe make some basic support equipment? I imagine a few really simple things could be really useful."

"Yeah, I've been doodling at work some ideas, been thinking mostly of all some mobility and restraint equipment could be really useful as a sales pitch."

"I'm sure as soon as caped boy uses your costume out we will start to get a lot of requests. I've been looking at the prices online, and those are for the more mass-produced stuff. If we can get people interested in asking for personalized stuff we will be getting a lot of money very quick."

"Yeah," Junko shivered "Gah! I'm so nervous."

"Don't worry, he will love this."

"Thanks Mila, I doubt I could have done it this quickly without you."

"I still think the name sucks, but it does have a bit of a catch."

"Hey, I'm Junk, and this is my stuff, I think Junk Emporium will quickly grow. It also will stay in people's minds just for the joke."

"I can't say I haven't heard worse, I should tell you about this guy my teacher told me about once," Mila smiled as Junko got comfortable to listen to the story, they called it an early night. A good set of tales between them would be just the perfect way to relax. "He decided he wanted to have a bit for everyone, so he decided for a variation of Jack of all trades, but his writing was terrible, everyone was sure he wrote off instead of of and..."

Chapter 9

Chapter Text

Chapter 9

Saturday morning was spent mostly making the apartment presentable. Mila wanted to look for an office to work from as quickly as possible. Junko wasn't sure she had the capital just yet for that and while they could get a loan from a bank, while she had heard her boss talk about the danger of loans that was if she went for more illegal or at least gray sources.

Mila conceded in waiting till they had a bit more of a bank account. She had also been vetoing a few of Junko's ideas for support equipment. She kept checking online to see what kind of support items were more or less normal to have around. The list was sadly pretty short.

"That's mostly because people put way too much worth on quirks," Junko offered her opinion. "personally, I don't think that's fair for a lot of people. I hope I can at least make things better for some kids."

"Personal experience?" Mila asked carefully.

"Hmm," Junko turned off her omni-tool and looked at Mila. "Let's say my father's not in my life for opinions about the usefulness of quirks."

Mila winced at the bit of venom in Junko's voice and mimed a zipping over her lips. Her friend thanked her for the gesture.

"Okay, leaving that aside, ready for our first customer?" Mila asked.

"Yup, he should be getting here in a few minutes, Mrs. Kappa already messaged me he was coming. I already brought the mannequin over and closed the warehouse, I also turned my omni-tool to silent mode, hopefully it won't come up, it would be hard to explain right now without lying about it."

"Hmm, I'm sure it will be all okay." Mila commented moments before the doorbell rang. Junko headed to the door, saving Mila the shame of not actually being tall enough to open it.

The man on the other side of the door towered over her.

"Hello? I guess you're Junko, I'm Cape Kappa, but just call me Ryuto."

"Nice to meet you Ryuto, yes, I'm Junko, please come in." She moved aside, letting the large man pass and closing the door. Even having used his measurements to make his costume it was still impressive.

"Hello, I'm Mila, Junko's partner." The palico greeted the man, waving a paw from her spot on the couch near the mannequin holding his new costume.

"Greetings little one," Ryuto had a deep voice, Junko admitted it would be great to deal with crows. "Grandma didn't tell me you had a partner, Junko."

"Well, I kinda never had the chance to tell your grandmother about it, but Mila and I been working together for a while, we fit quite well together, she's great at the business side of it, so be careful with your coin near her, cats do like shiny things."

"Hey!" Mila protested goodheartedly. "You know I just look like a cat." Junko knew this was a little lie they had set up.

"I hear nothing about not liking shiny things." Junko added and Mila snorted but didn't comment.

"Still, it's a pleasure to meet you Ryuto." Mila turned back to the man as Junko did.

"We hope you will be satisfied with our work and tell others about it," Junko guided the tall man to the mannequin of similar size, easily over a meter and eighty five centimeters. His face was slightly square and his lips were slightly bill-like, she imagined it was part of a small mutation along with the dish on the crown of his head she imagined he had.

"Looks amazing, I have to say I wasn't expecting to get something of this quality for the price you offered me."

"Yes, it's cheap, but that's only because you're our first client," Mila noted. "So keep it in mind when you tell others about it, okay?"

"Yeah, yeah, can I try it on?" The man was a bit dazed as he looked at the set of clothes.

"Sure, the bathroom's the first door to the right." Junko pointed and let him go change and try it. Just a couple minutes later, showing that changing into a costume was something heroes had to train. The man came out.

Ryuto as Cape Kappa held a much different figure. While he was tall and imposing in his normal clothes, the costume showed him off and made him stand out, even inside the apartment with only two other people he was the center of attention.

"It's perfect!" His deep voice boomed.

"Please, inside voice, other people live here." Junko giggled.

"Yes! I mean yes, sorry."

"You told me your quirk increases your physical strength when moist, so I added a thing for that," Junko pointed at the belt. "You see that dial there?"

Kappa grabbed the dial circle on the side and slowly turned it.

"Yes that's right don't go too fast you may have to feel it out, but I'm sure you will like the result."

The suit shrank, seeming to stick to the man's body, showing a lot more definition as Ryuto's eyes shot open wide.

"Oh yes! That hits the spot."

"That's right, the suit will keep a layer of water between it and you, I imagine your quirk grows stronger directly to how wet you are, so it will go from dry to soaked. Just be careful, when turned off it will dry your body, so only do that before you take it off. I would prefer you use it for a week and then come to tell me how it went."

"I think it will go wonderful, this is way more than I thought I would be getting. I do have a couple of friends that may be interested in your services if you can do this ."

"Yes, you can play with your new toy later on your time, I think you are satisfied with the product, so how about you change again and we talk numbers. Don't worry about breaking it later, we will fix it for free and get you a couple spare suits if you are happy about it." Mila cut in, sending the hero back to the bathroom.

"Well, I think that's good news, hopefully it will keep him safe when he goes out."

"Are you kidding me? He loves it, I've seen small kids less happy about new toys."

"I know, I wonder," Junko went stiff.

"New charge?" Mila asked softly.

Junko nodded. She quickly pulled her phone and looked away to appear occupied as Ryuto came out of the bathroom, back in his normal clothes. He and Mila got busy discussing numbers as she looked at her options.

She now had five charges, where the hell were they coming from? She wasn't sure what was happening, but she imagined that maybe the whole deal with the hero's costume may have added, maybe?

She turned her attention, the first option was six charges, slightly too much, and apparently it had to do with making weapons and armors out of her enemies. Better leave that off. Too expensive anyways.

The second option was four charges and was all about technology, given the cost she liked what it felt like.

The last one was two charges and apparently had to do with outfits but only affected her, she thought that it wasn't worth it.

She turned and chose the second one. Reducing her reserves to only a charge as she felt her mind expand.

This new power quickly went over what she knew of technology, laughed at it and started offering ways to upgrade everything. The only thing that got a pass were the omni-tool for actually being that ridiculously advanced and the alchemy machines that worked under some strange rules of their own.

"All okay over there, Junk?" Mila curiously asked.

"Yeah, yeah, just a bit distracted by an idea." The Hero took it all as normal and finished his dealings with the Palico, standing up turned to Junko.

"I have to thank you again for this service, I'll be telling my friends about you and message you for anyone interested in it. I can promise you that!"

"It's nothing, well, it's not nothing, but we're both getting what we want from this. I hope we work together in the future." Junko shook Ryuto, no Cape Kappa's hand and let him leave, she turned back to Mila who was working on the laptop.

"Hmm, I would say it's more than an idea, no?" The comment made Junko snort.

"Yeah, the new perk it's huge."

"That's what I understood from what the Celestial Forge told me. Tell me more."

"To start, so far most of my perks have been related to magic, enchanting, and tailoring. This one takes my ability with technology out through the roof. I understand how this was made." she lifted her wrist with the omni-tool on. "And I can tell you it's bullshit, but mostly due some strange element in it, that I can only call space magic."

"So I'm not getting one anytime soon?"

"The opposite, I will be cannibalizing the armor and the gun for what my power calls Eezo and making you one, it's just too useful not to have, but I will be setting it up so you can use your normal phone when out." Junko looked outright giddy "I'm going to spend the afternoon creating a ridiculous amount of the substance on the Alchemiter. The gun and the armor are simple enough that I already know how to make better ones, but I need Eezo and the grist to make more."

"Sounds like you have a plan already, so after that then what?" Mila looked interested.

"After that I'll be making you an omni-tool and seeing to the crafting of a Sylladex of your own. After that I was thinking about making a new sewing machine, the one I have is a joke, was a joke when I got it and will be a joke. So I will just skip the upgrading phase and go straight into making a new one. I already have ideas that will use Eezo to provide some stronger weave patterns."

"Crazy, the lot of you craftsmen are crazy and you," She smiled. "Junk, are the craziest I know."

"Thank you." The woman giggled. "I like that, Crazy Junk." She snorted and thanked Mila for the laugh before heading into the warehouse.

" I come home in the morning light, " Junko started singing low as she stepped into the lockers, grabbing the armor and Predator Pistol " My mother says, 'When are you gonna live your life right?' "

Junko checked both pieces of equipment in the workshop, safely removing the eezo from both of them and storing it in different Captcha cards. She proceeded to recycle one and punch the other.

" But girls, they wanna have fun, " She hummed as started to quickly replicate and recycle the Eezo. " Oh girls just wanna to have… "

She kept singing as she collected enough Eezo to fill a 100 grams jar. Captchaloguing that one and punching it to have while removing all leftovers. If the stuff wasn't so damn toxic.

After that she sat in the workshop and activated her omni-tool, making sure her theory was correct before she turned it off, took it off her arm and placed the piece of miraculous technology into a card. Punching, lathing a cruxite and alchemizing a couple of them. Taking one of them off and putting it on her arm to make sure all was okay with it.

Finding no problem Junko restored the machine to fabric specification before taking the other and wearing the second, the one back to new was put for Mila as she got to work on the Sylladex.

She hummed as alchemized a new Sylladex plus a couple spare to keep just in case. Maybe once they were more set up she could sell them, they were useful but really, without the alchemy machines they were quite simply not useful for more people.

As she was finishing with an afternoon of work she looked up as she felt her power swell and complete the second charge. Three perks coming up for her choosing.

The first was a known one, once again offering the ability to remodel things and people, she was glad she wasn't close enough to get it, ignoring it as she looked at the other two.

The second one worth only one charge was all about a machine that would make any equipment shift with the wearer if their body changed, sounded simple but she liked that to offer for mutant and transformation quirks.

The third was double the second in price, and would give her a template to let weapons shift between different set forms. It was interesting but the second just was that more interesting.

She watched as next to the transmog a new device appeared, looking like a strange mix of pizza box and industrial iron. Any piece of armor she placed inside would be able to shift with its wearer. Definitely a service they could actually offer with their hero costumes once they got more clients.

She was pretty sure there had been news about a new hero with a giantification quirk, but she was pretty sure they had already a support company, it would have been nice to catch them early like with Ryuto, hopefully next time.

She mentally checked her grist and noted she had more than enough to improve the machine, she alchemized a couple of Jumper Block Extensions, connecting one of them to the Alchemiter and captchalogued the other inserted it into the jumper block extension, the whole piece quickly getting sucked into the machine, adding eight slots on the side, where one of them was already occupied with the captchalogued item. She quickly added the totem lathe, the punch Designix and the holopad she had also alchemized.

Now she was only missing a Captcharoid Camera.

"All done for the day?" Mila talked from the door of the workshop.

"Yup, that's for you." Junko pointed to the sylladex, strife deck and omni-tool "You should choose array unless you think you can use a different mode, but I wouldn't suggest it, they are some really unusable and outright dangerous things there."

Mila had put on the omni-tool and equipped the Sylladex "I can see, who would want to play scrabble to find their items? I mean maybe if you have nothing better to do."

"There're a few modes that are outright random and would force you to pull out till you have what you want. The people who made them were crazy or wanting to make a joke on someone." she chuckled.

From there their Saturday night devolved into mostly light stuff. They had dinner watching movies. Mila liking more the rise to fame movie more than Junko's silly and senseless action one.

Maybe the Forge knew something with all the gifting of hammers.

Chapter 10

Chapter Text

Chapter 10

Junko and Mila spent Sunday outside, deciding to visit a park near the apartment. It helped that the park was in the direction of the good side of the city. Mila admitted she missed the green a bit.

The Palico spent most of their time talking about her home. Junko found it amazing that there could be a civilization in a world with such beasts roaming around. But if people had found a way to turn them into weapons to hunt bigger beasts then it wasn't that hard to believe.

"You may believe that we Felynes are too small for it, but a lot of my brothers and sisters are known to follow hunters. There's a legend about one reaching the rank of Knyaght."

"That's pretty big, no?" Junko wondered out loud making the Palico nod.

"If I had to say is like a quirkless person reaching the top ten in hero popularity through hard work."

The comment made the metal-eating woman whistle, she may not be the most interested in hero rankings but there were things you couldn't just not know. That didn't meant the Hero Rankings didn't leave a weird taste in her mouth. In her opinion people put way too much attention to the quirks of the heroes instead of their actual work.

"Well, if I had to say, a person who trains for it and manages it more than earned it." Junko nodded and got up, stretching her limbs and stretching her back before turning to Mila "I heard there's an open street sale near here, wanna go and look around?"

"Nah, I will stay here for nyaw. I will message you later if I head home before you return."

Junko nodded and wished her friend a good time in the park as she put her hands in her pockets and started walking. In the direction of said open market. It took her a few minutes of a normal walk before she got to the place. A fair amount of people going around.

The woman decided to start wandering and see if anything caught her eye. She could tell that most stuff was okay, lots of trash in broken electronics and other stuff that wouldn't be worth the money one got from taking it to the scrapyard.

She saw plenty of hand crafted stuff, a lot definitely with the help of quirks, nothing wrong with that, there're plenty of quirks like hers that could work materials into interesting ways. But between all the trash there's some treasure.

Junko approached one of the stands where something had caught her eye.

"S'up, how much for the camera." she asked the man behind the counter.

"Hmm, that old thing? It still works and I'm selling it with two packs of the film," The man stepped closer "I will leave it at twenty-five hundred yen for the whole thing."

"Hmm, I was just looking for the camera, can't you do me a price without the films?"

The man shook his head "Not really, looking to get the whole thing out, otherwise I will never get rid of the film packs, they have no use alone."

"How about then fifteen hundred yen for the whole thing? You said it, you won't be selling them otherwise."

"Trying to rob me out in the open? Should I call for a hero or something?" The man chuckled. "Twenty two hundred I can do."

"I wonder if heroes know you are trying to scam naive children here, old man. Nineteen hundred, and I will think about coming back to see if you got something good next time you come around."

"You wound me, twenty hundred yen and not a coin less."

"If that's final, then I will have to accept it, but know this old man, you drive a hard bargain." She pulled the twenty hundred from her wallet and paid the man as he stored the camera and the couple film packs into a small bag.

"Thanks for the sale."

"Nah, thank you old man, been looking for one of these for a while, you can't imagine how hard it is to get one in good condition." Junko smiled and turned around, waving before walking off. Her power almost celebrating her as it filled another charge and offered her three options once more.

The first option, for just two charges offered her a blanket ability to make her creations incapable of failing under normal use. She liked how that sounded.

The second option was the same amount, it appeared to be some kind of tool that would let her use a type of telekinesis.

The third was a single charge and would let her service planes alone. She wasn't sure she needed that one at all or would anytime soon.

With those three simple options it didn't take her long to choose the first, after accepting it she found it wasn't so much as knowledge as a general change to her creations, she now was assured that as long as any support equipment she made would keep the heroes she gave it to as long as they read the instructions and didn't try and open cans of beers with the stun guns.

With her well completely empty she kept looking around. Spending nearly half an hour more walking back and forth the market but finding nothing of interest or that she couldn't make herself.

After that Junko found herself walking back home, getting a message from Mila that she was already at the apartment after.

Junko greeted Mila once home before she went straight to the workshop. Captchaloguing the camera and the film by separate, punching the card she decided to do her first bit of real alchemizing. She grabbed the empty Captcha card and placed them together in the improved alchemiter's lathe slot.

The holopad quickly showed the shaped cruxite instead of having to actually lathe one. The smile on Junko's face grew as she paid the price and on the center of the machine the result appeared.

It looked pretty similar to the Polaroid camera she had bought but instead of a black carcass, the plastic now looked similar to the design of her array Sylladex.

"Finally!" She smiled and picked up the thing, walking over to the lockers room, she noted there was a new one but ignored it for now, she grabbed the Laser Pistol from her earliest perks. She pointed the Captcharoid camera and clicked the button, instantly a new card slid out of the slot, the contents of it were a phantom image of the laser pistol she wouldn't be able to retrieve, but flipping it over it had the needed code for alchemizing more.

Junko smiled and quickly went to try it; she recycled the laser pistol provided by her power collecting the resulting grist she made in the machine, storing one and recycling the other. She would need to start some kind of library with all the cards.

Deciding that would be a good project for the rest of the day she warned Mila she would be busy in the workshop and to message her if she needed anything before she dived into her new project.

Her afternoon and entering the night was spent on her project. Using a combination of her skills she slowly built from the ground up an electronic library that could be interacted by her omni-tool. It felt weird that she used a copy of her old laptop simply for a database and software to read camera input and sort the stored punched cards.

Her design would easily store a thousand captcha cards, hopefully it would be enough for a while. She went to sleep later into the night, seeing Mila already deeply asleep by the time she passed out in her bed.

Even after going to sleep way into the early hours and still waking up with time to take the morning easy before heading to work was a pleasure and she thanked her enchanted bed sheets once more.

Junko yawned and did a few morning stretches, she wasn't sure why she had started, she blamed an error in her enchanting of the bed sheets since stretching after waking up helped her be more relaxed. With that thought in mind she maybe would have to check them later.

She yawned as she checked the news in her omni-tool as she prepared for the day, food, shower, general stuff. Leaving a note for Mila who was still asleep. Even with an enchanted bed the Felyne would sleep most of the day if she could.

Junko closed the door behind her and went out, finding the old lady once again outside.

"Hi Junko, thanks a lot for your help with my grandson."

"It's nothing Mrs. Kappa, as I told him, he's helping me as much as I can help him. Mila and I need all the publicity we can get. I should be thanking you for putting us in contact." Junko smiled at the old woman.

"Kids these days, I'm glad to see you so happy, don't let this old lady keep you here, have a lovely day at work."

"Thank you, and have a lovely day too." Junko waved goodbye to the yokai-looking woman before heading to work.

She felt her ability swell up, two charges, but the three options were all worth more than that, not in the mood to check them out, she let them go as she kept her way to work. Getting there and greeting her Boss who remembered her that they would start getting some of the junk from Takoba beach.

"Who's going to be bringing it?" She asked.

"A short kid, apparently he's using it to train or something." Her Boss replied before leaving her along at the place again.

Junko's day went through pretty normal all things accounted for. She was pretty sure her skills at scrapping down the junk around the place was getting better 'cause she was making a sizable dent on the piles. Of course, if it was up to for her she would have reduced the whole place to grist. But the change would be a bit too noteworthy.

As the day passed the woman fell into the usual monotony that got her quite spooked as someone finally came around near the end of the day. The sound of the door made Junko look up from her phone.

"Hello, welcome to Musutafu's Scrapyard, no we won't accept just random trash," she looked at the boy that just had come in, in her opinion her was tiny, it didn't help the clothes he was wearing were sticking to his body due to the sweat. "Oh! You are the kid that called ahead to bring stuff from the beach, no?"

"Y-yeah, hi, I'm Izuku M-midoriya," Junko had to pay attention given his voice.

"You look exhausted little guy, hard work too hard for you?" She chuckled, "Ah, it's okay, I'm Junko Tetsu, but call me Junk." She got up and walked over to get the poor boy a glass of water. "Here, you look like you need it."

"Thank you." The boy smiled and started drinking the offered water.

"Just a tip, don't rush, or you will end puking it out." Junko noted and watched the boy slow down even as he was obviously pretty thirsty. "So think you can move the stuff or would you prefer someone to help you?"

"I… I would prefer if you help me…"

"Ha! At least you know when to ask for help, so show me." she pushed Izuku along out of the office. "So why are you cleaning the beach? I mean, it was a much needed thing. But most people don't think it's their obligation. It's kinda why the place looks like that."

"I… it wasn't my idea," The boy sure looked down at the admission. "My trainer A- I mean Yagi, he's preparing me for the entrance exam at U.A."

Junko whistled at the boy's comment, "Aiming high? Well, there's no reason not to. And you definitely need the training kid." She chuckled softly at his wince.

The two walked over to a small truck with an open back, a pile of trash. She noted a blonde man that looked closer to the grave than she ever saw in the driver's seat, she waved at him before starting to help the green-haired boy.

Junko grabbed a rusted washing machine, it would have been easily over seventy five kilograms but the time had certainly removed more than a few. Certainly better than most dieting fads.

"So, how old are you?" Junko asked as she carried the large piece of rusted technology over the shoulder, glad she had changed the gloves for ones she made herself.

"F-fourteen…" She looked at the little dude carrying just a pair of large tires.

"And the exam's next year? Good plan, most kids plan to use their quirks to pass the exam and barely do any training before the exam for what I heard."

"...y-yeah, I can't do that." Junko had to pay attention to hear him.

"What was that?" she let the washing machine drop on an empty spot before she started the walk back to the truck.

"I said I-I wouldn't be able to do that, I'm quirkless…" She watched him as he spoke.

"And? Quirks are okay and they do help, but you need more to be a hero."

"W-what?"

"Yeah, look at you, training like this, heroes don't wait for a chance to fall from heaven," She thought he winced at that comment. "Real heroes go out and prepare, that's why I'm starting a Support Equipment Company, a friend and I already got our first hero last Saturday."

The little guy's eyes opened large and looked at her.

"Yeah, I assure you Cape Kappa will kick ass and be an awesome hero, he got the spark for it." She picked a large pile of objects and carried them by the boy who carried quite a bit less. "I can bet you he will be a great hero, because he knew to ask for help, yeah his quirk helped him, but he trained his body to the extreme for it."

They quickly worked on the rest of the things, Junko moving most of it.

"Well, all this stuff will keep me for a couple of days," She turned to the young teen. "I wish you luck with your training, show them you don't have to have a quirk to be a great hero."

The young boy blushed at being praised "Th-thankyouverymuch!"

Junko laughed as the boy quickly ran away, obviously embarrassed. She really supported the kid, he definitely had the smile of a hero. He was a bit small in her opinion, but he would grow into it.

"Now to deal with all this scrap." She chuckled and fixed the gloves on her hand after marking all that had come in before putting her skills to work.

Chapter 11

Chapter Text

Chapter 11

After Monday, Junko and Mila's week went by quite quickly. The little hero in training came around once more on Thursday, apparently still not strong enough to collect enough scrap on a single day.

Their second meeting was spent on Junko teasing the young teen but promising to praise him if he keeps working like that.

Mila's week was spent mostly setting up some contacts with the small hero schools and academies. She had even managed to set up an ad at one of the Hero Public Safety Commission. Hopefully that would soon bring more interested customers. But being an almost unknown support company they would have to grow their reputation.

Junko's week was spent working and designing a new sewing machine. She had managed to set up a combination of Eezo's mass manipulation and cantrip level magic to control thread into complex sewing patterns. She was sure she could expand this technique into a full on spinning threads and weaving fabric. With the right materials she could create some interesting effects.

Of course the level of the project kept her at work during most of the week's afternoons and evenings, still keeping a couple hours every day to spend with Mila and listen to the felyne talk. The smaller female was always full of ideas.

The sensation of a new charge for her power came around mid afternoon on Friday, just near the end of the day's work. With a single charge she looked at her options, the first two were three and two charges and out of her reach. She was sure she had seen one of those before while the other felt pretty similar to her scrapping skill.

But with not enough charges she turned to the last one, with a cost of a single charge she took it as there was no other choice. It was another skill between magic and technology, a bridge between the two. It basically let her study any kind of advanced electronic and replicate the effects of it through the use of magic. It would take time, but she now had an insight, and it was already working for her as looking at her sewing machine provoked new ideas on how to go at it.

She studied her work, thankfully still early enough she could fix a few things she now knew, apparently for her power the Eezo was bullshit enough to count as a magical power source. That made it easy for Junko to set up the magical enchantments. She heard the door open and quickly closed her notepad with the design.

"Hey Boss." She greeted the older man.

"Hey Junk, all good today?"

"Everything was normal over here. Spent the morning dealing with the scrap the boy brought yesterday. Most of it is rusted beyond belief, not only it's been laying on that beach for who knows how many months to years. But most of it also floated onto the beach, that means it was underwater at some point too."

"It doesn't matter to us, just make sure to be careful with it, rusted metal can be a bitch and break in unexpected ways." The older man showed off a large scar on his arm.

"I know boss, you told me plenty of times during my first week working here. I always make sure to have all the protection on me all the time I'm outside of this office." Junko gave the older man a thumbs up, making the old man chuckle.

"I still don't know why you insist on working here, kid. I know you could be doing a lot more, you have a very smart brain in that skull of yours."

"Thanks sir, it's just that working here makes things easier for me."

"Like with that support equipment job you started?" Junko barely kept herself from squeaking at that.

"… er… well you see…" Her stutter only made the man laugh harder.

"It's okay Junko, I did imagine you wouldn't be able to just work at this place and sooner than later you would get bored." Her boss pulled a chair and sat down on it looking at her. "So far you've managed to balance both jobs, and given what Lily told me, her grandson's really happy about your work."

"...thank you sir."

"And stop with that formality, I already told you to call me Sansui. If you think you can get some use out of the scrap here you are open to it."

"Thank you sir, this really means a lot to me."

"And stop calling me sir, Junk." He smiled and got up. "Let's close early, it's Friday and there's no need to stay here any longer."

The pair quickly closed the place down. Sansui wished Junko a good weekend before heading in opposite directions.

Junko pondered about her new sewing machine designs as she walked home, even when the train was emptier than normal she didn't stop thinking that there was something she was missing about it.

She gave Mrs. Kappa a wave before going up to her apartment, greeting Mila after entering her home.

"S'up kitty, all good today." Mila snorted at the comment.

"Yeah, pretty good actually, Ryuto sent a couple of purrsspective heroes our way and we got an inquiry from an underground hero that came through the Hero Public Safety Commission."

Junko had to whistle at the news, "Sounds like we will be getting pretty busy soon." Junko started snacking on a piece of motherboard as she sat down. "Think we will be getting a Hero Agency's attention anytime soon?"

"I doubt it, but we can hope. The two kids coming from Ryuto's direction are fellow students, appurrently they think we could help them the same way we did for Kappa." Mila sent Junko the information through her omni-tool. The woman checked them out and hummed as she thought about it.

"Well, I think I have a few ideas, but I don't see why not set up a meeting with them to discuss it, Ryuto was easy and I threw the water enchantment on my own accord, but if they want something it would be better to talk it out…" she stopped as she felt her power swell, one charge once more.

"The Forge?" Mila asked and Junko nodded to her, turning her attention inward as she checked them out. She had to take a deep breath as she saw the size of one of the perks coming close, it was huge, not the biggest, but it was easily ten charges, even if it was actually two for what she could discern, they were too big so she skipped it.

The second was four charges and still out of her reach, deciding that bothering about it wasn't worth it. She looked at the third, worth a single charge, it would have to do. Just like before she pushed the mental switch and let it slip in.

"Woah…" Junko had to stop and let the huge bank of knowledge be absorbed by her brain. Mechanical engineering, computer science, basic designs on how to make human-looking androids, small maintenance bots, even large construction droids.

This new knowledge carried the potential to create actual artificial intelligence, but it would be a hard and arduous time of intense work, easily months if not years before that spark was achieved. It was okay, she wasn't ready to be a mother anytime soon.

"Big one again?" Mila's words shook Junko out of her daze.

"Yeah, but no, it was a small one, it's just so advanced. Also so tempting to start trying stuff." Junko chuckled as she let her technology to magic bridge perk mix with this one plus one of her earliest perks that worked in applying hard science to magic.

The strange circle fed itself, expanding and developing quickly. Replacing technology with enchantments and replacing magical sources with batteries.

"Junk, you are starting to scare me, lose the mad smile, please." Mila once again shook her off her daze with a well placed pillow thrown to her head.

"Aw, little felyne's scared of the craftswoman now?" Junko smiled. "It's not that bad, I promise that once I take over the world with my magi-tech robots I will make one to give you ear scratches."

"Before you wander over to the workshop to lock yourself there for the day, here," she sent the last file to Junko. "That's the underground hero, apparently he's been looking for a new purrvider of support equipment. While he won't get as much attention when using our products like the other two. It's not a bad idea having a few contacts with less public heroes."

Junko nodded, thanking her friend as she walked into the warehouse, reading the profile of the hero. He seemed to be a fairly skilled once, over ten year of experience as an underground hero would certainly chew through the unprepared she imagined.

As she passed the entrance hall she felt a tug from the lockers room. Inside a new box awaited her, this one shaped like a school locker, the metal surface looked well cared for but certainly used. Sadly what appeared to be the school's emblem was erased.

She opened it to check the contents, her power told her it was all related to the magitech skill she had gotten. Inside was a… another war-hammer, once again her power told her it was a pretty basic weapon. Maybe she should give in and add it to her Strife Specibus… plus learn how to use it.

The other object was a shard of a spell, her power described like a Shotgun Spell Shard. She could change the element it used between Fire, Lightning and Ice and equip it on a weapon as a way to cast the spell while using said weapon. Her power did add that it was just one of the versions it could take, but nothing else.

That was okay with Junko, she already had an idea of how to use it. Her power had called it a Shotgun and the effect it would show was similar to the gun type. By that logic there could be others, maybe magnum or slug if she managed to find a way to reduce the spread down to a single point. Or how about give it a spin for extra penetration.

She wondered if any robot she made would count as a weapon. She giggled at the idea of an android punching out ice pellets.

Before she closed the locker she pulled her Captcharoid Camera and took a pick of the shard, the phantom image of the magical object appearing on the card. She would be trying to alchemize a few copies later.

For now she walked to her workshop and sat down, pulling the designs for her new sewing machine. Slowly she started to refine it with her perks, totally redrawing more than one part of it and expanding how it would control and power the cantrip plus a function that would imprint an impermeability enchantment on the work.

Deciding that it would be good enough as a prototype, she retrieved all the materials she would need before starting the process of using alchemy in shaping the pieces of metal. All in all it was a fairly simple process, her skill already good enough that even the smaller pieces could be shaped perfectly.

Her work was interrupted twice during the afternoon, first by Mila to check her friend hadn't actually started her plans to take over the world. The second was her power rewarding her another charge that didn't provide anything as the options were too big for her reach.

After finishing all the needed pieces she started to engrave them. Slowly working the tools on the metal. She was glad the Alchemiter let her increase her stores of gold. Filling small channels carved in the inside of the pieces with small amounts of molten gold, she wished she had silver, maybe she would see to buy it in a piece of jewelry. She had ideas for some enchantments that would go great on some.

Bringing her attention back to her current work she continued working on the machine. The engraving done she passed to apply the enchantment. This step was mostly to make sure all the engraving and gold plating was correct. Feeling no errors in her work she continued after thanking her unnatural skill perk.

After that she started to put it all together, starting with the small pieces that made the main mechanic parts of the sewing machine. After that was putting it all together.

She had to admit that time lost meaning as she finished working well into the early hours of the morning. Her omni-tool marked four am by the time the sewing machine was standing whole in front of her. All that it was lacking was the power source. But having to cover her mouth as she yawned she decided that it was enough for the night and headed to bed.

She could finish it after sleeping. It wasn't like she had to rush.

And sleep she did, nearly three hours of sleep on her enchanted bed meant over eight hours of sleep, it hadn't been since her power changed things around that she had slept that much.

Munching on actual breakfast cereal for the first time in a while was a surprise. She imagined that Mila may been having doubts about her ability to consume just about anything. She could let it go, her new friend was thinking on her and maybe having something organic once in a while wasn't a bad idea.

Not that Junko thought that breakfast cereal actually had that much organic besides sawdust and food dyes.

Starting early she went into the workshop to finish her work. She first needed to modify the Alchemiter. Using her alchemy and some metal she created an enlarger like that of a photography lab, the variable arm would usually be used to change the size of a projected image. But adding it to the Alchemiter it would let her resize the object alchemized.

With the add-on she proceeded to recreate a smaller version of the jar of Eezo she had. The result was alchemized with a common battery. The resulting creation was logically named Eezo battery and was easily installed into the sewing machine.

Instantly the whole magical machine came to life, metaphorically. She quickly ran a few tests on it, finding no real problem she called it a job well done and went to take a shower before Mila woke up and decided to take her time grooming herself, again .

Chapter 12

Chapter Text

Chapter 12

Since getting the Alchemiter, Junko had been getting the nagging sensation she had missed something about it. It wasn't till she got the second to last perk. The idea that she could bridge between magic and technology made her realize that the large machine was in that spot.

That plus her perk-given knowledge of how to use it she realized she had missed that she could use it to alchemize some exotic materials. But for that she would need some things first.

That meant her morning quickly devolved into a strange treasure hunt of things to capture with her Captcharoid Camera, things like fire, water, ice, clouds, the trees in the near park, the river a little bit farther, and anything that caught her fancy.

It hadn't been till she had alchemized the batter and the Eezo jar together that she had remembered that her machine could do so much. Getting back home around noon she had lunch with Mila who told her she would be heading out to enjoy the afternoon.

Junko couldn't disagree with her, it was a lovely April afternoon and she had already enjoyed her outing cosplaying a photography student.

Wishing her a nice time she went into the workshop. Retrieving the fabric punched card she smiled. It would be a fun afternoon of experimentation. Maybe that's why Mila had left.

She didn't mind, slowly she started to tap her feet on the ground.

Thump, thump, thump .

" Sweet dreams are made of this, Who am I to disagree? ," she started to punch every one of the picture cards she took during her morning, " I traveled the world. And the seven seas. Everybody's looking for something " She sang as she worked.

She started with an easy one, Fabric and Fire. The result was the same roll of fabric but it was flaming, of course it wasn't burning and picking it up only made it feel moderately hot on her hand, like standing under really strong summer sun. It also had this lovely flame effect going all the time.

Just to try she did it again, this time going for Fire and Fabric. Out came a burning fire made of fabric, it was actually too hot to touch, so she quickly captchalogued it and stored it under interesting. Maybe she would find a use for literal burning cloth.

Next Junko started to experiment, Water Fabric, Smoke Fabric, Wood Fabric, totally not Cat Fabric, the flowing river fabric was quite cool, literally to the touch, it also kept an interesting flowing effect that she imagined would go great as a dress or cape for an hydrokinetic hero.

Interestingly, Junko's first try at Fabric and Ice gave her a fabric roll-shaped ice cube, and it was only the other way around that she ended with Ice that acted like fabric and didn't melt. Though it still felt freezing cold.

She felt her power swell, two charges and she looked at the options, she was in quite a good mood, so spending a few minutes looking wasn't a bad time. Especially as the three of them were over four charges, meaning that she couldn't pick any.

The first one conveyed the idea of a laboratory and rainbows. That was all, strangely clear and mute about other details. The second was giant robots… no, wait, it was humongous robots, because she was pretty sure the power was counting their size in kilometers. As for the last one, she was pretty sure she had seen this one before, it aimed to increase her output when constructing giant robots.

She shrugged and chuckled at the interest her power seemed to have for those… Maybe someday she would build her own giant robot. She could dream.

After that she restarted her experimentation, cloud fabric were incredibly light while fabric clouds disappeared shortly after getting created. Feeling a little silly for not doing it before she quickly also alchemized the roll of fabric with different kinds of metals, iron, steel, gold fabrics would work great for enchanting, in the same vein she also alchemized threads made of all the materials. The idea of sewing the enchanting patterns into clothing with her new machine would save her so much time.

Just for fun she started to alchemize the roll of fabric with other stuff, eezo? Sure and quickly recycled as her omni-tool beeped a warning. She tried with her laptop, the resulting fabric was a perfectly working computer, just spread in a few dozen meters long fabric. She would try that again with a smaller piece next time.

The result of alchemizing the roll of fabric with her mannequin ended with a mannequin that could be rolled for storage, practical and silly, specially since captchaloguing it was easier.

It was nearly night when Mila found Junko working on clothes.

"Oh." The felyne's eyes opened like two plates as she saw the multiple sets of exotic dresses, capes, cowls, trenches, garments, cloaks and more. "Looks like your afternoon was good."

"Hi Mila, yes, really good. So much fun once I started, it's kinda addictive." She chuckled as she turned to face her felyne friend. "Got some stuff for you too."

Junko got up and picked a pile of captchalogued cards before handing them to Mila, the later starting to check them.

"Oh, these look furmidable," she stored them into her Sylladex and started checking them out one by one, using the inventory system clothing change. "I don't think I will ever find a place to use some of these, they look too good."

"Sadly I was a bit too gone by then." Junko hummed as she showed some of her own clothes, the fire fabrics making the human look like the Number 2 hero, Endeavor. "I just started using the fabrics and lost myself in my tailoring skill, the enchanting mixing along and soon you were here." She shrugged. "It's okay, it was fun and certainly used parts of the skill I haven't had the chance before.

"Also some of these materials will come great for some high level creations in my tailoring and enchanting when making less obvious clothing."

Mila looked at her while wearing a set of clothes made of fire, ice, clouds and gold.

"Can't deny that when we hit high society people we'll have the clothes for it." Mila looked around before Junko helped by making a mirror appear from her Sylladex. "Looking nice and feline wonderful." She admired herself.

Mila smiled at Junk "Thanks, this means a lot to me."

"Don't worry, you are helping me so much already with the company. I doubt I would ever have gotten more customers this quickly if you weren't around." Junk waved at her softly.

"Then I hope you are ready, because I got a message from Ryuto's friends, they agreed to meet us on Tuesday afternoon. Different from how you did it with Kappa boy they want to meet you, if I had to say, they don't believe that you are for real." she shrugged and changed into the most normal set of clothes that were reinforced and enchanted to stop a considerable caliber of gun.

"Sounds like I can only meet them and dispel their doubt about it. I wonder what I could do for their quirks. Ryuto was simple but I didn't have that many tools. It will certainly be a world of difference. Especially given the new materials. Hope he's okay with me making a new costume once he comes next Friday for a check up." Junko hummed. "Oh, did you find anything about an office to rent at least?"

"I found a few options, we will have to check them out during the week. I'm pretty sure at least one of them was a loan shark office and another has been owned by the yakuza."

"Sounds like a place with a great story." She laughed. "Don't worry, if all goes well we will use it only just long enough to get a better place."

Mila soon joined her and both smiled, relaxing as the felyne offered a few ideas of what to do next.

"I've been having this nagging feeling I'm missing something really obvious that I could do over at the Scrapyard. But it keeps eluding me." Junko complained to her friend.

"How about we go at it in parts. What do mew think you could be doing?"

"I want to help Sansui, my boss."

"Okay, what could you do to help him?" Mila leaned forward a bit as she asked.

"Well, I think I could set up a system to manage the entering scrap."

"Would it ever enter enough that it would be needed? I'm not saying it's not what you have to do, just maybe later."

"I could set something that did the recycling like with the omni-tool…" Junko had to blink as the comment slowly took form "Of course!"

"Tell me then."

"It's so obvious now, the omni-tool can recover materials from scrap and other junk. If I set up an anti-gravity system like with the sewing machine I could up-size the process the omni-tool uses to work on larger items. I would need to heavily black box it and hard lock the options to not let it create omni-gel while setting it to only recreate the metals consumed…"

Junko started mumbling as she activated her omni-tool and started designing it. Her power once more rewarded her achievement with another charge. Sadly the sources were too big. The first eight whole charges and promised technology like no other and something about time itself. The second was worth six charges and Junko was pretty sure it was cackling. The third was four charges and apparently had something to do with nanobots.

Incapable of taking any she immersed herself once more into her work. Mila got up and left her to her work while mumbling about crazy woman.

Junko set up an alarm to head to bed before it was too late. No matter how little sleep she needed lately, it was better to make sure to keep a solid sleep schedule before things grew hairy. Or she constructed some hairy things in sleep deprived madness. The fact that she instantly remembered the cackling source was worrying.

Sleeping didn't stop the fact that her mind had been overloaded with knowledge in the last month. Perk after perk it had been piling up. A few of them added to her intelligence, helping her think faster, set ways to find better ways of doing certain things.

It had slowly compounded. Some perks had very definite uses, but when others came and mixed things started to quickly escalate. Some of them like her third skill that had set a base of knowledge in the fields of science had installed a pretty clear approach to magic.

Set hypotheses, test them, rebuke them, set new ones, test them and repeat till you had solid conclusions about the working rules of magic. Of course a big part of magic was feeling, will, belief. When she had gotten the perk that worked on the other way, to study advanced technology to replicate it with magic it had started something bigger.

Before it was just another point of view, another way to approach a problem while dealing with the subject, if it was magic she could understand it as if it was technology. It had kept her from stumbling around with the low level work. But a lot of the 'logic' of high level tailoring and enchanting was too vague to follow something restrictive as scientific logic.

Now, she could study advanced technology like her omni-tool and replicate parts of it with magic. And she could understand that magic better with science, and replicate that science. So any advance she made in a field could be replicated in the other. Even if the advance was small, it would open new things once it was translated.

Step by step, translation, adaption, advancement. New ways of thinking, applying different philosophies to the same problem, using them together to solve a single problem. It was one of the reasons she had been sleeping more. Her brain had been needing the extra time out to collect itself.

Not that Junko knew it. In her mind she simply had been pushing herself and sleeping about half an hour more didn't feel like a waste of time.

She woke up feeling refreshed and completely well rested while the sun still hadn't peeked out. Doing morning stretches she went silently into the warehouse to not wake up Mila before turning on her omni-tool and deciding to check out the news.

Sunday mornings tended to have a good amount of news about crimes committed the day prior. Most workplaces were closed, making it safer to break into. Also it was proved that a lot of low level criminals held normal eight to five jobs during the week.

Plus Heroes liked to show off on the weekends more than the usual routine patrols they had on weekdays.

It was strange for Mila to know these tips of information when she hadn't really been interested in them before. But her job had the necessity to know about heroes and their normal operation. That meant reading more about them, having a good idea on the top ten, an idea about the top twenty and at least heard of every hero in the top one hundred.

Mila had made sure to teach all of this to Jnko. She called it necessary market knowledge. Along with some of the main providers of Support Equipment, which she called knowing the competition.

Apparently there had been a series of break-ins to stores that catered to people with mutation quirks. People were blaming an extremist group called Humans First that pushed for priority with non-quirked people and that quirked people were taking their jobs.

Junko felt that while it may have started with good intentions they had long since become a hate group. She remembered they had started more than one public brawl with intentions of putting quirked people in troubles when they reacted.

A smaller set of news caught Junko's eye, apparently an underground hero had caught a few dealers with a new type of Trigger. She remembered the incidents with that drug a few years ago. A lot of people had been hurt during some of the attacks.

"Uh…" she stopped for a moment and retrieved the information Mila had passed her about the possible customers "it's the same guy…"

The body of the note was quite scarce, mostly a title to catch the eye but in her case it was all she needed. She imagined that most people would never actually do more than pass their eyes over this news. On a Sunday morning there usually are much bigger things to pay attention to.

Underground Hero Eraser Head catches Yakuza-linked Villain group. Authorities agree that it's a massive hit to the supply of Trigger in the Market.

Chapter 13

Chapter Text

Chapter 13

After going through the morning news, Junko felt her ability reach the four charges threshold. Making three sources approach her mental reach. The first was sadly too large, six was the cost, two too many for hers. She hoped she one day managed to get it, it appeared to be another perk that would help her bridge magic and technology.

The next one was only one charge and was related to car mechanics, and anything similar, she was pretty sure she had seen it before but it was simple enough that the Forge may have similar ones.

The third was where the good stuff was at! It was another perk about enchanting. Deciding that she could do worse than taking it. She picked it over the mechanics-related one.

The knowledge was simple but carried large potential. It was different to her previous type of enchanting. Yes, both of them were engraving on the work that were powered by her energy. But while her previous style worked in larger designs, this new enchanting had some kind of runic alphabet.

The perk had only come with the runes for basic elemental enchantments, but with what she knew already and her combined perks, she was sure she could adapt them for defense as much as offense and maybe even she could develop some other runes studying these ones. The power was designed to study and learn from other enchanted items, but the only existing ones in this world would be hers.

The rest of Junk's Sunday was spent designing the recycling station. She aimed for it to be bulky, hard to move and simple to operate while installing plenty of safeties, user locks and more than one way to find it if stolen.

She would basically design the machine to only work if it could communicate at all times with the omni-tool, and would warn her instantly the moment it was moved away from the deployment site. Given that it was designed after the omni-tool, the machine would always be able to notify Junk of its use and let her keep a list of all it had worked on.

Mila did interrupt her a few times, mostly to remind her to eat. Otherwise Junko may have snacked on the stuff in her workshop. Thought to be true, she didn't find any of it appetizing or filling. All the tools provided by the Celestial Forge weren't exactly completely real, whatever that meant.

It was nearing nighttime when Junk decided to call it a night, her theoretical work was pretty much done, all she could do was start a prototype before advancing more.

"So how did it go?" Mila asked as they shared dinner.

"Productive, but I think I'm going insane."

"Only now?" Mila needled her friend with a smile after a bite of her chicken, what a surprise it was when the felyne showed off her cooking skills, she admitted she only knew the basics and there were chefs back in her previous world who could cook large banquets in less than an hour with just a few helpful hands. "It was only half kitteng that you craftswomen are a little unhinged, specially when you get ideas."

"Hey! I will let you know I was a sane and productive member of society before acquiring the Celestial Forge." Junko pointedly didn't stick her tongue out. "But it was good, I'm still far from a finished product. If I'm lucky I could have a good prototype working by Friday, especially if we will be hunting for offices during the week after work hours."

"It will be okay, I'm sure it won't take all week to find a good place."

"Maybe if you don't jinx us saying stuff like that." she pointed her fork at Mila before the two continued their meal, talking about lighter subjects before finishing their food. The rest of the night was spent relaxing before heading to bed.

Another night passed, another week completed. Monday coming in like the week before. Junko woke up early to continue her work in the Recycling Station. She had decided to start by implementing the knowledge of computer science given to her by her Robotics perk to program a Virtual Intelligence.

It wasn't a full VI, it was the base for one, the most basic framework that would be worked on later. She wasn't really programming this, she was just translating what was in her head into the program. It was so basic that the knowledge the perk gave her considered it a basic exercise, knowledge anyone where the perk came from should know if they wanted to start with robotics.

And as it was the knowledge was already advanced enough she could use it. After all it only needed it to do a handful of things and be able to reply to her control when she contacted it with her omni-tool.

It felt weird to translate the knowledge she had in a much more advanced programming language into a basic one for the age she lived in. She would have to spend some time making something better. She just wondered if her Robotics's knowledge would be better or base it on the one of her Omni-tool.

The interesting part of this exercise was the ideas she got to translate the programming language into magic, using it to craft a slightly intelligent construct that could react. Another thing to add to the list.

Mila was right about craftsmen, they were crazy and it was a good idea to not leave them idle. Not like she thought she could be idle with all this projects piling up. Maybe if the Recycling Station worked well her boss wouldn't mind if she spent some time at work working on this.

The thought of work led her to check her time, seeing it was still early she went back to her work. Putting some hard coded limits to what her current work would do. Keep it as just a very intelligent program but not able to learn. Her power once again filled, and she reached three charges and three options came for her.

Junko stopped to check the first, four charges and would teach her about mixing materials and elements, she kinda could already do something with the Alchemiter, she still wondered what she could do with this perk that she couldn't do already.

The second one was five charges. And apparently was all about reducing things into their basic elements. She didn't think it sounded too useful for her.

The last was only one charge, and given that she would need to take it she let it slip in and paid attention to what it was and liked what she saw. It would increase her creations to be aesthetically pleasing to the eye, she would have to force herself to make something not look good.

She quickly noticed the effects of the perk extended to her programming. She was now writing all the code in a much neater manner, adding comments in such a way it was easier to follow the code's meaning while passing your eyes over her work.

This suddenly brought Junko to a stop. She hadn't thought about it before, but the Celestial Forge was changing her. Bit by bit it had been adding to her brain. In hindsight it was obvious that a lot of the knowledge it had been imparting into her couldn't come completely sanitized.

There was a need for a certain amount of feeling in the perks. They had to install a way of thinking to make things work, the muscle memory had to come from somewhere.

The young woman had to stand up and breath deep before doing a small set of stretches to clear her mind. The Celestial Forge, from whatever reality it came from, sent her a sensation of apology, like it never wanted to make her feel like this but it was a much needed part of the powers. There was always a price. From that starting headache with her first perk to the small things that the perks carried from whatever or whoever had been cast.

Just like that terrible sensation when she got the alchemy perks. The thought sending a shudder down her back before Junk slapped her cheeks a couple of times to shake it off.

"Okay, enough wool gathering and worrying about things I have little to no power over."

Checking the time again she decided to save her work before heading out the kitchen and set up a good whole breakfast. The effects of the perk once again making itself known. Eggs fried to perfection, toast evenly browned, she was pretty sure her power was keeping the butter from melting completely while she looked at it.

It was almost a shame to eat it. After a few seconds and a growl from her stomach, Junko decided to take a picture of the food before digging in. Not perfect, but looks had a quality of their own.

Breakfast done, she passed through the bathroom before heading to work. Her day went quickly, Midoriya passing by near the end to leave more of the beach's trash. Junko knew that even after three deliveries it was barely a scratch on the mountains of trash that covered that beach.

Getting home had her find Mila all ready to go out "Do what you need, after that we gotta go, it will be quite a squeeze to get there on time with the rush hour coming." Junk nodded and prepared herself to go. Following Mila's directions, the pair taking a couple of trains in short trips before walking to a zone with a lot more offices.

"Well, it looks good from the outside, what's the floor?" Junko asked.

"It's on the third, I skipped any office lower than that, the nyoise from the street would be too bothersome."

"Are you sure? I could have easily set up something to deal with that." she hummed as the pair rode the elevator and rang the bell. The door opened and a man with a pretty obvious scar above his left eye welcomed them in.

"Ah! You must be Junk and Mila," The man talked with a pretty heavy accent as he read from a paper piece in his hand. "Ah, it's Junko, excuse me, my partner's writing's hard to read."

Mila gave the man a little wave "Yes, I'm Mila, this is Junko, we talked on the phone about this office, the price was so low we wanted to check it out personally."

"No problem, we have had no one interested in this office for a few years after a villain attacked the previous owners. With all the owners dead we ended acquiring the place for minimum amount given the cleaning costs."

Junko was pretty sure she remembered a note about something about it. She would have to ask Mila if she had found what it was about.

As Mila started to talk details with the man Junko looked around. It wasn't a big place, basically a single room office with a large window to the street plus a bathroom to the side. She could see several spots where the place had been fixed just enough to not be notable.

She counted easily three dozen bullet holes, long slashing cuts and something large, heavy and round had been thrown with large force into one of the walls. Also only one of the window panes was original, the others had been replaced with cheaper quality ones.

After that they thanked the man and left together to check the next place that was a couple blocks from the current one.

"Totally related to the Yakuza." Junko commented with a smile, making Mila sigh softly.

"Yes, I know, they were killed by a vigilante turned villain about four years ago, but the place's dirt cheap. We could easily rent it for half a nyear for the same amount that would only get us a month in this next place. It was too good not to check it out."

Junko nodded to the train of thought as she felt her power swell up, three options coming as she reached three charges. Two of them were too expensive, and the cackling one was back. She quickly did the right thing and ignored it as she turned to the third, another single charge perk she picked to not trip while they approached the next place.

Both women froze for a moment before they fell into a coordinated step "Okay, I just learned how to pilot an aircraft, an armed aircraft. And that's not the perk I got." she shuddered as Mila kept the pace by her "I got a hangar all set up to build large vehicles on it and that knowledge was just complementary."

"I know what you mean," Mila managed to keep with Junko much easier than before, even her much shorter legs keeping the rhythm "Apparently the Forge decided that I had earned something because I now have a surname. It's weird that I hadn't noticed that.

"I'm now Mila "Godeye" Smirnov, and looks like it's a bit more literal in my case when they call merchants mercenary." The felyne chuckled. "It's funny, the Forge gave me enough information about my new persona that would fit me quite well, small, young looking and with a mercenary mind."

Junko had to laugh at that.

"I also got the flying training plus a lot of nyawledge of how to use the radars for maximum effect. After this you better build me something, because I want to really experience the sensation of flying at high speeds now."

The pair talked a bit more before they checked the second office for the day. The place cost about six times more than the first and was actually worse in all possible ways. While the first place's walls had been fixed after receiving bullet holes, the work was good enough that most people would never notice so.

This place was terrible, the walls were coated with a single layer of paint. It was obviously a larger office separated in two by mounted walls. The windows were plastic instead of glass. There were problems wherever she looked. She was pretty sure the bathroom was in the other office. The pair silently decided that it wasn't worth it. It had quickly been taken off the list.

After that they slowly started making their way back. Passing by a store to buy some things for dinner

Junko was tempted to try her hand at cooking once more. It had been some time since she had cooked for someone else. She wanted to see Mila's reaction when the food came out looking so perfect.

She wondered if she would get a perk to extend the effect to the taste too. Could she enchant meals to be magical?

Chapter 14

Chapter Text

Chapter 14

Tuesday afternoon came pretty soon, finding Mila and Junko heading out to meet the pair of students interested in their service. The Felyne had spent the day making a list of things Junko would have to see to design for possible patents along with investigating the steps needed to actually prove and patent them.

"So, where are we meeting the pair?" Junko asked as the two took the train like the day prior, just this time they headed in the opposite direction.

"They chose a small cafe nyar their academy, apparently it has moderately private sitting. And it should be comfortable enough to work out the meeting. Got something to draw the sketches?" Mila asked, making Junko show the set of pencils and the drawing board she was carrying on a carry bag.

"All ready."

"Good." Mila let Junko open the door for them as they walked into the cafe, quickly seeing the pair. Junko had seen a few pictures, and the young woman was easy to catch in a crowd, she was nearly two meters tall, broad jaw and her hair looked like the shell of a turtle. The man next to her, in comparison, looked quite average, his figure was quite lithe in comparison to the well muscled female.

"Hello, you must be Shieldtoise and Exchange, I'm Junk, and this is my partner Mila."

"Hello, we talked on the phone after Kappa recommended us to you." Mila greeted them too.

"Yes, I'm Shieldtoise," The woman greeted them. "But you can call me Fuon."

"And I'm Darma, but I go as Exchange." The man shook Junko's hand.

"So you two want to get Support Equipment from our company and you come recommended. We have no problems with this. But we must ask, what were you looking for?"

Before they could speak Junko cut them off.

"What Mila's trying to say is that we have no problem working on basic costumes, but the support equipment I added to Ryuto was an inspiration on my part. I still have to tweak it once he comes over again at the end of the week. But if you want something similar we will have to know more about your quirks and see it at work."

Both students stopped to think about it. Mila and Junko graciously let them put their thoughts in order.

"I would like that, personally." Fuon surprised them by talking first. "My quirk's always been called the ultimate wall, and I'm great at taking hits when I'm transformed, but I can barely move, I'm literally a turtle. I would like some support equipment to increase my mobility."

Junko nodded, already writing down plus a few ideas.

"What does slow you, exactly? Are you growing too heavy? Or does it take you longer to react?" Junko asked as Mila watched, knowing it wasn't her to speak. Even Exchange had taken a bit of a step back and let her friend go first.

"I'm just too heavy, the teachers think my body's growing too dense for me to move around without just curling and rolling like a ball. But that sucks." Darma chuckled at his friend's comment.

"Oh god, you should have seen the first time she followed through when a teacher suggested it. She rolled a few times, bounced on a wall as she couldn't see, went down a set of stairs and ended puking all over the place-"

"Hey! No need to talk about bad experiences, Mister I thought it was a good idea to smack my face on the wall." Exchange blushed, apparently knowing he should be closing his mouth.

"Well, if my solid friend's interested I can't stay behind. I'm looking for a way to charge up. Let me explain," he stopped his friend from speaking, the female was obviously wanting to get a teasing comment in. "My quirk is called Kinetic Transfer. Not the best name, but it took me years to understand it completely. I can take the kinetic energy I receive to my body and use it to power myself."

Fuon surprised Mila and Junko as she smacked Darma's arm. The hit seemed to travel through his arm up to his shoulder, across his chest and down his other arm to his hand. Once the hit reached there his finger quickly started to tap the table faster and faster before slowing down to normal.

"At first I could only make myself faster and stronger, that's why we named it Kinetic Transfer. But as I trained more I found I can use it to strengthen other things like my reflexes and even my thinking speed. Of course it's limited, I can't store it, I have to use it, larger amounts can last longer if I don't push too much, but too much and I will end up hurting myself, and it's not pretty at all." Darma rubbed his arm wincing at the memory.

"Come on, it wasn't your fault, and standing in front of that car did save that kid, you are training to be a hero, and you acted like one." Fuon's comment made Darma smile and thank her softly.

"I think that if you two were trying to inspire my crazy partner you did it." Mila's comment made the two students look up and see Junko busily writing notes and drawing sketches in her notebook. "Hey!" The felyne snapped her fingers in front of Junko to snap her out of it "I think you will be taking their order."

"Yes. Fuon, I'm pretty sure I can provide you with two options." She turned her notebook around and showed the woman a collection of sketches of armor panels with what appeared to be rocket nozzles "The first is a propulsion system, most likely controlled with a set of sensitive gloves, you would have to train with it, but it should easily let you quickly move around and even jump up about two floors if my calculations are right.

"The other ideas," she turned to the next page. "It's a bit more complicated for me but it may be simpler for you. This gadget here," She pointed to a chest plate. "Will reduce the hold of gravity on you, it will make it easier to move around, but you won't be as steady while keeping your strength.

"For you," She turned to Darma and passed to next page, "I only have one idea, it's basically a set of braces, shin guards and chest plate that will charge an internal kinetic energy battery with your movement, so you jump, run, bounce around and they will store a bit of all that movement. Once there's enough charge you can trigger any of them to release some to all that energy directly on your body. Giving you a way to trigger your quirk at any moment as long as you have them charged."

"I think you impressed them, Junko."

"Really? I think that if I could exper… excuse me, watch them using their quirks properly and in a more open manner we could do so much better." she hummed, tapping her pencil on the notebook "We will need to see about the permits to set up a quirk testing ground, Mila."

The two students looked a bit flabbergasted at Junko's demure front melt into a much more energetic intensity.

"I think I can talk for both of us, that we like your ideas." Fuon was the first to talk. "I think I like the second option, when I transform I'm strong enough that I could easily jump that height if I didn't weight that much."

"I like your idea too, and will gladly be open to try it, we do have testing grounds at the Academy, so we could ask around to see if you can come and we can test the equipment."

Their discussion slowly moved away from Junko and to Mila, the felyne taking care of the monetary side of the deal. The two students were surprised at the price offered and found it more than acceptable for the kind of work the craftswoman was offering them.

Mila didn't say anything about their total lack of material needs besides the first purchase of them. She had already invested an amount of money to get at least a sample of all materials and alloys in the market.

Junko added a few comments here and there, mostly asking the pair details about the costume part of their equipment, sketching multiple designs before each student choose their preferred version. After that they decided to call it enough for the day.

Fuon and Darma were more than happy enough with their meeting and eager to already try them as Junko and Mila were glad to see their company was growing bit by bit.

With all done the two pairs thanked each other and left in their respective ways. Junko and Mila took a bit to head home, the pair taking their time to head home.

Especially as a massive group of people cut the street between them and the train station that they had to take to their way home.

"What nyaw?" Mila asked as Junko looked around.

"It's the group Humans First, apparently they are trying to get the members that were caught these last few days vandalizing some stores." A man next to them explained.

"I think I read about it on Sunday, they had broken into some stores for mutant quirk clothing." Junko added what she remembered.

The sensation of her power filling another charge and reaching for three charges got her a bit nervous, she hoped there would be nothing flashy or she would be getting a lot of unwanted attention.

She paid attention to the sources coming to her, luckily of the three she could only pick one for a single charge. She breathed a sigh of relief as the perk that folded into her power added to her ability to make her actions and creations look good.

The similar perk she already had dealt more with easing the difficulty in making things look good, with it she didn't need to worry about making mistakes that would bring down the looks. This new perk added to that and let her instill a theme into her work.

It was all about style. And she now could choose and right now she needed a style to not bring attention. The imparted knowledge of the skill guiding her to drag her friend along as they took a detour, passing through the lighter pockets of people watching the manifestation and slipping unnoticed just as she wanted.

"Nice, new skill? Did it have to do with sneaking?" Mila asked her once they had managed to ride on the train home.

"No, just a lucky coincidence, it adds to the style of what I do, and what do you know, passing unnoticed has a style on its own. That plus I know how to pilot another type of plane, this one should be able to turn into a mech of some kind." Junk snorted softly as both headed home after that. Finishing the day with no other surprises. "Also, I think my power just taught me to sing…"

Mila had to give her friend a look that was becoming worryingly common.

"Well… I guess singing is a type of craft in a way…" The comment made Junko snort and nod as she tried humming low on their way back home.

With their Tuesday done, it soon became Wednesday. The pair visited another set of possible offices, nothing of note, Junko admitted they were at least better than the second option they had seen, but they were slightly out of the way and were still way more expensive than the first one. Mila joked that they would end taking their first option at this rate.

Thursday was more of the same, the offices they saw were even worse than the ones seen previously.

"I told you it was tempting fate." Junko teased her friend.

"And all the other places I had have been rented or sold already." Mila pouted in defeat.

"It's okay, it will only be for a little time." Junko patted her friend's back "And it could be worse, we could be forced to rent the second place, so how about you take care of renting the first place. Look at it this way, it's cheap and there's nothing really bad about it." She smiled, leaving the felyne to her part of the work as she returned to the workshop.

Junko sat in her workshop to continue the work on the programming of the Recycling Station. As she kept working mostly in automatic she started to think about the objects in her lockers. There had been a couple of new additions since last time. One of them was linked to the hangar she had gained. It contained a flight suit with the call name 'Junk' emblazoned on it. Along that there had been a radio set that randomly picked communication across all bands, the random part was that it always picked conversations, not always useful ones.

The strange thing was the note inside stating that any aircraft she flew would be able to carry an enormous amount of missiles, physically possible or not.

The second new one was related to her latest perk, it contained a similar flight suit to the other, this one was designed to let her survive into space up to twenty minutes. It was basic but she could see ways to copy and improve the design already. Not that she needed a way to survive in space for now.

Junko wondered if someone would notice if she started a space station. Could she set it on the dark side of the moon? Or maybe hide it some way.

It was a nice dream, but she would have to set some way to travel between the station and earth. And talking about travel, she was starting to realize there was no easy way to take the recycling station to the scrapyard. At least not without showing off her Sylladex.

If she was lucky she could get there early and set it up before her boss, Sansui, got to the place and just say she got early to skip traffic. Hopefully he wouldn't ask too many questions about it. She hoped the older man believed her enough about it or decided it wasn't worth digging about.

She finally clicked save before compiling her program. Watching the Omni-tool do quick work of the assembly of the program and starting her first Virtual Intelligence. Or the framework she would use to build the first version, barely an Alpha, but a solid start for her system.

With this she may get to do extra work while at the Scrapyard, it would certainly bring the costs of the place down doing the recycling in-house.

Junko giggled, getting up, stretching her arms and legs before heading to the alchemy circle she had been developing, it was time to start with the big parts of the recycling station, with any luck the next day Ryuto would come and accept that she wanted to redo his costume. That was she could see the three students try her work at the same time.

Chapter 15

Chapter Text

Chapter 15

Friday woke Junko early when a new source of power clicked in automatically, all she managed to get is that the two other sources were too big and she was deemed incapable of taking the necessary choice.

The new perk had imprinted the knowledge of really advanced engineering into her brain. And she recognized a lot of it as being complementary to the knowledge on robotics. Many subjects that her previous knowledge just stated as workable were now explained to her. The theory behind the use of many of the technology behind the robots' internal workings.

If things continued this way the next perk of a similar source would cover the science behind it all, besides physics, she now knew a good amount of physics. She was pretty sure that she had the proof of a lot of theories that in her day and age hadn't been proved yet. Even with quirks breaking physics repeatedly over the knee, she should see about writing it down and maybe publicizing it.

Along with the knowledge on theory, she now could easily maintain space ships capable of travel between stars. Or how to set up and maintain exotic systems like a matter-energy conversion system, a transportation system that worked in a similar way, turning people into energy and beaming it to target to reform them back to normal.

All that plus more, and her perks were already coming in to play too. Working on the many advanced technological systems and finding ways to adapt their functionality into magical means. It would be costly but she could easily craft a magical transportation system now, with some tweaking maybe turn it into a spell, even if what she understood as her internal energy pool was pretty small still. The problem was it couldn't use one of her Eezo batteries like her sewing machine or the recycling station would.

Groaning, she looked at the clock in her omni-tool, deciding it was way too early for having crazy magi-tech ideas, she put her head back on the pillow and did her best to fall back asleep, managing another hour of rest before finally waking up again.

It took her a couple of hours till she remembered she had gotten a new perk. She stopped her work, saving it for safety before she leaned back on her chair. Humming softly as she pondered what she now knew. It wasn't all clear, like knowing math at high-school level, taught that some things just work and not to bother about them.

It was the things she now really knew, the physics behind space travel. In a way, it looked like she was closer to the dream of getting to space. Her humming picked a slightly more complicated melody as she looked back at her work.

She could see now how she could replace the main part of the up-scaled omni-tool recycling system into the same matter-energy conversion engine her new perk provided. It would certainly be more efficient, she could even link the scrapyard's power directly to the engine and forget about paying the electricity bill ever again.

But it was a bit too advanced to use, especially in a recycling station. It was a system that would basically upgrade humanity to post-scarcity. It would take about anything and produce energy, and with that energy it would provide anything.

In her opinion, given the amount of people still going into villainy, providing the ability to just create about anything would break havoc and bring humanity back to the chaos years.

Putting the idea away she decided to build one for personal use. If her projections for the anti-thieving enchants in her recycling station worked well she would be putting an even better version on her own.

Her humming picked up, a few lyrics escaping her lips as she returned to her work. Taking the few next hours in the morning before she had to leave for work to shape the pieces of the recycling station with her alchemy circles. Producing the necessary metals with her Alchemiter, Mila's acquisitions of samples had been advancing quite successfully.

They hadn't even needed to buy a few as they had asked amounts small enough that they had simply been sent under the pretext of testing.

Soon it was time to head for work, the trip to the yard calm as most mornings. Like most Monday mornings her boss was there starting the week.

"Hello Boss, I have a question." She greeted the man.

"Hello Junko, yes I'm doing okay, I hope your weekend was as good as mine."

Junko blushed a bit ashamed of not greeting her boss proper.

"Hehe, sorry sir. Just been working on something and I wanted to ask about your opinion on it."

"Let me guess, you want to ask permission if you can work on your support equipment here?"

"Not exactly, Sansui," The use of his actual name made her boss stop what he was doing and look at her more directly. "Sir, you tend to complain about having to deal with recycling of the scrap by getting other companies to take specific types of materials.

"I have been designing and building a machine that will take the scrap and recycle it into easy to store metal ingots, it will take care of the rust and separate the materials."

"That sounds mighty useful, Junko. There're multiple problems I could see. The first is what would cost me and this place?"

"I will be honest, Sansui, it would cost you nothing. It's a prototype, and I would like to make sure it works well. I need to test it and there's no better way than using it with large amounts of material. It would certainly help in clearing the place and I have heard you complaining about how the other yards have been getting pretty full in the last time."

"Okay, I think I can accept that. Would it be dangerous? If it fails, would the whole thing melt down and join the rest of the scrap or erase everything around and leave the yard empty?"

"It's pretty safe, and it's most likely it will just stop working or it bricks itself by making the content solidify. I've actually been more afraid of someone trying to steal it than it stopping working. So I may have gone a bit overboard to make sure no one takes it… don't worry, nothing aggressive, it's mostly hard to make work if someone takes it and it should be easy to find again."

Junko stiffened as she felt her power once again reach that threshold. Three options but only one of them was possible. Making sure that Sansui didn't notice her reaction Junko looked down at her phone as the man thought about her offer.

Not wanting to lose time she ignored the two options out of her reach and accepted the third. The perk added to her knowledge of mechanics, she could fix just about any vehicle if it had wheels. The faster the machine, the easier it would be for her to keep at top condition. Everything from the motor, the direction, the wiring of the alarm and more.

Looking at her phone also paid up as she received a message from Mila.

There's a crappy car in your hangar now. The internet says it's a beetle, I will start to search how to legalize your ownership ;3.

Junko snorted and looked at her boss who appeared ready to give her an answer.

"If you think this machine of yours won't bring us troubles, then I see no reason to not let you test it here, kid."

"I promise sir, I already had Mila, my partner, check all permits for the testing of new and experimental machinery." Junko promised to the man.

The rest of the day passed calmly, Junko doing her best to not get distracted and dive back into the design rabbit hole. She still had to start working on Fuon and Darma's costumes and equipment, but she wanted to do Ryuto's costume too.

Part of her wanted to make sure they all had the same level of quality, and starting one before the others could lead to a perk forcing her to have to do it again or be visibly of lower quality.

She let herself draw a few sketches on the time till closing. Once again humming as she drew Fuon in her human form wearing a suit that hugged her figure, reinforced along the outside of her arms, her belly, chest and the neck.

Darma's suit was smoother, the bracers, knee pads and back piece done in a similar color to the rest of the costume while keeping a black on green design.

Ryuto's wouldn't be that different from what he already had, she was tempted to add a cape made from the river fabric. She wrote down a reminder to see if she could mix the river fabric with the cloud card to create an intangible cape. It would certainly look pretty heroic.

The rest of the time was spent actually doing work. Especially when the little green hero-in-training came around to leave.

"Too busy yesterday to come and visit me?" Junko teased the boy.

"I-I-I'm so-orry." His blush and stutter made her break in laughter.

"It's okay, I'm just joking, but you should try and be more assertive, I don't know about your life, but if you want to be a hero you shouldn't doubt yourself so much, okay?" Junko was more than happy to try and cheer the younger boy in his training. Who knows, maybe one day she would be building his support equipment.

Teasing aside, Junko helped Midoriya unload the truck's contents out into the yard before wishing him a good weekend. The rest of the afternoon passed calmly before she headed back home.

"Hey Mila, I'm home." she greeted her friend and was only mildly surprised to find Ryuto already there exchanging words with her friend. "And nice to see you again, Ryuto, I hope the costume testing went well."

"Junk, it's great to see you doing alright. I left a little earlier than normal and got here just moments before you. Mila let me pass to wait for you." Ryuto smiled confidently at the woman.

Junko smiled as she shook his hand "Don't worry, this is my place as much as Mila's."

"I hope your day was nice, Junko. It's good you are here now, I hadn't gotten to talk about your decision about the costume." Mila's comment made Ryuto turn to Junko.

"Don't worry it's nothing bad," she laughed. "I can see you liked my craft quite a bit. But after getting your two friends' orders, I decided I would like to redesign yours along with producing theirs.

"You have to understand that the set I gave you was a prototype, a working one but I knew today's meeting would be to find the problems with it and develop it more."

"I see. Then I can't blame you for that choice. The costume had helped me greatly already, the possibility of triggering my quirk at any time is a breakthrough for me. And especially the ability to dial the strength of it." The hero talked with a certainty in his voice, always making sure to project confidence. "I won't deny that it was hard at first. Since I usually had to be underwater to reach the upper limit of my power, the water resistance kept me from moving too fast."

"That's why I would like to take your costume and work on it before getting Fuon, Darma and you together for a testing. That way I can see them all in use. While I've seen videos of you three at work with your quirks, but I can only use them to get an idea. I need to seem them properly used to the limit."

"I understand, and I can see no problem with that decision." The man picked up the suitcase and placed it on the table. "Everything's there, how long do you think it will take you?"

Junk hummed a bit, she knew it would only take her a couple days, but didn't want to set up a precedent yet.

"Two weeks would be the safest. I have solid ideas of the upgrades I'm putting in your costume. And I'm sure you will like them." Junko's comment made Ryuto nod and thank her.

After that their conversation went down to the hero's experience with the costume and support equipment. Junko made notes as Mila interrupted from time to time to add a different point of view to the situation.

Junko felt her power come and go, another charge but no choice between the options. Thanking once more there had been no reaction from Ryuto as soon an hour passed and there was no more question.

The pair thanking the hero and wishing him a good weekend as he left. Leaving Mila and Junko alone at the apartment.

"That went well," Mila commented. "Oh! You never told me anything about the car, new perk?"

"Yeah, it was about car mechanics, and I think the car's like a practical exercise for me to use them." Junko answered and the felyne simply shrugged at that.

"The Forge keeps getting weirder, but I found all the necessary documents if you want to legalize your ownership of the car if we can prove you built it from the ground up." the smaller female talked. "I also sent you a list of simple things you could design and we could patent easily. I doubt we could get a way of mass-producing it in a believable manner that didn't bring a lot of unwanted attention to us."

"I have been thinking the same," Junko agreed with her friend. "I also think that I should start designing some better equipment to have here. The omni-tool's strong but I'll need a better computer system soon."

"I will leave that to you, Junk." Mila purred and waved to her friend as the human headed into the warehouse, she had a new car to check out.

It was nothing special. No, it was even less than average, and old Volkswagen Beetle, the paint job was slightly chipped. The insides were in terrible state due to apparent use. She was sure she had seen better cars dropped at the scrapyard.

But she could already see what things she could change. Oil the moving parts, replace the leather of the seats, replace the safety belts for safer, modern designs. Craft a set of tires that would not degrade or break and would give near perfect traction.

She was sure it wouldn't be hard to actually set an Eezo system to let this baby fly and with some small design changes and a good amount of enchanting, she could turn this dinosaur of a vehicle into a space-worthy vessel for two, or four people quite tight.

And no, she was not cackling madly at the idea of turning an unassuming car into a spaceship. It was just a demure laugh.

Chapter 16

Chapter Text

Chapter 16

Junko stood in front of three mannequins, each one resized to imitate the body of the three students. Only one of them was wearing a costume and it was Ryuto's, using the old one.

She sat in front of it, her drawing pad filled with sketches of designs for the three upcoming heroes. It had taken her a bit to decide for one in special for each of the kids.

Finally she had started to work on them, first redoing Ryuto's own costume. Once again she had enchanted the deeper layer of the costume, the rest of the costume was designed after the space suit she had acquired, using a similar fabric that would work in the void of space for nearly half an hour by itself. Before she added enchantments to make it even more resistant.

It could also project a bubble shield over Ryuto's face to provide air and filter possible dangerous atmospheres. That protection had been set as automatic with a manual override implemented in the controls for the moistness levels.

She had also managed to craft a cape from the river fabric that would act as a normal cape but wouldn't snag or tear. The outermost layer of the costume had ended with a fish-scale like design that Junko thought would be pretty fitting.

For Darma the costume had been designed to give a sense of movement, lines over the fabric seemed to wander over the body and would make the watcher's sight travel around constantly. The bracers and chest piece were easy to design and the hardest part had been creating the solid batteries to hold the kinetic energy.

She liked the idea that had come through at the end. Junko had found she could inscribe a three dimensional matrix of runes in solid blocks of metal that would hold a charge of energy.

It had taken her nearly three days before she had managed a version that didn't melt, explode or started to release the energy in some other way. But it was worth it, she was pretty sure she could repurpose this for other types of energy collections and their efficiency grew exponentially. The size of energy batteries a space ship could carry would be enough to power large cities for years easily.

The body suit had ended in a combination of yellow and orange while the bracers and chest piece were red with gold accents. The chest piece had ended with the same face shield feature.

Fuon's costume was the heaviest, not only she had added more armored parts to the costume than in the two other cases. But she had also set more padded sections as secondary defenses to cushion the hits.

The principal design had ended mostly white on the 'inside' the back was closer to an earthy green and would stretch over her shell as it grew thanks to the armorshift treatment. For the armor plates on the arms she started with a design similar to a turtle or tortoise shell, weirdly once she enchanted it for defensive purposes it had shifted into a slightly more pearly design. Given that it still kept a pretty heroic theme she had left it that way.

The neck armor managed to hold the flexibility of the fabric while still being nearly as reinforced as the armor plates. Sadly the effect couldn't be maintained over all the body and only the small section could be affected by it.

The density control system from the Eezo had come out pretty good, managing to cut down to a tenth of the actual mass of the wearer, she hoped it would be enough for Fuon, Junko imagined that if she could move slow as normal, weighting a tenth of that weight would let her do quite a bit, and even then, she could dial it to have a range in the effect. She finished by adding the bubble head shield.

The three costumes had internal air tanks for nearly thirty minutes of fresh air and the systems would quickly refill them the moment they registered proper atmosphere.

As celebration her power had reached four charges and three options had moved into her reach. The first appeared to be five charges at first, but a bit more of attention had shown to be actually four and one, she could take it, but she wasn't sure how good perks to do with nano-technology would do, she was pretty sure development of such needed enough permits that making a tank would be easier.

The second option was worth three and offered to help make all her creations last in working condition for a long, long time. She didn't know if it would be that useful since it looked mostly to do with the effect of time on items.

The third option was also three charges and promised to improve the quality of all her crafting work. The idea of adding another blanket upgrade to the quality of her work was tempting.

The three options were tempting, even the first one had ways to be useful and not show she had such a thing in her possession. But it felt like it would be asking for troubles to acquire it.

The two other skills were quite similar, both were blank upgrades to all her creations. But she liked to increase the quality of her craft rather than have a way to make her creations last a long time.

Choice made she felt the perk be added to her growing collection. She could also feel the quality improvement perks add to it, their combined result growing even more as she now would craft masterwork quality items as a minimum.

She could feel the effect of it, looking at the three mannequins in front of her she could see the tiny imperfections, some were bringing down the looks of the costumes, others, she could see them bringing down the quality and possibly offering weak points in the armor.

Junko sighed before she dragged her hand over her face before getting up and getting to work. She knew this could happen, it was time to remade the three students' costumes once more.

By the time she had finished on the three hero costumes for the second time, the three of them looked better than ever, every piece of them a masterwork quality item. She had managed to keep a theme of heroic and respectable but of unassuming quality.

It had been a week and a half of work. She had also spent a good amount of time working on the Recycling Station, or the RS as she had started to call it in her mind. Junko had spent nearly all her time that wasn't at work, going back and forth or spending time with Mila, working on her projects.

All in all, it had been a lot of work, successful work. Three hero costumes, three sets of support equipment.

The RS was nearly done, she would need to calibrate it and restrict the work to working on scrap and only output material ingots if there was the necessary amount of material in the internal storage.

There was also the VI for the RS plus the first steps of her new computer system. It wasn't anything as powerful as she could see in her engineering knowledge, but she was pretty sure that by this point only the top systems of I-island would even compare to her work.

"Hey Junk, those look great." Mila stepped into the storage section of the warehouse, the three mannequins posing heroically.

"Thanks, Mila. You know, part of me is still surprised about all this." She waves around. "About a month ago I was just a normal person, definitely not looking for a great life, just go with things. Most likely I would end buying the scrapyard from Sansui and just keep working there. Maybe meet someone? No idea."

"Can't say I understand all of it, life back on my previous world was harsh in a lot of aspects, things here are heaven even if you have about one in ten chances to see a villain and hero fighting each time you go out." The felyne hummed.

"But now, now things are definitely different." She joined in the humming for a moment. "I should call my mother now that I think about it. We've always been quite independent, me, mom, grandma, even now that mom's living with grandmother due to the accident…

"It's okay, I think I should go visit them after we have finished with this," she pointed at the costumes. "Maybe you could come?"

"I don't see a reason why not, show your mother you do have friends besides tall piles of rusted metal." She teased her.

"I will tell you those are some of the most respectable piles of rusted metal around." She quickly snorted and broke out laughing, Mila joining her. "Okay, fun aside, has Ryuto and the other two replied about the costumes?"

"Yeah, they also have reserved the Academy's training ground and have gotten permission for us to be there for testing."

"Good, after that I will start to work in our office. I have spared a few hours this last week in some enchantments that can be easily deployed to make the place safe and nearly impossible to break into. But it can also wait till I finish the RS, a few more days of work, especially if I don't have to spread my time with the equipment and it will be working."

It was at that moment when Junko felt her power fill up to two charges. Three options appeared, the farthest and out of her reach was worth six and appeared to be geared to understanding exotic technology, too expensive anyways she passed.

The second was worth four charges, but strangely it was in her reach, a close attention showed it was a collection of four smaller perks, it appeared to be aimed at providing and working with some exotic materials. Given she didn't know if she could even acquire some of them she looked at the last one.

For two charges she could get a perk that apparently dealt with magic with technology, having already a good number of them she took it over the unknown set of material perks.

The moment she understood what the perk did she wanted to face palm, she now saw how she could have set the controls for the enchantments in the costumes so much easier. At least the set up in the RS could be easily fixed and there was no deadline besides those she set for herself.

"Perk?" Mila asked with a grin.

"Yup."

"Made something you thought good totally useless?"

"Yup."

"Will do anything about it?"

"Nope… or at least not for these costumes, but it certainly will ease a lot of things in the future for me." she hummed as she looked at her work with new eyes.

"Sounds like a good idea, not every improvement through a perk should lead you to remake everything, it's okay to create the tools to create better tools. But if you just work on the tools you will never get anything done."

"Yeah." Junko closed the last case and stored the three into her Sylladex. "Did you get any updates on the underground hero?"

"Yeah," Mila's tone was a copy of Junko, making the later frown at the felyne. "I set an interview with him at the office in about a week, I would say that's more than enough for you to reinforce anything your paranoid mind may need in that place."

"You say paranoid, but I say it's just being prepared." Junko huffed playfully.

"Well, can't really blame you, the news had been having a lot of anger pushed by the Humans First group." Mila checked her omni-tool, bringing up a set of news videos showing the large manifestations of the group. "And they are not all quirkless, there's been a growing subgroup that's mostly formed by people with low level mutations and low powered quirks that are blaming the other quirked people for their problems.

"It doesn't help they keep using a lot of testimonies of people wronged by quirk users, and the hate's easy to feed, that's how they've been growing so fast."

"It's becoming more and more worrisome."

"Yeah, but I don't think they will last long, they are growing too fast. Right now they are all aiming together at the idea of hating people with quirks or better yet strong quirks. But sooner or later they will start to fracture."

"While I wish they would fall apart peacefully it will all explode, no?" Junko thought out loud.

"More likely, but if I can see it then heroes must already be working on it." Mila replied.

The pair kept talking as they got to the train station, heading in the direction of the Academy Ryuto and the other two studied.

"Wanna make a bet?" Mila grinned.

"I want to say no, but I want to at least hear it."

"What would you bet there will be at least one teacher there curious about what you made?"

"I would bet a handheld item you wanted." Junko hummed "Yeah, I will take it, but I bet there will be at least ten other students interested in seeing my work."

"Both are so obvious in a way, but that's the fun. What do you want me to bet?"

"No idea," Junko laughed. "I'm sure I will find something later, don't worry, I would never ask anything too big of you especially when you are already doing so much for me."

Mila smiled as Junko looked out of the window, seeing some of the Humans First smaller groups on the street, the situation was definitely growing out of control quicker than anyone expected.

Soon the train reached their station, the pair getting off and walking down the streets to the Academy's campus, the place was well maintained. Nothing outstanding like U.A.'s massive H-shaped building. But it was certainly well cared for and spacious.

Mila and Junko approached the secretary near the entrance, presented themselves and asked directions for the training hall. The woman at the desk took their identification and made them wait in the perfect way only someone at a front desk can before sending them deeper into the building.

"She makes me remember this woman I knew back in the merchants' guild, she could demurely ask you to wait for a week and she wouldn't lose a second of sleep. And pray you didn't make her angry at you or you would never get what you wanted in any workable time span."

Junko snorted at Mila's comment as they too reached the door's for the training arena.

"Ready?" Mila asked.

"Completely. Let's impress them."

Chapter 17: Interlude Ryuto

Chapter Text

Chapter 17 – Interlude Ryuto

"Calm down already." Grunted his friend Fuon to his more excitable friend Darma.

"She's right," Ryuto spoke, trying to mediate between the pair. "I'm excited too and I had my costume for a week, I can't wait to see what she improved."

That's when the doors of the arena opened, the pair of women he had come to relate to support equipment came in.

"Junk, Mila, glad you didn't make us wait any longer, or I would have to have hit this jerk around to calm him." Fuon spoke, the comment making the pair chuckle.

"I'm glad to hear we could help in stopping the brain damage he would get, I doubt there's enough left in there for him to graduate." Mila grinned as she joined in the teasing.

"They are barely here and already against me?! Give me a break, I will calm down, but I know you wanted them to get here as much as me." Darma pouted and dropped his arms, looking defeated.

"Don't tease the poor boy, Mila, and yes, I got the stuff, so don't worry, you will be all soon playing with your new toys." Ryuto had to do a double take as Junk had placed three cases with their names visible on each "I have taken a few liberties here and there, but I promise everything's perfect."

Ryuto could only ignore everything as he grabbed his costume case and opened it to check its contents.

"Once again, Junk, thank you very much for your work." Ryuto spoke honestly.

"You can thank me by getting changed into it and let me see it used properly." Junko replied to him as Mila chuckled by her side.

Ryuto could only nod and take the costume case to the changing room, Fuon and Darma were soon going into the other rooms to change too.

Soon it was Cape Kappa who came out first, he noticed the difference while he put it on. To start it seemed Junk had added a cape made of water, he wondered how she had managed to make it look like flowing water while keeping the shape, he was sure it would billow properly in the wind.

It also felt much stronger than before, he couldn't stop himself from running the tip of his fingers along the scale design over his chest.

He turned to see Shieldtoise come out, she was fidgeting with the armor plates along her arms. He had to admit they fit her perfectly, it was like they had always been there and she just had forgotten to put them on before. She looked ready to take any blow and she hadn't even shifted.

Exchange was the last, if Shieldtoise had been fidgeting with her armor plates the skinnier of the trio kept pushing on the braces on his arms and calves.

"Looks like you are all enjoying the new threads." Mila's voice snapped the trio and made them look up and only now notice that a couple of their teachers had been talking with Junk and a good number of students were sitting and chatting, obviously waiting for them to try their costumes.

Ryuto felt self-conscious for a moment before he straightened his back, feeling the costume help him keep a perfect posture. He noticed his two friends also taking a much straighter posture. It was a learned practice. Even if not taught till the second year of training.

"Okay, you three are now dressed and equipped. Let me explain about them." Junko started speaking before he approached him first. "Cape Kappa, your costume is called the River Skin, and before you ask, no idea if other support equipment providers name their work. It's just these have been an experience for me as much as they will be for you three.

"As you have noticed, the cape's like flowing water, and nothing will be able to grab it, it won't snag or tear and will keep it's form even under hard circumstances while also protecting you against things like fire and electricity. The control for the moisture is still in the same place on the belt, but added secondary controls on your pinkie fingers, you see the rings? You can twist them easily without having to reach for your belt. I would suggest keeping it hidden and use the belt control as long as possible."

The woman kept her serious attitude as she walked to his male teammate.

"Exchange, your costume pushed me in the design of it, I had to provide a place to put the kinetic energy batteries while keeping most of the costume unarmored so you could absorb the punches. I had to use a special alloy of kevlar, it's been dropped because of a massive problem, while it stops and resists most types of damage it's terrible in stopping blunt damage, which in your case, it's pretty much a good thing. Now the bracers and chest piece.

"While not indestructible, they have been made to take the hits, and will absorb all types of energy, and I mean all, it turned to be easier to not restrict what they could absorb. The restriction has to do with the lower limit they will absorb, so while they will feel cold to the touch you won't get frostbite from using them. Each piece can hold a lot of energy, but I would suggest not trying to use them to stop explosions, though you can use them to store energy you absorbed by punching them. Each piece has a maximum output of about twenty percent of what you have told me was your maximum and a cool-down of about five seconds to prevent accidents."

Ryuto was surprised how much Junk could speak about her craft, he imagined that most people were similar in matters they were interested in, like Exchange and food, Shieldtoise and animal carvings, like Exchange and snacks, like his grandmother and the rain, like Exchange and…

"I aimed for safety on the bracers, they will start to glow if you are reaching 80% of the max charge, so keep an eye and try to discharge them and store them somewhere cold or at least under room temperature. I will try to add an off on the energy soaking for next version but wasn't completely needed yet. Your costume's been named Retribution."

The woman turned and walked to his female friend. Shieldtoise looked almost scared of how much Junk could speak and explain her creations.

"Shieldtoise, your costume was the most fun one, as you noticed it's also the more armored one, it's also been treated so you can shift while using it, it shouldn't impede your movement while transformed, go ahead, I'm sure you've been wanting to do it already."

His friend looked a little uncomfortable before calming down and nodding as she started to shift. Contrary to maybe most witnesses thought that would happen, her costume didn't rip and tear, instead it expanded with her figure, the back of her costume stretching to keep a hold of her growing shell.

She was soon cutting a much more threatening figure, standing nearly two meters and a half high and over two meters wide. The armored plates in her arms had expanded to maintain the level of cover they had over her untransformed body, the collar armor had expanded to cover every millimeter of the skin of her neck while not influencing the movement of her head. Shieldtoise was certainly amazed by the work.

"I see you like it. It was hard but worth it. The alloy in the armored plate should be even stronger than Exchange's bracers and chest piece, they are meant to take every type of damage and resist it, I would have used them for his equipment but as you can feel, they certainly weigh a considerable amount.

"For the gravity control I took a similar set up to Kappa's own. There's a dial on your belt, just in case yours have been reinforced, plus there's the two rings on your fingers, see if you can reach them without problems." Junk's comment made Shieltoise give the ring on her left pinkie a flip with her thumb, instantly her figure straightened more as the mat on the ground visible stopped sinking as heavily as before. "Well, that looks good, how does it feel? It should be able to cut your weight down to a tenth at most, but I recommend training with it slowly and finding the sweet spots.

"It's completely variable but if you feel the need I will change it to a ten point system with ten percent increments."

Cape Kappa watched his female classmate bounce in place each time she slowly switched the control on her belt. Each jump bringing her a bit higher without hitting the ground harder.

"This is amazing," He can hear the joy in her voice at being able to move while transformed. "Oh-woah!" Of course she soon was too light and the bouncing sent her rolling when she fell wrong. Inciting a laugh out of Exchange.

"It's good you didn't eat lunch before coming here, Mila." The male hero laughed as even Kappa had to cover his mouth to hide the smile at the funny accident.

"I will show you about keeping your lunch." She increased her weight enough to move quickly and punch Exchange right on the stomach. Of course he barely moved besides reaffirming his posture.

"Careful there, Shield, I barely felt that." He giggled as the bracer on his leg seemed to activate as the visual cues of his quirk traveled up his leg before he used the energy to quickly jump over her and smack the back of the female hero.

"Already getting into the fun without me?" Cape Kappa grinned and turned the dial on his belt, increasing the moisture under his suit, feeling his quirk activate.

The Hero jumped forward, catching Exchange before he fell to the ground and flinging him high up.

"Wait, please, not that." The teenager screamed in-flight as Shieldtoise used her new gained freedom of movement to rush over to the landing area.

"Sorry Exchange, you seem to have offered yourself for today's testing exercise." She grinned with joy and playfulness in her voice as she caught the smaller of the heroes as he fell, doing a full rotation with her body and swinging him back up.

All while Exchange flew through the air, in reach for Kappa to fling him back.

"Once I'm down," he screamed. "You two will pay," He flew in the other direction. "for thisssssss."

Exchange soon seemed to remember the use of his new equipment, activating the four bracers to release their max output and using the energy to quickly reverse Kappa's hold and fling him up instead.

"Tally ho!" He laughed at the reversal as he watched him fly and get caught by the female student.

"Okay kids, come back, there's still more in those babies you are wearing. You can go play with them once we are done talking." Junk called the three of them back. "Now, before you three decided to test the suits to the extreme, there's a few things I added to the three costumes."

The woman walked closer to him and Kappa couldn't stop himself from blushing, which brought a grin to Exchange's face, when she put her hand on his neck.

"The three of them have a set of automatic face shields." As she said that she pressed a soft button he now could feel along the side of his jaw, it made a very transparent light blue film appear over his face. "These have been designed to hold fifteen to thirty minutes of fresh air depending on how worked up you are. They will stop about anything under the pressure of water down to about ninety meters. That means that they will stop most liquid projectiles unless they have a pretty high speed or solidity.

"They will also refill the internal air storage in place with fresh air. That means that if you are near a fire it wont work, I'm sorry, there's little I can do at the moment without making it a lot bulkier."

A little scream made Kappa turn around and see Exchange's surprised face as Shieldtoise had sprayed his face with the contents of a water bottle, the face shield was a lot more visible in his case as the water ran quickly down.

"Great, and example, as you can see the surface's near friction-less, so you won't have to wipe it, just let it run off the surface, it will be safer in most cases too. The material of the suit will survive stuff a lot rougher than your hands would.

"One last thing you may have noticed, I added the JE on each of the costumes, it's small and shouldn't affect your image, but if you want, I will remove it. No charge, it should take a couple hours at most to go back, do it and return them so you can go out and kick ass."

The three of them looked at each other, their joined training covering the need to actually speak out loud before the three spoke at the same time.

"Leave it/Keep it/ I love it."

Junko blushed and smiled before giving them a low murmur of thank you.

"Okay kids, I'm sure you kids would like to get to work those new costumes, so leave the woman and go train them till you drop." The severe voice of their classroom teacher brought them all back to attention.

Ryuto let himself break from the hero's mask to look around. The other teacher was currently talking with Mila as his classroom teacher had turned to talk with Junk. The rest of the students watching the demonstration were now talking quite loudly about their new costumes.

Ryuto was sure Junko would be soon getting a lot more orders after this. He wished her well, he would be doing her clothes justice by going out and keeping people safe.

"Come on Kappa, or are you growing old and decrepit already?" Exchange's voice pulled his attention back to their training.

"Sorry, I was trying to see if I noticed any difference in the new costume." He fibbed. "How're yours?"

"Excellent," Shieldtoise replied with a smile. "I've only dreamed about moving like this while shifted." She jumped and flipped forward, closing her body into a ball before falling back onto her fit and keeping the run going.

"Never felt this full of energy, especially the ability to store some for later will change how I do things a lot." Exchange added. "Totally worth every coin."

"Told you she was good-"

"Pff, she was recommended by your grandmother, Kappa, we had all the rights to not believe you at first." Exchange cut him.

"Shut up Exchange, or better yet, eat my dust." Kappa turned his dial to the max, coating his body under the costume completely with water and pushing it to the limit before running ahead of the other too. Laughing wildly at the sensation of speed.

Chapter 18

Chapter Text

Chapter 18

Junko stood in front of her finished Recycling Station. The machine was the size of a small van and similarly shaped.

She hadn't reworked it completely. Aiming to simply rework the smaller internals helped by her new masterwork perk. Each small piece had been crafted through the use of her alchemy into works of art.

When a perk made anything she did at least a masterwork, meant that if you put the normal amount of effort you ended with works nearing supernatural levels of quality. The effect extended even to her programming and taking her time checking her previous work had marked a lot of errors that would have brought down the efficiency.

"So it's done? You know bringing this out will affect your image, no?" Mila spoke from Junko's side. "Right now we have a solid image of a small support equipment company. If this machine works, and I'm not saying it wont, means you will reach for technology development and people's expectations will change a lot."

"I know, being just a support company could have worked early on, but my knowledge's so big that just keeping it to myself and working in secret's nearly impossible." Junko sighed. "I mean, I don't doubt I could have kept it all inside, never taken anything out of the warehouse. Scrounge for the samples and use the facilities here to provide myself with the needed materials. But it feels really stingy.

"I'm not a hero, I won't go out and fight crime personally. For me the whole quirk side of hero business feels disgusting. But if I can help people who want to be a hero and can look past quirks? I will give my all, and if I can ease society a bit by providing technology that will help with dealing with things like the overflowing scrapyards? This," she patted the RS. "will help too."

"Glad to hear you are serious then, have you tried it?"

"Of course I did, what kind of hack do you think I am?" Junko huffed. "It works perfectly with anything the scrapyard should have. It has a few strange reactions to hybrid materials created through the Alchemiter and enchanted stuff. But I have programmed a block in the machine to not try and recycle that kind of stuff."

"Sounds like a good idea, any other restrictions?" Mila asked as she looked around the machine, given Junko's skills it was pleasing to the eye no matter where you looked at it from.

"Yeah, a few restrictions that I deemed needed." She checked her omni-tool, bringing up a list in front of her. "The intake and output speeds are throttled, mostly to hide the fact it could recycle about two blocks of materials in a day easily. It's restricted to always have connection to my omni-tool and I have admin rights on it working. I have installed a controlled process through which it should destroy everything useful inside by burning the little bit of Eezo it uses. That process should contain all the particles to prevent danger and hopefully anyone who forces me to use it won't get anything from it."

Mila had to whistle softly "You know, I always thought that designing things with obvious self-destruct systems was only done by villains in movies. But when it means stopping people from getting their hands on your work."

"Well, in this case, it's not obvious and only I can do it." Junko chuckled. "But yes, I could have put a large red button with a sign that says 'Do not touch'."

Junko had to stop when she felt her power fill another charge and reach four, it had been a while since she had gotten a charge. It had happened before so she had been getting charges during her sleep and there had been no option to take or something else was at work.

Feeling the sources prod for her attention she looked at what was to choose.

The first was eight charges, even with her four she was half way there and wouldn't be able to choose it, she remembered having seen it before, it was related to technology, robots and time.

The second option was two charges, it was related to refining and strengthening of aspects of things she created.

The third was a single charge and Junko was pretty sure it was related to her robotics and engineering knowledge, it was all about physical sciences.

Both possible options were tempting, one would bring her closer to understanding a lot of things, each perk having to do with that knowledge filled more empty spaces, but physical sciences weren't that useful for her. The other option was also interesting but she hadn't dwelled in smithing till now, always keeping herself to more magical crafts or technological ways.

Before the lack of choice Junko decided to go for the middle option, paying the two charge cost and taking the perk. She quickly understood half of the equation. The skill provided a very basic understanding of smithing, the art of shaping metal into weapons and armors. It also provided the knowledge of how to work the metal to bring certain aspects of the weapons.

It was also a very slow work, or it would at first, but even once she familiarized with the ins and outs of the skill, this version of blacksmithing would take time to get the work done. It was all, a refining process and those worked usually by extended repetition.

Shrugging at it she brought her attention back to reality, Mila gave her an acknowledging nod before Junko captchalogued the RS into a card and stored it into her Sylladex. Her skill in storing items had been growing with constant use, it was becoming easier to store larger items and she had gained an innate knowledge of what was stored and where.

It was strangely tempting to change the Fetch Modus to a more exotic one, but at the end they were more problematic than the experience was worth and she gave up the notion.

"Given it's so early I will be heading back to sleep," Mila yawned. "I wish you a good day."

The felyne retreated back to bed as Junko wished her a good rest before heading out to work. The sun was barely peeking out, it was two months into spring and growing closer to summer, meaning that it was pretty early.

The trip over to the yard was calmer than normal. Barely any people in the street, most still asleep in their beds, and if Junko's own bed wasn't enchanted she would have liked to still be in hers.

The nice crisp temperature of the morning was certainly helping stay awake as she entered the scrapyard and headed deeper, looking around to make sure the RS wouldn't be seen from the outside before deploying the large machine on the ground. She turned on her omni-tool and started the set up process.

The machine worked perfectly, Junko smiled as the RS purred like a kitten as it turned on. Which was an added feature, because having it be completely silent was unnerving and considered dangerous. The woman hummed softly as she looked around and started to throw some small loose pieces of scrap that were around as a first test before she dragged over a much larger fridge and tipped it into the machine's large input slot.

The machine easily took the load and started to work in breaking it down, removing the oxygen from the rust and releasing it as harmless gas while the rest of the materials were sorted and outputted on the other side.

It was strange for Junko to see the RS outside of her workshop. The machine looked like a solid van without wheels. Her mixed design skills had come to make a very eye-pleasing structure that easily conveyed its use, it was like an incredibly upscaled and upgraded wood chipper.

Just that it would take most non-organic materials and break them down into its base materials while removing the rust. Metals were outputted in small hundred grams bars while plastic was dropped in small bags of 1 kilogram pellets.

Given her research these were the easiest ways to reuse the materials. As the small metal fragments were easy to store and melt again while the plastic pellets were practically indistinguishable from those used by companies for plastic productions.

Junko turned and waved to Sansui when she saw her boss come in and walk closer.

"So this is the machine, I must say it looks a lot better than I was worrying about." He joked.

"If you are going to do something, do it good." Junk retorted, she was glad she hadn't remade the RS' case or it would be looking a tad better.

"Heh, so how does it work?"

"It's simply, you push the scrap here," she points to the large input slot. "It can take about a hundred and fifty kilograms of materials every five to ten minutes depending on how complex they are."

Junko walked to the output and picked up the recycled materials, hiding the shiver from another charge filling but having no option in her reach she let it pass.

"As you can see, metal or glass is shaped into these little bars, each has been marked with the material they were iron, copper, steel, aluminum, gold or other metals, glass will be turned into clear crystal and plastic," she picked one of the pellet bags. "Set in an easy to use form and packed in more of the same material."

"Okay Junk, you have outdone yourself with this. I doubt any recycling plant has anything as good at this." Sansui checked the machine before he tried to throw some scraps to watch it work. "Any chance you can explain to me how it works?"

"Excuse me boss, but do you have an understanding of advanced physics and the use of zero-g for smelting proposes?" Junko's tone was playful. "But yeah, I could explain it but I don't think you would be able to understand it sir, besides to say it takes stuff, melts it in the void inside in such a way the materials are separated and then reshaped by the use of gravity wells to cool down and produce the materials.

"I mean, there's more there, but I think you can understand that it will be just strange jargon as I'm sure a few of the processes don't even have proper names."

"That I can understand, I was never a tech-guy, so I will leave that to you brain-types." He snorted softly.

"Thanks boss. I guess you already have set up a way to get done with this stuff, no?"

"One way? Kid, I could offer this as a service to anyone and it would sell like hot bread." The man snorted as he watched the RS take large amounts of small scrap one piece after the other. "Safeties?"

"It won't take anything organic above a certain size, so dirt and bugs will go in and most likely just get burnt but it would stop working for anything bigger than fist-sized animal. It will also stop working and warn me if it's moved from here by someone else." The comment made Sansui nod at the decision. "That and a few other small things that were chosen mostly for efficiency."

"Sounds like you really are a smart cookie, kid. Good work, I will go see to get the best offer you see to get a good amount done."

"Gotcha, Boss." Junko grinned before fixing her gloves before starting to feed the RS with scrap, setting a large container on the other side to catch the recovered material.

She started to go into a zen state, slowly breaking down larger objects before feeding them to the RS, piece by piece, an average of a hundred kilos each five minutes.

One point two tons every hour, it felt strangely slow even as a day of work with stops for lunch and change the container cleared about eight tons of material that till now had been just standing there.

It was just about four cars when you compared the weights, but it was four cars worth of material that was ready to reuse, no need to clean the metal, remove the dirt, rust, paint or have to separate the parts. Only a minimum amount was lost in the process.

"I have to say," Sansui spoke as they started to close for the day, watching Junko turn the RS off and cover it with a tarp. "I never imagined something like this was possible, do you think you could make it faster? Or maybe more?"

"With the amount of info I have gotten from having it working all day? I can already see more than a few ways to improve its work." She finished fixing down the last part of the tarp. "I could easily increase this one's output tomorrow now that I know it won't have problems, but I imagine that next version will easily double if not triple the speed of the process."

Sansui hummed appreciatively at the comment, making some mental calculations.

"Yes, with that you wouldn't take much to empty this place down and make a fortune." The man looked at Junko. "You know that I can't just pass this type of profit, right? I will need to pay you for this kind of work."

"It's okay boss. I've told you already, I don't need the money right now." her comment only made Sansui snort.

"You don't get it kid. A scrapyard basically sells the service of buying scrap for normal people and reselling it in larger quantities to recycling companies. Then they process the scrap and sell the material to the companies for use. What your recycling station does is remove the recycling company step altogether.

"That means we can sell the materials directly. Junko, scrap's worth a tenth of the already processed materials. Just what you put through the machine today's equal to ten times the weight in scrap, and people will want virgin metals than rusted scrap."

Junko blushed at the tone her boss had when talking about it.

"I see. I think I was thinking too hard about the development of the RS and helping here more than what it meant." Junko had to look away to hide her blush. "I will keep it in mind. From your professional experience, what do you think I should change for the next version?"

"First, make sure the output slot is higher, that way it can drop it directly into a truck. If the height can be calibrated even better.

"See if you can have different sizes for the output material, it would be useful to sometimes output larger sizes of metal.

"Last, the purring's nice, keep it."

Junko had to snort at his last comment.

"Gotcha boss, will keep it in mind." She smiled at the man, noticing he still had that calculating look.

"Have a good time, Junko, see you tomorrow."

Chapter 19

Chapter Text

Chapter 19

It was when Junko got home that her well of power filled once more and she received the now comfortable choice of power growth. Strangely, even with four charges, there was only one option available to her. And honestly, she was a bit tired after a day of hard work, so she gave herself the guilty pleasure of just accepting the only choice available.

The skill was worth two charges and reduced her stores to half. The perk acquired was quite interesting, it would help her design, specifically, it allowed her to design technology that was both robust as any solid system and versatile as any modular one. Keeping the best parts of both paradigms. It wasn't instantaneous, but she could already see ways she could do something like that with the RS as she had been thinking about it on the way home.

She could already see a few easy changes by adding things like modular intake and output, letting the user customize how the RS would work interactions with other things. Like her boss had said, let the output's height be adjustable to make it easy for a truck to load the materials. The input could also be adjustable for a conveyor belt to feed the machine directly.

She could also see a set up for multiple outputs with each one only producing a type of material. That could certainly make the sorting much easier, but certainly wasn't a really important aspect of construction.

Junko greeted Mila while still deep in thought, walking into the warehouse and heading directly to the lockers, snatching the now growing collection of futuristic guns and armors/suits. Easily carrying them all in her Sylladex and heading directly to the workshop.

"All the old paintings on the tomb They do the sand dance don't you know?" Junko's humming started to give her lyrics, the quality of her voice significantly better than before. "If they move too quick (oh whey oh) They're falling down like a domino" She now could see the patterns much better.

Junko grabbed the Laser Pistol she had acquired so long ago, it felt forever ago, and it had only been about a month. She placed the gun on the table, letting her hand easily start pulling it apart, it was more than just her original scrapping skill, she knew about modular design before. But now it was so clear.

The micro-fusion battery on a side, the capacitor on another, next came the barrel, the grip, the muzzle and finally the sights. Each part unique in their design and use but obviously made to fit together, be easily interchangeable for other variants while lasting.

Junko's understanding of engineering told her this laser pistol should last decades if not centuries with little amount of actual maintenance. Her new skill picked up the designs, letting her see the important parts that made the design's modularity work and Junko felt silly for not seeing it before.

Change the barrel for a longer one, the grip for a full stock, the capacitor for a quick charging one and you had turned this laser pistol into a slightly downgraded rifle gun. Or maybe the muzzle to turn it into a shotgun. It was so easy now that she could see how.

She quickly started to run a full maintenance on the pieces, her careful work bringing the basic pieces into the upper limit in quality for such mass produced parts. Putting the pistol back together felt easier than taking it apart. She quickly stored it and put it to a side as she proceeded to pull the hard suit that had come with the other futuristic pistol, the M3-Predator.

Her power came easier, telling her it was an Initiative Armor, she wondered what the initiative was for, but she actually had a pretty good idea given the knowledge of the Andromeda Galaxy that existed in her omni-tool.

The hard suit didn't have as many parts as the laser pistol, but she could recognize certain parts definitely being more individual, the arms, the helmet, the chest place and the legs, even being two parts both arms worked together while the chest dealt with different aspects of its process.

Each part of the suit could be upgraded individually while keeping the whole group working perfectly well. It was in some ways an easier idea than the pistol, the parts weren't connected while the gun formed a single object.

She opened and checked every part of the hard suit, something she now blamed herself for not doing before she had opened it to take the Eezo for her other projects, all she had done was replace said material once she had managed to produce enough. Now she checked the systems, one by one.

She could see how the Eezo was used for a barrier that would stop kinetic projectiles, given that the gun paired with the suit worked by flinging small bits of metal at high speed it was easy to see why their technology had developed this way. Placing the hard suit on a near mannequin was easy as she moved to the space suit provided along with her hangar.

It was halfway between the hard-suit, lacking the outright armor plates, jump jets and the personal shield, and the flight suit, the later not having any kind of safety against the void of space or the life support. But it was also designed like the flight suit for really high speed flights, keeping the pilot from passing out from the high-G acceleration.

The space and flight suit weren't modular, but she could easily apply the modular ideas of the hard suit to them as a way to improve, though she had no real reason. She proceeded to place the suits next to the first, each one on a mannequin with her body shape.

Finally the mass altering pistol, it was also modular, albeit to a lesser degree, having more to do with possible modifications added to the gun and effects that could be applied to the ammo.

It was also, like the other gun she had, terribly lethal, and there's little to nothing she could do to erase that fact. The only thing she thought could be the spell cards. Another forgotten project of hers. Maybe she should revisit it now that she understood magic much better.

"Hey, are you okay?" Mila's voice broke Junko's daze.

"...eh? Oh! Oh yeah, just…" She sighed and turned away from the table to look at her partner. "Yeah, I think the last perk hit me a bit too hard, it was a strange wake up call to realize I've been ignoring some pretty obvious stuff."

"It's what they say, 'Hindsight is twenty-twenty'" The cat purred and hopped onto a clear patch on the worktable. "Junko, you've been working hard thing after thing since I came here, and you are doing great. It's not fair to blame yourself from missing something that now appears to be obvious."

Junko sighed "You are right, it's just…" She gently slapped her cheeks. "Yeah, you are right, I shouldn't whine about missing stuff when I get new stuff thrown at my head all the time."

"That's the way, so anything new?"

"Perfect modular and robust design."

"Sounds prettya useful."

"It is," Junko huffed. "And I should have noticed I could been using it earlier."

Mila had to laugh at the situation "You haven't been the first or will be the last pawson to do that, Junko, let it go, and use what you realized from now on."

Junk had to thank her friend to be a voice of reason. And it felt petty to bother about it when she was doing so well.

"Okay, okay, I think I will start to work on a better RS, I need to aim to make the next version visibly better while not too much." She shook her head. "Now I know how printer companies feel."

"You are spoiled for choice, Junko. But you are also not on a time limit besides those you put on yourself. So take it easy, tomorrow's weekend, so ready to put the office in shape before we get the meeting with Eraser Head?"

"Yeah, I don't see a problem with that, I should build the pylons for the security system, but making one and multiplying it will be easy with the Alchemiter."

"Sounds like a plan then, I will leave you to that and go notify the man."

Junko thanked Mila once more for her pep talk and went to grab some of the gold and silver she had created along with some obsidian they had acquired from a small chunk sold as a pretty rock.

The process of enchanting a three dimensional pattern would normally be difficult, either working in layers and consolidating the parts or carving into the body of the piece.

All this was thrown out of the window once her alchemy came into place, her skill with it had grown leaps and bounds after a month of near constant use, specially aiming for more complex constructions.

She placed the large chunk of obsidian, the black volcanic glass was rough, originally created from upscaled images of the original, small piece. Next to the crystal she placed similar amounts of gold and silver sand, the weights calculated prior and only aiming slightly above to cover any possible error.

Then she put both hands down on the circle and activated the process, the same red rust colored energy lighted up from the circle. She went slow at it, putting all her control and skill to work as the materials slowly started to shift, the two piles of precious metallic sand melted down with no heat.

From the pair of yellow and gray reflective pools small rivers started to flow to the obsidian crystal that hadn't remained the same. It had started to shift, rising into a perfect octagonal prism. The two rivers of melted metal reached the base and seeped into the crystal, slowly swimming up.

The amount of light letting the growing designs be visible inside the dark crystal body. Drawing complex designs that would mean nothing for normal people. For her she could see the shadow of what they would be. Like a connect-the-dots game for children, she could mentally draw the lines between the dots and see the real image.

In this case the dots were the metal figures and the lines would be her power once she infused it to empower the runes. Her advancement into three dimensional runes was a huge success, but she had barely scratched the surface of this field.

The only other thing she had managed were the more repetitive batteries she had put in Exchange's bracers and chest piece.

In this case, their use was a lot more complex. To begin with the pylon would only be a fourth of the real design, only with four pylons the enchantment would work. It was intrinsic of the design, four identical parts working to do more than each part by itself could.

Four identical parts summed that gave you more than four times more. They would create a wall similar to a mass effect kinetic shield, catching anything above certain level of energy, different from a kinetic shield, this would also stop energy discharges.

Second it would draw attention away from the pylons, keeping anyone looking for them just looking everywhere else but on the corners of the barrier.

Third and last, and what she actually felt more proud of. If the barrier was crossed would send her an update to her omni-tool. She had been ecstatic when she had managed this bit of magitech. She did cheat a bit, since the pylons didn't tell her omni-tool directly, but first sent a warning to a different pylon that used a copy of her omni-tool to warn hers, but it worked and was nearly impossible to deter. Unless there was some exotic quirk out there, and given the quirk actually came to be responsible she would accept you couldn't cover everything.

Junko watched the metal finish flowing into the obsidian pylon, the light produced by the alchemical circle slowly die down before she reached and picked up the fifty centimeter tall piece. She was actually glad to have achieved something between tacky and simply decorative. Without the strong light from the alchemical circle the gold and silver was near invisible inside the crystal.

She quickly took a picture of it with the captcharoid camera and created three more duplicates. Each one identical to the first and since they hadn't been actually enchanted they were just a strange set of decorations with precious metals inside.

She quickly stored the four copies into her Sylladex and turned to her other project.

It was early on the next day when Junko got to the office. Looking around to make a quick list of all she should see to fix. She started by placing a pylon in each corner of the room, the design didn't need them to be facing in a specific way. She could have added it for a considerable increase in power, but having to calculate the moon positioning and having the problem of even a degree of error bringing the whole thing down was too much of a risk.

Pylons placed she pulled walked to the corner that was less visible from the windows and started charging the runes inside the object. It didn't take long till the other three were also glowing significantly before with a snap they all connected properly and started running. They could run alone for nearly a year unless taxed, but just in case Junko had added an upgraded version of the drain feature she had designed for Exchange's costume.

It had the added benefit that it would keep the office just slightly chill all year. In Junko's opinion, heat could go screw itself, they would save on the AC with this.

With the security working, obviously after using the omni-tool's more stealthy scan to make sure there's no cameras or microphones in the office. Plus the use of the always practical invention of a set of curtains. Junko got to work, using her omni-tool to create the alchemical circles she had per-programmed into the piece of equipment. Having perfectly drawn formulas made it real easy to reinforce and fix all the problems her skilled eye let her see.

The floor was lined with an experimental alloy that Mila had managed to get, it was restrictively expensive to create through normal means, only a handful of quirks could do it and in no ways in quantities large enough for normal use. That restriction didn't exist when you had access to an Alchemiter, the machine could easily reproduce the alloy for barely above the cost of the base metals being barely above a base material.

Her Alchemy let her thread the alloy just below the floor and into the walls and ceiling, creating another layer of defense for their office. The windows were removed and replaced with perfectly clear material that was actually a reinforced transparent metal created through the same alchemy machine.

She also replaced the furniture, her skill covering just enough of the pieces construction that she could follow the steps and create couches, chairs, desk and bookcases of excellent quality but no special design. She was okay with that. Mostly she aimed to have them reinforced and enchanted to prevent breakage and increase comfort.

Work done she smiled, the office only looked slightly different, but the quality had increased overall. Junko finished sending Mila a message of her completion before closing the place and heading back home for dinner and sleep. Soon her first 'true' hero would be meeting them, she wondered if he was ready for her kind of insanity.

Chapter 20

Chapter Text

Chapter 20

"So how are things going over at the Scrapyard?" Mila asked from her spot on the couch.

"Pretty well, the second machine's output is about ten times the first one and we are still using the older one." Junko explained as she leaned forward on the desk as she talked with her friend. "Boss' already contacting over scrapyards to deal with their stuff as ours' already quickly emptying, nearly half has been processed and shipped out."

"That's nyace to hear."

"It's so strange to see the place so empty. It's always been filled with piles of metal floors high. I remember it was that way even before I started working. And now we have started to finally reduce all of it. And it's all done cleanly too, no chemical processes, no large ovens. When Sansui gave an approximate ten times in profit was an incredible underestimation from his part."

"I see, then if he need helps, tell him I will gladly help for a small amount." Mila purred and gave her a kitty smile, making Junko snort.

"I'm pretty sure he has it in hand, but I will pass him your number if he wants an extra pair of skilled paws."

"I'm sure it will be a nice pawrtnership."

The pair talked as they waited for their customer. Nearly a month and a half since Junko had gotten chosen by the Celestial Forge, barely a month more since Mila had come to join her.

By now Junko felt that the Felyne had always been a friend, and a very good one at that. Mila had managed to expedite a few minor patents for technologies Junko had put together from her knowledge in engineering and robotics.

Nothing groundbreaking. But a few advances that would be easy to prove as cheaper and more effective than current levels of technology would net them some steady income as it was and would most likely be used to improve the general technology level.

Junko's extensive and growing knowledge had highlighted the strange fact that technology was strangely stagnated in most fields while some others were quickly developing but surely close to plateauing too. She had snorted and felt strangely justified when she saw that it was only the field on quirk the one really developing.

Still, Junko had provided a few avenues to restart development outside of quirk study and development of related fields. They had managed to patent a new design of processor that was both cheaper and more powerful than the current mass produced one. A more efficient way to process steel from iron. And a cleaner and longer lasting design for batteries.

All that besides patenting the RS prototype and model 1. Not that she thought someone would be able to copy or steal it. The piece of magitech needed skills no one in the world besides her had.

The pair was snapped out of their discussion by the door being knocked, that was a lie, only Mila was surprised, Junko had been keeping an eye on people coming into the building thanks to a couple cameras she had hacked in the outside of the office building.

"Come in." Junko called out loud, the door opening and a tall man with messy black hair walked into the office "Welcome, I'm Junko Tetsu, and this is my partner Mila Smirnow, you talked with her before." Mila gave the man a slight nod in greeting.

"Hello, I'm Eraser Head, but as I'm outside of costume you can call me Aizawa Shota," the man looked around a bit, his eyes sliding right over the security pylons which made Junko grin internally. "the place looks different than what I remember."

"You were connected to the events four years ago?" Mila asked.

"Hmm, yes but only tangentially. I had been investigating the group that used this same office back then before the vigilante attack." Aizawa make way to the couch and sat down.

"Interesting coincidence." Junko nodded. "Anyways, welcome to our office, we are Junk Emporium, and don't let our name fool you, we deal with support equipment, from hero costumes to general or customized equipment."

"I must say that while I didn't find anything at first from your company, Ms Tetsu. You have managed in a short time to achieve a solid image in your work."

"Please, call me Junk, and it's thanks mostly to Mila, she's really good and a bloodthirsty beast in the market." The woman snorted as the Felyne chuckled.

"Don't underestimate me, Ms Tetsu, I got the pleasure to work with the trio of young heroes you equipped." The man spoke with a steady and calm tone.

"But you had reached to us way before we even met a couple of them." Mila pointed out.

"Ms Smirnov, as an underground hero, the skill of information gathering is a must." As Aizawa spoke Junko pulled a notepad and started writing. "You initially attracted my attention when you appeared from nowhere, usually most support companies come from graduates from UA's support class or some of the other large academies, they develop from existing tech companies or hero companies develop their in-house support groups.

"You two came literally from nowhere. You, Ms Tetsu, are not even an engineering student but have been making jumps in tech development almost weekly on average.

"While I was mildly interested at first, and wanted to maybe forge a connection with a new and burgeoning support equipment. My attention wasn't really into it till I met the three students using your products."

"Well now," Junko had to lean back to hide the fact she felt her power reach another full charge and three options, strangely they were worth all the same, just a measly charge. "I think we are doing a good job if we managed to get the interest of such an experienced hero this quickly."

She gave the three options a quick look, they all appeared to be different flavors of workshops, one geared to mechanical construction, the other to technological and the last alchemical. It's a choice between covering something she didn't have or improve one of her already well developed fields.

At the end she went for the alchemical workshop and quickly put it out of her mind, it was definitely not the moment to check it out and she could look into it later, her power gave her enough information about it that she wasn't in a rush.

"I'm not the only one who's attention has been caught little lady." Aizawa's tone was quite serious, making Junko feel a slight chill go down her spine. "While the news hasn't caught it yet, I have plenty of evidence that people have noticed your recycling technology, you have to thank your feline friend from having patented it before people knew it or you would have ended with enough lawsuits that would need All Might to dig you out."

Junko had to gulpthank the pylons from keeping the room cold and her from sweating much more than she thought she would. She had heard the man was a strict teacher over at U.A. but it was only now she understood why they said that.

"But you are also doing the correct thing, in a way I think your role as provider of support equipment to heroes to keep them safe is a worthy cause, and sometimes much better than what some heroes in the top list do." The man's posture relaxed. "That's another reason I approached you, especially after seeing your work on those students.

"It's obvious you are smart and skilled, and not using your quirk, unless you found a way to develop it in some esoteric way."

Junko shook her head and grabbed a pencil before easily taking a bite out of it, the pencil not even cracking as the material softened under her teeth and was easily severed and swallowed.

"No, still the same thing, all my work's thanks to my skills and perks of the job."

"Then I can only tell you to keep the smart lady with you, she's been obviously helping keep you safe." Mila almost preened at his comment.

"I can understand your warning, Mr Aizawa," Junko tried to imitate the man's tone, leaning on her skills to manage the style of the front she was crafting. "you are a teacher and I imagine you have seen your share of people with power, in one form or another, and not being careful. I will be honest, I love to work with quirked people, but I hate what society has made of quirks." Her comment made the man raise an eyebrow. "People worship quirks, and that makes good heroes sometimes rely on them too much.

"I started this company with the idea of helping them, giving more tools to work with, showing them quirks aren't the end-all for problems." Aizawa seemed to accept her answer and smiled.

"I'm happy to hear that, part of me wishes more of my students could understand that." The man chuckled. "Just this year I had to expel my whole class, none of them had even an idea of what it meant to be a hero or the mentality for it. That's freed my time a lot more, at least till the Sports Festival, hopefully the kids who learned their lesson will be back and the ones who couldn't get initially in the hero course will be able to move in."

"Thank you for the feelings, now, returning to the subject you approached us." Junko smiled much easier now. "You were looking for support equipment, I have seen pictures of your costume and I can definitely see ways to improve its capabilities.

"I imagine I could start with a reinforcement of the material, it's not hard to achieve the same level of freedom you use for your work while making it more resistant. It will be interesting to work with a design that's not aimed to be tightly pressed against the body. But not especially hard since your current design's already pretty workable."

"I would like to keep the current look of my costume."

"I have no problem with that, I imagine being ten years into the job would make it hard to change your image.

"As for your capture scarf, while already a pretty useful support piece, there're plenty of ways to improve it. To start a similar reinforcement to the costume, that's easy and given the use I could easily make it even harder to break or cut. You use it for mobility, yes? Then I imagine a way to make it stretch and retract at will could be useful and surprising for villains. Lastly, I've been developing a numbing tech that could easily be included in the ends of the scarf to affect anyone who was wrapped with it. It's not outright paralysis, given the variety of quirks it's harder and more dangerous. It will obviously not work for every person, but should make restraining most people much easier."

Junko had to wipe a bit of sweat off her forehead, at first she wanted to blame the weather, it had been getting hotter and hotter as summer approaches, but the pylons had been doing a great job at draining the heat from the room.

"Mmmh, I would have to spend time retraining with it. But I don't see a problem with that."

"You use other equipment? We looked into it but besides your scarf we didn't find mentions of other items."

"I have used caltrops, flashbangs and similar before, and I do carry a knife with me for the utility." Aizawa listed.

Junko felt a slight weight on the back of her head but easily ignored it as she looked down at her notes, hiding it by lightly biting her lip and making it look like she was thinking.

"I don't think we can do much for the most generic items, the market version already covers pretty much all I could do with the caltrops without forcing you to have to pick them up after using them given the cost that would bring their constant use. Flashbangs fall under the same category, disposable support items tend to have that problem. Now with the knife I could do a bit more.

"I could easily turn the knife nearly unbreakable, given the kind of quirks on earth there's bound to be at least a couple capable of destroying anything. Have you used batons?"

"I have some experience with them, especially at first, but later on my career I moved away because they need me to get close to my targets."

"I've been working on a design for a way to make blunt weapons deal increased kinetic damage. I could add a dial to adjust how many times the hit's multiplied, but again, you will have to test it to get a hand on how it works."

"I would guess it's similar to what the young hero Exchange has?" Aizawa asked.

"Yes, in his case the equipment absorbs, stores and releases energy, the output's constant, in your case the energy released would be directly tied to the strength of the swing."

"I think that would be pretty useful."

Junko smiled, knowing he had caught the man's interest "Then I will leave you to talk about the details with my partner, Mila?" She turned to the felyne who nodded to her and took Aizawa's interest to continue their transaction.

Junko looked at her notes as she concentrated inside, looking at her power. It quickly surprised to see her well of power nearing six charges, something had happened lately, she hadn't been getting as many options lately and it felt like something would soon happen once she reached the six charges.

Junko stood up and got herself something to drink, trying to get her mind off the increasing pressure caused by her power. She leaned on the table and rubbed her eyes as she tried to parse what was happening.

Her power had been pretty consistent, but lately either chance or something else had forced her power to store more charges than it ever had before. Her attention was brought back to Eraser Head and Mila as she turned and smiled, giving her partner a reassuring smile.

"Looks like you two have worked it out already." Junko said.

"Yes, I have to thank you for your time, Ms Tetsu, and hopefully your work will help keep me and many people safe." Aizawa shook her hand before saying his goodbyes and leaving the pair.

Instantly Junko seemed to fall back on her chair and groan, a hand covering her eyes as the pressure had only increased.

"What's wrong?" Mila asked worriedly.

"The forge's been filling up, it's never reached this number of charges before…"

"That bad?"

"It's over five, the most I have gotten were four before. It feels like the next one will be a big one and I will be paying with it like with my first perk." Junko groaned, covering her eyes with her arm as the Palico sat on the desk worried about her.

"Come on, it will be okay, just push through, imagine all the cool things you will be making."

Junko groaned and nodded, almost watching the countdown as her well of power filled and reached six.

Chapter 21

Chapter Text

Chapter 21

Junko opened her eyes and saw.

She wasn't standing in her office next to Mila, instead she stood in an empty room.

But the words 'room' and 'empty' were either wrong or too small to describe what it was to be in such a space where she was definitely alone at the moment, and while she could understand there were walls, they couldn't be seen by her eyes.

She slowly looked around, feeling nothing but calm as she noticed the light shining down was slightly wavering, making her look up.

Her mouth opened as wide as her eyes. Above her was a flowing galaxy, stars full of power and potential twinkled as they rotated in multiple arms of different sizes and colors.

She gasped when she felt a connection to the massive star at the center, instantly she recognized it, this was the power given to her by the Celestial Forge, the combined might of her well and all the sources she had chosen. Was all this the sources she felt all this time?

The giant star at the center flared as she felt the sixth charge complete. Junko had to breathe in deep, it was so much power, she had never stopped to think what each charge meant.

She watched some big stars swing closer to the center, the six of them were the same size, she instantly understood that each was within her current reach. There was a choice here, a pretty big one given the whole show.

The first source that came down looked like a million explosions going off at the same time, both in slow motion and severely accelerated. Her power quickly translated that the perk would offer her the construction of weapons and all behind them, a large arsenal of pure destruction.

The second source was a collection of changing crystal shapes, going from vaguely weapon shapes into normal looking objects. It appeared to be about adding properties from weapons into other objects. Not that Junko really understood what it meant.

The third was a collection of wild beasts that shifted into weapons of immense destruction and power, but at the same time it was not, it was like the perk promised more than it could teach.

The fourth was magic and creation, it promised to teach her all from great teachers who had spent millenia in their craft.

The fifth was madness. Junko shuddered when she looked at the fifth source, she had seen it before, immense power and potential but an unhinged need to create that would need to be kept entertained.

The sixth and last was giant robots, once again the Forge insisted about it. At least it appeared to be the crazy one with robots measured in the kilometer. She had to chuckle at the idea of needing something like that.

She looked at the six sources, each one incredibly strong, each one carrying incredible potential.

She quickly discarded the first of her choices. She didn't need weapons, especially not at the level the perk was offering.

The second was put in the maybe category, once again it had to do with weapons and she really didn't need destruction over utility right now.

The next was also discarded. She understood enough about the perk to know it would never shine without using powerful beasts or something similar as ingredients, and she was in no way going to become a butcher for power.

The fourth was definitely interesting, it also felt strangely weaker than the others, while still holding the same amount of potential.

The fifth… Junko ignored the fifth, because that way laid madness and she wasn't going to exchange her sanity for power, she had read enough stories about it, and with quirks around, a lot of those weren't fiction.

The sixth was just as, or even more powerful than the fourth. But once again, Junko didn't have a need for giant robots, especially the type that was meant to shoot at planets.

She sighed as she looked at the sixth, it was definitely powerful, but she would leave it for the future. Turning to the fourth, she reached for it, the power flooding her body as everything around her disappeared in a sea of white.

"...-ome on, it will be okay, just push through! Think of all the cool things you will be making." Mila spoke and Junko had a feeling of deja-vu.

"Uh…"

"Tell me if I can help if it gets too bad-"

"No, no, it's not that, it's done. Pretty impressive, but…" Junko shook her head. "It's just, I don't feel much different than before. But there's something missing, like I should be able to do something more but I can't get it yet."

"It's okay, Junko, I'm sure you will find soon, from what you told me about the cost of the perk, six should be a big one."

Junko nodded before she looked down at her notes, ideas coming easier as she sighed.

"Yeah, better start working on this." The pair agreed as Mila got Junko up to date with the deal made with the hero as the two headed home.

When Junko stepped into the warehouse something had changed. It became really apparent once she stepped into the hallway between the entryway and the rest of the room. She could feel there was a new room to access.

"Mila, I think my last perk added a new room to the Warehouse, I will be checking it out." She warned her friend.

"Are you sure it'll be safe?"

Junko had to shrug at that. "No idea, but I wouldn't bet on it being something harmful. I have felt that a few of the perks can be a little out of control, but none of them were really anything besides benign to my growth."

"If you say so, Junko, I will believe it. Just be careful, ok? Maybe I will check it out later, got a few things that Sansui asked me for in the meantime." Junko nodded and headed back into the warehouse.

Junko walked to the warehouse's hallway and willed the new door to appear, an arch of stone with a door of wood stood in front of her. She pushed it open and walked through.

She suddenly found herself standing outside, she could see a light blue sky above her head, a few clouds flying by as she looked around. It looked like she had stepped into a small valley nested between old looking mountains.

She could see the stone being incredibly weathered, with large patches of dark moss growing on them, huge and old trees which appeared to be centuries old. And in the center of this place stood a large stone construction.

The angry face at the center was definitely the main point of it, drawing her sight right into it. To each side were mirrored halls fed by large streams of fresh water and searing lava. Even this far out, she could hear the sound of metal being worked in a forge.

Slowly, she walked down the stone stairs to the large courtyard that stood in front of the place's giant angry face. She hoped she didn't have to go up and down these steps, they were larger than any she had used before.

"Ah! A human! It's been many, many years since the last of your kind was seen in these parts." An old, loud and booming voice caught her attention as she walked down the large set of stairs admiring the place, her skills were good enough that she could notice how every stone fit perfectly with each other, every step had been worked and walked on for so many years.

Junk was surprised to see the...man? There was no doubt about his gender, he was tall, with ample shoulders and a huge braided beard, but she was having a hard time calling him human. He was easily over three meters tall, not the tallest she had seen with quirks being around, but he was definitely more than he appeared, his hands were large and strong but looked like he would have no troubles with delicate work, his eyes didn't hide the incredible wisdom he carried.

"Welcome to Tri-Stone, human. I'm Elder Eideard. Your coming was told to us by the patron that gave you your powers." The mountain of a being laughed deeply. "It's not everyday that us Makers have a being stronger than us asking for a favor."

"Ah...hello," Junko felt quite surprised, she was certainly not expecting this from her new perk. "Hello Elder Eideard, I'm Junko Tetsu and I'm honestly a bit lost about this."

The elder Maker stroked his beard with one hand as the other held a large metal staff, the making was pretty similar to the armor pieces he wore over his body. Now that she looked better, he appeared to be as wide as he was tall, especially with his strong arms.

"You are here to learn, little human. Your patron has asked of us the pleasure of teaching again. It's been a long time since we had someone interested or even capable of doing so."

"I made the choice without knowing this… But I don't think I can pass it, something tells me that this is a one time chance for me." While Junko's first words were weak, she quickly became more assertive.

"That's the way, little human. While you are here most of the gifts given to you by your patron will be ineffective." She made a little surprised at that. She never imagined there would be a way to turn off the perks she had been given. "It's the only way to teach you properly, don't fear, you will have access to them again when you step out, but here in the Forge Lands you are far, far away from your home and you will learn better if you do it our way."

Junko nodded, quickly following the elder, with his size, each slow step had her almost running to keep up.

"We will teach you many things, but your teachers shall be three." The elder knocked on the ground with the base of his staff, the sound was loud but barely any dust rose from the ground.

"You shall learn about magic and enchantment from Muria, our shaman." The elder pointed to the hall on the right, she could hear the sound of the water canal coming from the same direction.

"You shall learn about smithing and the forge from the Forge Siblings, Alya and Valus." He signed to the hall attached to the giant face's mouth, she could hear the sound of metal being hit and worked on.

"You shall learn to fight from Ulthan." This made Junko's eyes open wide, she was pretty sure this wasn't part of the perk, but she said nothing, not one to pass the chance. "Oh, surprised, aint'cha?" The man laughed "You are strong for your size little human, and I can tell you there will be conflict in your future. So hear my wisdom and take all that is offered, it may take you longer to master it all, but it will be well worth the time."

Junko nodded to the elder, thanking him for the chance to learn from them. She quickly was sent up to meet her first teacher. She walked up the stairs, they didn't feel as harsh now and it didn't take long for her to notice there was magic at work.

The hall was round and inside laid a planter in the shape of an almost closed circle, multiple plants grew on it, most of them unknown to her. Near a tall set of rose-like flowers stood a woman, and once more Junko could feel she was more like she appeared like the Elder.

"Welcome, human. We awaited your arrival ever since we heard the news. A new student is something to celebrate." The woman wasn't as tall as the elder, but she towered over Junko in all aspects. Her long, white hair fell in a braid over her chest but left the blindfold over her eyes visible. The cover was obviously not hindering as the Maker appeared more aware of her surroundings than most people. "Especially with a soul that looks to keep others safe like yours."

Junko blushed; it was like being praised by your favorite grandmother. Even if the woman had the looks most supermodels would kill for. The gentle tap of the shaman's twisted wood staff on the ground made her look up and forget about her embarrassment.

"I'm Muria, Shaman of the Makers, I will teach you about magic and enchantments, how to apply them to artifacts and construction. And once you have reached the standards I seek, I shall teach you about gifting sentience to constructs." The woman smiled warmly. "I can see that you aren't ready for it yet, so do not worry, it will come in time, you have a good soul. Now go and meet your other teachers."

Junko felt dazed as she walked down the stairs and headed into the forge, instantly starting to sweat due to the intense heat coming from the lava flowing inside the buildings.

"Ay, if it isn't the new lass." Junko looked around to see a woman of similar size to Muria, instead of white, her hair was deep red and orange like the fires of the forge she worked, her arms also looked much thicker and stronger than the delicate figure of the shaman, which didn't imply she wasn't also unnaturally beautiful, her skin flawless even as it hard taken a darker color from working next to strong fires. "I'm Alya, and this is my brother Valus."

The man currently working on a sword grunted. She had to do a double take, he was similarly tall to the elder but he was definitely broader, each of his arms was wider than her body, one of them hidden under a large armored gauntlet that went up to almost his shoulder. His face was covered in a helmet that connected to his chest piece.

"Don't worry about him, he's not very vocal. When he works, I talk." Alya brought Junko's attention back to her. "My brother and I will teach you forging and crafting artifacts, weapons, armor and other baubles."

Valus grunted from his spot on the forge.

"Ay, my brother reminds me to tell you to choose a weapon before meeting the old man Ulthar, and to not tell him I called him an old man." Alya chuckled. "Don't let that old man's grump attitude mislead you, he's just sour he hasn't gotten a good fight in a while." The glint in the woman's eye plus the grin on her face made a shiver go down Junko's spine, whoever the Maker fought wouldn't be a normal person… or being.

She quickly thanked the red haired woman before she walked out of the forge, shivering when the cold air hit her soaked body, luckily the Sylladex wasn't restricted, and she quickly changed her clothes for a dry pair that helped alleviate the chill she was feeling. She then walked up to the left hall.

Different from the first, there was no planter, instead a series of tough posts that were currently being hacked by what Junko had to admit was the largest weapon she had seen. It was the strange child of a hammer and an axe, taller than her and being used by another Maker like it weighted less than a feather.

She watched silently as the one who had to be Ulthane destroyed a dozen reinforced wood posts in less than a minute. His weapon slicing through them with no resistance, the material simply surrendering under the strength of the cleaves. Finally, he stopped and rested his weapon on the ground.

Chapter 22

Chapter Text

Chapter 22

"So you are the human that wants to learn?" Ulthane looked at her, weighting her worth.

"Yes." Junko didn't lie or waver, simply answering his question.

"Good. Do you have any training with weapons?"

"No, but I would like to learn to wield the war hammer." Her comment made him grin savagely.

"Then I will be your teacher, my name's Ulthane," his grin didn't leave his face for a moment, it was enough to give small mammals a heart attack. "I have been called the Black Hammer. Maybe you will keep me occupied till those kids come and give me a good fight."

Damn her curiosity, Junko couldn't not ask.

"Who?"

"The Riders, don't worry about them." The man grunted and went back to his hacking of the training posts. Junko was a bit surprised to see they were all back to normal. Taking this as the end of his conversation with her she turned and left the hall.

She walked down to the courtyard, finding the elder just watching around.

"Welcome back little human, I see you have met your future teachers." The man laughed softly in his deep voice. "I see that you are still surprised, don't worry they all are almost as old as me and masters in their craft. You should go back and tell the news to your partner before she worries more about you. You should come back tomorrow to start your teaching."

"...I'm not sure if I have enough time in the day to study from the three of them." Junko said, a little worried.

"Don't worry little human, time here passes a bit differently here than in your world. You won't be able to take things made here back, but you will be able to spend about four hours for each hour in your world." The elder's voice was calming, making Junko nod and thank him before she took her time walking up the long stairs to the entrance.

The steps did feel much easier this time around, it was like she was accepted as a pupil when she was just a visitor before. Entering the warehouse again felt weird, she was suddenly aware of all her perks once more. She quickly went to look for Mila to tell her everything.

"That wasn't long Junko." Mila looked up from her laptop. "All went okay?"

Junko plopped back on the couch and sighed, feeling exhausted.

"Yeah, apparently the big perk just gave me a full scholarship."

Mila actually raised an eyebrow as she looked at her.

"Yeah, new door, right to my new teacher's… place? World? Not sure, definitely not anywhere near, they kinda look human." she rubbed her chin. "I mean, no weird limbs or anything, just nearly three meters tall, built as wide as tall and definitely old, like really, really old. I don't think I would ever describe someone's age in how many civilizations they must have seen go up and down."

"Sounds like you will be getting taught a lot. Also, it sounds like you are getting even busier." The kitty cat grinned as she spoke in a teasing manner. "There's no rest for the craftswoman."

"Yeah, yeah, tease me all you like. I will have my revenge on you!" A pillow silenced her, and it soon was both of them laughing as they smacked each other with pillows.

Junko felt her power well up, filling up to three charges, it apparently still worked while she wasn't home if she understood right, she closed her eyes and watched three sources approach her reach. She relaxed and took her time, there was no current rush on it.

The first star of power was tiny, half a charge and would increase her ability to predict, follow and set up fashion. The second was worth three charges and offered her access to a volcanic forge. The last one was two charges, carrying the knowledge of spinning and weaving silk.

The first looked nice but she didn't find the need to set up fashion that useful unless she extended into the business of clothing. While she could she decided to ignore it.

The second was tempting, especially as she would get taught by masters of the forge, it would bring a great way to practice at home. But the cost got her to stop and think.

The last sounded like there was more behind it, but she didn't deal with silks.

She finally decided and took the forge. The perk folded into her growing power, she blinked as she opened her eyes. There was a bit more to the perk, but it was mostly a big addition to her warehouse.

"New perk." She announced.

"Already?" Mila asked looking up from her stuff.

"Yeah, we have a volcano now." Junko had to bite her lip to not giggle at Mila's exasperated look. "Yeah, I will go check it later, but comes in great since I will be learning blacksmithing from the Makers and this volcano' a forge, pretty cool I would say."

Mila could only sigh and put both paws on her face, then mumble something about stupid perks.

Junko openly laughed as their day slowly petered out, soon the pair heading to sleep. Junko dreamed of a large galaxy that felt like home.

Her morning was like most of her mornings, got up, stretched, marked again to check the enchanting on her sheets, had a snack, passed through the bathroom and headed into the warehouse.

Junko decided to check her new volcano since she hadn't the day before. It was certainly a thing to see. It was accessed by a new door in her hallway, different from the door to the Forge Lands, this one was a simple door like the Workshop or the Lockers room.

The volcano was small, or as small as a volcano could be, it was definitely still a few hundred meters tall, a small plume of smoke constantly rising from it and a large river of lava ran down one of the sides to connect to the forge.

The surrounding area looked similar to the Forge Lands but her power supplied it only looked as such, there was a hard limit she could wander around the place before coming to an invisible wall that would prevent her from going through, the sky was similarly fake and the smoke from the volcano was just removed from existence while the air was kept fresh in similar manner.

As she looked around her new forge she felt the well gain a charge and three options come for her choosing. Once again two of them were too big, not strange given her measly one charge. The first of them was five charges and would have added a titan into one of her ancestry. Apparently it would make her related to Prometheus, she felt it was fitting but there wasn't more information about it.

The other was worth eight charges, a huge expenditure that would give her the way to create artificial replacements for exotic resources. It sounded like a way to acquire exotic materials.

The last one, this she was forced to take, so Junk simply clicked it over, and let the extensive knowledge of medicine add to her mind. Once again she had another skill related to her engineering and robotics. It was very advanced and incredibly detailed, she was now a head surgeon for any type of possible operation.

There was also a great deal of knowledge that was expanded by her other knowledge skills. Just with Engineering, she now had the knowledge how to build almost miraculous medical machines, from scanners that gave detailed information about the patient, to automated surgeon beds. With Robotics she now had the knowledge how to do prosthetics of any kind.

It was definitely more to take than she thought it could be possible from a single charge perk. She shuddered when the cold wind of the room hit her and made her scoot closer to the heat from the lava flowing.

Looking at the lava flowing Junko couldn't feel the temptation to stick her finger and get a taste of it, but she while she most likely could eat it without problems, she would still be burned by the intense heat. Maybe if she got some magical heat resistance first? She would have to experiment.

Maybe now with the medical knowledge she could set up some tests in her eating exotic materials. If she was going to start learning about blacksmithing, she should see to use the Alchemiter to create some metal and element hybrids, did fire metal taste spicy or just hot?

She finally turned around and headed into the workshop, she had work to do and had more than a few ideas for the underground hero's gear.

The costume was the easiest part, especially as the hero had forwarded her the designs of his current one. Working on it to add reinforcement and armor pads while keeping it equally flexible and light. The loose design gave her enough freedom to hide the defenses while forcing her to find a way to keep it looking the same.

In the enchanting department, she added the set of defensive and resistance enchantments she had built. It was a more complex pattern that let her keep a modularity to add other effects thanks to her modular perk. Since she knew the man was a teacher while still active as an underground hero she added an enchantment to replenish stamina and reduce the need to rest. Similar to the enchantments on her bed but instead of working while she sleeps they would be always active and providing a small percentage of time as if the user was resting.

Junko hoped the man liked it. To end the costume she added a cowl that would stay over his head when worn, slightly obscuring his face while not reducing his sight, and a set of reinforced gloves and boots with a better grip.

She looked at the time and decided to leave the rest of the equipment for later, she had plenty of time, having given the man a week to work on the items before delivery. Junko got up and did a second pass through the bathroom before eating a larger breakfast and heading out to work.

The Scrapyard was quickly reducing the piles of electronics and random scrap, starting to show old stained dirt that hadn't been seen in years. Her boss had told her they may be getting scrap from a few near yards. Junko made a note to ask Sansui if she should get another of the machines to expedite the rest of the work, sadly the man had had to go and deal with some stuff and left her with the question for later.

The day was good, she even got a visit from the little hero-in-training, she once again praised him for the hard work and offered him words of encouragement when he didn't stammer for almost five trips from the truck to the pile of scrap and junk.

Soon work came to an end and Junko headed back home, greeted Mila and walked to the Forge Lands, ready to start her tutoring under the Makers.

As she walked down the stairs she saw Ulthane once again practicing with the immense weapon, barely giving her a grunt as the young woman passed and headed to start with Muria, she had decided to stay half a day in the Forge Lands, that would be just three hours back on her home. Four hours for each teacher, four hours to get to know them better and maybe see if they would prefer to set up things differently.

The first thing Junko learned was that the white-haired Maker was a kind soul, and that even beings as strong and powerful as the Makers could make mistakes. She told the young human about her errors and how she had to ask for help to fix them. She told her how even if all life's sacred and should be protected there are times when life should be taken.

Muria also started Junko on the ways of Maker's magic and artifact crafting. Starting with lessons in how to bring the intrinsic characteristics from fallen beasts' parts, items like fangs and claws could be refined to create amulets that would imbue their user's attacks with the slashing power the beasts used in life. With four hours done the woman sent her in her way to sweat at the forge.

Alya welcomed her with enough energy for both siblings. She quickly got her to start pounding metal ingots with a hammer the size of her head. When Junko felt the need to ask what this lesson was for, the fire-haired woman laughed and told her this was no lesson, she just wanted Junko to be stronger before the real teaching started. A grunt of affirmation from her brother made Alya laugh harder.

"Brother thinks you have a good technique but you are still far from getting to the basics, so just keep hammering the metal little human." The woman laughed and grinned. "And don't worry, Ulthane will help getting you in shape in no time."

Junko felt a shudder go down her spine, like a cold caress even in the boiling heat of the forge. She decided to shrug it off and continue working the hammer, slowly getting used to it, apparently there was a bit on the perks that hadn't been turned off. Soon she had received praise from Alya and told that she had the skill but didn't have the strength to really shape the metal the proper way.

Four hours and feeling quite done with the Forge she waved goodbye to the two siblings and grabbed some scraps to nibble on while she headed to visit her third teacher. The large Maker was still in the training courtyard, grunting as he swung his hammer axe around and chopping the training posts.

"Aye, it's good you are finally here, little girl." Junko wanted to complain about being called a little girl, but compared to Ulthane's size and age she felt even less. "If you want to learn how to use a hammer you will need plenty of strength in your arms, working in the forge will help, but you will spend time here doing it too."

The Maker threw a large and heavy war-hammer her way making Junko panic and quickly use her strife Specibus to absorb the coming weapon. The sudden disappearance of said hammer made Ulthane raise an eyebrow till Junko made it reaper in her hand.

"Nice trick, now I want you to hit that post a thousand times, tell me if you can't anymore and I will let you rest." Junko wanted to groan before she walked up to the post and started to hit it with her new hammer.

As she worked on hitting the post with her hammer, she started to hear Ulthane grunt, and with a little effort, she started to understand that some grunts were of affirmation off her form and some were the opposite. This made her slowly start to fix her form, quickly noticing each proper hit hurt her hands and arms less and each proper swing made the hammer feel lighter.

Of course even after five hundred swings of the war hammer neither the weapon or the post were sporting any kind of damage. She had fallen in a zen state, noticing that both the basic weapon and the crude training post were of incredible quality. She spent the last hundred swings of the hammer admiring the weapon.

It was simple in design, a basic weapon not even worth the mark of its creator. Something obviously done as training, just from someone so skilled that their worst work was still leagues above masterwork.

Even if it took her an hour and a half to complete the first five hundred swings, the second set of five hundred consumed almost the other two and a half hours. With the last swing having the hammer slip from her hand Junko fell back when she lost her balance.

"Fuck!" She cursed and simply lay on the cold stone as she panted.

"Aye, looks like you have the stuff to use a proper hammer." Junko wanted to curse the man but the praise was worth it. Taking a few minutes to get her arms to finally respond to her, she said her goodbyes to her teacher and headed back home, notifying Mila that she would be spending an hour in hot water to recover.

Chapter 23

Chapter Text

Chapter 23

Junko checked the clock after waking up, seeing she had slept for three hours and that her arms were feeling better cheered her up. Finally deciding it was time to check the enchantments of her sheets she wrapped them under an arm and headed into the workshop.

Junko extended the sheets over the large table in her workshop and looked at the enchanting she had done. She quickly felt embarrassed by the quality, it had been less than two months since she had sewed them into the sheets and she could see every little error and problem in them.

She recycled the whole thing, deciding to start anew as she pulled a new set of silk sheets, deciding that since she could, she would use much better quality. Her hands and magic sewed quickly into the fabric, the nature of the silk soaking in easily thanks to her growing skill and synergizing perks.

Less than ten minutes later she looked at the new set of sheets, their enchanting worlds apart from her previous work. She now understood much better what she was doing. She bet that their effectiveness would easily increase from four to eight or ten easily, plus they would heal her body while she slept as well.

Seeing what she had managed, she got some fabric and started designing training clothes that would increase her natural healing and restore her stamina, she hoped Ulthane didn't take it as something bad. Finishing a whole set took her thirty minutes of work, whichhat she then captchalogued and created multiple spare copies to have.

The rest of her morning was spent working on Eraser Head's capture tape.

She started with a sample of the material his current one was made of. Then used the sample to apply its qualities to a long ribbon of silk, the resulting fabric was strong, hard to cut, breathable and incredibly light. She then started the process of enchanting it. This was a bit harder to do on the long ribbon than on the sheets or the clothing pieces as the runes had to be designed to laid along the thin ribbon while keeping in mind that it would be stretching and retracting when used.

Junko decided to end with main nodes in multiple parts of the capture ribbon, plus a 'flexible' design in the enchanting between them, leaving only the flexible parts to stretch and retract while the nodes stood mostly the same. She also added general reinforcement that would work on the already tough material and bring it even further. The next part was the enchantment that would numb and sap the captured target's strength but wouldn't affect the user.

Done way before she had to leave for the morning, she decided to start working on the tricorder her medical and engineering knowledge had given her. With both skills she understood nearly completely how it worked. She lacked the complete scientific background, but she knew enough to build and understand the little machine.

It was interesting how simple the design was. Using a subspace scan, the little machine would read and compile a comprehensive list of information about the target. It could be used for medical or more general purposes.

It was simple enough that she imagined she could design a commercial model just for medical use, hopefully Mila would have an idea. For now Junko just laid the basic plans for the work and made a few notes on how to mass produce the item, adding a few ways to interface with smartphones and tablets for doctors and paramedics to use it on the scene.

Finally, she yawned as she got up, doing a round before heading out to work. It surprised her to see her boss waiting for her in the office.

"Good morning, Boss." She greeted the man.

"Hi Junko, hope you're doing well today." The man got up from his spot, picking a thick folder and walking to her. Junko wasn't sure if she had to move away or sweat at the sight of that folder. "I have to say, your recycling station still surprises me. In the just two weeks we have had it working since your first prototype we've nearly emptied the whole yard."

"Thank you Sansui, it makes me very glad to hear that." Junko gave the man an appreciative nod.

"That's why I was having a hard time coming with a way to pay you back. The amount of money the RS, as you call it, has brought is immense." The man pressed the folder on Junko's chest, but she didn't do more than hold it as she looked at him. "That's why I've been talking with your little friend Mila." He nodded to the folder and Junko looked down.

She opened the folder and started skimming through it, her eyes slowly widened as she quickly read through the many files.

"Bu-but… sir? This is the ownership of the scrapyard!" She stammered, surprised by this.

"Yes, it is." he turned and sat back down on his chair. "I'm old enough to retire, Junko, and your resource station has more than put me in position to not work one more day with enough money to live the rest of my years at my leisure. The thing is that I could have easily put you to lead the yard or I could have employed someone else for it. But I thought it would be much better if I gave you a little gift."

Junko just stared at the man, simply at a loss for words.

"I've been talking with your partner about it for a week or so. I've owned the yard since I bought it for nearly nothing from the previous owner nearly thirty years ago when it was just the same scrapyard. But you, Junko, you can turn it into something different. I know you didn't want anything for your machine, but I have managed to work with your friend a way to pay you for using the machines to recycle all the scrap and give you the place as payment."

The silence hung in the air as Junko ran her tongue over her teeth, deep in thought.

"...I have to say," She started, licking her lips as they felt really dry. "That I never designed the machines with the intention of getting the land for myself. I saw it as a way to help since I liked working here. The manual work, the scrap and the chance to just wreck the stuff."

Sansui smirked.

"I know, but I also know that you are currently full of potential, and while I could have paid you enough money that you could have bought land somewhere else. Owning this place would be much more personal for you."

"Thank you sir. It really means a lot to me." She felt her well of power fill and reach two charges, she imagined she may have missed one while she slept. "Any problem if I take my time to read this and sign it up?"

"But of course! This will be your place, more than enough reason for you to know it well. Also, your friend Mila said you should call her once you're done."

Junko nodded and sat down, starting to run her eyes over the first files while she focused inwardly to check on her power.

With two charges she could pick only two of her three options, both costed one, and since the third option was four charges, and thus unavailable, she decided to ignore it for the moment to focus on the available ones.

She was pretty sure she'd seen the first one already, it was used to refine some exotic metals.She wasn't sure if it was even useful for her, but she would keep it in mind.

The other option was the cherry on top of the gift her boss had given her. For one charge, she would gain knowledge on how to design hyper advanced tech solutions for household problems, but only household problems. It looked useful enough and most likely she could get some ideas for other items.

She paid the single charge and quickly realized she had gotten much, much more. The hyper advanced tech solutions were only a step away from being complete magic in how they worked and how basic elements they needed to be made. The skill also ridiculously increased her ability to draw conclusions or produce results incredibly fast.

With this new perk she had almost an innate talent in finding ways to prove or disprove facts and solve problems. She would be easily twice as fast in solving and designing ways to tackle problems.

She blinked twice and rubbed her eyes before she let it go for the moment and started to really study the files of ownership over the scrapyard. Junko also grabbed a pen to start signing the places she needed, the copies, the copies of the copies, and so on. Soon, her wrist hurt more than after the hammer swinging of the day prior.

"All done?" She looked up to see Sansui smiling at her.

"Yup." She smiled and took the copies that were hers, and handed the rest to her boss.

"So, what will you do with your new scrapyard, boss?" Sansui joked with a playful grin.

"I'll finish recycling all the stuff and deal with the contracts you may have set tied to the place, then I'll most likely scrap everything down to a couple meters of dirt and start building." Junko hummed, slowly listing things as she thought. "The dirt's surely in a terrible state after decades of scrap on top. After that I will have to build down and up. Most likely I'll see if I can set up a way to receive scrap and recycle it, just as an extra service for the community."

Her boss nodded at her words.

"It sounds like you have an idea of what to do. I hope you talk it over with your friend, and don't be afraid to call me if you need some expertise, or an old man's opinion. I've lived long enough to make more than a fair share of strange contacts." Junko thanked the man before he left, leaving her in her newly owned scrapyard.

She looked around before turning on her omni-tool and sending a message to Mila, hoping the felyne was open for talking, and sure enough, the video call quickly connected.

"So, he finally dropped the surprise on you?" The smaller woman had a mischievous look on her face. "He was pretty worried about how he would pay you back, you know?"

"Hey Mila, and yeah, he greeted me with the folder in hand. I was scared stiff for a moment there." she chuckled.

"Junko, I know your type, you just like to build and build and never stop to think about the results. But I assure you, your RS is more than revolutionary. Scrapyards have a ton metal laying around that gets no use or only a bit gets recycled, Sansui got more profit from just these weeks than in the last decade." Mila sent her a few images with the numbers on it. "He can retire a rich man, giving you the land is underpaying you, but I doubt you would take his money. I also doubt it'll be long before we start getting dividends from the patents we managed to get."

"Yeah, for now, taking care of the yard gets priority, but after it's done it will just mean more free time on our hands." Junko hummed as she thought. "If I want to rush it… Mila, think you can contract someone to build some quick walls or a way to hide the inside of the yard?"

The felyne looked down as she searched.

"Yes, there're plenty of options, we could even see if Eraser Head can put us in contact with Cementoss, it would be a steep cost, but he could build some reliable walls in just a few minutes."

"Nah, I think that would only bring more attention to us instead of detracting it."

"Then I have a list of possible construction groups that could set up some solid or covered fences. I've seen them used in enough construction that I doubt it would bring much attention to anyone who wasn't already looking in our direction."

"It's okay Mila, I'll most likely set up a barrier like in the office to hide what's really going inside. And speaking of the office, do you think we should keep it?" Junko idly wrote down notes and ideas.

"Yes, it would be useful to have an office outside if we'll be using the scrapyard's land for our company."

Junko felt her power fill up, two charges but none of the options were in her reach. She quickly let them pass and turned her attention back to what she was doing.

"Hmm, do you think we should move out of the apartment? The contract still has a few more months but I could easily add housing to the lot's design, it would help set up a centralized defense system."

"Well, it'd be nice to have my own room, that's for sure. But there's no need to rush, something tells me you won't sleep much in your room once you have more free time."

Junko grinned at the comment.

"Then go ahead and see about getting those fences up, the faster they are in place the sooner we can start working on this place."

Junko pulled some of the files Sansui had left behind, working out how much of the scrap had actually been marked down as sold and made some mental calculations. She would most likely not use the RS and instead just outright recycle all the scrap into grist to alchemize the material.

This would save time and not force her to make another RS.

Then she would have to clean the ground, she was wondering if using alchemy would be the best. She could clean all the heavy metals and other pollutants while also setting the foundations for her building.

She decided that that would do. It would be the largest alchemical circle and make quite the light show. She would need to set the privacy barriers to cover it.

With the idea of what to do with the scrapyard mostly done, she turned to her plans for the building. She wanted it to have at least a couple basements, three would be best but not more than five… at least for now. Her modular perk gave her tips in how to design the building with the capability to expand in any direction without suffering problems.

Actually, Junko looked at the design and quickly applied the modular ideology to the rooms of the building, each one capable of being slotted and unslotted, each equipped with an anti-gravity system and controlled by a central VI that would let her rearrange everything as needed.

The first basement would be the actual building and anything above would be easily rearranged. Junko liked the idea of people being confused why the building looked different week to week. Her style and design perks already chiming in their opinions in multiple ways the rooms could be set up to appear in different construction styles.

Junko smiled, looking down at her sketches, the future was promising.

Chapter 24

Chapter Text

Chapter 24

Junko thanked the last worker as the construction company left after setting up the tarp covered fences. When she asked for quick, she didn't know Mila could have set it up for the day.

Apparently, there were multiple companies that offered their services for rush works. Something about collateral damage from villain attacks, Junko had to snort at that.

Once Mila had notified her about the contractors in their way she had expedited the work on the barrier pylons, working on from the ones she had made for the office, she upscaled their power, size and functions. She added anti-spying systems and a minor illusion that wouldn't be visible when looking from above, once per day it would capture the look of the place and continuously project it for the next twenty four hours.

Happy about the results, she set up the four pylons. While practical, she would need to design permanent replacements later. For now, she started with the place, quickly captchaloguing every piece of equipment and scrap. The later was recycled into grist and quickly stored in her ever growing collection of the resource.

In just a couple of hours the land was empty of everything except the office near the entrance and a couple of sheds that were now empty. She would be recycling them down soon. With still a couple more hours of work she started on creating the large transmutation circle.

The drawing process was greatly simplified by her perks and the use of the omni-tool to draw the circle perfectly while she walked around the place. With the near ten thousand square meters area she took about ten minutes to finish a whole rotation.

Junko wiped the sweat off her face, mentally complaining that the terrain was too big for the pylons to bring the temperature down. She kneeled and placed both hands on the edge of the circle before activating it.

She quickly felt the drain increase to the point she didn't fall down only because she was already kneeling down and with both hands on the ground.

"Ffffffuc-"

The light show soon started, the whole circle lighting up with the same rust red light as large arcs of energy spiked all over it. The effect soon visible, as on the center of the circle, small mounds of materials started to grow. Flakes of rust, stains of oil and other material that had seeped deep into the dirt were collected and shaped into more solid forms at the center.

Years and years of pollution and decay from the scrap was taken out of the land. Junko soldiered through, barely staying awake as the circle finally did its job, having cleaned the ground in the large yard out of all its problems a few dozen meters deep.

"Me and my stupid ideas." She rolled over panting.If the training with Ulthane had left her arms feeling like noodles, this was a whole-body training. She felt completely drained and decided to will her Sylladex to change her clothes into the training gear, letting the enchantments on it help her recover.

She also felt her power nagging her, apparently having reached three charges while she was concentrated working and it was pushing her to choose an option.

All were possible, the first was three charges and appeared to be a compendium of weapons, not in her current interest, so she quickly moved to the next before the growing headache was too much for her.

The second was a single charge and she had seen it before, it was about using some energy to reinforce buildings and constructions.

The third was something about fire control and was worth two charges. Sadly the headache was turning to be too much to concentrate, she decided to go for the second option while she could still think.

The calming sensation when it folded into her power was nearly enough to make her pass out.

It took her about ten to fifteen minutes to finally get up, still completely exhausted as she wandered into the office, messaging Mila to open the warehouse on her side as she stepped in through the office's door and headed home the fastest way possible. She simply dropped herself on the bed and fell deeply asleep.

Junko woke up about an hour later, a headache beating inside her skull and her mouth feeling like sawdust. She quickly took her training gear off and stepped into the bathroom to clean herself up before checking on Mila.

"And the zombie's back, what did you do now?" The felyne asked while pointing at the woman with a pencil.

"Didn't think using a massive transmutation circle would be this tiring." She groaned running a hand over her face and sighed. "Well, live and learn, that could have seriously sucked much worse."

"Well, I'm sure your teachers will be glad to know you learned the painful lesson of thinking before acting… for next time." Mila grinned and Junko threw the felyne pillow as a complaint.

A little later with some early dinner in her stomach, the young woman picked herself up, changed into her training gear and walked through the warehouse to get to the Forge Lands.

Ulthane was the first to welcome her for the day, the Maker once again spending his time beating the training posts like they owed him money.

"Ay lass, you look in no shape to train today, go and spend the day with Muria, the shaman will teach you for today." Junko nodded and wandered to the woman's hall.

Muria looked at her pretty much in the perfect combination of teacher and wise grandmother, easily seeing through Junko's attempt to hide the fact she had screwed up with little difficulty.

She then asked the human to tell her everything that had happened, not to try to explain herself because the Maker could see Junko had gotten the lesson painfully well.

To finish it, the Maker helped her brew a simple headache cure with the bark of a tree that grew on one of the planters. She had to thank the older woman for the treatment as after that her lesson continued as normal, she even managed to slip a few hours of hammering in the forge with the siblings. Alya retelling a personal experience not too far from her own.

Soon what was becoming her usual daily time at the Forge Lands came to an end and Junko headed back home, walking through the Warehouse to find Mila, the woman gave her a nod of appreciation before taking a shower and falling asleep once more.

She hadn't gotten to really appreciate the new enchantments on her bed sheets the last time. Too tired and battered to really notice the difference, till on this second sleep, she woke up less than an hour later feeling she had overslept in how little she wanted to sleep.

It was strange to wake up and not feel the need to stretch, but it had become enough of a routine that she did a quick set before heading into the workshop, she had plenty of work to do in designing the building and deciding how to go forward in the development.

Aiming for a completely modular design would let her construct the rooms inside the workshop or the hangar and as long as they were just big as a normal room she would be able to captchalogue them. Otherwise she would need a way to make them collapsable into compact forms for storage.

She also looked into adding the new knowledge from her latest perk, it had come with a good amount of architectural knowledge. The problem was that she didn't have access to the resource the perk called for. But it also described the so called cores that she may be able to create a working replacement.

So she started with a diamond, a big, big diamond, between her alchemy and the alchemiter she could create a piece of crystal the size of her torso with no problems and shape it in any way she wanted.

The shape she used was called briolette and in her opinion it was just a fat drop instead of the usual thinner ones.

The diamond was perfect, not an impurity visible through the crystal so she captchalogued it as she started on the second part of the work.

Her power told her the Core would need to remember the shape of the world while also generating energy constantly, she was pretty sure she could get a pylon to do something similar, which may get her what she wanted.

It was strangely a step down from her current design in security pylons, making it much easier to increase the memory capacity in the obsidian while keeping the part of the crystal that drained energy from the ambient and released it, while a new section in the enchantment scanned the area around the pylon and saved the information.

She captchalogued the pylon once she was satisfied with it . With both cards punched, she placed them in the Alchemiter and proceeded to try to create combinations in three possible ways, first diamond and pylon, then try with both, diamond then pylon and pylon then diamond.

The first combination had simply merged both with no useful result. The other two were much better.

Diamond then Pylon had created a diamond pylon that worked much better than the pylon but wasn't what she was looking for, Pylon then Diamond had hit the spot.

Her power quickly catalogued the result as a weak core, which would be enough for what she was doing. She made a note to try and get a stronger core but a weak core would be the best to power each of the modular rooms.

Before she could continue she felt her power fill up and reach three charges once more. Junko blinked as she looked at the three options she had, first for all her charges she could get smithing knowledge, for two charges she could get the ability to understand alien language and knowledge, the third, also for two charges, was a fully equipped magic workshop.

The three options seemed pretty interesting, and all were in her reach. She quickly discarded the middle option, she wasn't sure she would be getting to work in alien tech anytime soon. The smithing knowledge sounded pretty sweet but she was learning it from some of the best, she could leave it out for now. She took the workshop at the end.

Deciding that a break wasn't a bad idea since she really had the same need to go to work yet she decided to visit the magical and the alchemy workshop, suddenly remembering she hadn't checked out the older addition.

She started with the newest workshop. It was strange how similar it was to her normal workshop. The tools weren't too dissimilar in their uses albeit they worked completely differently. For the cost it apparently came equipped with a few exotic ingredients.

Things like strange mixes of ink, different materials to write scrolls and talismans on. There were even some samples of mana crystals and a few other elemental materials.

Junko wanted to groan when she looked at the mana crystals. Her power was already calling them poor cores, so it was likely she could use it instead of the diamond or alchemize it along the weak core to get a proper core.

She would have to see if different shapes for the mana crystal increased its effect like some of her magical knowledge said. The Forge liked to needle her like that.

She then moved to the alchemy workshop, this one had the strange faculty of collapsing into a wagon for mobility. Junko doubted she would be taking it anywhere given the explosive effects of some of the compounds and mixes that could be made with the materials in this workshop's storage.

She knew enough alchemy to know there was a long list of no's. She would leave it untouched for now till she learned more from Muria or got a skill about it.

She carried the piece of mana crystal to the alchemiter first to see if she could create copies and upscaled versions of it. While the crystal seemed to need a new type of grist, she luckily had another piece to recycle into said resource and start duplicating the amount till she could alchemize copies without worry.

Twenty minutes later she had enough of the resource to make nearly a mountain of mana crystals so she alchemized a chunk about the size of the original diamond and used a transmutation circle to shape it. It was the first time she felt resistance till the new drop shape snapped in place and the crystal started to glow much brighter.

Before anything unexpected happened she captchalogued the glowing crystal and proceeded to alchemize twice, once with the original pylon and another with the weak core. Interestingly her power marked both results as similar cores, the one crafted from the mana crystal and the weak core only being slightly stronger.

"I would say that's a productive morning." Junko thought out loud before taking a break for morning ministrations before heading to the yard, with no scrap around it wasn't the same, but something much better would be coming from it from now on.

The first thing she did was collect the results of her transmutation circle. The piles of materials were captchalogued and recycled into Grist as she started a small set of circles to reinforce the ground in the yard.

She was impressed just how deep her reach could be, easily digging down to bedrock and setting up pillars she would later build onto, she had also set up an underground perimeter around the yard, her design was a hundred percent self sufficient so there was no need for inputs that could be used to enter from below.

She would seek to reinforce the pillars and the underground walls later with some of the alloys they had in stores along with extending the barrier walls down. Mila kept joking Junko was being paranoid, but she kept repeating that some of her creations should not fall into villains hands. Or the results would be terrible.

Work done she turned to the pair of empty barns, projecting a circle around each one and transmuting them into piles of metal for recycling.

Soon she smiled, it was the second day and she was done before lunch.

Chapter 25

Chapter Text

Chapter 25

It was five days later when she felt her power fill again, sadly none of the options were in her reach and she was currently busy refining the design of her modular building.

Her project had gone through multiple iterations, mixing her many branches of knowledge and perks. The final product she was currently iterating onto used the mantic energies of the cores she had produced to float while her engineering knowledge had added the propulsion system that would move it around.

So now each room could shift from a base size sixty four cubic meters to a hundred and twenty five or down to a compact form that was barely over eight cubic meters. Each room could also move around on the air without affecting the contents and connect to the other room by doors or form a larger room.

Each room was self-sufficient, a small eezo core powered them with enough energy for a month each of active use and an enchantment that would keep the air inside fresh and breathable while taking care of hazzards like smoke, poison or other dangerous gases. She had also added a modular attachment that would provide fresh water for bathrooms or kitchens if needed.

In theory with the correct addons one could build a complete house with just half a dozen of her rooms. In her mind she could see it, two bedroom rooms, one room could be easily used for two different bathrooms, one for the kitchen, one for a living room and a sixth that could be either a garage or a hallway to go between the other rooms.

In technical terms, the rooms were just a step away from working in space, she would need to add some shielding from the hazards of space and reinforce the sealing between rooms. But you could build a house on earth or a station on the moon.

With the final details done she looked at her omni-tool, five minutes earlier than her predictions. She quickly got up and cleaned before heading out for the office, finding Mila already setting things up for their meeting with Aizawa.

"Glad to see I didn't have to drag you out!" Mila joked and Junko snorted, doing the adult thing and not sticking her tongue out as she pulled the costume case with all the items she had prepared for the hero.

"I'm some kind of scratched record, I keep repeating to myself that I hope he'll like it."

"Junko, your work's great, they will always love it, you could polish trash and would be better than ninety-nine percent of what's on the market."

"Thanks-" She had to look up when she heard the door knock and turn to Mila "I didn't get a warning, was he waiting outside for the time?" Junko asked, an eyebrow rising as Mila shrugged.

"Come in." The Felyne called and the door opened for the underground hero to come into the office.

"Welcome back." Junko and Mila greeted the man who returned the greeting.

"Thank you," He looked a bit cleaner than last time, his hair held back in a pony-tail. "I wasn't expecting the equipment to be ready this fast."

Junko nodded, "Some other things came up that needed more of my attention later in the week, so I prioritized your gear." She opened the case and started to pick the gear out, starting with the reinforced suit. "I didn't change the looks as you asked, but it should be much more comfortable, keep you safe and be easier to move around it. I will bet you won't feel as tired after using it too. It's safe to machine wash too and shouldn't need to be ironed, I also added a cowl on the back, it shouldn't be visible unless you pull it over your head, I imagine you may like something to cover if it starts raining or you want to hide.."

Aizawa ran his hands over the costume, feeling the familiar item as he hummed appreciatively.

"Very soft."

"Yes, I aimed for comfortability of use, next," She pulled the rolled up capture ribbon. "This project came out even better than expected, it should be pretty intuitive in its use, besides being considerably stronger than before I added two main functions to it.

"As we talked before you should be able to make it extend and retract, I'm sure you won't find much problem in its use. It will also numb and sap the capture target's general strength. It shouldn't affect you as long as you are the one using the tape."

The man held the ribbon on a hand, watching as it unrolled and stretched into a large pile on the ground.

"Any special comments about it?"

"It's not a delicate tool, I designed and developed it with enough strength to hold a large truck if needed. It should be highly resistant to heat, acid, electricity, cutting and other types of damage, so I doubt you will need to replace it anytime soon. If you want I could get you a second one to have as spare but it will do its work and take all its hits."

Aizawa nodded at her description of the item.

"Now, these will need to be tested by you personally, I would suggest going somewhere you don't mind things getting messy and hit a few things of different hardness so you can get used to the kickback and how resistant things hit won't be." Junko pulled a pair of slick extendable batons, each the size of a palm when retracted. "A swift swipe down will open them, after that you can use the small dial at the base, here." She showed the man the small ring. "To change the hit multiplier, it goes from one time, which is basically being off, to ten times, which will make you hit like… well, ten copies of you."

The hero grabbed the baton and expertly swiped down, extending the baton before nodding as he gave a few hits on empty air before swiping back up and closing it to place it by the pair.

As the man checked his new equipment Junko felt her power activate, three charges, three options. The first, for a single charge appeared to be a source of an exotic material, the second for two charges appeared to be a way to tame beasts with music.

Junko had no idea what that ability had to do with the general crafting orientation of the Forge.

The third perk apparently took reality and broke it over its knees. For three charges anytime she crafted an item one of two things would happen, either four more copies would materialize, all in the same quality, or said item would turn out to be three times as large.

She swiftly chose it, it was so ridiculous there was no reason not to take it, especially since the other two perks didn't sound that useful. She quickly schooled her features once more and hoped the man just thought she was happy he was admiring her work.

"Is there a problem, Ms Tetsu?" Said hero asked.

"No, no, all's okay, just hit with inspiration."

"Does it have to do with the land you recently got to own?" The man had skillfully stored everything back into the case and closed it as he talked.

"Yes, I've been busy in the design process but I should be done and moving into construction soon."

"I didn't know you had studied architecture." Aizawa raised an eyebrow looking at her.

"I never said I was designing a building ." She grinned in response as Mila commented something about crafters on a side.

"I see, then I have great expectations to see the finished product."

Junko had to smile, in a way she felt like she got one over the man.

"I will remember to invite you for the unveiling then."

"Don't you mean you will have me remember to invite him?" Mila interrupted her.

"Details, details~"

"I will await your invitation then." Aizawa spoke clearly as things quickly moved for him and Mila to deal with payment and other details.

"Remember to contact us with any questions or problems." Junko asked the man as he was preparing to leave.

"I will, I hope you have a good day Ms Tetsu, you too Ms Smirnov." He nodded and the pair returned the goodbyes before the man left. It was only once the door was completely closed that Mila turned to Junko.

"Tell me, what did you get? I saw you react while he was admiring the work." She quickly asked her partner. Meanwhile, Junko tried to not grin like the maniac she really was.

"It's not much, the latest perk just makes anything I craft be three times larger or spawn four extra copies." Junko's lips twitched, trying to smile against her will.

"What? I mean, what? So you are literally breaking reality now?" Mila groaned.

"Yes!" She laughed.

"Well, that will be interesting if nothing else."

Junko thanked Mila for taking care of the boring stuff as she headed back to the Forge Lands, with the extra time she had increased the hours she spent learning to double. She just visited two times a day instead of making a full twenty-four hours.

Junko's lessons had been picking up speed, more time spent learning and training the more she could do. It hadn't taken long till the training hammering metal and training post had her graduating to learning the basics of smithing.

Alya's more than happy to put Junko through the safety lesson on the forge, all the do's and, especially, all the don'ts. Strange but easy ways to have things explode in your face, break, ruin and simply just screw your day over.

Muria taught her about the basics of herbology and the many uses of plants and other things. How some mushrooms were unusable for potion making but were great for enchanting. Or what to look for when replacing some exotic ingredients for safer and easier to find mixes.

Ulthane, on the other hand, kept his steady training of making Junko spend every hour under his tutelage beating the training post with her warhammer. The man had little words for teaching, but his many grunts and reactions were enough for Junko to slowly refine her usage of the weapon/tool.

She was glad that she wore long sleeves for the meeting with Eraser Head, because her arms had quickly gained mass in the passing week. The combination of heavy work, an abundant diet and magically enchanted clothes that helped in healing her body had her bulk up quickly.

Mila was joking she was crafting herself a body with how good she managed to look while swiftly getting to the point some heroes would kill for her body. She had also grown stronger, but it had taken her some time to figure it out as she wasn't doing as much manual work as before.

It had been the first time she splintered an edge of the training post she had noticed that she was now swinging the weapon much easier, with much more strength and skill. Ulthane had actually praised her and told her to keep doing what she had done before returning to his own training.

The work on the ex-scrapyard had also advanced, with the land properly cleaned she had gotten it tested by the city, given the previous nature of the plot there were more than a few checks that had to be done before building was approved. And while the ground would not see much growth of anything anytime soon without help, all the pollutants had been removed and all tests had come satisfactory, approving her to advance on the subject.

She had finished the underground walls on the edge of the plot, weaving a mesh of a steel alloy provided by her engineering knowledge. The foundations for the building had been done too. Columns that went down to the bedrock, tough but flexible enough to deal with a good shake from possible earthquakes. Their design aimed to accept the modular design of the many rooms she would get on top.

During her many days of constant work she had felt her well of power fill once and then passed as none of the options were in her reach.

Her latest perk had made her have to redesign some of her ideas but mostly had provided a ridiculous wealth in resources as any finished construction created four extra copies that were quickly recycled for a profit that more than covered any initial cost.

It was almost three months since she had gotten chosen by the Forge, just after finishing the main basement of the future building.

Junko constructed most of it inside the warehouse and brought out the parts for easy assembly in the lot, using temporal anti-gravity enchantments to move the floor pieces, multiple walls and finally the ceiling of the basement easily as every piece had been designed for it.

And so the work of a complete building crew was done by a single woman as she laid the pieces one by one with no more difficulty than a child with a new set of building blocks.

"...and… done!" Junko celebrated with the last piece locking in place, her omni-tool giving a satisfactory chime as the system marked as correctly installed.

"Now I just have to fill the extra dirt on the outside of the basement and solidify it with alchemy. After that I should see about getting the new pylons installed in the corners of the lot to connect them to the building…" Junko worked on her omni-tool as she slowly headed to the exit.

She turned off the omni-tool before she stepped out of the lot through the only door.

"Hey, are you Junko Tetsu?" She stopped and turned around when she was called.

"Yes, what do you-" Her reply was quickly cut as a bag covered her head and she swiftly knew no longer.

Chapter 26: Interlude Eraserhead

Chapter Text

Chapter 26 – Interlude Eraserhead

Eraser Head held the new capture tape firmly, as he watched the mugger's struggle quickly die down as he held him hanging from the near light post. He turned to the young couple that had been the mugger's victims.

"Are you two okay?" He asked neutrally as he still kept a bit of attention on the criminal.

"Ye-yeah, he caught us distracted but you came out of nowhere and woosh he's up there!" the man seemed to go back and forth from still terrified to awe to his capture method.

"I'm glad to hear that." The hero checked his phone, sending a message to the police to pick up the criminal while he checked on the young couple, the woman appeared to be faring better than the man.

The police officer was certainly surprised when he found the mugger to have fallen asleep when Eraser Head lowered the man. He simply gave a shrug and wished him luck. Soon leaving to continue his patrol as the couple was interviewed by the police officer's partner.

He used the tape to easily fling himself up to roof level and continue moving from a high point. He was amazed by the capture tape's abilities. It wasn't the first time the criminals he had captured with it had fallen asleep by being held in place for too long.

He would have to report the results to Junko and maybe get a spare capture tape since it was turning out to be this efficient. The other thing that had kept the hero awake was apparently his costume, and it was quite literal as he had barely slept two hours each night. He wasn't exactly bothered by it, he usually only slept about four hours a night and took one or two naps during the day if he could.

Having his need to sleep reduced with no apparent cost was quite appreciated. But he would have liked if Junko had told him that would happen. He wondered how she had managed it.

The batons, or as Present Mic had insisted to call them the earth shakers, were quite useful albeit Eraser Head was still experimenting with them, his fellow teacher Power Loader was going quite crazy about them.

Eraser Head had been firm with the man, he was not to pick the baton apart no matter how much he wanted to know how it worked. He had told the man to approach the woman himself but the inventor had froze up at the idea and quickly started evading the subject. If the man was fifteen to twenty years younger Eraser Head would have bet he had a crush on the younger woman.

The hero stopped his roof run to approach the edge and look down, his attention brought by the sound of scuffle below in an alley. A short check showed it was a few cats rummaging a particularly badly set pile of trash.

He was getting ready to start his patrol again when the vibration on his personal phone broke his demeanor. Reaching into his costume's pocket and pulling out the smartphone he checked, surprised to see it was Junko's partner Mila.

"Ms Smirnov, what do I owe the pleasure of this call?"

"Ai-… Eraser Head, there's a problem." Mila's tone left no doubt it was not a joke.

"Tell me more."

"I'm pretty sure Junko got kidnapped, she should have left the yard about two hours ago but she hasn't gotten home or messaged me in any way, and I have had no luck reaching her." While her tone was serious, Eraser Head could hear a bit of panic from Mila's voice.

"Don't worry, I will look for her, it's the least I can do, any idea where she could have been taken?"

"I would say outside the yard, she was still making notes before she left."

"Okay then, keep calm and message me if there's any news about it."

"I will, thank you Aizawa." Mila's voice was much more relaxed now.

"Please, call me Eraser Head when I'm working." he grinned as he cut the call and quickly shot himself in the direction of the scrapyard with his capture tape.

A few minutes was all he had to traverse at high speed to reach the yard. A quick look around didn't show any clue of what happened, but a slight reflection on the corner of his vision let him see a working security camera in a 24/7 market. Deciding it was the best clue he probably had he entered the store.

"Hello, I'm the pro hero Eraser Head," He presented himself to the clerk and showed him his license, asking for the manager to see the security cameras of the store.

A few minutes later a lizard-headed man stood by Eraser Head as the hero rewound the security camera's recording. He sent Mila a message asking for the time of Junko's last message, a quick reply had him advance the recording to that point in time.

Finding the spot he wanted, he watched a van stop in such a way that he couldn't see the person coming out of the yard, but he could see the moment the door in the fence opened and closed before the van quickly accelerated and left the scene.

"Tsk…" he groaned as he checked again, not getting to see anyone in special as the windows of the van were tinted, at least there had been a good shot of the van's license when it was leaving, making a copy to his cellphone he made a call.

"Detective Tsukauchi speaking."

"Hello Naomasa, It's Eraser Head, need help with a kidnapping case." The hero quickly sent the recording of the van. "Recently became acquainted with a new support company that provided me with equipment, one of them called me a bit ago that their partner hadn't gotten home and couldn't reach her. Being close I decided to check it out. A close store's camera caught this, think you can tell me anything about it?"

"Hmm, let me run the license through the system." The sound of the keyboard came through the phone as the Hero got back up to the roofs to not be interrupted after leaving the store.

"Okay, got good news and bad news. The good news is there's an owner listed for the van, a so-called Seiji Hamamura."

"I recognize that name."

"You and most heroes in your work should, he's one of the heads of the Humans First group. The bad news is that the van was reported stolen a month ago…"

"That doesn't sound too believable."

"And it's not, because a week ago it was proved that it had not been stolen, it was seen and photographed in one of HF's buildings.

"Sounds like it was never stolen, maybe he just forgot someone in his hate group took it?"

"I can't say, but given that the vehicle's still marked as stolen I can put an order to search for it since it's been used in what appears to be a kidnapping." Eraser Head could feel a grin showing on his face.

"So lets say I find the vehicle in one of the HF group's buildings…"

"Then you contact the police before checking inside the building." Naomasa finished.

"I like the sounds of that."

"Then you will like this." Eraser Head saw a notification on his phone "I sent you a list of five places the van was seen before. I would bet quite a bit it will be in one of them. I don't want to say anything about the level of intelligence of the people in this group, but we all agree on the same thing about them."

Eraser Head had to chuckle.

"Thank you for the help, detective. I will keep you informed and message you as soon as I get to the first place." The call ended after that, the hero quickly moving to his first target from the list.

The first building was definitely abandoned and a good part of it had collapsed. While he didn't think the members of the group were that smart, meeting in a place like this was just too dangerous.

The second place wasn't any luckier. It had been bought by a company and already completely demolished. Same as the third place.

The fourth had people but he didn't see a van around, for what he could tell the only vehicles in the area were motorcycles, most likely the lot was taken over by a biker gang, he made a note to pass the info to the police before heading over to the fifth and last place.

"Bingo." Eraser Head grinned as he saw the van outside the building. It was easy to see as the place was a few minutes outside of the city.

The man quickly took a picture of it and sent it with the message " Found it ." to the Detective. He quickly sent the man a second message " Something's happening, going in. " when he heard sounds of fighting inside the building, screams of a very, very angry woman. Even from the outside he could hear who must be Junko.

"You want me to work for you?! You want to see what I can do?! I will show you what. I! Can! Do!"

Only years of experience prepared him for what was to come. Eraser Head jumped away from the building when the hairs on the back of his neck stood straight up.

Only a moment after that he felt the ground rumble.

The solid floor of the building suddenly acted closer to a liquid before a shock-wave starting deep flowed out.

Eraser Head wondered what the idiots had done to get the woman so mad she used what he would be an upscaled version of his baton.

He was amazed to see how reality seemed to reassert itself, the floor and walls of the building started to crack, splinter and simply explode out.

Eraser Head had to cover behind a tree as large amounts of rubble flew away from the building. If he hadn't called the Detective for reinforcements before they would be coming now. He was pretty sure there weren't many people capable of causing localized earthquakes on demand and something told him that Junko would not be restricted to a single one if she decided to bring the ceiling down.

And talking about the ceiling, it was quite impressive how the building hadn't crashed down. Actually, none of the support columns seemed to have been affected, it was just all walls that had been destroyed, and given the lack of wails of pain and mostly just groans coming from inside the building she was almost sure Junko had done something to limit the injuries inflicted.

Eraser Head turned to see the first of the police cars stop just outside the destruction radius, the officer stepping out with a very surprised look as he updated them on the people half buried by the rubble as he headed into the building to check for Junko.

"...why don't you want to work for us? We could have given you what those quirked 'heroes' never could!" Eraser Head could hear the spite on the word 'hero'.

"Fuck you and your whole organization." Junko's words were marked by another much weaker vibration on the floor. Eraser Head quickly used his capture tape on the villain as he turned to see the young woman visibly relax when she saw him.

He had to admit he was impressed by the Hammer standing in front of the woman, he noted the ground seemed to rumble at any movement the head of the hammer made as her hand was definitely not steady holding the base of it.

"Glad to see you in good health, Ms Tetsu, your partner was quite adamant that you had been taken and it appears she was right."

"Thank you Eraser Head." She seemed to relax now the hero was here.

"You you you! You fucking heroes always ruin thing!" The villain struggled aimlessly in the restraints as he seemed to be quickly losing steam as the capture tape did its job. "With her help we could have shown you all Humans are better than any Quirked!"

"Shut up already!" Junko screamed at the man. "So far all you have said is that everyone else is at fault and you don't deserve nothing that happened to you! But you know what I can see? I can see that all you have done is complain, complain, complain and never tried to change things!"

"Ms Tetsu, please calm down, there's no need to interact with the man, police's outside, so please go out and I will be with you in a moment. We have to talk about that hammer of yours."

"What hammer?" Junko seemed to grin as Eraser Head turned to see that, in fact, there was no hammer nowhere visible, this made the man frown and look at her.

"I see… doesn't matter, please step outside, the building's obviously a danger currently." Junko nodded and sighed as she stepped out, walking calmly. Eraser Head turned to the man.

"You! You heroes are always ruining things…" Eraser Head was surprised he could still scream, he had to give it to the man to still be this energetic.

"You have been caught during the kidnapping of Junko Tetsu, the police's outside so you better keep your talking for them, I'm sure they will want to know why you took a woman so far out of the city against her wishes." Eraser Head tugged on the capture tape and forced him to follow out of the building, the police officers thanking him and handcuffing the villain as the first of the ambulances got to the place.

He walked to the back of an ambulance, the paramedic checking over Junko and the woman apparently correcting him in a lot of subjects while also giving herself a clean check of health, just a few ruffled feathers and a lot less stress than she had before.

"Ms Tetsu." He interrupted her before she sent the poor man back to school.

"Aizawa." She smiled, calling him something else than his hero name.

"It's good to see you are safe, I would suggest messaging your partner to make sure she knows you are safe. You will most likely spend a few hours at the station for the officers to take your declaration." He smiled. "Also I have to thank you for the support equipment, it has helped a lot these past few days. Tho I would suggest being careful with using untested support equipment in live-fire situations."

Junko grinned unapologetically at him. She was the cat that had gotten the canary.

"I will, don't worry, also I would like to talk with you in the future to show my gratitude, either as a favor or another piece of support equipment free of charge. I don't think I would be this intact if you hadn't gotten here in time."

"I still wish I could have gotten faster," Internally he added 'even if to just stop the massive collateral damage'.

He wished her a good night as he turned to help the police officers with the last of the HF's men still laying in the building and make sure none escaped. Aizawa was surprised to see the Hero Slidin' Go arrive, he was pretty sure the man worked nowhere close.

Shrugging he decided it wasn't important, he had to make sure no criminal escaped and another hero would only help.

Chapter 27

Chapter Text

Chapter 27

Junko leaned back on the chair she was sitting, closing her eyes to rest them as she waited for the police officer to come back. She had messaged Mila after Aizawa had left, updating her on her current situation and to message her mother to make sure the older woman didn't panic.

The last thing she wanted was to put her mother through a stressful moment. She would have to visit the woman pretty soon after this, As she had been postponing it for a while. There was nothing wrong with her mother, but Junko always hurt when she saw her grandmother, the older woman was a shadow of what she remembered in her childhood.

The Alzheimer had come out of nowhere and quickly reduced the woman down from an active person to sitting and just looking out of the window. Maybe she could do something to help her mother and grandmother now.

She felt her power swell up to four charges. Apparently getting kidnapped was rewarded or something. She breathed in deep and looked at the options, the first was four charges and apparently she would be blessed by a god of smithing. It seemed to cover a bit more but in effect would increase her ability in the forge.

The second option, also four charges, also had to do with the forge, it would increase her skill up to the level of the legendary dwarves. She was pretty sure there were no legendary dwarf smiths in her world but it sounded like it was a great thing from wherever the perk came.

The last seemed to be a pity perk, just half a charge and would increase her ability to predict and lead fashion trends. She was pretty sure she had seen it before, and given the two other options she discarded it as she started to think which would be best.

Both were quite strong and covered similar fields. Finally she chose the blessing, it apparently would increase her learning speed, making her go for it at the end. She felt the blessing infuse her and the knowledge of the perk filled her mind.

Apparently she had gotten the blessing of a god called Dundr, the perk had added the knowledge of the god's rituals, she wondered why she would need rituals for an apparently dead god.

The perk would increase the speed in her learning everything that had to do with the forge, tending the fires, working the metals, tempering and other skills that complemented it. It would also increase her ability in telling tales and entertaining people.

It was an interesting extra, she would definitely see to use it if she found herself in the need to distract people or something.

Junko opened her eyes when the door of the room she was sitting in opened as a police officer stepped in.

"Ms Tetsu, you are free to go, once again thank you for cooperating with us. It would be best if you try to stay home for a few days to make it easy to reach you if possible."

"I will try, I wish you good luck with those people." Junko nodded and thanked them again as she left the Police Station. She was almost expecting to see Aizawa waiting for her outside of the building, but not seeing him had her quickly take a taxi back home.

"Mila, I'm back." She called as she entered her apartment.

"Hey Junko, glad to see you back in one piece, was reading the news, apparently 'The Group Human First denies any type relation to the actions perpetrated by a group of their members in the case of a kidnapping'" Junko had to snort at the way they tried to cover their asses.

"Nothing about how the asshole was totally part of the inner circle of the group?" Junko sat back after getting a beer from the replicator she had managed to build with the knowledge of engineering and the bullshit electronics skill.

"No, but there were complaints about the scare of earthquakes that apparently hit the outsides of the city." Mila looked at the woman.

"I don't know what you mean, all I did was show them what I could do when they asked." Junko grinned. "I did make sure the building wouldn't collapse before I did use the Hammer."

"I'm sure…" Mila continued checking the news as Junko enjoyed her drink, even if it was actually alcohol it didn't do more than make her tongue and throat feel slightly numb as the drink was absorbed inside her stomach with no chance to affect her body.

"Oh, another update on the case," Mila caught Junko's attention as she started to read out loud. "'Twenty members of the Human First group were captured tonight after they kidnapped a young woman for unknown motives, the group has already come out to declare they had nothing to do with the situation, blah blah blah, the group was captured with the help of the underground hero Eraser Head and Slidin' Go.'"

"Uh, I don't remember seeing other hero back there, I only saw Aizawa, the police officers and the paramedics." Junko nibbled on the can, slowly eating it like a snack.

"I wonder…" Mila tapped on her omni-tool a bit. "It's weird, he usually works quite far from the scene… maybe he was just close? I'm pretty sure I heard the hammer from here."

"It's the Hammer, Mila, please capitalize it properly." The Felyne snorted at the woman and returned to her reading.

"Don't you dare take that beast outside your inventory in the apartment." Mila glared at her.

"I won't, don't worry I know pretty well how destructive it can be." She chuckled as she stood up "Heading to the Forge Lands, I imagine at least Alya would like to hear about it."

"Junko, are you trying to get in contact with your mother?" Mila called her before she walked into the warehouse.

"No… at least not entirely, but calling her tonight won't help much, it's already pretty late, I will call her tomorrow, should visit too…"

"Okay, I will see to remember it," Mila tapped on her omni-tool a bit "see you tomorrow Junko, I will be heading to bed soon."

"Goodnight Mila, sleep well." She changed into her training gear as she walked through the warehouse.

"Ho, good to see you lass," Ulthane welcomed her when she walked down the stairs into the training yard. "Hmm, something different, not bloodied, still too green for that, but you definitely saw a bit of action, eh?"

"Hey Ulthane, some dumb asshole thought it was a good idea to kidnap and force me to work for them."

"Ay, taught them a lesson?"

"Nothing besides surprise and bruises, they were dumb and really not expecting me to fight back." The Maker nodded at her comment.

"Show it to me." He told her and Junko nodded taking out the Hammer. Ulthane's hand grabbed the hammer that looked big in Junko's hands now looked like a delicate tool in his. "Not bad for a first weapon." He gave it a swing and the air vibrated. "Mass increase," he swung it again, the air making a light popping sound, "Kinetic multiplier." He nodded again.

Junko wasn't even surprised that the man could activate the enchantments in the hammer without an omni-tool to calculate the perfect timing. She was actually more impressed he didn't loose his balance as the hammer's weight varied.

"Not bad, congratulations on a solid work for your level, remember to show it to Alya, that lass will surely enjoy swinging it around a bit, don't fear if she decides to leave to give it a try."

"Thank you Ulthane, see you later." she walked past the man as he went back to his hobby of beating training posts.

Alya did indeed have a blast, asking Junko to lend her the hammer and go spend some time with Muria, saying the shamaness would like to talk with her after the events. Valus even patted her back in congratulations for the hammer and getting out of the situation unscathed.

The white-haired Maker welcomed her, giving her own type of congratulations to the young woman and easily leading the situation to have her recount the events, helping her ease her mind from future problems. She also noted that while the attempt was dumb and unprepared for her reaction, there could still be more at work.

Junko thanked the woman for her care before the two moved to more normal teachings. Muria's lessons had covered what she called the basics of herbology, everything from grasses and herbs to lichen and mushrooms, how to use every part of a plant and identify each one's uses. The hows and whys of drying, grinding and distilling for different effects.

Her lessons had slowly started to move into the basic natural enchanting, the production of simple healing potions barely above normal remedies that took a bit of magic to enhance their effects.

Junko took it all with gusto, learning everything, taking notes of every side comment the shamaness dropped, little nuggets of information refined by centuries of work and experimentation.

Soon their time together came to an end for the day and the young woman moved back into the forge where the siblings welcomed back, Alya returning the hammer and Valus pointing a few flaws in the work, nothing too terrible and basically constructive criticism. His sister used it as a way to teach Junko more.

After that she returned to the training yard, Ulthane ordering her to start training with her hammer. Having decided she was ready for a bit more he actually guided her to the use of her hammer. The differences from the flat end of the head against the rounded one.

The Maker understood why she hadn't gone with a pike on top like a bec-de-corbin or actually had one of the two faces of the hammer end in a spike for penetration. He did recommend seeing how much heavier she could make her next version once she becomes stronger.

Her training time done she said her goodbyes and headed back home, taking a couple hours to simply sleep like the dead as the deeds of the day caught with her.

She woke up quite a bit later than normal, between the incident, staying a bit longer at the Forge Lands and sleeping in had put her waking time about four am, still too early to call her mother so she headed into the workshop and started to work on the modular rooms. Given the characteristics of her magitech base she could build the room three times smaller in all axis and let her ridiculous perk simply increase the size what she really wanted. None of the systems in the rooms were dependent on the size and working in a smaller size didn't change much.

Albeit one would save up on resources working on a smaller scale, she wasn't restricted by them given the Alchemiter and her perks. What did change was the time and work she had to put to finish the modular room.

Deciding there was no reason to visit the yard that day she continued working till nearly ten am when she finished the modular room. Junko had moved the project to an open spot in the ground of the workshop before putting the last details and letting her size perk come into work and increase the size of the compacted room.

"Finally!" She celebrated as she tapped on her omni-tool, ordering the room to expand to basic size. She was amazed how smooth and silently it expanded from the eight cubic meter cube of compacted surfaces and magitech.

She ran the check-up routine on the room, finding the power source working perfectly, the core already infusing mantic energy through every wall, air recycling working perfectly.

She cycled the room through a few configurations before she ordered it to compact and stored it into a captcha card. She felt her power swell and reach two charges.

She could only take one of the options, it apparently was related to the brewing of potions, the two others that were out of her reach had to do with control of nanites and some kind of magical alchemy. She accepted the only option and felt her understanding of alchemy grow by leaps, now she understood how a lot of the things in her alchemy workshop worked, a few were still out of her reach but maybe with some experimentation and the scientific method would let her figure them.

She nodded and created a few copies of the room and carried them in respective cards as she proceeded to recycle the extras given the multiplier in her production perk.

Junko walked into the hangar, the room in the warehouse had more than enough space with its capability to expand if needed. She deployed half a dozen rooms and let her omni-tool connect to each one, running a quick check up routine before she put them through a few sets of configurations.

She watched the rooms connect and form a single line she could see all the way through, one massive room, a two floors house and a few others before she celebrated again.

All the rooms were working perfectly and her current VI program for them had no problem. She made the largest room expand to maximum size and barely fit inside the hangar before she had them all separate and compact back down for her to store.

Junko walked out of her warehouse to do the call, sitting in her kitchen with a cup of just brewed tea, took a deep breath and called her mother.

"Jun. Ko." The voice came through her omni-tool with the same intensity as each time she screwed up.

"Hai Mom…"

"I'm glad to hear you finally call, I'm also glad too that you thought enough of me to tell your friend to call me last night."

"Yes, it's just that after getting out of the station it was already so late that I didn't want to be a bother."

"You would never be a bother Junko, you are my daughter." She had to blush, smiling happily at her mother's words.

"Well, I'm thinking of visiting, it's been a while since I passed and this certainly gave me more than enough reasons."

"Mom will be happy to see her granddaughter too."

"I will see if Mila wants to come too, I will see you in a couple hours. Love you mom."

"Love you my little Junko, see you later."

Chapter 28

Chapter Text

Chapter 28

"I should have finished the car project rather than the rooms." Junko groaned as she eyed the line of stuck cars as far as her eye could see.

"Too late now," Mila replied to her for the tenth time "Just relax and wait for it, it will start moving again soon."

Junko did her best not to groan as she grabbed her phone and started to check some things, seeing now an update about another protest by the Human First group about the guys captured for kidnapping her.

She decided to give up on worrying about it and pulled her laptop to continue her programming work. Her latest project was to create a new system for her future projects to work with.

She wasn't really working in her laptop, it was just a front as everything went straight to her omni-tool, the little machine was good but she already had ideas to improve her computational power by quite a bit.

Starting with a modular system that could be easily scaled up for incremental power depending on her necessities. The modularity perk would also let her set up the basic system in such a way the upgrading would be as simple as replacing the needed parts.

Right now she was advancing on the software for her future system. It would most likely be running in parallel on every room in the building, keeping everything up to date and running.

She felt the taxi start moving again by the time she had gone into a tangent for the systems that a greenhouse room would need, given the knowledge from alchemy and Muria's lessons she was getting it would be a very much needed set up.

She had actually distracted herself in how to set up magical light sources to imitate different kinds of natural environments while keeping a proper theme in the room. She had found it very easy to set up enchantments that would reproduce all the needed aspects of natural light to help the plants grow. With that done, the needed controls for humidity and other details were cakewalk.

"We're here." Mila's voice brought her back from her work daze and nodded, paying the driver and getting out with her friend. In front of her was a normal house, almost identical to every other house in the vicinity.

Junko sighed before she rang the bell.

"Yes?" came the voice she recognized as her mother.

"It's me, Junko."

"Then come in dear, this is still your home, and you should have a key for it." She had to giggle at that.

Junko made a motion with her hand for Mila to come along as she stepped into the entrance , opening the door and entering her mother's place.

She enjoyed the feeling of being back home, it felt so nice that she simply ignored when she felt a charge and no possible option.

"Hi Mom," She called out to the house.

"I'm in the kitchen, dear." She walked with a total recognition for the place, stepping into the kitchen with a smile on her face and Mila a few steps behind her.

"Hi mom, it's good to see you again." She smiled warmly as she looked at the woman, similar hair color, while Junk's was rust red her mother was a more vivid, she looked quite like her, just about twenty five years older and nearly just half in all directions, except her chest, where Junko was petite her mother had a more buxom figure.

"Darling, it's so nice to see you too, come here." Both stepped closer, mother and daughter hugged each other tightly. "Oof! Oh my, you've grown quite stronger, haven't you?" Junko had to giggle as her mother started to check her body. "Have you been working out? I've seen heroes in worse state than you."

Her mother lifted the woman's sleeves to expose the strong and developed arms.

"Yeah, working in the scrapyard has always been a bit of work, and the work after owning it helped even more."

"Well, I'm glad to see you are healthy," Her mother pinched her cheek and giggled in a very similar way before turning. "And you must be Mila, thank you for keeping my daughter safe."

"It's nothing ma'am. Junko has helped me quite a bit by giving me the job I have and the trust that goes with it." Junko sat on one of the chairs as her mother eagerly pushed Mila to join before sitting last.

"So how did you met my daughter?"

"I had finished my learning of the trade and was looking for a place to work at when I saw the ad posted at the notification board." Mila recounted a sanitized version, calling the Celestial Forge a job search application.

"Mom, how's grandma?" Junko asked in a low moment of the conversation, it made her mother's eyes open and soften up as she smiled.

"She's in the living room looking at the garden, why don't you go see her? I will be here talking with Mila." Junko nodded and stood up, a small feeling of trepidation as she left the kitchen to check on the older woman.

She felt her heart ache when she looked at the woman, sitting with an almost empty gaze out to the sunny garden.

"Hi Gran." the young woman pulled a chair and sat by her wheelchair. She slowly started to talk, idly retelling her time in a similar manner to what she did for her mother, but there was not a single question for more details.

The Alzheimers had come swift and hard, the woman reduced to a mere husk of her former self. It had started with forgetting things and slight absentmindedness. But it had quickly developed from there; short term memory failing more and more to the point that she had stopped recognizing Junko after she had a growth spurt, always asking for her little piece of steel as she called her.

Her mother was more recognizable, but even that had been failing her at the end, till she had stopped being there at all. Her mother spent most of her time taking care of her, having a nurse come daily during her working hours.

She grabbed her grandmother's hand. She leaned on her, the older woman's hair was as pink as the sakura she was named after.

She wanted to curse the damn disease, stupid thing that took he grandmother away. And she knew perfectly well what the disease did. Her medical knowledge perk provided every little detail of it.

And she could do something about it…

She now had multiple ways to deal with it. She started to build a plan for it.

"Don't worry grandma, your little piece of steel will make things better." she smiled as she held her hand.

She compared the ideas of brewing a potion to heal her with crafting an accessory that would heal her mind and body back to a healthy state.

The first one would work the fastest but most likely would need multiple applications and a weekly to monthly dose of it. Meanwhile the accessory would work much slower but keep her healthy as long as she wore it. With her skill it wouldn't be hard to craft something that didn't look out of place.

Actually, she already had a good idea, a branch of sakura tree would be perfect. She already had a list of possible enchantments to apply, general health, regeneration focused on the mind, a blanket resistance against disease.

She was tempted to add a stamina enchantment like for Eraser Head's costume of her training clothes. But she decided it would be harmful, the mind needed natural sleep to heal and giving it a helping hand would need extra sleep.

She smiled, a decision made as she patted her grandmother's hand and walked to the kitchen.

"I'll be right back, I want to buy a cake at the nearby bakery." she told Mila and her mom as she used the key to walk into her warehouse instead of leaving.

She ran to the storage and grabbed some of the materials she would need before heading back to the workshop and quickly starting to work on it. The shaping was the easiest part, not aiming for anything outrageous and letting her perks do most of the work before she moved on the enchanting.

Weaving the collection of enchantments wasn't that much more complicated given their shared nature. It was all about healing. She checked her clock, it had taken her nearly twenty minutes.

Before the two women panicked she used the replicator to create a cake inside a box before heading back into the house.

"I'm back!" She called and walked into the kitchen.

"Finally, I was about to call the cops." Her mother joked with a kind smile.

"Sorry, there were a lot of people in line, but look." She pulled a small box with the accessory "I saw it on the way back and had to buy it for grandma."

Her mother's smile grew larger. "I'm sure she will love it, now sit while I make the coffee." Junko laughed softly as Mila gave her a side-look, obviously knowing what that was.

The cake was a success, her mother praising it as they kept talking for another hour before it was time to leave. Her Mother had smiled when Junko slipped the necklace over her grandmother's head.

Almost as a congratulation for it she felt her power swell, feeling there was only one choice she took it and left it to check later, apparently having to do with material analysis.

She gave her grandmother a hug as her mother had left to do something else.

"Goodbye grandma, I will see you soon, get better, I miss you." She kissed the older woman's forehead before she left.

"I hope you remember to call me sooner next time, Junko." Her mother hugged her as Mila was already standing outside the door.

"I will mom, I will invite you and grandma once we open the company, you will love it."

"I will hold you to that. Good luck dear, and please no more kidnapping, I don't think I could go through that again even if I already knew you were safe when I heard about it." Junko hugged her mother back before she joined Mila into the cab for the way back.

"I know it'll work." Mila said simply as Junko thanked her. The Felyne took a short nap as the woman got back to working on her programming with a smile on her face, wishing with all her heart the next time her grandmother could reply to her being there.

The days went by quickly after that, Junko spending most of her days working hard on her many projects as Mila took care of the business and multiple patents. She joked about having more than enough cash to actually buy a plot of land and having enough to build on it in a much better part of town, but she knew Junko wouldn't really go for it.

Junko had managed to get Izuku to only visit twice a week and deposit the trash from the beach inside the place, not like she had much to hide besides a large, empty plot as the basement wasn't really noticeable without anything on top.

It was nearing the end of the third month since she had gotten the forge and all the craziness that accompanied it when Junko decided everything was ready for them to formally open the company's building.

"You know," Mila started as both of them sat on a little bench at the ex-scrapyard. "I think this is really the first time I came here, so I never saw it before."

"You didn't miss much, just google Scrapyard and you will find a thousand and one pictures that could have been this place." She hummed as she looked around. "Personally, I like it like this much better."

The once scrap-filled yard was now worlds apart from what it had once been. The previously dry, discolored earth was now rich, dark soil with multiple plants and a few small trees growing on it all around the building in the center of the lot.

Currently, the many modular rooms were set up in a simple cubic disposition, what she had investigated told her it was modernist architecture, she found it funny since it had been around for nearly half a millennia. The current set up made her think of the late Bauhaus building, the windows letting as much natural light as possible into the building.

On one side was a very visible service entrance for safe disposal of recycling materials, while a more hidden entrance to the basement parking was hidden by the design.

Another feature hidden in plain sight were the multiple pylons that acted as a base for the security system. Multiple layers of security that checked everyone that came through, recording a number of information up to a block away for safety. Some of the closest layers would read people's intent, warning her or Mila of any problems, and if needed, they would activate the barriers set in place to restrict hostiles or protect victims.

The inside of the building was pretty bare at the moment, mostly because she didn't really need that much besides the dormitory section which was practically two fully furnished apartments, one for her and one for Mila.

Most of the place was empty, only having an office for each, a greenhouse she hadn't filled with anything useful yet, and a reinforced testing room. The rest were bare, basic rooms she would see to equip if there was a need for them, as most of her work was done inside the warehouse and she had no idea what else to put around the place. It all looked really nice, at least.

There was one room that actually saw some use, it was the one currently holding her computing system. She had finished the first version of it and was using it to run the building's systems, interconnecting all the rooms and the security system.

"You certainly went all out with the design of the place, I have spent more than an hour just walking around and looking at things from every possible point of view, even climbing a few trees was worth it."

"Glad to hear you could come down without a hero once you climbed up a tree."

Mila snorted and swatted at her.

"I will call the construction company tomorrow to come and remove the fences, I think we are more than ready to open up." Mila checked a few things in her omni-tool.

"I know, after this we will be getting a lot more attention than before, ready to tell people no when they come begging?"

"Please, I'm a cat, they will be like mice, fun to play with, but I know when to just swat and end it." Mila purred and showed her claws.

"Easy there kitten, hide the claws." She joked and sighed, leaning back as she looked at the place, all the result of her hard work. "Well, it's time to open Junk's Emporium for real."

Chapter 29

Chapter Text

Chapter 29

The next couple weeks of work for Junko and Mila were hard. With the building open a lot more attention was suddenly on them.

Mila liked having a room and an office for herself, while she still enjoyed sharing meals with Junko, she also used her own kitchen and the replicator she had added to their rooms to get copies of Junk's masterwork dishes.

In that time Junko only felt her well fill once, but having no options, she let them pass. She did put the perk she got while visiting her mother to work. It was an interesting perk, more of a tool than an ability. It let her understand materials and their uses, in the same way she could deduce what an object was made of with a little study. With longer study she could work out the characteristic and possible uses of any material she got her hands on.

Junko, meanwhile, had plenty of work constructing some additional facilities for the building while also taking a few contracts of support equipment for small and medium heroes that usually didn't get that much attention. While not working pro-bono, she offered good prices, and in some cases, exchange for trying some of Junko's new technological advances, all above board and with Mila having written the contracts to be safe.

One of the things she had tested and released was a completely black-boxed version of the tri-corder for medical use. It had actually taken a bit till professionals found just how useful it was.

Junko had to write a very, very simplified manual and gift a dozen of the units to a local hospital near their place. After that, they had quickly gotten an ever increased demand for more. She had no cost at all in making them, the Alchemiter basically paying for itself in creating more, just recycling one in five boxes gave her more than enough grist to repeat the creation and have extra on the resources needed.

Mila had convinced her to pass a minimum price and use said money to buy materials even if they didn't need it, as selling items without a source for the parts was a bit dubious. Junko ended up agreeing while she still noted that most materials would be the scrap they bought off other yards to recycle twice over.

On the bad side, the Human First group had apparently decided she was some kind of enemy number one after the kidnapping event. Junko had to snort at that, blaming the victim for not going along with their stupid plan. She had talked with Aizawa about it, the hero apologized for not being able to help much, given that his quirk-nullifying quirk made him specialize in dealing with quirked criminals. He had forwarded her to a woman in the same police station where she had been taken after the incident.

Kanna Hogo was a young sergeant only recently ascended to her new position. The woman was only a few years older than Junko and they had hit it off quite easily, she was quirkless and carried a mutation from his father's side of the family, making feathers grow between her hair, longer on the head and a short and softer plumage on her arms.

Junko had first approached the woman to get help with the hate group having decided her company was an affront to quirklessness and she had no idea how to move forward, the fence around the yard had kept them out but having them nearly all days of the week was counterproductive for a good image.

While having a patrol car slow down while passing in front of the company's lot broke them up the first couple times it happened they kept coming back. And having a patrol routinely pass would only have them assemble at other hours.

Mila had been the one to offer a solution, she had prepared a contract between Junk Emporium and the Police Station. For a very modest amount, Junko had replaced the station's uniforms, even making customized ones for the people with more extreme mutations.

Now with the police having a vested interest in keeping the lot free of the rabble, as well as Junko showing that she also worked with quirkless people in the police force, there was not enough justification for the people to protest outside her place.

Kanna and Junko maintained contact, and while it was for official reasons, the pair found similar ground on complaining about quirks and the problems they brought.

"You and all quirked people," Kanna chuckled as she drank more of the beer in her hand. "Specially you, Junk, you can't get drunk! That's totally unfair." The woman stuck her tongue out to her friend as she took a long sip at her beer.

"And I think you are too drunk." She still let the woman finish her beer as both sat in one of the rooms at the junk house. Mila had already left as the two women stayed there chatting.

Junko snorted as she finished her can of beer and got up, helping Kanna up and onto the near couch "Come on, you can stay the night, you can sleep on the couch, I will leave some hangover medicine so you can still go to work tomorrow."

Kanna groaned and mumbled something along the lines of 'Thanks', before completely passing out. Junko went to the alchemy workshop and prepared a quick poison heal before using a technique Muria taught her to refine it into a pill, she even gave it a weird scribble to make it look like a mass produced aspirin before leaving it with a glass of water near her friend.

After that Junko walked into the greenhouse. It had been slowly filling up, most of the plants had a use and only a few were completely decorative, not that the others didn't fill the place with natural beauty. Actually, some of the most beautiful ones had the most uses.

They also had been grown from the samples she had acquired in her Alchemy Workshop, Muria had helped her, teaching her multiple ways to grow the plants from the alchemical ingredients provided by her power.

Junko sat looking at a growing tree, it would take a while until it became useful, but it would grow in time. Suddenly, she felt her power swell inside of her, three options for her three charges.

She had to swallow hard as she looked at the three options costing six charges each. She felt a shiver at the memory of the last time she only had six charges perks to choose from. But there was a difference this time, there were only three options, not six, and she didn't have enough to take any of them.

Breathing out in relief, she took a peek at them. The first had been one of the choices back then, a perk she could simply describe as all the guns.

The second was about retro-engineering any kind of technology, whether she understood it or not. It was definitely powerful, but she didn't know if she would ever find a way to use it, given that she was now close to becoming the leading expert in technological development worldwide .

The third would have been nice to get, apparently it was another type of alchemy, one that would work with the concepts inside objects and using them in other objects.

She let them go and leaned back, watching the plants around her, the growing knowledge letting her almost sense the magic in some of the plants as they grew.

After a while of almost slipping into a meditative state, she stood up and headed to bed, sleeping for an hour and waking up fresh like if she had slept the whole night.

Her very early morning was spent in upgrading the old piece of crap her power called a car. She had gone ship of Theseus on the thing and not a gram of metal on it was part of the original beetle, but to her power it was still the same car.

The car's frame had been remade out of space-age alloy, nearly indestructible to anything found in earth while being light and flexible enough. Each seat had been handcrafted and sewn by her to be incredibly comfortable and impossible to stain or tear.

The wheels… the wheels were mostly for show, because the car didn't have a motor. In place of the motor the car had a Core that actually kept the car floating a millimeter away from the ground, providing perfect suspension, driving the car you would not feel the holes in the road.

The core also added another layer to the car's indestructibility by also repairing any kind of damage or tear. The driving system worked but the car could easily be ordered to drive anywhere thanks to the connectivity with her developing VI.

Just to finish things like a cherry on top of the dessert, the whole car was space-proof, capable of staying near indefinitely in the void of space. Mass control and a propulsion system pushing 0.5 light speed in space meant reaching pluto in an average of eleven hours.

Mila had dissuaded her in taking a day off and instead recommended to set up some unmanned probes first. The hard part about it was where to launch them from as the probe in itself wouldn't be hard to design, so Junko had been designing some stealth systems for the project on the side.

She spent the morning till her security system noted that Kanna was waking up. So Junko finished with the alchemical process that would make the car look like it was painted a soft silver color.

"Finally up?" She asked Kanna from the door.

"Fuck you and all morning people." The sergeant groaned as she finished the water along with the hangover cure, instantly looking better. "Fuck what was that?"

"Hangover cure, please tell me if you start growing tails or new appendages." She grinned and teased her friend.

"Did you just use me to test a new drug?"

"Nah, that's old stuff, just a process to make it into a pill, nothing really out of this world. Don't worry, completely safe." She smiled "You can use my bathroom, I will prepare some breakfast before you gotta go."

Junko turned and headed into the kitchen, looking to replicate some ingredients to make breakfast before Kanna saw the miraculous machine, putting some other things in the fridge to make it look like she actually used the thing.

"God, your shower's heavenly, Junk." Kanna entered the room and sat on the table as Junko hid the fact she used between a tenth and a fifth of the ingredients needed to cook a normal meal.

"I know, I made the place from the ground up… Actually, I made it from the underground up, but I haven't found much use for the basement besides parking." Junko placed a pair of plates on the table.

"I wish I lived here." Kanna mumbled between bites of a breakfast better than most five star chefs could make.

Junko had to swallow at that comment, she thought about inviting her mother to come and live in the dormitory area, it would certainly help her keep an eye on her grandmother's recovery since the woman had apparently been slowly recovering since she visited, who would have know?

"I mean you could, but most likely you would have to sign a lot of things for Mila, you would be bound to find a few secrets I would prefer to not advertise yet." She took another bite and chewed slowly.

"Junk, be honest with me, you are not sacrificing babies here, right?" And there went the seriousness as Junko almost spit all the food in her mouth and started to cough.

"God dammit Kanna, no!" The police officer started to laugh and Junko quickly joined her. "No, no, it's not that, I promised I haven't hurt anything larger than a fly and that was most likely swatting it away."

"Okay, I will talk to the evil cat." Junko had to snort as Kanna's bird-like features apparently set some kind of enmity with the Felyne.

After that Kanna thanked her for the meal, apologizing for not cleaning the dishes as she had to leave for work. Junko sent her on her way as she 'cleaned' the dishes, as soon as her friend had left the dishes were quickly unmade along with any leftovers.

Junko felt her power fill again, four charges and three options, none of them were above two charges as cost. The first, two charges and appeared to be half of another perk, giving her the tools to work on some kind of equipment she didn't know about.

The second for a single charge was apparently a laboratory, she wasn't sure she needed one.

She decided for the third, for two charges her workshop now had a 3-D printer capable of crafting customized prosthetic parts and circuits. She also had a collection of equipment ready to work on cyborgs, put them together or pull them apart while also dealing the best maintenance to them.

"I know Kung Fu…" Junk blinked a couple times. "Wait, no, that's Wing Chun… I also have a new hammer…" she opened her eyes and ran into the lockers room "A Rocket Hammer! Now that's some bullshit. Thank you power."

She noticed a few additions to the locker room but nothing as amazing as this last one. As any child with the access and knowledge to use such a weapon she ran to the training room with said weapon in hand.

The next ten minutes were spent in high-speed bludgeoning-action. The next ten after that were spent pulling the hammer apart, learning how it worked, quite simple as in "press the button" and the rocket part of the hammer ignited the stored fuel, maintaining every part of it and putting it all back together.

The rest of the day was spent considerably more relaxed than those ten minutes of high-octane hammer action, even during the training with Ulthane as the Maker had moved her from still posts to slowly moving training dummies.

Even with her new job, she still spent a large amount of time inside the Forge Lands every day, increasing the speed of her learning by double plus the divine blessing she had acquired through a perk. She had been making an incredible increase in her abilities and wouldn't take more than a real year till she had completed her tutoring.

It felt good to learn from teachers that wanted to teach so Junko absorbed everything they had to offer. Junk also had to admit seeing Ulthane ready for a fight was one of the scariest things she had witnessed, Alya had told her one of the riders may visit soon and the Maker tender to get "energetically competitive".

Watching Ulthane slice through the training posts with his ridiculous hammer-axe in one swing when all she had seen was the Maker smack them around really brought to earth how strong he really was.

And while Junko admitted she didn't think she would ever need that much strength, she was more than glad to learn from the man.

Chapter 30

Chapter Text

Chapter 30

Junko stopped the car in front of her mother's home, getting out of it and ringing the bell.

"It's me mom, come out with grandma, I have the car here." She told the intercom after her mother picked up.

"Okay, okay, coming." The older woman's voice came through and Junko leaned on the car to wait for her family.

Her smile grew larger when her mother came pushing her grandmother's wheelchair, the older woman looking more alert, Junko was sure she saw her recognize her but didn't say anything, it still was great news.

"Let's get grandma inside." She helped her mother to get Sakura into the back seat and quickly got in the driver's seat with her mother by her.

"I didn't know you bought a car." Her mother's comment made her snort.

"More like made a car," She chuckled as she turned on, the vehicle barely making a noise, Junko wanted to make it completely silent but Mila had pointed that vehicles should be audible for safety. "You have no idea what you can find between the scrap. While this thing barely ran before, I replaced every last bit, it's definitely the safest vehicle on the planet."

"Can't say I ever got too used to cars. But it's better than using public transport when taking mom around." Her mother talked and Junko enjoyed her company.

"Don't worry, we will get there in no time, I'm sure Grandma will enjoy the place." She eyed the woman on the back seat, she appeared to be enjoying the passing view outside the window. "She looks better."

"Yes, since you visited, she's been sleeping more but she's also been a lot more alert, hasn't spoken yet, but…"

Junko smiled and reached to grab her mother's hand as they waited for a light to change. After the light changed she grabbed the wheel again, not that it really was necessary, if she wanted the seats could turn around and the car could drive itself, but the permits for a self-driving vehicle were ridiculous and she was almost sure it was on purpose.

Soon she reached the building, noting her mother amazed by the looks as she drove up to the entrance "And here we are." She got out of the thing that just looked like a car, she walked around and helped her mother and then her grandmother out, getting the older woman onto the wheel chair and pushing her in.

"Looks lovely, must have cost a fortune." Her mother appreciated the place.

"Yes, it would, if I had bought the materials and paid someone to make it for me." She chuckled as her mother turned to look at her. "I made nearly everything in this place." She hummed as she took her mother around, giving her a tour.

"Most of the place is still empty," She let her mother walk as she pushed her grandmother around. "Besides the dormitories, which are pretty much personal apartments with everything inside, we have an office for each of us, the lobby we passed when we got here, the training room, the medic bay and the greenhouse." Junko hummed and took the two older women around, peeking through every room before finishing the tour in the green house.

"It's lovely." Her mother appreciated the plants.

"I know, just be careful with the marked ones, some of them are a bit more than just decorative, it will take a bit till everything grows, but I'm sure it will be great." Junko felt her power swell, three charges, three options, just like normal.

The first option, six charges, had to do with magic and souls, but outside of her reach and she had honestly no idea how she would get souls in any way Kosher.

The second option was four charges, it felt strangely connected to her Maker's tutoring, apparently had to do with the holy light? She wasn't sure but it felt strong, still outside of her reach.

The third option, being the only one available, she took straight away, trying to not be too distracted. Of course it incredibly backfired as she took in the knowledge of how to build form changing weapons, they would have two modes, a melee and a ranged weapon form, the perk assured her that with enough practice she may even put more forms.

Then things went weird as she felt her soul ignite, in a good way, a small spark took hold of the tinder inside of her and suddenly she was glowing, a faint aura enveloped her body, she noticed it was a similar color to the light her alchemical circles produced when activated.

Her mother also noticed, given the look of surprise as seeing her daughter suddenly light up like that.

"Junko?!"

"It's okay Mom! It's okay," Junko looked at her hand and took a deep breath, feeling better than ever as the initial light slowly died down until it was completely invisible, barely a millimeter above her skin, she knew it was still there. "Just a happy surprise, but I think I should explain now. I mean I was going to before this, but…"

"And here I thought you would tell me you and Mila were dating." Her mother commented and Junko felt her face go nuclear.

"Mom! No, no, no, no, we aren't even the same species!" Junko spoke quickly.

"Jun! Ko! I didn't raise you to be a racist!" Her mother's tone quickly grew hard.

"No, not what I meant! I mean she's…" Junko sighed. "I'm sorry, that came out wrong, but it's part of this whole thing, let me explain. Come." she made a motion with her hand as she walked to her grandma's wheelchair, the old woman smiling at her and grabbing her hand, the simple motion almost drove her to tears as the woman hummed.

"Come on dear." her voice was soft but both of them heard it.

"Yes, grandma." she pushed the chair, "Come on, mom, I will show you, it will be easier to explain."

Junko reached the door and pulled the familiar key, made a motion to her mother to look out of the door before she slipped in the key and opened the warehouse.

"What… what is this place?" her mother asked softly.

"Let's start from the beginning, about four, almost five months ago, I suddenly found this key in my hand and opened a door into this place, plus got a hell of a headache as I got the first of what I later would call a perk or ability." She pushed her grandmother through the entrance hall and into the hallway. "It would only be later that I found I was chosen by… lets call it a patron of sorts, that's at least some of the people who know of this called him, her, them? It's hard to say.

"Basically a being of unimaginable power chose me for some reason, now once a while I get to choose one of three perks, but at the same time I have this well of power, I call it, it fills with charges, each time a charge fills up I get to pick and use the accumulated charges to pay for the option, if I can't pick they pass and I have to wait."

"Junko, have you been dealing with villains?" Her mother mostly joked given her tone of voice.

"Ha ha, no mom. The perks have come in a large variety." she wheeled her grandma into the workshop. "Welcome to my workshop. Here's where I do most of my building, it all started with a bench and a collection of tools, since then I've been acquiring and making stuff.

"My Patron is apparently called the Celestial Forge, apparently all the perks I have been getting are related in some way to the construction, creation and making of things, everything from technology to magic, and yes, magic is real, or at least it's now after I started to get perks related to it."

"I can see that, you always were smart but I didn't thought you were that capable, no offense."

"It's okay, I doubt anyone's as smart, I have enough knowledge to take people to space with no problems and to Mars in a few minutes, even Pluto wouldn't be more than half a day."

"I.. I see, well I don't. This is crazy, how is Mila related to this?"

"Yes, well, the part that took me time to realize is that all the perks, knowledge, items that the Celestial Forge gifted me are kinda taken from other worlds, other earths, other places."

"Did they kidnap her?!"

"No, no, she was asked, the story she told you when you met her is pretty much the same, the Celestial Forge posted an ad in the place she works, they were completely truthful about what would happen and she didn't see a problem with that." She saw her mother breath a sigh, apparently she liked the felyne. "I'm pretty sure that only people who would have accepted it could see it, I can see how easy it's to make. I doubt it would have been any harder for them.

"So they gave her the offer and she accepted, we have been working since then, we meshed well and she always wanted to do what she's doing, she was trained to become a merchant. And yes, about not being the same race, she's a Felyne, which is pretty much what you see her, a talking, biped cat, smart as any human or more in a lot of cases.

"She has told me about her world, a bit harsher than ours, not as developed given the large collection of beasts that live in the wild, from beasts the size of large dogs to outright dragons the size of small mountains and everything in-between.

"Her race works in a sort of symbiosis with the other races, working along them, taking most of the service jobs like chefs or similar."

Junko felt her power swell again and three options come near, she could see only one of them was in her reach and quickly took it. Apparently it was a pretty basic set of engineering knowledge to work in a spaceship /station, plus how to modify the work tools into weapons to kill alien monstrosities. Joy.

"All okay, Junko?"

"Yes, just another perk, they can technically come at any time, but I have felt they come around more when I'm doing new stuff, too much repeated work and the well won't fill up." Junko got up from the stool she was sitting on. "Basically just got the knowledge an engineer would need to work in a spaceship." She sighed. "It sounds so silly in a way, but yes, slowly I've been picking up speed in what I can do, some perks are pretty forward, like this, got the knowledge and I can do stuff with it, others…"

Junko grabbed a piece of metal, if she was right it was enough for a simple ring, placed it on the center of one of her prefabricated metal shaping alchemy circles and activated it. Her mother watched amazed as the metal was transmutated into a new look, a perfectly carved ring. And suddenly there were five identical ones.

"Wait, what?"

"Yeah, that's two perks, well, three, or was it more? It's hard to keep track, but basically the first perk lets me change things by using the circles, the other makes anything I craft suddenly be multiplied by five, or become five times as big. The other perks add to the quality and so on. One of them basically means anything I make is as good as a master's work." She handed the rings to her mother.

"They are beautiful, just like the…" She turned to look at the necklace hanging around her mother's neck "You made it, no?"

Junko had to nod at that. "Yes, also enchanted it to help her heal." Her mother's smile warmed up.

"I can see how it's been working." Her grandmother hadn't spoken again, but both her and her mother didn't feel the older woman needed to,she was here with them a lot more than she had been in the last few years.

"I would actually put you two through a basic set of medical checks later, I know more than most doctors and I would like to see that you two stay healthy, it will also help me set a base for grandma's health and watch her recovery."

"I don't see anything wrong with that, would it take long?"

Junko shook her head "Not really, my technology's advanced enough I can have a whole body scan done in less than a minute, it may take the system a bit longer to process all the information but you don't even have to take off your clothes for it.

"I have been selling the basic version of the system to hospitals all over the country by now."

"Wait, you are behind the medical scan machines?"

"Pft, such a silly name they ended up giving them, and because we didn't feel like paying for publicity most news sources keep 'forgetting' about our company's name when talking about them." She snorted and her mother joined her in a soft laughter.

"So you can do magic like with that circle?" Her mother inquired as Junk walked to the replicator she had set in the workshop and created a few cups of tea.

"Yes I can, but no, that was something else, my power called it Alchemy, but it has called Alchemy some other things, I mean I also know how to make a varied set of potions like those of games, from healing to curing a varied set of problems. This is basically the art of changing an object by first understanding, then unmaking it and turning it into a new form, in very simple words, technically, at the start could only go for 1:1, I would always need the same amount of matter that went in to matter that went out, but some perks started to make that more nebulous till the one I told you before broke things over its knee and now I have to be careful or end with things too big or multiple copies." She handed her mother a cup and gently put the other in her grandma's hands, the older woman slowly taking sips of the tea as Junko sat down and enjoyed her drink.

"Most of my magic's been focused on enchanting things or similar, I originally could only use magic through cloth, I have pretty much made all my clothes since then. But I have been learning."

"How?" her mother simply asked her before finishing her tea.

"Teachers, it's the biggest perk since the start. It's hard to describe but all perks have a size directly related to the cost in charges, most are one or two, but I have gotten three and four too, strangely none of five yet but this one was six charges, it apparently was something big 'cause it hit me like a hammer.

"A few perks before had added things around here in the warehouse, remember that at first was only that workshop bench, the other things came later, after a little misstep from their side, which still scares me to this day, they separated the thing in rooms, and this perk added a door that connects to somewhere else."

Her mother looked at her slightly incredulous.

"Remember that Mila and a lot of the perks come from different worlds. This is just more of the same, the people there call it the Forge Lands, and feels almost in theme for the Celestial Forge to send me there to learn. My teachers aren't human, they kinda look the role, but they are also all over two and a half meters tall and at least twice as wide as me. They are also older than humanity, each. So they have a lot to teach."

She slowly kept talking with her mother, retelling her how things had gone, her grandmother listening too with a smile.

Inside Junko that spark that had ignited grew stronger.

Chapter 31

Chapter Text

Chapter 31

Junko pressed a button and watched her systems give her an ok and note of the start of the process of going through the scans of her mother and grandmother.

"That's it, you can move again." she hummed as she felt her power fill once again, one charge and a single option of the three, so she took it, glad to see that she finally got that physics knowledge to accompany the engineering, medical and robotics knowledge.

"That was easy, are you sure there will be no problems?" She asked a little worried.

"Completely, mom, the knowledge used to create the scans was used for hundreds of years where it came from, and I checked that there was nothing inherently different in how it would work here." She stepped up and let the machine take a scan of her too, she felt it was a much needed thing after the last perk gave her aura. "See, nothing bad."

"I will believe you then, it's just so weird that you can do it so easily."

"I'm also using a computer powerful enough to compare to those of I-island. I looked it up." She chuckled softly. "And it's actually just the first version, I already have ideas how to improve it even further."

Her mother snorted at the comment.

"I still don't know why you would want something stronger than that, but sure, who I am to tell you to stop." Her mother's comment made the young woman step and hug her.

"You are my mother. If you told me to, I would stop, rethink things and talk about it with you. Mila's been a wonderful friend, talking to me from the point of someone not on this crazy ride, and I would love to have your opinion too." After the hug between mother and daughter the machine beeped to signal it had finished processing the information. "Let's see."

Junko turned around and quickly started to check the results.

"Mom, you are healthy, you could do with a bit more physical exercise, I could suggest a few easy sets to do at home, other than that your diet's pretty good, low on animal meat, good amount of vegetables and grain, maybe a bit less sugar and salt, but otherwise doing pretty well."

"Well, I'm glad to hear that, and sounds like my last doctor check up." Her mother rested her hand on her daughter's shoulder.

"I'm glad to hear I have a second point of view seeing the same. Now, Grandma's other thing," She brought a three-dimensional scan of the older woman's brain. "You can see the areas where things have been slowly recovering, but you can still see the degradation in the brain.

"Normally it would be a bad thing, there's no recovering a lot of things in here," She tapped her head. "But magic works slightly different, right now the necklace around her neck is looking to do three things, first keep her healthy, this is done by keeping her from getting any more sick, second it's helping her regenerate, most people think the brain can't do it, it can and the necklace is helping pull it up to the level of the liver, the third is to make her healthy and a healthy mind is needed for a healthy body. As I said, normally that would help her recover, but lose a lot of memories on the way there. Magic fixes that, don't ask me how, for all I know I'm still a student. If I had to guess, it's reaching for her soul to get the missing parts."

"Sounds complicated, but you are saying she will get better, no?" Junko nodded and her mother hugged her. "I'm so glad to hear that, dear."

"I'm glad too, I was so happy when I realized I could do something about it." Junko heard another beep from the machine and she turned. "And that one's mine." She pulled the last scan she had taken from a week ago. "Well, looks like the only medical term I can use for myself is Disgustingly Healthy, even more than before."

"Is that really a term?" Her mother asked in a light tone.

"Oh yes, you have no idea what kind of terms doctors actually use between them when talking about patients. My knowledge of medicine came with a whole book of black humor." She grinned. "But I'm really healthy, currently I've been working out hard daily, given my quirk my diet's not a problem, as long as I eat enough all my needs get covered, plus my training clothes look to keep me healthy, a bit like grandma's necklace." The young woman typed a few more keys. "Plus the Aura I got before I started to explain things to you."

"So it wasn't just a pretty color show?" Her mother's joke made her snort.

"You could call it a quirk on its own. When I get perks I get some knowledge of what they are and how they work, while Aura wasn't a perk directly, it still was explained to me. It's an all-around improvement, with it I'm stronger, faster, more flexible, I recover from damage and it will be an ablative shield keeping me from taking damage till it goes down." Her mother looked impressed by it.

"So you can go out and be a hero?"

"Nah, I mean I could." She shook her head. "But I like what I'm doing, I like making things, and I think I have been doing a lot more good helping heroes with my equipment and costumes. Keeping them healthy, helping them be more effective and so on."

"Then I'm happy to hear that, I don't think I would survive to hear you getting into fights like with the kidnapping."

"Oh mom, I promise I won't go out looking for trouble. But I can't promise it won't come looking for me. Mila and I, we have been keeping an eye out, and most support companies get break ins at least once, either villains or other support companies, sadly, tend to try and get the technology we make." she shook her head. "That's why most of the really important things I create are inside the warehouse, no one but Mila, me or who we let in can really enter, and even then I will know.

"I'm not even worried about damages or losing stuff, I have made a lot of money in the last couple of months and I don't really need it, I can duplicate anything I get my hands on, so money is mostly a formality. Mila's been working in setting a way to donate to charities or set up a way to patron kids in bad situations." She shook her head lightly.

"I'm happy to hear you are looking how to help other people so much, even if you don't go out you are my hero." Her mom gave her a hug.

"Thank you mom, thank you a lot." she hugged back, on the back of her mind she felt a charge go unneeded as no option was in her reach.

"Okay, and what's that in your stomach?" Her mom asked looking back at the screen.

"That's my quirk, I think I had never thought about it hard enough, I'm actually guessing about it, because the scan doesn't really work well with that part of my quirk, if I had to say, the scan is getting eaten by my quirk in some way that gives an error in reading it." She shook her head. "Nothing exactly wrong, nothing changed, it is still the same quirk, we just never had a way to see it this way."

"I will believe you then."

"It's okay mom, look at the good side, grandma's getting better, I doubt it will take more than a month till she's back to normal." She turned to look at the older woman who smiled as she looked out of the window, it was easy to see she was a lot more present than before. "Hey, want to see something really cool I added to the building?" Junko grinned.

"I fear what it may be, but sure." Her mother sighed and slid her hand over her face, mostly giving up at telling her daughter that maybe she shouldn't surprise people.

"Come." She pulled her grandmother along and got to one of the empty rooms with a large window looking outside. "Ever wanted to be really high?" She asked and clicked a button on her omni-tool.

Instantly the sight outside of the window started to move, the door behind them locked for safety as the room started to rise in complete silence, the other rooms in the building shifting under the one they were till it was a tower nearly twenty rooms high.

"Can't really keep it like this for long for safety reasons, but each room's free to move, actually you can fly with them around at pretty decent speed but they aren't set for that."

Her mother had moved to the window and peered down before shivering and looking straight forward.

"Each room's nearly as safe as my vehicle but with more space and capability for more systems."

"Don't you mean your car?" Her mother turned to look at her.

"I don't think I can really call it that when it's not really using its wheels and can get me to the moon in a couple minutes." Junko was grinning openly. "It can also tank small to medium missiles. I mean, you have no idea how much random crap is flying at high speeds in space. I've been thinking of making something to clean it up, but that will have to wait."

She pressed a button and the building took a new form, now with a few rooms acting more as towers.

"Each room is individually powered and shielded just to start. And I can easily create more copies of them, if I wanted I could build this whole place sky-high, but I've been aiming to build down a bit more too, just to be sure."

"I don't know what to say, Junko. In these last few hours you have shown me things that even with quirks around seemed impossible before." Her mother walked over to her grandmother and pushed her as Junko led the way to her apartment.

"Then how about taking it easy? You can stay here. I have a few copies of the furnished apartments you and grandma can spend the night, just enjoy tonight. I will cook, I promise I have gotten better and out of the habit of eating random things."

"Okay, I don't see why not, there's nothing pressing tomorrow and you have done a great job here."

"Thanks again mom." Junko smiled, feeling warmer inside than she had in awhile. And not only because the constant fuzzy feeling her ignited aura brought her.

The rest of their day was spent chatting about themes a lot lighter, Junko told her mother a few of the stories the Makers had told her, her mother still found the notion of being living as long as them mind-boggling.

Mila also joined them for dinner, glad to see the older woman and chatted amicably with her, Junko sometimes thought the felyne acted more her mother's age than hers, she didn't mind it much.

After dinner and showing her mother that dishes weren't really a problem she discreetly set two furnished rooms for her family members, she used the ones without the magic beds, not wanting to surprise her mother with a reduced need to sleep or get in the way of her grandmother's recovery.

Junko didn't go to sleep right away, instead deciding to visit the Forge Lands before bed time. For all the info the perk had given her about Aura it was always a good idea to ask a professional about it.

Junko stepped through the stone door and walked her way down the Forge Lands, a detail she had noticed is how little the light really changed, it had taken her a while to notice so too.

The different time speed had made it hard for her brain to realize how much time she spent learning and always looking back to her home time as a frame of reference. Muria had easily answered her when she asked, apparently days could last up to months sometimes, she had explained that had been a decision when making the place. Junko had taken much longer to realize that when the Maker had said place they meant the whole plane and not just Tri-Stone.

"Ho! Welcome back lass, nice to see." Ulthane's voice was a welcoming greeting to her.

"Hi Ulthane, is Muria in the usual place? Got some things to ask her about."

"Yes, that woman barely goes out, and talking about going out, I see you changed, finally opened your eyes, I think we should see about going out to hunt, it will do you good to kill some big beasties." The male Maker laughed at the idea.

"I don't see why not, I would have to set up some things back home, but sure." She thanked him before she kept walking in the usual direction.

"Ah, Junko, nice to see you, and…" She hummed and the woman felt seen through. "It's been a while since I saw someone with that ability."

"Hi Muria, that's what I wanted to ask about."

"It's been a while since I saw someone use the Light of the Soul. I imagine it was a gift from your Patron? Strange to see such an ability given to you when for all you have told me their abilities have laid in crafting."

"It was apparently necessary as part of learning a skill in weapon making."

"Ah! Yes, the Hunters, I remember meeting a young group of them a long time ago pretty far from here during my travels. They used the power of their soul to fight, I can see yours was just ignited, it will grow stronger with time and use. But the most important thing is that you be sure of yourself. It's your soul after all, you have to believe in it for all the strength to really matter." Muria spoke with her gentle tone as she related some of her tales about Aura and the Hunters who used it.

"Ulthane told me he was planning to take me out for hunting since I have it now."

"It's a good idea, you should talk to Alya about making your first set of gear, she's gone out before with Ulthane for hunting before and can teach you what you will need and what you should take along." She smiled. "Aura will help you, I'm sure you have noted already how it works."

Junko nodded. "Yes, I'm stronger and faster, I react to things faster, I heal quicker and it takes the brunt of damage when I'm hit."

"Yes, but that's not all. With time you will awaken a semblance, an ability unique to you, an ability that describes you. What it will be, I can't say, but only pushing yourself and training with Aura will let you reach for it. And once your soul's strong enough you will be able to light other people's souls too."

Junko's eyes opened wide, "What?"

Chapter 32

Chapter Text

Chapter 32

Muria continued with a smile.

"Yes, the Light of the Soul, or Aura as they called it, is an ability that can be shared, lighting other people's souls is not easy, you need to have a pretty strong soul to reach and touch theirs. This shouldn't be done to the unprepared as weak souls may be consumed by the initial spark if they are not ready for it." The Shaman continued explaining the concepts behind Aura. More than once she reached over and poked Junko, making her aura flare up to demonstrate different elements of the ability.

"So I should keep working hard and believing in myself?" Junko asked.

"Hmm, I don't think it will be hard for you, I await the moment when you show me your semblance, it will be interesting to see what it does."

"I will Muria." She thanked the Maker for her lesson before walking to the forge, looking to get a list of things she would need for the hunting trip. Alya was more than happy to prepare Junko with everything she could think about.

Junko ended with recommendations for basic things like multiple changes of clothing and a good set of knives to more complex things like ideas for reinforced light armor and making a self-deploying sleeping tent. Just the idea of actually making some actual light armor for herself didn't sound like a bad idea, she hadn't made anything like that for herself before.

After that Junko headed to iron out the details with Ulthane, ending with a twelve days wait till they left, giving Junko three days to work on her stuff.

She found it a good time frame, they would spend a couple weeks out in the wild of the Forge Lands, a couple of days of travel before reaching the hunting grounds and spend ten days wandering around before they had to come back. The return would be another two days, in total Junko would be away from home for nearly four days.

Thanking Ulthane she headed back home, first for a shower before sleeping after the day's events for about an hour before she was up again and heading into the workshop for some early morning work.

Junko decided to start with the knives, her mind was full of possible designs for hunting knives that would cover many, many uses. But with no idea which would be best she checked the internet. It helped reduce the possible designs to three.

A knife for skinning, one for dressing and a third for general use. The three of them would be of fixed blade and not folding as she didn't really need to save up on space. Her skill had grown quite a bit, to the point she had finished with two of the blades before breakfast time, they still needed a guard and the enchanting process. But they were both blades of incredible quality, blades past the level of masterwork thanks to the combination of perks and the blessing along with all the teaching Alya had given her.

Junko felt a third charge finally be achieved and three options come close for her choosing. Two of them were two charges, the third was three.

The highest cost one apparently was about engineering. The first of the other two was about technology, she was pretty sure she saw giant robots mixed with it. The last one would let her improve weapons just by using them.

She wasn't sure which of the three to choose. That wasn't right, she at least knew she didn't want the third, while it appeared useful it would only be if she kept using the same weapon, meaning that it wouldn't help her in developing better technology or equipment for other people.

Weighting things she finally decided for the most expensive one, she had to admit the guns and giant robots were a put off for some reason in the second perk. It would come at the time where she would be forced to take it, but for now she let the three charges perk meld into her.

It was instantly effective as she felt a few random unfinished projects she had kicking around in her head quickly resolve. She found she also was capable of mentally picture them with perfect recollection for every detail in the blueprints with no problem. She now had a design program inside her head and all the memory to support it.

Junko decided to go all out for breakfast, trying to copy what she remembered from her mother's cooking and put all her attention and skill into preparing a meal for her family. Happily humming as she cooked.

"… Don't want to argue, I don't want to debate, Don't want to hear about what kinds of foods you hate, " she started to sing as she juggled several pans and a pot, cutting things with machine precision. " You won't get no dessert 'till you clean off your plate

So eat it "

She skipped a few steps having the replicator produce some already proofed dough and fitting it in a mold before slipping it in the hot oven.

" I don't care if you're full, Just eat it, eat it, Open up your mouth and feed it ." She sang as she slowly put the finishing details to the meal, serving four plates as she imagined Mila would enjoy a good breakfast.

" Just eat it! Eat it! Don't you make me repeat- "

"I didn't know you had learned to sing too." Her mother's voice made her freeze for a second before she quickly moved to catch the things she had in movement and turn off the fires as she rushed to finish.

"Yeah, part of the things I gained through the Forge, still not sure why I would need it, but it's fun at least." Junko quickly set up the table for the four of them as her mother brought grandma over to the table, meanwhile she sent Mila a message about the meal as she sat with her family to eat after getting the bread to the table and cut for all of them.

Junko had to smile as it looked like her grandmother was enjoying the meal quite a bit.

"Oh my Junko, this is so good." Her mother's praises made her blush as Mila joined them to eat.

"Right?" The Felyne asked before she took a big bite from the meal and enjoyed it. "It was a surprise when we learned crafting covers food."

As soon as their meal was finished Junko decided it was a good moment to bring the subject of the hunting trip.

"One of my teachers decided I was good enough for it. He told me we would be going out in three days, well, two and a half by now. I will be more or less unreachable for three and a half to four days before I'm back."

"Are you sure it's safe, dear?" Her mother asked, a little worried. Mila, on the other paw, had a better idea of the Maker's ability and was pretty sure a hunting trip in her previous world would be pretty safe with Ulthane's company.

"Yes, I will be as safe as I can on a hunting trip. Don't worry, I'll be going properly equipped. That means good armor and plenty of healing." she smiled trying to calm her mother.

With the subject discussed Mila thanked the two older women for their presence before retiring to work as Junko drove the pair back to their home, the chatting with her mother was a lot lighter.

Junko felt a little empty when she came back along, but steeled herself, she would see her mother again, especially since she had forgotten to ask her if she would like to move in.

But that could wait, she had to finish the blades for now. She started with the third blade, focusing only on it before moving onto the handles, thee similar handles made from the same wood.

She had gotten a good chunk of cherry heartwood, the dark almost red wood would look well in the knives in her opinion. She got enough for the three handles and took her time shaping them down, doing a simple carving on them while leaving enough free space for the enchanting runes.

It took her all afternoon to work on the three handles before being able to put the three knives together and start enchanting each with the same set of enchantments. She had chosen with anti-corrosion, increased sharpness and cleanliness.

After that she decided that she would start with the equipment, she hadn't actually made anything for herself after the training gear and the hammer.

The first would be the armor, she went for a design that could be called medieval-riot gear while keeping it from restricting her flexibility and mobility. It was basically two parts, a set of tough and serviceable clothes for all-weather and terrain while above it she would be wearing her own version of flexible armor panels, she aimed for them to protect her body from cutting and piercing attacks as her aura would catch most of the blunt of the hits.

While nothing in the production was hard, it still took her all night till she went to bed to sew the set to completion. An hour of sleep after that and she was back to work. She enchanted the whole suit with increased durability, a generic constant regeneration that would apply to herself and the equipment, the clothing would help her recover her stamina and let her sleep in it with no problems while the armor would absorb part of the energy on all hits taken.

While she was working she felt her power reach a charge but none of the options were in her reach, the cheapest one was one and a half charges, so she let them all go and continue on her work.

One day of the three had passed and she still had plenty to do. Knives and Armor done she continue with some brewing of healing potions, a dozen normal potions for scrapes, bruises and small cuts, four potions for more severe things like large burns, deeper cuts and the mangled finger or two, two potions that would regrow small things like fingers and fix broken bones, a dozen potions for poison, venom, disease and infections, and four stamina potions in case of the need to skip sleep.

The brewing session took most of her second day. Mila checked on her while she worked, updating her on what she had set up for her trip as some customers wanted her services and they were set up for a few days after she came back.

The last thing she made, besides a few copies of her armored clothing, was an enchanted tent, it would give her restful, light sleep, it would wake her up in case of danger and would make most wild animals just ignore it. While Alya's idea of making it self-deploying was interesting, she found that she could store it whole into her Sylladex and take it out with no hassle.

With more than a few hours till leaving time, Junko decided to burn time checking out the lockers, it had been more than a while since she last did, mostly busy with work and projects.

The first new thing she found inside was a phonograph, she had to search on the internet if there was any still existing, apparently only in a couple museums and private collections. Maybe putting it on the lobby to provide music, she liked what it played on the machine.

The next item on the new list were a pair of comfortable looking gloves and shoes, she made a mental note of them but mostly ignored them, not really finding much use for them, but she would keep them in mind if she felt like taking up parkour or similar.

Next was another locker-looking cabinet, but apparently also acted as an escape pod of some kind too, strange. Inside was a set of clothes of good quality, it looked like a white shirt and a set of heavy-duty overalls in the same rust red color that the Celestial Forge had come to associate to her. There was also some kind of transparent smartphone, her power named a Scroll, she would be studying it later, maybe she could learn something out of it.

Finally there was her own Variable Weapon. She wasn't surprised to see it was a hammer, she was surprised to see it could turn into a Combat Shotgun. It was ridiculously destructive and would be so much more if she rebuilt it with all her skills.

The interesting part was the ammunition, the shells were filled with what her power categorized as different types of Dust, a highly volatile powdered crystal in four varieties, red dust carried the power of fire, blue carried the power of ice, yellow carried the power of electricity and green carried the power of wind. Her power told her she would get enough for a couple fights every few months, but that didn't really restrict her.

Between the information she had from the Forge and the perk that let her analyze materials she could see the powdered form was just a way to ease the use as bullet propellant, if she reshaped it into crystals their effects would be much stronger. Some crystal growths would most likely also represent higher efficiencies, but that would need plenty of study.

She also felt like there was some more potential on it, something she would have to study later. Lastly her power added it would only work on the planet for some reason. She shrugged and put it away while adding a note in her omni-tool to experiment with it once she came back.

The last new addition to the room was a strange set-up her power called a RIG deploying system. A bit of study showed it was another kind of space suit, she had a collection of them, this one apparently came along with her space engineering knowledge, capable of standing the void of space and quite a bit of hurt too.

The suit was the most basic kind, she could see ways to improve its armor or air reserves, with some enchantment it could have infinite air with little problem. It also had a pocket of folded space that could easily carry up to five cubic meters of items. The suit was made for working and showed this in the spine display that showed general health and air reserves of the user to other workers as a way to share information.

For the user it had a holographic menu and heads up display. She would have to study it, there was plenty she could do with technology like that. But all that would have to wait till she returned from her hunting trip.

She passed through the kitchen and prepared a few meals to take with her, more than enough for a couple of weeks while she would eat pretty much anything if it came to it.

Chapter 33

Chapter Text

Chapter 33

Before she headed to the Forge Lands Junko felt her power fill up a second charge, almost trying to rush and get it before she left. She noticed that there was only one of the three options in her reach, not wanting to lose much time she let the only available option fold into her.

It was an interesting one. First it was the ability to turn the stored magic in her reserves into pure gold and absorb gold, turning it into magic for her to use. The conversion was perfect with no waste, meaning she could use this as a way to quickly recover magic, a pleasant surprise.

She decided to store a few kilos of gold into her Sylladex just in case, another safety wouldn't hurt.

"So you are going?" Mila asked as she came to see her off. "Stay safe, I will be here and keep an eye for your family."

"Thanks Mila, you are a great friend."

"You too, Junk, have fun."

Junko nodded and headed to the Forge Lands. She was a bit nervous, this would be the longest time she would spend outside of Earth. But thinking again, she was ready and she would be enjoying this.

"Aye Lass, ready to go out?" Ulthane greeted her once she got to the courtyard. "Traveling light?"

"Yes, got everything I would need stored." She answered showing she could take a potion in and out swiftly.

"Good, lets go, there's no reason to wait more." Ulthane simply told her before turning and started walking, Junko quickly following behind.

The first couple hours were spent looking around, she had never walked out of Tri-Stone before, it was definitely quite a lovely place. It was like if someone had taken some of Earth's largest forests and turned it up to eleven, she was pretty sure she hadn't seen any tree she could wrap her arms around it.

The next few hours were spent just walking, the novelty of the view being lost and just walking in silence with her teacher, the Maker didn't feel like talking and Junko could understand that. She was also pretty sure that a walk like this with Muria would have been a lesson after another.

But with the male Maker, they hadn't actually gotten to the place for the lesson. So they continued walking, Junko didn't feel tired, between the enchantments in her clothes and Aura keeping her energy up it wasn't even an exertion to walk a whole day.

It was nearing the end of the first half of the first day of traveling when Junko finally saw something that wasn't a random forest critter. Not that those haven't been interesting, she had seen bunny-like creatures in an ample gamma of colors and multiple birds.

What she saw could only be called the ugliest and biggest insect, and she had seen Japanese Hornets in person. It was larger than her torso and the stinger at the tip of their tail was about the size of the knives she made. Her mind was actually having problems figuring out how it could fly with the four wings it had and finally had decided it was using some innate magic.

"Stinger." Ulthane's voice surprised her.

"Yeah, those are some pretty big stingers on the bugs."

"Nah, they are called that, ugly buggers, they usually move in swarms, easy to kill but don't underestimate them. It gets harder when you find one of their hives, they will just keep coming out unless you take care of the nest."

Junko looked at the bug, making a mental note of what Ulthane had told her, it sounded like she would be dealing with a few of the things. The Maker grabbed a stone from the ground and threw it hard enough the Stinger exploded into goo.

Their traveling continued, never really increasing the pace, but as they never stopped, they covered quite a bit in the next day and a half. They had seen a few other creatures, or beasties as Ulthane called them. He named each one and gave her a short explanation of them and how to take care, Junko did her best to keep them in mind for when it was her turn to fight them.

"We are almost there." Ulthane said when the forest started to open up, not a few minutes later the huge trees abruptly gave way to open plains. It was like looking at a sea of green, the terrain went slightly up and down, covered in grass that waved along, moved by the wind.

"Wow…" Junko admired it as Ulthane stood next to her.

"Yes, it's a fine piece of work if I say so myself." The Maker started walking. "We will set up camp near here before starting on the basics of hunting, trailing, ambush, etc…"

Junko nodded and walked behind him, watching as Ulthane picked a handful of rocks as he walked and using them to build a small fire-pit, she could see the stones fit perfectly and would keep the fire from spreading out. Not a lick of magic, just simple skill.

She started clearing the ground around the fire from rocks, especially where she thought to put the tent later.

"Good enough for now, let's go, I saw a group of Scarabs with no Scarab Hulk, should be easy to smash them around with your hammer and they are easier to deal with than the Stingers." Ulthane led her a couple kilometers away from their camp.

On the way there she made a list of all she remembered of Scarabs, the giant bugs were about the size of a medium dog. They were dumb as a brick, they usually were used by Scarab Hulks, their meaner, larger, smarter variants, to harass prey. They were a pest and didn't have much, if anything, useful so it would be okay for her to smash them around.

"There they are, go crazy, lass." Ulthane chuckled as Junko equipped her hammer and the light armor onto her travel clothes, no need to underestimate the bugs.

Didn't take more than a few steps for the swarm of bugs to notice her presence, leaving the cleaned bones of the animal they had been eating, the ones closest to her chittered angrily at her, opening their wings to look bigger, a few of them even starting to fly and rush at her.

Time slowed down for Junko as she took a deep breath, pushing her Aura to the surface, letting the light glow of her soul cover her body and hammer, while not being a dust-enhanced weapon it still grew stronger from her soul reaching for it.

She swung her hammer and the three closest scarabs exploded into bits of chitin and goo. The death of their own only riling up the rest even more. Her hammer swing had left her right side open, letting two of the scarabs free to attack her arm, thankfully her armor and Aura were up to the job of protecting her as she quickly made a note that the large swing had left her open.

Junko jumped up and surprised herself as she was suddenly flying several meters up through the air. It looked like the bugs were surprised too as she had suddenly disappeared from their range of view. She tumbled down behind them and quickly got up before she ran at the swarm, aiming for smaller, more controlled swings to splat the scarabs around.

After the third rush through the swarm and having it practically reduced it to half the bug she started to add kicks, using the hammer's weight to balance herself as her reinforced boots did a good job at crushing the pests.

"Blegh, some got into my mouth, how can they taste worse than they look!" Junko pulled a bottle of water and used it to wash her mouth as she stood panting lightly in a pile of bug goo.

"Good job for your first time, I'm glad to see you learned quickly, but these are just the most basic things, they will be much larger in the future, so you better be prepared."

"Yes Ulthane." She nodded and wiped the goo off her armor before following the Maker back to camp. Her teacher pointed out little things here and there that she should fix and improve in her fighting, but he saw plenty of potential in her.

After that Ulthane took her to hunt some other small pests, Stinger, Scarabs, a species of small lizards that spit an irritating goo at her. She was glad she had put a face shield necklace into her inventory at the last minute.

The biggest hunt so far had been a Stinger nest, in Ulthane's words, a good lesson about balancing threat and objective, she needed to destroy the nest while not letting the bugs overwhelm her. Her hammer had done a great job in cracking the shield plates on the nest and smashing the juicy interior.

"That was a good warm up." Ulthane spoke as the light started to dim. "Just in time for the real beasts to come out." Junko looked up, seeing the sun she had barely seen move started to dip down the horizon. "We will be hunting Prowlers next. They are a rare breed between animals and demons, the wild aspects of the first mixed with the sadistic intelligence of the later."

"Demons?" Junko asked, surprised.

"Yah, with night coming we will see more of them around, we will be visiting one of the near ruins before we have to go back, there's always some around those places." Ulthane pointed to the lighting up spots on the plains, blood-red and sickly-orange light started to glow in particular patterns in different spots of the plains, dark skinned creatures crawling out of them. "You can't really stop them from coming, you can at most kill all that come through and hope the lesson lasts long enough to get a breath before the next generation on the other side forgets and they try to come again."

"I never thought I would see demons, I mean, back home you got people that look the part, and people that act the part, though quite rarely."

"I will tell you this, they all look and act the part. Even the smartest one won't doubt about eviscerating you if it has the chance. So better ignore them even if you hear them plea or beg."

Junko felt a little weird hearing that, but she could understand she really wasn't home, here the bad guys were really looking to kill you and feast on your insides.

"Look on the bright side, smashing them down will release any soul they had claimed for themselves, so you keep safe and save some souls from terrible torture." Ulthane laughed.

"Wait, if demons are real, do angels exist too?"

"Those high-n-mighty assholes? Yah, and they are as much of a pest as the demons. Demons will just kill anyone, you, me, other demons, they are in a free-for-all." Ulthane scratched his face. "Angels? Angels are hypocrites that decided they are better than the rest and that's why they have to kill others. You are totally not ready to face even their lowest footsoldier. If you see one better run and hope they are busy with something else. Luckily with me around they won't bother us. They are at least smarter than demons and know better than that.

"They use what they call Heaven's light, it's just biased light element, it does grow stronger with their belief in it, so they call it Holy. Works best against anyone they believe to be an enemy, making it a self-fulfilling bias." He chuckled. "Their technology's not bad, you may learn something from them you could use, just be careful, they tend to be quite obsessed about others using it."

She nodded as Ulthane sat down on a flat rock and pointed his hammer at a single prowler.

"There's your prey, good hunting."

Junko watched the Prowler as she walked closer, it was ugly twice over, it looked like an evil monkey with huge growths on the shoulders, plus it was covered in spikes. She noted the sharp looking claws and fangs, marking it as the creature's obvious weapon but noted the tail too as looking flexible enough to whip around if it got the opening.

The demon noticed her and hissed as it brought its body down, preparing to pounce as Junko brought out her hammer and got ready. The simple fact that the creature didn't outright rush at her marked the fight as different.

Junko decided to take the first move. She rushed forward and smashed down with the hammer, not worrying much as the creature easily dodged the hammer but was caught by the rising ground as the hammer's shock-wave made the hard soil crack and explode, large debris hitting the Prowler's stomach and send it tumbling as she got did her best to recover on the uneven ground.

The monster flailed around, getting back straight and jumped at her, all ready to kill her. It only got a hammer blow to the face for its troubles. Junko cringed at the crunching sound from its jaws as she didn't wait any longer and rushed up to the creature and caved its head in.

The wet squelch sound was certainly more than she could bare and turned away retching. Given her quirk's biology there was nothing coming up her throat, didn't mean her body wouldn't try to empty her stomach.

Ulthane's large hand came to rest on her back, sympathetically patting it.

"Sorry lass, didn't think it would hit you that hard. On the bright side, now you know you are more than ready in the case of life or death. Again, don't feel bad, these things are as evil as they come."

Junko nodded and drank some water to recover. Ulthane letting her take her time before he had her hunt more prowlers. First alone, but soon as her skill increased she started to tackle them in groups of two and three.

Not every fight ended as clean as smashing the demon's head in, a few took several hits to put down, and others got their chest or spine destroyed first before she finished them off. Luckily for Junko's peace of mind, none of these demons pleaded for their life, neither actually crying in pain, simply trying to kill her till their last breath.

"Don't think too much about it, lass. Demons are just naturally aggressive and killing them is a public service. Come, I will teach you a bit in how to get the good parts of the bodies, not that Prowlers have much… now a Stalker would be much better for that, their scales can make some good armor. You aren't quite ready for them yet, but if you do good, you may get to fight one before we are done here."

After that they fell into a routine, Ulthane showing her how to harvest her kills, and which prey she would be hunting as Junko followed the lesson and did the work. It wasn't like she could take the materials back, but she most likely would end using them for training under Alya and Muria later, the two female Makers more than ready to take the chance to teach her more.

The first week flew by and the sun came out again as Ulthane smiled at her.

"Pick your things up, we are going to visit one of the ruins, time to bash some dusty skeletons to pieces." He laughed as Junko stored her tent and went after him.

Chapter 34

Chapter Text

Chapter 34

"This will be easier and harder." Ulthane talked as they walked for nearly half a day till the plains gave way to an old, ruined city. She could see the stones that once had been polished were now cracked and crumbling, eroded by the elements and other things. "Easier because most of the undead around here are just bones and weapons.

"Even the ghosts will be hit when you coat your weapon with your aura like you did these last few days." The Maker kept talking. "It will be easier because they are more human, just don't get used to them, remember they are closer to robots than anything else. Using a hammer will make it easier, once they are smashed small enough they will expire completely."

"Any tips?"

"Yeah, don't get hit by the arrows." Ulthane laughed and jumped onto a ledge to watch her.

"Arrows…?" Junko asked before she saw something more on the corner of her eye and moved away as an arrow flew by the spot her head was before. The metal broadhead left a cut on her cheek as she quickly turned to look in the direction the arrow had come.

From the shadows between the ruins they came. Twitchy movements as bare bones moved, lifting rusted swords and old bows. Their bodies carrying only pieces of armor as a dozen skeletons started to advance in her direction.

The archer that had shot her quickly notched another arrow as two more joined it, their skeletal figures not corresponding with the ease in pulling the strings and shooting at her, forcing Junko to start moving and keep doing it as she aimed to deal with the closest melee skeleton.

Ulthane was right, she thought as her hammer did quick work of the skeleton's rib-cage, bone splinters flying everywhere as a swing of the hammer reduced the head to bone meal and the old helmet the skeleton wore into scrap.

She quickly had to jump away as three arrows exploded on the rocky floor she had been standing. The next few moves were thwarted by the skeleton archers pacing their shots to keep her moving and never get more than a few scraps on the melee skeletons, these kept trying to box her in to let the ranged ones pincushion her with arrows.

The dance went on till she changed her tactics, first dodging for a minute as she looked around, finding a couple of walls that looked solid enough before she barreled through the wall of melee skeletons. She covered her face but still caught a few slashes on her arms and torso. The armor worked as intended and besides feeling the hits she got through them with not much problem.

First hurdle passed and she prepared for the next. She concentrated her Aura on her legs and aimed her body at the first wall before jumping forward and curling on herself. Junko twisted her body to land on the wall with her feet before jumping again.

Once more, she curled and turned, barely keeping herself from slipping as turning around twice had made it harder to calculate the distance as she landed between the skeleton archers.

The boneheads had clumped up together, making it easy for Junko's hammer to reduce the three to a pile of scrap and bones. With the ranged threat taken care of she turned to the tumbling group of sword and spear wielders. It was much easier to deal with them, with no ranged support taking care of the monsters was matter of keeping her distance and only closing in to smash one of them when they were open after an attack.

"Good job on the bones, also nice thinking on your feet." Ulthane praised her. "Definitely a passing grade, would recommend not taking the damage even if it's to get into a better position, next time try to not get in a bad situation like that."

"Yeah, take care of the ranged danger first too… auch." she groaned when she touched the cut in her cheek, getting a small potion and downing it to deal with it and the bruises.

Ulthane used the next few skeletons as training aid in some more advanced techniques of hammer-wielding. How to aim better besides total crushing blows.

He added lessons in non-lethal blunt blows, how to disarm enemies without literally dis arming them. The skeletons turned to be great for this given the general brittleness of their old bones.

Coming along a platoon of archers was turned into a lesson about dodging and baiting their attacks to close up distances.

"Good, next one should be harder." The Maker told her and quickly moved out of the way as a larger skeleton appeared through a door.

And by through the door, she meant the undead literally exploded through the rotted wood like it was breaking in. Easily two and a half meters tall and almost entirely covered in an eerily-glowing armor. It also held a heavy-looking sword sized for his increased height.

Whatever powers kept moving also let it roar quite loudly as it started attacking her with no doubt behind every swing.

Junko tried to hit it a few times, finding her blows bouncing off its armor while barely leaving a dent. Even when she used the mass increase ability of her hammer and sent the bag of bones flying, the armor piece it had impacted was barely scoffed.

"Fucking tough one." She groaned, now that she looked at it, the armor appeared to be enchanted to be as tough as possible, absorbing the hits and protecting the brittle bones under it.

"Well, if you can't get through it, better get it out of the way." Ulthane spoke from his spot and Junko nodded, it was simple, if the armor would keep the bone soldier from taking damage, take it away.

She started by disarming the bag of bones, sending the sword flying far enough to get a good few hits and start removing the armor piece by piece. Quickly smashing the now exposed bone and reducing the skeleton to a screaming head and torso before she took its helmet with her hand and bashed its head into its torso.

"Damn, that will be hard to do when there's more than one." She panted, drinking some water and taking out some cereal bars to chew on as she recovered.

"Nah, you did okay lass. It was the first time you fought it and you didn't get hit once. Now you know what to do with them, next will go much easier, come on, still plenty of time to polish your skill."

Junko nodded at her teacher's words and followed him deeper into the ruins, taking care of the enemies that appeared, reducing more skeletons into dust. As Ulthane had said, her skills were being polished fight after fight.

Just like before she fought more and larger. Days quickly passed by as they stopped to eat from time to time and take an hour or two to rest each day. Ulthane getting Junko to fight larger undead. Her Aura growing quickly in power from being tested so frequently, there was no sign of her Semblance, but Junko was okay with that.

She fought skeleton warriors, skeleton archers, skeleton knights, generals, skeleton animals, mashed up skeletons, skeleton abominations, skeleton golems, basically a lot versions of the boney kind.

Around the eighth day after arriving in the plains, and a couple of days before they would start to go back, Junko fought her first Wraith, the more ghostly undead almost got her a few times as the billowing cloak and fog game it played had her almost falling into some pretty deep pits.

Junko had had to improvise and use a forgotten chain near along with a broken sword left by another skeleton to hook the floating undead and drag it to her for beating. While she doubted she would add a chain and hook to her repertoire, she noted down that having a ranged option would be useful.

She remembered that her variable weapon did have one, she would have to see and improve it, especially experimenting with Dust and enchanting. She imagined she could get some interesting effects out of it.

She still noted that some kind of lasso or similar could do. She also had to take an antidote more than once as some of the undead abominations puked some vile stuff on her. It had ruined one of her suits and she was glad she had created copies.

"Good, I think we can call this trip a success, you've progressed by leaps and bounds, lass." Ulthane praised her. "I think you are ready to fight one of the big assholes." The Maker grinned and Junko gulped at the idea. "I found the lair of a Stalker, they are the Prowler's bigger and badder cousins. About three to four meters tall, nearly as wide, large, powerful arms, claws like sabers, a long tail that hits like a war hammer. But I think you can do it.

"I think it will be a nice graduation test for your hunting trip, it should teach you a few lessons with its danger than the others didn't."

"Okay, okay. I think I can do it." She nodded and the Maker smiled.

"That's good, I will stay back, this fight's all yours." He guided her out of the ruins, making her wonder when did he had the time to go and find it. Only solution to the problem she found is that the Maker had come to check earlier, most likely killing anything that would be above her level. She was strangely okay with this.

She could smell it from nearly a block away before even getting to the cave. The stench of rotted meat and carcasses.

"Fuck." she retched. The roar and the sight of the tall monster running out to meet her made her glad. At least she wouldn't have to fight it inside the cave.

"Damn, you are ugly." She grinned and pulled out the hammer and equipped her armor, preparing for the monster that was the ugly and deadly mix of a great ape and a lizard on steroids.

The thing was definitely not happy to see her here, looking ready to devour her whole and with Ulthane that far she could easily get seriously injured.

"Come on assface! Come get what you deserve." She grinned and started to run at the creature at the same time it rushed at her. Junko started by jumping over its head and aiming at the creature's scale covered back with her hammer.

The Stalker surprised her by whipping her with its tail, sending her flying off and falling with a thud on the ground. She groaned as she got up, looking at the creature she spat to clear her mouth off the blood coming from her busted lip.

"Oh, the assface thinks he's so smart, come and see if it works a second time." She grinned and ran at him once more, preparing to jump made the ugly creature's face shift into the closest thing a grin should be. But instead of jumping up she launched herself to the side and bounced on the ground to slip behind the monster and planted one good, solid blow on the creature's left side.

The crunching sound felt really satisfying as she had to fall onto a roll and quickly get up as the monster roared now for real. The loud noise made her bones tremble as she grinned.

"Yeah, two can play that game." The monster's arm was definitely out of commission, hanging loose as it rushed at her.

Junko grinned and aimed low, just like that first fight with the Prowler she cracked the ground, making the Stalker be forced to jump over her. With the stomach exposed she pulled one of the hunting knives she made and swiftly sliced the monster's stomach, opening a gash that quickly started bleeding.

"Add another point to me." she grins and stores the knife as she grabs the hammer with both hands. "Time to end you."

The Stalker growled at her and roared as it ran at her, even with the two large wounds it seemed to go steadier as it ran at her. Junko pushed harder, her whole body glowing with her Aura as a half-step half-jump had her step into the monster's personal space as her hammer hit it right on the chest, she grinned as the mass increase activated and the hammer's shock-wave turned the abyssal beast's chest into soup.

She quickly had to jump away to evade the torrent of vile fluids escaping out of the monster's mouth like a canon.

"Ew, definitely uglier inside." she chuckled and watched it try and get up a bit more before she gave it a firm smack to the side of its head, ending the creature completely by souping its brain.

"Good job." Ulthane spoke now from near her.

"Yeah, still got a good hit in." She groaned, touched her ribs and pulled a stronger potion, downing it and sighing in delight as the pain disappeared.

"Eh, you aren't dead and didn't lose anything, still a good lesson." He chuckled. "Now come here, time to get the goodies outta its insides."

Junko cringed at the idea of having to work on the monster but quickly got over it, helping Ulthane pick the Stalker apart. Especially when moving the corpse had the liquefied insides spill out of the creature's open stomach.

They still did good time, plenty of scales and bones were retrieved from the body and they returned to the campsite. Ulthane laughed at her all the way back for getting squeamish at the wet work.

The last day was spent relaxing, Junko even had the pleasure to get drunk for the first time as Ulthane shared some of his beer, apparently Maker's alcohol got you drunk because it was meant to. Junko didn't feel like trying again anytime soon.

After that they started the walk back to Tri-Stone, walking a bit calmer, Ulthane hummed a soft tune and she sometimes followed, but mostly she looked around, after the week and nearly a half things looked different, in some way.

She could see a lot more animals, she could hear them and find them easier. She noted how the monsters now stood away from their presence. She imagined Ulthane must come around the place enough they learned their lesson.

They returned nearly two weeks after leaving, two weeks that had certainly helped Junko grow in ways she hadn't before.

"Thank you Ulthane."

"Nah, you did it all, lass. I'm just showing you the way. Now go back, I'm sure I kept you around long enough." She laughed and thanked him again, doing a quick check on the other Makers before heading back home.

"Mila, I'm back." She stepped out of the warehouse, feeling herself reconnect to her power in a way she had actually missed during the two weeks she spent in the Forge Lands.

"Welcome back Junko, nice to see you, but we have a problem." Mila looked grim as she looked at her.

Chapter 35

Chapter Text

Chapter 35

Junko felt her power wake up and noticed it had accumulated five charges, but with Mila telling her there was a problem she peered quickly at the option, quickly grabbing the single one that wasn't about weapons.

She felt the wind leave her sails as the knowledge of how to make technomagic flying implements that served as casting focus entered her mind. She also almost started sputtering as apparently they needed the wearer to not use pants, and be females. Who was the pervert that designed these pieces of bullshit.

She stopped, letting a sigh out before running a hand over her face.

"Okay, my power just calmed me down, now, tell me what happened." she looked at Mila, Junko feeling much better.

"First, I'm sorry to have scared you. The situation's not as bad as anything you may have imagined. Second," Mila sighed as she tried to find the correct words to speak. "Jin approached your mom, apparently he heard about your success. He got pushy with her, luckily she called me and I asked Kanna to check on your mom's place quickly.

"He left after that, I had your mother and grandmother come over. They are staying in the rooms you set up last time. But he keeps calling and asking for you."

"Thank you for using his name and not calling him my father." Junko groaned and dropped onto a chair to think. "So, what does the asshole want?"

"Apparently he thinks he has the right at something to do with you." Mila passed her a note. "He kept calling till I told him I would call the police and report him for harassing if he didn't stop. After that he gave me that number and asked for you to call him at the earliest chance."

"Any chance I could ignore it?"

"The pleasure I had when talking to him," Mila grinned. "tells me that if he learns you are back and you didn't call him he will find ways to force things."

Junko sighed. "Damn, I wish I had taken some more of Ulthane's beer, I need to be drunk to deal with that man."

"Why don't you go and check on your mother for now?" Mila offered. "I'm sure she would like to hear how things went, I can hear it later."

Junko nodded and thanked her before she got up and walked out of Mila's office and headed for the dormitories.

"Hey Mom," Junko greeted her after knocking on the door. "I'm back."

"Junko, dear." Her mother's arms felt warm as they hugged. "I'm happy that you came to greet me so fast, but could you have taken a shower before?" She asked while raising an eyebrow.

"Haha, sorry, Mila told me about him and I just… I panicked and other things." She pouted as her mother kept looking at her.

"Okay, I can't blame you for that, I did my best to forget about him after we divorced. He just came out of nowhere, apparently he heard about you through his contacts and thought that you would be the best thing to help him succeed." She shook her head and Junko could only pat her back and give her mother another hug. "He's not a bad man, but it was like he deserved you to work for him or something, I stopped paying attention to what he was saying and just asked him to leave."

"Yes, he always wanted me to… I don't know? Be his legacy or something? Be what he couldn't be? He was such a great father for what I remember in the first few years but when my quirk came up he just…" Junko shook her head and sat by her mother. "Yeah, he's never a bad person, but definitely wasn't trying to be a father."

"I should have spoken earlier with you about that man, Nana." A voice made both of them look up.

""Grandma/Mother!""

"Sorry for not having spoken earlier, but it was still hard to concentrate." Sakura wheeled herself closer to the pair. "Thank you my little piece of steel, Grandma hasn't felt this good in ages."

"I'm so glad to have you back." Junko smiled, fighting against the urge to drag the older woman to the medical bay and scan her to make sure everything's as good as it appeared.

"I never wanted to tell you that you were wrong about that man, Nana." Sakura spoke gently. "And honestly I can't deny I would miss not having a granddaughter like Junko. But Jin was always a bit too avaricious."

"I would have listened to your opinion, mom."

"Don't start with that, dear, I was young too decades ago. You were in love, and when Junko was born I thought I had been wrong. He was a great man those first few years. But it's obvious that he was only for you hoping that Junko inherited a stronger quirk between the two of you." Sakura sighed. "But that's okay, it's in the past, now, what will you be doing about this, Junko?"

"Junko?" Nana asked, confused.

"I will call the number he left, I bet it won't even connect to him directly." Junko made a defeated sound. "But it's okay, right now I want you two to move here, we will visit the house for anything you need, after you can just use the rooms I set up for you two, I will add everything to provide comfort.

"I already wanted to ask you last time but it kinda slipped. I would really like to believe he won't do anything stupid when I decline any offer he has."

"Good, how long till I can ditch the chair?" Her grandmother asked with a grin.

"I would say a couple more weeks, but with you here I'm pretty sure I could make it one."

"Perfect, my ass' sore from sitting down so much."

"Mother!" Nana sounded scandalized.

"Come on, dear. I'm old, not dead, as I told you, I was young once already." Her grandmother cackled as she teased Nana and the three of them were soon laughing together.

Junko felt her power reach four charges, but none of the options were available, deciding it wasn't worth to pay much attention to it, she returned to laugh with her family, feeling whole like she hadn't done in a while.

After that Junko decided to take a long bath and relax alone for a while before preparing a large meal for everyone.

They enjoyed a joyous dinner with Junko retelling some of what happened in the hunting trip. Her grandmother kept cackling each time her mother complained about the danger her daughter got into.

"Honestly, the skeletons were the easiest enemies. Especially thanks to the hammer. The hardest were the first couple encounters and when I tackled the whole platoon. Otherwise a good hit took them out." Junko told them.

"I still can't believe you fought actual undead."

"Mostly skeletons, and a few wraiths, Ulthane told me most Zombies stay in the catacombs and rarely wander the ruins."

"Did you bring something back?" Her grandmother asked.

"Sadly I can't really bring stuff back from the Forge Lands. "It's already stretching it that Ulthane can take me for a hunt outside of Tri-Stone." she grinned. "But don't worry grandma, I will make you a much better necklace, you will love it."

Their dinner continued in good nature, Junko replicating a cake so they could have something sweet, she promised to bake something better next time.

Their meal complete Junko dragged her grandmother to the medical bay, glad to see the damage almost completely gone. She promised her that with the damage completely taken care off she could provide for a cure that would prevent any kind of relapse.

With the good news the two older women headed for bed while Junko headed to the workshop, working on Sakura's new accessory before deciding to check what she had gotten from her latest perk.

Her first opinion was still right, it was ridiculously designed, and the person who did it was definitely a pervert. She found that not only she wouldn't be able to wear pants while wearing the Striker, but the propellers would force her to keep her legs slightly spread.

It was like they had taken the tails of WW1 planes and modified them for young women to wear on their legs. Her power told her a bit of them, how they had been designed as the magic broom of the future to be used by witches.

She grabbed the pair of fetish war equipment and took it to the workshop, proceeding to disarm them and learn everything she could from them. She may have been biased and definitely much smarter than the people who first designed them, because it didn't take her much to understand how specialized they had become to the point of ending like this.

Her study brought multiple things up. First of all, while they did need direct contact with the skin of the legs, a full body suit would have worked just as well.

Second, if they could armor the legs it was silly to not provide full body armor, she could see more than a few full body armored suits alternatives, but maybe that was just her.

Third, apparently she qualified as a witch, if she equipped the striker she would be awakening a Familiar inside of her, she most likely would be able to find other people with the same capability, having a Familiar was a necessity to use magic through a Striker apparently.

Fourth, she would be finding a way to visit this world and smacking some sense into people. But that would have to wait for the future.

For now she decided it was enough for the night, she put the Striker back together and stored it in the locker, she noted the bomber jacket with her name on it, she may be using it in the future, it certainly looked pretty cool and comfortable.

Junko enjoyed the hour of sleep back in her bed, the tent had been good even if she only had slept in it for a couple of nights in all the time she was out. With sleep behind her and feeling fresh once more she took a quick shower before she headed into the workshop.

She started by producing the needed modules to make the rooms for her mother and grandmother completely habitable long term. The replicator, full kitchen set and a few other commodities supplied by her bullshit home problems perk. It didn't take her more than a few minutes to make copies of those systems as she had already set all of them in hers and Mila's rooms.

With plenty of hours before she had to call that man, Junko decided it was a good time to start checking her variable weapon and experiment with dust. She retrieved the weapon and samples of each dust color, replicating the resource till she would feel safe in studying and experimenting with it to her heart's content and have no danger of running out till next time her power provided her more of it.

And study she did, a whole hour of simply poking at the stuff in the four flavors she had. It wasn't surprising to see red dust be a mix of gunpowder and easily-igniting tinder, it was more surprising when green dust blew her away as the first activating of the small mound of dust blew the rest and activated all to do a pretty convincing dust explosion without the heat.

She was careful with blue and yellow, setting up a larger experimentation area without anything that would break. Yellow discharged electricity in an uncontrolled manner, it gave her ideas it could be used as a source of power if harnessed correctly but she wasn't completely sure still. Blue lowered the area's temperature quite considerably and made a small ice 'flower' from where it 'ignited'.

She felt her power reach a new charge for a total of five, it had been a long time since she had so many, at least this time it felt much easier than last, albeit that one time was more of a prelude to the six charges perks. She looked at the options, the first looked really strong at six charges, having what appeared to be a ton of futuristic technology knowledge, but with a missing charge to buy it she let it go.

The second option was a single charge, and appeared that it would make her capable of tackling any problem as if she was a whole team of skilled people. It looked quite interesting as a multi-tasking perk.

The last perk was four charges and it would add to her ability to use even less materials when making things. It was becoming definitely ridiculous in how little she actually needed to use to produce anything, it looked like it would cut her expenditure by half once more.

Thinking it a little she decided to take the middle option, having her production speed increased for a single charge seemed much more useful than reducing her material use once more.

She felt the knowledge and skill behind the perk be added to herself. It was mostly aimed at the maintenance of planes, but a lot of the skill's abilities could be applied to other activities. It seemed to be resonating with some of her other perks to cover other areas. She decided to give it a try and be a one-woman analysis team.

The next few hours were incredibly more successful as she juggled multiple tests simultaneously. Trying different things like dust compression rates, dust mixing, patterns, what if she used it to enchant or weave fabric, if she could transmute the dust into proper crystals and a few other wild ideas.

Most of the tests were pretty successful, she imagined that it was a mix of her power guiding her and her material analysis perk already putting her in a good direction.

Pattern weaving and enchanting turned to be a great way to make a more reusable way to activate controlled versions of dust effects, she imagined it could be extended to use in circuits for a technological activation.

Transmuting the dust into crystals was also great, while she hadn't tested more than a dozen precious stone cuts they showed slightly different results that would be interesting in getting new results.

Mixing dust was also really useful, she had found that not only mixing fifty-fifty created a totally new type of dust only marginally connected to their 'parents', but three way mixing at different ratios could make new elements or have all dust react explosively.

Sadly dust compression didn't result in much besides at a certain level being a good bullet propellant. She counted it as a win, and she still hadn't started with material alloying to remake her variable weapon.

Chapter 36

Chapter Text

Chapter 36

Junko was impressed that it wasn't even eight am and she had done so much already. She placed the variable weapon in front of her. She hadn't noted it before, but the hammer had a name, Damage Creator , in her opinion it was fitting.

She started the process by picking it apart like she did with other objects, noting all pieces and their respective place, slowly cleaning them up and making mental notes as she went while keeping a mental blueprint of the whole ensemble.

With the weapon down to its individual pieces, she started the redesign process, keeping the basics of variable weaponry while introducing modularity and some of her other design-focused perks.

She watched the blueprints in her mind slowly shift as she continued to modify it, as she did that she ran some mental calculations for the best type of metal she could use, different alloys and possible enchantments.

Her latest perk let her tackle all the problems at the same time with no actual complications or delays. A train of thought even suggested trying to and making alloys with the Earth dust to increase the effect of the kinetic runes.

She headed to the Volcano Forge with a few crystals of Earth Dust and enough steel for the forging process. She needed to make a better hammer, Alya had told her she would need to make a proper forging tool soon, it was one of the big tests for all blacksmiths.

As her mind continued the work on refining the design of her hammer, adding multiple types of empowering runes and enchanting she worked on the forge, producing new types of metals she had never seen before.

She grinned as she started to mold the pieces, using a hammer and tool to shape them instead of transmutation, deciding to work her weapon by hand. It wasn't like she would fail, her work was already past anything naturally achievable by any human master of the art.

Her latest perk let her make multiple parts at the same time, have some cool while she shaped others, returning at the perfect time to temper them perfectly as she worked. Hours passed and she continued her work, sweating at the heat of the forge as she felt a deep desire to finish this job.

Her Aura started to glow around her body as each time the hammer came down her heart and aura followed. Pieces slowly were put together, the weapon taking form again.

It looked almost the same, but felt fundamentally different. The one before was fit for her, but this one… this one was hers . An extension of her soul, activating her aura while holding Damage Creator felt like watering dry soil, it swallowed it all, quickly filling up and Junko had to. Take. A. Deep. Breath.

It resonated inside of her, any doubt about the weapon was gone, she smiled, as she felt her well charge once more. Five charges, three options, it was a celebration, and a big one.

The first option was two charges, it would add a new facet to her forge, sounded simple, but solid.

The second was six charges, it would offer her a new type of Alchemy, it felt like a mix of the Alchemiter and her Transmutation Circles. Sadly it was out of her reach.

The last option was eleven charges, she had to take a breath through clenched teeth as she looked at it. She quickly noticed it was two linked perks actually, the first six charges, the second five.

The six charges one would provide another tutorship, it was a bit nebulous about who but if it was anything like her time with the Makers it would be well worth the cost.

The other one, the other one would change her. That was pretty clear, she wouldn't be losing anything but it would add to her. There was an almost tender touch from the perk, like if it was saying her connection to her mother would change. It was so tempting, she decided that anything that put her further away from that man was worth the cost.

She took it. And Junko felt something deep inside her stir. A genetic memory awakening as her heritage came up. A bit of her she never knew it was there.

Just like the time her aura was awakened, something ignited, warming her from the depths of her soul. A loving warm sensation like sitting on her grandmother's lap when a child. A titanic adult looking down at her with a fondness of real family, an old figure that looked at her with kindness and taught her everything they knew. Giving her a bit of that they took from the gods.

A spark of the first flame, real divine fire and the knowledge of how to use it, shaping the world to grow and develop. She was a descendant of the Titan Prometheus, and this perk showed her the truth.

And Junko laughed, her body wasn't pure titan, but had enough.

If finishing her weapon had let her soul reach to it, she was now reaching to the whole volcano, she felt her soul trying to reach to the world but the warehouse was separated enough from the real world that she couldn't.

She was now related to the Titan Prometheus, the titan that handed fire to the mortals and taught them to create and use it. The titan that taught humanity the art of using fire to create tools and advance.

She was a child of the world, and she would need to work to protect it, now she had more reasons to help humanity live in peace with the planet. She also knew she was much, much stronger than before. Junko could only grin as she reached her hand into the lava from the volcano, easily taking a handful and drinking it like water.

It was like drinking a thick, warm soup or molasses, it didn't burn her mouth, heat wasn't a problem for the titan that stole fire from the gods. Her tongue could taste the different ores and minerals mixed in the hardening substance before she swallowed it with little to no problem.

She was about to try and change when she realized it would destroy her clothes. She did a quick skip to the workshop and put all of her clothes through the armor-shift treatment before wearing them again and moving to the hangar, it was the only room besides the Forge that would fit her as she grew and grew.

Junko laughed, her voice much deeper now, an ethereal echo behind it as her body shifted, easily fifteen meters tall, her rust-colored hair seemed to wave and act like fire as some more orange colored strands appeared to ignite between.

"Well, this would be really hard to explain." She laughed as she checked herself out, quickly transmuting a polished metal mirror to admire her new form.

Junko shrank and relaxed, feeling just as comfortable in both forms as she cracked her neck and joints, thinking what she would do about the situation with Jin.

She stepped out of the workshop and felt her perception quickly expand, there was a tinge of gratitude at the state of the lot, the earth was glad to no longer be poisoned.

She smiled and got herself comfortable in her office before she pulled the number and called. She frowned when the waiting music started. It took a couple of minutes before she got picked up.

"Hello, you have reached Fortress Solutions, how can we help you?" A female voice answered.

"Hello, yes, I'm Junko Tetsu, I was told to call this number to reach Jin." Junko forced herself to be the most polite person ever, she wouldn't let herself be put in the wrong here.

"Ah, yes, Mr Jin told me you would be calling. He's currently busy but I can set a meeting for you, would you like it to be today at five pm?" She had to shudder at the saccharine sweetness dripping from the voice on the other side, she felt like she needed another shower.

"Sounds perfect, although I wasn't given an address. Could you pass it to me?" She maintained the proper and polite tone as the woman on the other side told her and Junko thanked her before ending the call.

She decided that taking a shower would be the best to clean off the sensation of disgust and the sweat from working on the forge before heading to check on Mila and her family.

"You smell different." Was the first thing Mila told her. "Like fire? Did you set yourself on fire, Junko?"

"No, last perk… it definitely changed things." She grinned and made her hand light up. "I mean I can set myself on fire, but that's more of a happy extra."

"Well, I'm glad to see you won't be in any danger of suffering burns any longer. I will guess you called already?"

"Yup, didn't even get to talk to him, just a secretary," Junko shuddered, that woman rubbed him wrong. "Anything you can tell me about this Fortress Solutions?"

"They do a variety of works, from contracting to solving different kinds of issues, usually providing solutions to people's problems." Mila checked her notes. "For example, are you having problems with the deliveries of your product? Then they will find and work out the rates for a new company to take care of it."

"Anything wrong about them?"

"Nothing illegal, there's been more than a few times they got people contracting work from business that are obviously the front for the yakuza. Again, nothing really illegal as there's no real proof or those businesses would already have been closed."

"So basically a lot of shady contacts? That stinks, especially if he's coming back now that I'm doing well."

"If I had to make a bet, I would bet he either took a loan from some of his yakuza friends or he sold them the idea of using our company for some of their shady things."

Junko felt a single charge complete but no available option, so she let it go and sighed.

"Sounds like a lot of trouble, more reasons for mom and grandma to move over here. I will see about lunch with them to talk about bringing all that's necessary from the house, with a Sylladex we may as well take everything, the less we leave behind the less chances they can find anything to use against us."

"Sounds like a good idea, remember that you will have to return to work in a couple of days."

"Now, that's not really a problem." Junko laughed and went to check on her family for a meal together before talking things about moving completely. None of the two women were against the idea, her grandmother praising her room while her mother kept being worried about all the things in the house till Junko handed Nana her own Sylladex and enough cards for everything and a bit more.

Junko found that emptying a house from all the contents fell under the purview of her multi-tasking perk, easily cataloging and separating things into different boxes before storing them in cards. This quickened the moving by quite a bit, she promised her mother to help her unpack everything after she dealt with Jin.

Finally it was time to leave, Nana and Sakura wished her luck and Mila asked her to not take out the hammer. Junko grinned as she wondered if the Felyne would even guess she has a new hammer.

She got into the car and drove over to the place. She noted it was more or less in the limit between the office-heavy section of the city and some of the richer areas. It was obvious why it had been chosen there.

"Time to face the music." Junko shook all doubts and did a mental tally of the things in her inventory. " Here we stand or here we fall History won't care at all Make the bed light the light Lady mercy won't be home tonight yeah. "

Junko walked into the modest lobby, she kept in mind to move like she owed the place and people were here only because she let them. It was a little dickish of her to lean hard on this, but she wasn't up to be made to wait any longer.

"Hello, I'm Junko Tetsu, I'm here for my meeting with Mr Jin." She told to the woman sitting behind the desk and looked at her ready to get her fired if she told her anything but what she wanted to hear.

"...ah, ah! Yes, Ms Tetsu, yes, please, it's on the third floor through the elevator, the door to the right, you shouldn't miss it." She rushed to check things and take her id to note down before letting her through.

Junko stepped into the elevator and clicked the button for the third floor. She was pretty sure that if she pushed a bit harder the poor woman wouldn't even have asked for her id, but better keep things 'legal'.

"… Till one day they call your name You know it's time for the Hammer To Fall… " she hummed as she watched the numbers rise and the doors finally open.

She rang the bell and presented herself to the intercom, the door opening almost instantly for her to walk through and nod to the secretary that looked even more terrified than the one at the lobby for some reason. She knocked on the office's door and walked in when she was told.

"Ah, Junk! My daugh-" My glare cut him harder than if I had wrapped my hand around his neck and squeezed.

"Mr Jin, I heard you wanted to talk with me about something?" She kept the polite exterior as she sat down before asked and looked at the man that had provided half of what made her.

"No need to be so… co…" The man had to clear his throat and sit down to not appear unprofessional. "Junko, it's good to see you, you have grown wonderfully."

Junko was pretty impressed he could keep talking as she glared at the man in front of her. Not that it stopped him from visibly starting to sweat.

"You wanted to get in contact with me, Mr Jin. You went to quite the extent to do so. So I would like to hear what it is that you wanted." She simply stated and looked at him.

"Ah-ah-… yes," The man had to grab a tissue to wipe the sweat coating his forehead. "Yes, I wanted to offer you the chance to work with your dear father."

Junko was worried that if she glared harder he would actually catch on fire, it was quite possible right now given her recently gained pyromancy.

"You," She spoke clearly and left no doubts. "are not my father." Her glare cut any and all words that tried to come out of his mouth. "You went out of the door fifteen years ago and left. You have no right to call yourself that.

"So, I would appreciate it if you were honest about why you got my mother so stressed by appearing once again."

"Please, Junko, I did nothing wrong." The man tugged on the collar of his dress shirt, he kept feeling like it was squeezing down on his neck. "I'm sure that if you accept my offer I-…We'll do wonderful things."

"I'm already doing wonderful things, I got a great partner and my company's doing great. Why do you think I need your help?"

"Come on Junko, think about it again, you need someone like me to keep you safe, let your dear father help you. Who knows what could happen otherwise?"

Chapter 37

Chapter Text

Chapter 37

Junko closed her eyes to cast a privacy and reinforcement spell on the walls of the room they were in, no one would hear a thing and no permanent damage would be done to the building. She felt her power swell with a second charge and she was glad there were no option in her reach to distract her from the anger she was holding back.

She shaped a bit of her magic into a kinetic rune on the palms of her hands before clapping loud enough to blow the papers off the man's desk and shut him up completely.

Junko was currently using every bit of willpower in holding back the anger she was feeling because, otherwise, the place would be catching on fire.

Junko exhaled through her nose hot enough that some steam rose.

"Who do you think you are threatening?" Her tone was the opposite of the heat that was bubbling inside of her, it was cold enough it could freeze the air.

"eh…"

"No." She cut him off from talking. "For some reason you have the delusion that I will do what you want." She stood up. "But I'm not your daughter any more than I consider you my father. I owe you nothing, and after you left, you lost all connections to me.

"You come out of nowhere when you heard I was doing well and stressed mom when you couldn't reach me, and when you reached my partner you harassed them like you had the right for them to answer to all your whims."

Junko groaned and smacked down on the table, the solid material feeling like putty as her hands sink into it.

"So you better lose that silly idea that you will get anything off me. And if you think you can use some sort of contact to threaten me, I will use my contacts to find a way to make you regret it.

"So I ask again, what do you think you are doing?"

"I… I… You don't understand, you owe me-"

"What. Did. You. Do?" She pointed, the table by now had multiple holes poked through as the material seemed to soften and melt between her fingers.

"I-I to-told them I… I could get-t you to ag-agree" Jin was shaking as she glared at him.

"Told. WHO?" She was pretty sure her hair was waving like it'd caught on fire and she had grown at least five centimeters given how tight her clothes felt.

"T-The Eight Pr-Precepts of D-D-Death." He seemed to almost pass out after finally saying it.

"Crap, and let me guess, they know about Nana and Sakura?" She saw him nod. "Okay, they are safe at the compound, but I will have to make a few calls." She continued in a much lower voice before turning back to him. "And you, I don't want to hear about you anywhere close, you appear again and…" She looked at him as her hand drew a line across the soft table.

"You can keep the table as a reminder, send me the bill for the new one." She smiled before breaking the spell and turning around to leave without a single word.

"Thank you for the help." She smiled pleasantly at the secretary outside of the office. "I think Mr Jin's not feeling well, I would suggest checking up on him." she offered before she walked out of the office and the building and got into the car.

Junko pulled her phone and quickly called Mila to update her on the events.

"Hey Mila, bad news." She started to tell her when she heard a knock on the glass of her car. "Looks like they either didn't wait for an answer or guessed I'm not interested."

"..what?" Mila asked someone else on the other side of the phone. "Crap! Junko, your mom apparently went to her home for something."

Junko did not like what she just heard, already expecting the worst.

"Call Aizawa, I will play along, but otherwise…"

"Good luck Junko."

Junko cut the call as she noticed the guys outside the car getting impatient, she rolled the window down.

"Yes?" she asked calmly.

"Boss heard you weren't interested and he would like to extend a meeting, to see if you change your mind."

"What if I'm a busy woman?" She asked, trying to remain calm.

The apparent leader of the group reached into his pocket and pulled his phone, clicked it a couple of times and turned it around to show a picture of her mother.

No, it was live streaming.

"Okay, I will go, but you let her go the moment I'm there." she had to bite, she wished she could've sent Mila a message with the bad news.

"Glad to hear you are open to dialogue." He told her before asking her to come out of the car and follow them to theirs, she could only agree and follow.

The drive was stressful for her, she was still angry at Jin, and having this happen right after was certainly testing her. But they had her mother and Junko just brought her grandma back, she would not be doing a trade.

The drive was silent. Especially after she glared at the asshole who was leering at her body.

"We are here," The driver said as the car stopped in front of a large, old-time mansion. Junko was the last to get out of the car, she stored the omni-tool into her Sylladex for now instead of being asked to give it up.

The group pushed her to walk into the place, she had to admire how well cared for the garden was, she was a little sad this place may not see another day after today. Before she entered the building a taller Yakuza with a katana stopped her.

"We know you work with support items, give us everything you have." A new Yakuza told her. "Give us everything you have in your pockets." He ordered her and Junko complied, giving him her cellphone, wallet and keys, except for a few things in her wallet they were all for show.

She smiled and handed him the items and bit down the remark of the shitty manufacture of his sword. She was pretty sure the cheap thing was more dangerous for the wielder than the target.

As they guided her into the mansion she felt her power fill, three charges and two of the three options were available, she didn't want to get distracted, choosing the cheapest option and trying her best to hide as the knowledge of nanite science added to the rest of her technological knowledge.

As they walked through the hallways and deeper into the place she noted more than one of the Yakuza members wearing strange masks.

She was taken to a door and asked to enter the room.

It was a pretty simple room, eight tatami or about 3.4m by 3.4m. On the center of it there was a table, two couches on each side of the table, facing each other. She was told to sit on one.

On the other was a pale man of short, dark brown hair, he wore a long, beak-like mask and simply clothes under a green jacket.

"Junko Tetsu, or do you prefer to be called Junk?" His voice came out with a slight eerie echo as he talked from inside the mask.

"Junk is okay, where's my mother?" She asked succinctly.

"Don't worry, she's safe, and you two can go once we have our chat."

Junko glared and growled softly.

"Then let's talk." Her cutting comment made the man chuckle.

"STOP SCREWING AROUND! ARE YOU MOCKING THE BOSS?!" Junko's eyebrow rose slightly as what appeared to have been a doll till now stood up and screamed at her.

"Calm down Mimic, she doesn't even know who I am." The man put his hand on the doll's head, silencing it. "I'm Kai Chisaki, I'm the boss of the Eight Precepts of Death, but you can call me Overhaul."

"SO YOU BETTER BE MORE COURTEOUS WITH THE B-" Junko leveled a full glare at the damn annoying doll, shutting it up.

"I apologize for the eagerness of my subordinates."

"I'm here to hear you and take my mother home, so please, start talking." Junko started to feel the couch soften more as she did her best to hold back the rage swelling inside of her. "And tell the guy behind me that if he moves a centimeter more in my direction he will learn some painful lessons."

"Chronostasis." Overhaul ordered and the man standing behind Junko walked around to stand behind his boss, another weirdo in a mask. By now she was pretty sure it was this group's cliche. "Junko, you appear to be a smart woman, and I'm a smart man, I'm sure you can see we can achieve great things together.

"You are wasting your time working with heroes. I have seen some of the advances you have, in all the years I-island been around their advances haven't been an inch of what you are doing. I'm sure you have done a lot more and haven't shown it.

"Do you fear what they would think of you? But you will always be shadowed by the achievements made by quirks, you will only be a support equipment provider to them!

"But I know better, I can see that for everything you put out you must have discovered other nine things. With no quirks around you could shine, I look to bring the Yakuza back to their old greatness, but you, you could bring humanity to a new age."

The villains remained silent and Junko could only chuckle at the man's speech.

"You know the funny thing? You are the second asshole that came with the same silly offer! I will give you a 6 for the content, but a 2 for originality." She grinned, she was done with this group of entitled asshole. "I don't want to give you the idea that it would have been different if you had done this before the dumbass from Humans First tried a month or so ago.

"But you kidnapped my mother after the asshole who calls himself my father told you I would be a naive woman who would follow your word and you couldn't take a no."

Junko felt her omni-tool ring inside her Sylladex and she raised a finger while glaring at the villains as she made it appear on her wrist, the call coming through.

"Miss Tetsu, this is Eraser Head, since you answered I would guess you are safe."

"Oh! I'm safe, but I don't know where they have my mother. Is there anything you can do to get to her?" Junko's current perception extended easily over all the building and the underground, she could feel two sources of sadness and stress but she couldn't pinpoint which was her mother, and she had no idea who was the other.

"I'm sorry, with no real cause to break neither police or heroes can move in ." Junko wanted to laugh at the hero's comment.

"Okay, I hope you can do it, I'm not here 'cause I want to." She cut the phone-call and grinned at Overhaul. "I'm sorry, some people are just really rude and love to call when you are busy. Where were we?"

Overhaul looked at Mimic. "I thought you said they had taken everything she was carrying."

"They did, she handed her phone, and she wasn't wearing that thing on her wrist before, not even when she walked into this room, I was watching!" The freaky doll complained as Junko sighed.

"Oh, it's pretty easy, it was magic~" Junko grinned. "Want to see another magic trick?"

Overhaul turned to look at her, she couldn't help herself and made a few sparks float off her fingers.

"For my first trick," she grinned. "Since you all are wearing masks," She created a small poof of smoke, barely a cantrip in magic before she pulled a mask she had created before the hunting trip but hadn't used. "My own mask." She held the mask away from her, to let them see as she swiftly changed her normal clothes for her reinforced set, armor included. "But that's not all." she guided their eyes with her mask as she brought it to herself, Overhaul's eyes growing as he noticed the change.

She felt her power swell and peeked at the two options, she had three charges and both options were two charges, the first was some kind of laboratory that would be added to her workshop, the other something about her personal defense given what she was wearing. She was pretty sure there was no better moment to take the second one.

She almost laughed as she felt the change, now she and everything she wore would be as tough as the hardest equipment she wore, and her armor plates could take quite a beating.

"For my next trick." She put the mask onto her face, the enchantments holding it firmly in place, she activated the omni-tool and called Eraser Head and smiled at her captivated public. "Eraser Head, you may want to look this way, it appears there's a strange masked person with a big, big hammer." Junko pulled Damage Creator from her inventory, the weapon glowing as her soul's light soaked deep into it.

"Fools! Stop her!" Overhaul screamed as Junko brought the Hammer down.

None of them even reached as the wind dust cartridge activated when the hammer hit the table in front of her, the earth dust alloy enchanted to increase kinetic damage disintegrated the table and sent all the masked villains flying away as Junko maintained her ground.

Considering the ceiling collateral damage was underestimating how the roof of the mansion swelled and exploded upwards by the empowered pressure explosion.

"I hope you learn to take a no now." She turned and ran through the already cracked wall in direction of the closest source she could feel in the edges of her perception.

It only took a couple of rooms for her advance to be stopped by a pair of masked yakuza, both wearing those beaked masks, both were black and covered most of their head.

"Tsk…" Junko looked at the pair, both appeared to be some kind of fight fighter given the armored gloves.

"To think you declined the boss' offer, maybe if we beat you up a bit you will think twice about it." The taller one spoke as his posture was more open while the smaller of the pair took something closer to a boxer's posture.

"Give up, you won-" Junko didn't wait a moment, she cycled the shell, changing the wind dust for electric yellow before swinging down and unleashing a paralyzing storm of electricity that shocked the pair.

Junko was glad for the Mercy rune she had managed to create from studying the spell cards. It was interesting how it was designed to encapsulate the rest of the enchantments.

She quickly ran between the pair as the electricity kept the rooted to the ground, she hoped the resistance was the sign her mother was there.

"Mom!" She exclaimed when she broke into the room, but there was only a small girl sitting in a bed.

Chapter 38

Chapter Text

Chapter 38

Junko almost turned around and left, but she knew she would hate herself later if she did. She was no hero but she was still human enough she could ignore a scared child.

As her eyes got used to the lower light compared to the hallway she noticed the bandages on the young girl's limbs and the obvious mutation of a horn on her forehead.

Her medical knowledge screamed at her a whole list of problems. She could see signs of lack of Vitamin D, proper hygiene, the bandages were done poorly, she wasn't well fed, lack of proper sleep and other ailments that only fed into her anger.

Junko breathed in deep, the little girl didn't deserve her anger. She needed someone to be kind to her at the moment. She stored the hammer and removed her mask as she walked over.

"Hi there." she stopped at the edge of the bed when the young white-haired girl recoiled like she was going to hurt her. "I'm Junko, what's your name?" She asked gently, she was glad there was some pediatric knowledge in her medical skills, just a few comments but should be enough right now.

"...I-I'm Er-i." The little girl spoke in barely above a whisper. Junko took the moment to look at her better, she would say the little girl was not above six but looked less than five, a kid of her age should be out moving a lot and doing lots of exercise not locked in a room without windows. "...you have to go."

"Eri, what happened to you?" Junko asked as gently as possible. "Did the bad men do this to you?" She fought with herself to stop her hands from reaching for the terrified child.

"Ah…" Junko felt the ground soften under her feet and slowly reached for Eri, her hand reaching for the girl as she tried to move away. With her most delicate touch she stroked the girl's head, not stopping when she recoiled like she was going to be hit.

"It's okay, it's okay." Junko channeled her mother as she calmed the girl. "I don't think this is a good place for you, little Eri, come with me."

"No! He will kill you and take me back! And if not…" Eri cringed and curled on herself as Junko slowly pulled her against her chest, stroking the poor, terrified little girl as she stroked her head. "Then I will hurt you, I'm cursed!"

Junko felt a pressure against her aura, something was trying to ground it down, like putting her hand against an electric sander, constantly eroding her, only her strong soul keeping her safe. She guessed it must be the girl's quirk acting up. Especially as she saw the material of the bed start to be unmade in front of her.

"Shh, it's okay, it's not hurting me, look." She put a strong front for Eri to see that neither the woman in front of her or her equipment was being affected. Her aura was eating the brunt of the effect, she could feel her reserves dwindling real fast, but luckily the sight of Junko being okay calmed the girl down.

"But...h-how?" Eri asked, confused.

"I'm really strong, so you don't have to be afraid, I betcha I can find a way to help you." She smiled brightly at the girl as she felt her power accumulate another charge but none of the options were in her reach. "And you." She spoke over her shoulder as she heard someone enter the room. "I thought I told you I would teach you a lesson if you tried anything."

Right on the door frame stood Chronostasis looking quite worse for the wear, his mask was slightly cracked, the same as one of the lenses over his eyes, the hood had torn and wasn't covering his arrow-shaped hair.

"You think yourself so smart?!" The man screamed, making Eri curl harder against Junko's chest. "Once the boss' back up he will teach you a lesson, till then I will show you!

"I don't have any idea where you had that hammer, but you need to get close to use it, with my quirk I only need to touch you once and you will be slowed down for up to an hour, lets see who's faster!"

"Really? I need to get close?" Junko equipped her mask again as she grinned. She pulled the hammer and pointed it to the villain. "Got some bad news for you."

She pulled the little switch on the side of the grip. Instantly it changed form, the grip turning into a stock as the head of the hammer slid down the handle and a muzzle was revealed.

"Lets see you be faster than this." She pulled on the trigger, releasing a slug of blue dust that froze the man almost completely, just enough that he could still breath. "Lets go Eri, please hold on tight." she wrapped an arm around the small child as she aimed the shotgun at the wall and blew a hole with an explosion of earth dust.

She repeated this a couple more times as her omni-tool received a call from Aizawa.

"Miss Tetsu."

"Eraser Head, any news about my mother?" She asked hastily as she smacked a few thugs that tried to stop her, knocking them out as she continued her unimpeded advance.

"We found her pretty quickly, the couple of known members of the group looking after her but weren't ready for heroes and police to suddenly break in, so you can feel better now that she's safe."

"Okay, that's good news." She stopped to calm Eri down as she felt her quick activate again due to the stress. "Shh, it's okay, we will soon be out of here.

"Sadly got a problem here," She talked to the hero on the other side of the line. "Found a child, obvious signs of abuse, completely terrified, and I'm not leaving her behind. And given what one of the criminals said I would bet their boss will be quickly coming after me"

"Then see if you can come out to the front of the building, I will be directing our forces to wait for you."

"Okay." She turned to Eri "Heard that little one, a bit more and you will be safe." she looked around, checking her mental map for the building, she was pretty sure there hadn't been a wall in the needed direction. "Crap."

Junko cursed as she watched the walls start to shift.

"Told you to be more courteous with the boss." It was the voice of the annoying doll from before just a lot lower than the squeaky beak-faced plush. "I don't know what you did to keep the boss from waking up yet, I will slow you enough that he will fix things with you and those pesky heroes."

"Eri, hold on tight and don't worry, I will protect you." The little girl nodded against her chest as Junko leaned forward and shot herself forward.

"What the…?!" The voice shouted as Junko shot through the hallway before the wall closed in completely. "Still that won't be enough!"

Junko watched the floor she was about to land on open up like a giant maw, and with Eri in her arms she couldn't use her weapon to redirect herself in the air. She simply held the little girl tighter as they fell together into the darkness below.

It wasn't that long of a fall, but they had easily reached a sub-basement, her legs cushioning the fall with absolutely no problem. She looked up and saw the ceiling close above her, making her curse internally as she looked at Eri and noticed her bandages had come undone, exposing multiple needle marks all over her arms.

Junko was pretty sure that Overhaul was quickly growing to the top of the list of people she hated.

"Oh dear, let me fix that." She pulled a potion of medium potency, just strong enough it should deal with the bruises and needle marks on the girl's arms. "Here Eri, drink this, I promise it tastes like cherry." And it did, for some reason the mix always ended tasting like that even when she was pretty sure there was nothing in the ingredients to make it possible. But deep red was apparently cherry and it was okay.

She watched with a smile as Eri quickly started to look better, with the potion vial empty she stored it and checked the girl's body, noting a lot of signs of her bad health had disappeared, she was okay with that.

"Much better, no?" she asked gently and the girl nodded as she clung tightly to her once more. "Let's get you out of here." She looked around, trying to guess where the stairs out could be.

Deciding she could only start moving and hope for the best she reassured Eri and started running in the general direction of the mansion's entrance.

It wasn't more than a couple hallways that the walls started to move again, while bothersome she took it as a good sign in her direction.

"Can't let you escape yet." The annoying voice stated as Junko groaned as she dodged the arms coming out of the walls, floor and ceiling trying to grab her. She was lucky that moving the villain couldn't move faster. "Stay still and give up already!"

"Can't do that, gotta get Eri out of here, I promised." she tried to find the man's location as her omni-tool projected a simple alchemy circle on the ground for her to reach and activate, a wave of spikes erupted around her and quickly destroyed all the incoming hands.

"AAAHHH! Boss! You copied the Boss' quirk, what have you done!"

"Gotcha." She activated a new transmutation circle and quickly forced a sphere of material to eject from the wall, given how it was twitching she had gotten him. "Bye Bye." She aimed the shotgun and shot the single gravity dust slug she had created.

Once the projectile hit the sphere the dust ignited and the increased gravity crushed it down into rubble, knocking out the man inside.

"God he was noisy, all okay, Eri?" She looked down at the girl.

"Yes, Miss."

"Just call me Junk, Eri." She smiled warmly at the girl and ruffled her head, she was glad she hadn't felt the girl's quirk activate in a while.

"O-okay Miss Junk." The woman had to chuckle and pet the little girl as she activated another transmutation circle and created a ramp up till she saw light shining in.

"Hopefully this is the exit." She hugged Eri against her chest and started to run up.

Junko ran out into what basically was a large battle, it looked like the remaining villains had teamed up and were repelling the few heroes and police forces.

"Junk! This way." She saw Aizawa in his full costume wave to her as a group of police forces hid behind a wall made by the hero Cementoss, his block features were hard to miss as she covered Eri with her body as she ran, feeling more than one shot from the Yakuza thugs impact her back.

"Where did they even get all these guns?!" A police officer screamed as Junko slipped behind the cement walls and checked on Eri. The little girl clung to her armor and shivered.

"It's okay, Eri, just a bit more, you are doing great." she ran her fingers through the girl's hair, the soothing touch calming the girl as she allowed herself to peek up and nod weakly.

Junko turned to Aizawa. "Eraser Head, glad to see my equipment's helping," she joked a little as she laughed forcefully. "This is Eri, I found her in one of the rooms inside, short story she was in a much worse condition, I had to do a bit of a fixing, I hope you forgive me with tampering with evidence, but…"

"Don't worry Junk, it's good to see you are okay, what about the other villains inside? Did you manage to dodge them?"

Junko felt her power swell again, it looked like all the chaos was quite effective in filling her reserves as she reached three charges, the first option was too expensive so she ignored it, the other two were some kind of toolkit and mechanic knowledge, she took the second quickly and turned her attention back to Aizawa.

"I managed to leave four out of commission before escaping, two large guys, black masks, some kind of gauntlets on both of them. Also the two assholes that had been with Overhaul when he tried to recruit me, I think their names were Mimic and Chronostasis."

"Good, that sounds like Rikiya and Kendo."

"HAHAHAH EAT! EAT! EAT! EAT!" Junko peered over the barrier to see the villain with a bag-like mask take bites of the wave of material created by Cementoss.

"That looks like my quirk." Junko chuckled and grinned, pulling a yellow dust shell and threw it at the guy. "Lets see you eat this."

The man predictably bit down on the thumb-sized canister, activating the elemental powder inside and releasing a shocking explosion that quickly knocked him and the blonde masked guy close by, sadly the third close villain resisted the brunt of the damage as the crystals covering his body seemed to act as a Faraday cage.

"Two more out."

"After this you will have to explain quite a bit about your use of obviously untested material, Ms Tetsu."

"Sure, after we deal with all these thugs." Junko looked as there were only two more guys still standing, most of the thugs had been knocked out or taken out of the fight. There was the previously mentioned crystal-covered yakuza who was taken out by Aizawa by turning off his quirk and knocking him out with a quick hit.

The last masked guy was dressed in all black with a wide brim hat, he was also soon taken out by Cementoss corralling him with his quirk. It appeared the man's quirk didn't have any useful application for the situation as he gave up.

"Well, that looks like it was all." A random police officer commented by her and Junko almost glared at him as she felt herself tense for the upcoming disaster.

"Please, don't tempt Mur-" Junko started when the door of the Mansion exploded in a similar way to how her transmutation worked.

"YOU!" She watched Overhaul stumble out of the hole, murder in his eyes while looking straight at Junko making her swallow.

Having all police officers and heroes turn to look at him seemed to bring the villain to a stop and make disapproving sounds.

"I will get you back, Eri, and you," He glared at her and Junk glared back. "I will have my revenge on you."

The man turned and walked into black cloud before disappearing.

"Okay, now it's done." Someone said and Junko chuckled weakly as she looked down at Eri and stroked her head to calm the girl down.

Chapter 39

Chapter Text

Chapter 39

Junko couldn't wait till it was new year's eve so she could put a new resolution on not getting kidnapped.

She looked at Eri, as the girl had fallen asleep while holding onto her chest, the little limpet had released her armor long enough for Recovery Girl to give her professional opinion on her situation. Junko had explained in detail how she had found her, the older woman couldn't fault her for treating her, but she did complain that she would like to see the tests of the healing technology she used to confirm it was safe.

After that Junko had just enough time to take her armor off before the little girl once again latched onto her and fell asleep as soon as she felt safe. She could have just stored the armor, but it was better to not let people know about all her capabilities. She had stored her weapon, but that was during the chaos of the fight and she was pretty sure no one had seen it well enough.

Junko felt her power reach a second charge, it reminded her she had taken a new perk during the fighting but hadn't checked it out earlier. Before trying to look at it she peered at her current options, only one, the other two being a bit too expensive so she took it straight away.

The new perk was all about making everything she created look even better, it would cover any kind of craft and construction, generally a pretty good thing that added to all the other quality perks she already had.

The older perk was a bit more interesting. It would have boosted her mechanic skills up to expert, with all her other perks, she added another branch in her abilities that had certainly surpassed the limit in mortal levels and was solidly into the supernatural.

She felt Eri struggle a little in her arms and looked down, running her fingers through her hair and whispering calming words while she hummed a gentle tune. Her voice had the desired effect of calming the child down into a better sleep.

Junko has started to understand how her new perception worked, it was very vague unless emotions were strong enough. It was like being mostly deaf, unless someone screamed or you were paying a lot of attention you wouldn't exactly hear much.

Luckily, Junko didn't have much to do but pay attention and she noticed someone about to open the door, looking closer, she noticed it wasn't one person but actually two, the second being really small and walking by the first.

"She's he-" The man that opened the door was apparently just a random cop that got silenced by one of Junko's glares, she was certainly abusing this skill of hers lately. The man quickly understood the message of not waking up the little girl as he apologized softly and let the other person come into the room.

Junko was surprised to see U.A.'s principal pull the chair back and climb on it, he also apparently decided to stand on the chair, given he was about half as tall as she was.

"Miss Tetsu, a pleasure, I imagine you must already know who I am, but for courtesy sake, I'm Nezu, am I bear? A cat? A Dog? Ho ho ho, no one knows." She was glad he apparently had enough tact to keep his voice low.

"A pleasure to meet you too, I'm Junko Tetsu, and sleeping beauty is Eri."

"Ah, yes, little Eri, we ran a check on her, we didn't find anything on missing children but we found she does have a single living relative." Nezu put the folder he had been holding on the table and opened it to show a picture of an old man.

"Who's he?" She asked, keeping her voice low.

"This is The Eight Precepts' previous boss. He's currently under medical care for some serious health issues, he's her grandfather. Apparently her father 'disappeared' in an accident and there's no clue where her mother is."

"If she's their ex-boss' granddaughter then why…?" She stopped when she remembered the needle marks on her arms and paled.

"I think you understand," He looked serious as he talked, the playfulness from when he presented himself totally gone. "We haven't finished investigating the manor, but we have found some extensive laboratories underground, apparently they were using her blood for something.

"Our current guess is that they were using her to produce some kind of drug. Her grandfather's quirk let him heal others, the record's about her father's quirk only say it was a weak variation of his father's quirk.

"We believe her quirk may have expressed herself in her blood, and Overhaul was using it to produce some variation of Trigger."

Junko shook her head. "No, I saw her quirk in use, I'm not completely sure of what it was doing, but it was corroding everything around her when she became stressed. It would have certainly affected me if I didn't have some defenses in place to resist it."

"Interesting…" Nezu rubbed his chin as he thought about it. "Well, I imagine we will have more answers after we finish investigating the mansion's underground. I would like to ask if we could get a sample of her blood, but it would be slightly hypocritical of me to do that."

"Thank you for thinking of her mental health, I doubt she will ever like needles after what that man put her through." Junko thought for a moment before remembering something. "A tri-corder would do the work, Principal. It should get all the information you need and it's non-invasive."

"Oh! Of course, silly me, I forgot you created those wonderful little machines." Nezu smiled joyfully. "I have been following all the advancements you, Miss Tetsu, have released since Eraser Head commissioned his new costume from your company. Wonderful things indeed."

"Thank you. But please, call me Junk." Junko suddenly felt bashful.

"Sadly, Overhaul escaped through the use of an unknown quirk, Chronostasis and Mimic managed to slip out too. We are guessing either he had contact with an underground transportation service or another villain group intervened. All other members were apprehended without problems."

"I will have to increase the house defenses." Junko thought out loud and Nezu barely lifted an eyebrow.

"In better news, your mother's perfectly healthy besides the scare. A few police officers got her back to your company safely, she's apparently feeling terrible about putting you in danger."

"I'm glad to hear she's okay." Junko relaxed and felt another charge coming in, she did her best to hide it but she was pretty sure Nezu had noticed the change. She quickly took the only option, another addition to her growing Alchemy knowledge.

She also felt the knowledge on wielding the Warhammer and the Staff entered her mind, the first was more of the same, not even expanding what she knew already, but the staff felt like a nice addition.

"Is everything okay, Miss Tetsu?"

"Yes, I apologize for zoning out, I think the day's getting to me. And calling me Junk's okay with me."

"Okay then, I'm sure you would like to get home soon after such a long day." Nezu picked up the photos and files back into his folder. "I imagine you would like to take a shower and clean that smell of fire off you." Junko blushed, she had forgotten others may have senses as strong as Mila, and for what she had heard, Nezu wasn't a human, but a quirked animal.

"Yeah, I had to use a few exotic ammunition and one exploded pretty close." She rubbed the back of her head feeling awkward at the obvious lie.

"Hmm, you should take miss Eri with you too, I doubt we would be able to take her away from you, and honestly, having two possible targets living together in a defended house is a lot better than having them in two different places."

Junko nodded and thanked the... rodent? For it. When he reached the door a police officer opened it, letting the Principal leave, the officer notified her that they would be setting up a car to take her home soon.

She decided it was time to wake up the little sleeper.

"Eri, it's time to wake up." She whispered gently in the girl's ear as her hand ran her fingers through her hair. "Come on, I will be taking you home with me tonight and don't want you getting scared by waking up somewhere new."

Junko felt her heart melt a little at the sleeping whiny noises Eri made as she slowly woke her up.

"…m-miss?" she asked softly, rubbing her eyes with her fist.

"Yes Eri, slept well?" she asked as she pulled a tissue and helped her clean her face.

"...yes," She yawned. "It was such a good dream, you took me away from that bad place."

"That wasn't a dream, Eri, you are coming with me home." She watched the little girl's eyes open large like a pair of saucers. "I promise nothing bad will happen to you from now on." she hugged the girl and stroked her head. She felt the child shiver and start to cry. "Shh." She calmed her, trying to hum a soft tune till she stopped.

"Will you really take me home with you?" Junko nodded at her question.

"Yes, and I will ask some good friends to help you with your quirk too." She gently poked Eri's nose, making the girl cross her eyes trying to look.

They soon were told the vehicle was ready, taking Junko and Eri straight to the company's lot, she was pretty sure she saw Aizawa tailing the car more than once and resolved to thank the man next time it was possible.

She thanked the police officers when they stopped outside the company, she started to think that maybe she should name the place, it was getting repetitive to call the place such vague names in her head.

"Welcome to… I need a name for this place, but it's my home, and now yours too." Junko carried Eri, the little girl didn't want to move a centimeter away from her and she was okay with it right now. "Let's go say hi to the other people here."

She made a quick visit to Mila, the Felyne had been quite up to date with the situation and greeted Eri gently, being less than a meter tall and very fuzzy seemed to have made Eri feel less fearful of the woman and had managed a soft hello before hiding her face against Junko's chest. Mila had laughed softly and asked Junko to talk later.

After that she went looking for her mother and grandmother. It appeared Nana was really worried that she had caused the whole issue but Junko had stopped her and told her they wouldn't have saved Eri otherwise and besides the scare it was a net gain all over.

"Yeah, he escaped, but I doubt he will be trying to take revenge anytime soon. I will be fortifying the place a bit harder, especially against anyone trying to use exotic ways to enter." Junko explained to her family as the child in her arms yawned. "But I think that I will tuck this little one for now."

"… not tired," Eri yawned again. "...no wanna leave."

Junko ran her fingers through the girl's hair and her mother mumbled something as her grandmother chuckled.

"I will see you tomorrow." She nodded to her family as she carried Eri to her bedroom, the woman changed her enchanted sheets for a pair of normal ones, wanting to give Eri a complete night of sleep instead of the express variety.

"Come on, Eri, let go, I promise I will be here when you wake up in the morning."

"No." The child spoke with more certainty than she had heard from her this far.

"It will be okay, I promise." She felt the little girl shake her head in denial against her chest. "Okay, how about I set up a bed in my workshop? That way you will be near me all night?"

"...will you really do that?" Eri looked up to her.

"Yes, but you have to promise not to touch anything, there're some dangerous tools in there and I don't want you to get hurt."

Eri seemed to ponder it before nodding and speaking softly. "...ok."

Junko felt her power fill with a single charge and none of the options were in her reach, with something much more important right now she grabbed the clean sheets and a few pillows before carrying them along with Eri into her workshop.

"Now, my workshop is very special, Eri, that's why you have to keep it a secret, mom, Mila and Grandma know about it, but I haven't told anyone else." She opened the door with her key and walked through, the simple looks of the entrance hall seemed to stump little Eri as she appeared to have been prepared for something much grander. "Don't worry, it gets better."

Junko chuckled at Eri's look as she stepped into the infinite hallway.

"Miss, how many rooms do you have?" Eri asked while trying to see the end of the extending hallway.

"Not that many, it's just a trick, any door will take you wherever is that you want to go." She opened a door and stepped into the workshop.

The room had changed time and time again, especially after because of some of the additions her perks had. The once nearly empty room has shifted to accommodate the upgraded Alchemiter, the Cruxtruder had been moved to the storage as she didn't need more Cruxite Cylinders.

The armor-shift manufacturer had been moved by the mannequins she had made along with the transmog. Opposite to it, her 3D printer was set up along with the installations to work on cyborgs, prosthetics and androids, Junko was glad they were currently turned off because some of the tools would most likely trigger Eri's bad memories.

"Welcome to one of my workshops. The others are a bit more dangerous so you will be staying here." She showed Eri things around before she decided that the number of pillows she had grabbed were few too little and showed the child how she could create a large pile of very comfortable pillows she turned into a make-shift bed.

"Think you can let go of me now, Eri? I promise you are in one of the safest places you can be." She stroked the child's head and smiled.

Eri slowly lets go and lets the woman lay her on the sheets covered pillow pile, bouncing a bit in one of the first childish actions she saw her do.

"...soft." The child whispered and relaxed as Junko took off her armor, feeling like it had been on her for ages as she changed into some of her softer clothes, scooting up with Eri.

"See, it's safe, you can sleep now, Eri." Junko couldn't stop herself from yawning after the child did. After such a long day she could take a full night of sleep.

Her eyes weighted down, humming a gentle tune as she felt Eri scoot closer and soon the two of them fell asleep feeling safe.

Chapter 40

Chapter Text

Chapter 40

Junko slowly opened her eyes, feeling strangely out of place as she woke up in a pile of pillows inside her workshop. Her brain quickly came online as the rest of her noticed the small breathing bundle resting against her chest and she remembered the events of the day prior.

It was the first time in months she had slept more than a couple of hours, it felt pretty strange to know she had just let time go, but given the relaxed look on Eri she was completely okay with it.

Gently her hand reached and stroked the girl's hair, moving it away from her face, she noted her horn looked slightly different, had it always been that small?

Her touch didn't take long to wake up the girl who drew her to make soft cooing noises to keep her calm.

"Good morning, Eri, slept well?" Junko watched the girl yawn and decided she would be keeping this child, and fear all who would deny her right to pamper her.

"M-morning miss." The young girl yawned again before mumbling a yes as she snuggled closer to the woman, still not entirely awake.

"Come on, lets go get a shower and I will prepare breakfast, I promise you have never eaten that well." She hummed as she carried the child in her arms to the bathroom.

After getting Eri completely cleaned up she noticed she didn't had any clothes for the girl, making Junko have her wear one of her shirts that was big enough to pass as a dress while she sewed a complete ensemble for Eri.

The girl ended wearing a lovely dress in red and pink pastel colors that combined with her eyes, a belt in soft greens that wrapped around her waist, a pair of soft and light shoes in red and orange.

"You look really cute, Eri." She praised the girl who blushed and got really shy as Junko held her hand while guiding her to the kitchen in her apartment to cook her a delicious meal.

Junko looked to set up a show for Eri as she cooked, the breadth of her skills and perks let her cook a delicious and very nutritious meal for the child that wouldn't upset her current health. Not that she wouldn't get her scanned later at the med bay before visiting the Makers to see if Muria could help her find what the child's quirk was and if there was a way to help her.

Junko felt her heart warm up as she watched Eri eat happily, it didn't take much thought to realize that she saw her as a daughter already. And she would definitely be a mother bear, not like she hadn't been pondering about multiple projects to start. Just improving the lot's security, she would ask Muria about a good way to block portals, teleportation and other similar techniques.

It took her a second to notice Eri was speaking to her. "...was really good, Miss."

"Told you to call me Junk, Eri." She reached and ruffled the girl's white hair. "And that's good, you will be eating like that everyday from now on." She wiped the girl's mouth and smiled warmly. "Now come on, let's get you scanned at the med bay before we go visit my teachers for their help."

"Are you sure it won't hurt?" Eri asked in a slight fearful tone.

"Completely, I made it, you just have to stand where I tell you and it will be done in less than a minute." She walked the girl to the medical bay, showing her there was no needle anywhere and all she had to do is stand on a slightly taller disc on the ground.

"Okay, now stay there," Junko pressed a button and all that changed was a light now shining down on Eri for slightly over thirty seconds. "And done. See, nothing bad." She quickly picked Eri up and rewarded her with a hug and a cookie from the room's replicator.

"Thank you, miss Junk." The child's words weren't as understandable given the cookie currently in her mouth, but Junko didn't have any trouble understanding her.

Junko felt her power reach a second charge and noticed that all options were in her reach, the first for two charges would give her a new type of alchemy, it appeared focused on the interaction between different materials for specific results.

The second was a single charge and would be adding to the looks of all her creations. The last one was the telekinesis technology she had seen previously.

None of the options were really that attractive and she ended choosing the single charge option as she decided it was definitely safer at the moment.

It was an interesting skill, it would let her splurge on looks for anything she created without sacrificing any kind of function. It also came with the interesting application of giving knowledge of how to hide things by guiding designs to make people not notice things like surveillance and defense systems.

"...is all okay, miss?" Eri's voice broke Junk from her current train of thought.

"Yes, Eri, don't worry, just waiting for-" The machine beeped and the results of the scan came up "Just in time." She sat on her lap as the woman looked through the results, a grim acceptance as she already had an idea of some of the things the child may have been put through.

Junko calmed herself by reminding herself that Eri was safe with her now. The results were quite still, for a child of her age the amount of natural light and exercise was huge and Eri had been kept locked in a dark room for more than a few months, she had her blood taken multiple times to the point she was doubting how she was still alive.

She made a promise to really smack Overhaul next time she saw him. She sent a couple messages to her mother and Mila before heading to the Forge Lands.

"Are your teachers inside your warehouse, miss Junk?"

"Not exactly Eri." She held the little girl's hand as she stepped up to the stone arch door "My teachers live far, far away." The child looked at her and then at the door.

"The moon?" The child innocently guessed and Junk laughed softly.

"No, they live really far away, you will see." She held the girl's hand as she walked through the arch and took her to the Forge Lands, enjoying the looks of childish wonder as she looked around.

"Woah…" Eri looked around as Junk held her hand, walking slowly as there was no rush, especially as she took her time to notice her extended perception wasn't working the same way as back home.

"Impressive, no?" She asked and Eri barely acknowledged her. "My teachers are very, very old, and very, very wise."

"Aye lass, who are you callin' old?" Ulthane's voice came from the training yard, the sudden surprise making Eri squeak and hide behind Junko.

"I'm calling you old, old man," Junko chuckled. "How many tectonic ages old are you exactly?"

"Like you won't get that old with time…" He looked at her, ignoring Eri. "Especially after this change, looking for Muria I believe, no?"

"Yeah, hadn't thought to ask her about the changes, I came to ask for help with Eri here." Having attention brought to her made the child squeak again and try to hide behind Junko from the Maker.

"She's tiny, my hammer's larger than her!" The maker laughed.

"You hammer's larger than my normal body!" Junko came in Eri's defense and turned to the child. "Don't worry about Ulthane, he's just joking, and yes, he's normally that big, all Makers are."

The Maker laughed and let her go her way as he returned to his hobby of destroying training posts. She saw Eri peek back and show surprise at the man's axe actually being that large.

Junko chuckled and guided her to Muria's wing in Tri-Forge.

"Junko, glad to see you back and with two new additions?" The white-haired maker welcomed her.

"Hi Muria, yes I will ask you about my change later, right now I want your professional opinion about Eri." She rested her hand on the girl's head as she told the maker about the girl's story.

"Hmm, I heard many powers that can do that, from the concept of erasing to the denial of existence." The Maker hummed as she gently pulled a dry branch from one of the trees. "Here little Eri, can you try using your powers on this branch?"

The child looked unsure, looking first at Muria who smiled and then to Junko who nodded affectionately. The little girl grabbed the stick and concentrated.

In front of their eyes the dry branch started to regain color before shrinking… no, it was not shrinking, it was turning back into a shoot.

"Ah! It looks like she has the power to bring back the time passed on an object."

"I think it's a bit more general, I felt it on my aura and she was affecting everything around her."

"I imagine that's from inexperience. But there're plenty of ways to teach and improve her skills."

"…it's not a good power." Eri's voice made the two women turn to her. "I hurt daddy and then mom said I was cursed." The child started sobbing and crying, Junko instantly wrapping her arms around her and soothing her.

"There there," She whispered as she stroked Eri's head. "It's okay now."

"Listen to her, child," Muria moved closer and sat down with her legs crossed, placing her staff across her lap. "What happened to you was terrible, but it was an accident, you are still a mere baby in the eyes of an adult. Let me tell you a tale of my mistake, and I was certainly much older than you when it happened."

Junko had heard the story before, but Muria had carefully turned it into a child's story, the woman's skill in story telling was fantastic, and even Junko's blessing didn't get her to her level.

Eri's distress soon faded and the young woman thanked the Maker with a smile. With the child calmed down Junko asked the older woman with help in assisting Eri to control her quirk, if she knew a way to give her a teaching aid or some kind training wheels in using it. She also asked the woman for a way to stop the opening of portals or people just appearing into places.

The Maker happily taught her all, Junko was glad when she understood the way Muria was teaching her to suppress Eri's powers would most likely work pretty similar to Aizawa's quirk and most likely she could use it on other villains. Meanwhile the method the maker taught her to help the child in harnessing and learning about her abilities was half way between a valve that would let Eri graduate how much power she was using and a focus that wouldn't leave it acting indiscriminately.

"I just realized, I never asked you who you asked for help back then?" Junko wondered out loud before leaving.

"Oh! Well, I asked Death, the rider was having some troubles years ago and was passing by so I asked it in exchange for helping him with some of his problems." Muria laughed demurely.

Junko thanked her, taking Eri to greet the Forge Siblings as she boggled at the thought of the Shamaness having asked Death itself, himself? For help.

"Aye lass," Alya happily greeted her with her usual energetic behavior. "And who's the little lass?"

"Come on, you can do it." Junko gently cheered on Eri.

"H-hi, I'm E-Eri." She stammered out.

"Oh dear, she's adorable." Alya squealed softly. "What brings you around, Junk?"

"Just saying hi, Eri here has troubles controlling her power and I came to ask Muria for her help in that."

"And nothing with that new extra you have?" Alya teased her, obviously seeing her Titanic Heritage.

"That's for later, right now Eri needs more help than me." Her comment made the Maker nod in agreement.

"Then welcome around Eri, I'm Alya and the brute back there's my brother Valus," The other Maker grunt. "Don't worry about him, he wouldn't hurt a fly."

Eri nodded but didn't move away from Junko's legs. The woman thanked the Maker and decided to go visit the Elder before going back home.

Elder Eideard looked the joyful grandfather as always, if your grandfather wore a ton of metal as armor and was larger than most small trucks.

"Hello there, I see you brought company." The elder greeted them both.

"Good morning Elder," Junko smiled and kept a hand on Eri's head feeling the child surprise. "This is Eri, I've found myself looking after her and had to ask Muria about some help."

"Hmm, I see, glad to meet you Eri." The child nodded but apparently talking to a mountain in large amounts of armor was a bit above what she could do, so Junko let her wander around a bit as she chatted with the elder, the Maker also noted her change and she soothed his concerns that she would see about that later, right now she had Eri to take care of.

After a while of talking with the elder and watching Eri just be a child, amusing herself. She was happy when the young girl said her goodbyes properly, Junko more than happy to carry the child on her arms as the outing had definitely tired her and it was nearing lunch time.

The woman prepared a light meal of sandwiches to feed Eri while she proceeded to make the accessories for the girl, a pair of silver bracelets that wouldn't fall and could only be taken off by her or Eri.

"Show me your hands." Junko asked gently and slid both bracelets in place.

"It… it feels much better miss." Eri commented.

"That's a good sign, they should keep your powers from going out of control, but we will have you practice with them, that's the real way to get them under control."

"...are you s-sure?" She asked while fidgeting.

"I know you don't like your powers, Eri." Junko sat by the child and pulled her closer. "But I promise that you won't hurt anyone by accident again, I'm here for you now."

She felt the child start to sob and finally cry in relief as she didn't felt her power go out of control. Years of fear and stress leaving her as Junko held her like only a mother could.

Chapter 41

Chapter Text

Chapter 41

Junko hummed as she ran her fingers through Eri's hair, the child currently rested her head on her lap after crying herself to sleep. With this she would hopefully start to heal.

The woman kept humming a soft tune as she felt her power fill up and reach a third charge. She peered at the options, two of them were too expensive, six and eight charges. She wasn't too interested so she simply picked the third.

It was a surprise when she noticed the perk actually was two tiny perks together. The first was a set of micromanipulator gloves, the impressive piece of technology would let her work down to the micron-scale, making it capable for her to hand-produce some interesting upgrades for her tech that even her transmutation circles couldn't do.

She pushed the perk to one side and looked at the other, she was certainly surprised when she saw a vending machine. It would provide beverages in varied flavors. It would also sometimes swallow the bills she used. She felt like it was mostly a gift to go along with the manipulators that were more useful than their small price.

Apparently the vending machine also came with a warning about checking the flavors before consuming. She shook her head, putting it down to the quirkiness of the Celestial Forge.

"...miss?" Junko looked down after hearing Eri's voice and smiled warmly as she pulled a tissue paper and wiped the tears off the girl's eyes.

"Slept well, dear?" She helped the girl shift around and sit on her lap.

Eri yawned and looked around before looking at the bracelets on her wrists. "Oh."

"Yeah, those will help you keep your power in check," She ruffled the girl's hair and moved it behind her ears. "You'll have to practice for at least fifteen minutes to an hour everyday with my supervision. At least till I'm sure you have it under control, after that we will reduce the amount of training you will need with it or see what you want to do, ok?"

Eri looked at her before nodding with a smile. "...thanks miss." She mumbled.

"It's the least you deserve, Eri." She smiles and leaned in to kiss her forehead. "And call me Junk."

"Okay miss Junk."

"Good enough." She smiled and ruffled Eri's hair, making the little girl giggle. "I will have to make you some clothes…" She started to make a mental list of possible designs, and enchantments to add to them.

Junko proceeded to start by designing clothes in her head as she provided Eri her own Omni-tool and put some cartoon shows for her to watch while the woman sewed her a whole wardrobe of clothes. She enjoyed the girl's reaction each time she showed her the clothes, even while trying to make them normal-looking each piece had more skill, style and quality put in them than any other piece of the world, not made by her.

Each piece had also been enchanted to keep the child safe, healthy and with a direct connection to her surveillance system. It may not have been the most moral choice, but right now she had to keep her safe, and if someone kidnapped her, she would be the angry hammer of god coming down on any fool guilty of it.

With that the afternoon was soon done, Junko took Eri to take a bath and change into clean clothes before joining the rest of her family and Mila for dinner. She was glad to see the child being a lot more open with her family and the Felyne.

"Mila, I will need Nezu's mail address if you have it, otherwise maybe ask Aizawa if he can put us in contact. I need to hand him some info about Eri and he wanted about some stuff still."

"I will. It shouldn't be too hard. Especially if he wanted to talk more with you." Mila nodded thoughtfully.

"Can I go with you, miss Junk?" Eri asked, after swallowing what she was eating.

"I would prefer if you stayed here with my mother." Junko said and Eri shook her head.

"I wanna go with miss Junko."

"Come on, Eri, I promise it won't take too long."

"Nuh." Eri denied her again as Junko could hear her mother talk about her first tantrum making her snort.

"What do you need to convince you to stay?"

"Not staying, I wanna go with miss." Junko sighed and frowned.

"Okay, but you will be a good girl, ok?" Eri nodded at her question, happy that she had won. Junko snorted when her mother consoled her.

After dinner she took the girl to her new room, promising her she would be really close and would come as fast as possible. She still stayed with the child for nearly half an hour till she fell asleep.

With some free time and Eri deeply asleep. Junko got started with the upgrading of the security system before anything new happened. She created a few copies of her currently in-use pylons and proceeded to redesign them from scratch, including new knowledge she had gained and learned since she created them, basically treating the current ones as prototypes for the new designs to build on.

To start, no one would be able to simply teleport into the lot, any incoming object or person would instead get bounced away 'gently'. And by gently Junko had decided it would be completely non-lethal but incredibly upsetting to the senses, enough that anyone without the defenses for it would end incapacitated for about fifteen minutes.

It wasn't exactly absolute as she also programmed a way to key-in incoming methods of transport. Especially because she had a few methods of teleportation in her head and she should see about starting to implement them.

For now, Junko continued working on her security system. She was impressed with how easy it had become after 'awakening' her Titanic heritage. The perk had explained she was now descendant from the titan Prometheus, the titan known for his gift of forethought and having stolen the knowledge of fire from the gods and gifted it to mortals.

The perk hadn't made her a true titan, she was only growing fifteen meters, not the full height of a titan. She was definitely immortal by most standards, old age would definitely never touch her, she… she would definitely come back to that later, much later, it would do her no good worrying about it right now. At most she would discuss it with the Makers, she imagined Muria would have good advice.

She was also having all her crafting abilities enhanced, Prometheus had, after all, taken the gift of fire and how to use it, that apparently translated to the knowledge of crafting, of creating tools and other advances.

Finally, he had taken the divine fire from the gods, and while he had been punished for it, a bit had lingered and she was channeling it, she was immune to the element as Prometheus had been to take it, she was most likely second only to Endeavor and that was because she just wasn't trained in using it yet.

She felt her power reach a third charge once more and looked at her options. The three of them were two or less charges. The first option was two charges and would impart the knowledge of working under pressure down to fixing technology while under fire.

The second, for a single charge, would expand her hanger by adding a garage fully equipped with tools and parts.

The third, for two charges, would add some kind of living area to her warehouse and another flavor of laboratory. Honestly all three options were kinda the same, none especially attractive. She was tempted to take the garage but decided to give the laboratory a try, she was curious what could be in it.

Before deciding to check it she had to work on her new pylons, she had an idea and had replaced the normal obsidian of the old pylons for cores. It felt strange at first but she was surprised by how easy they took the new programming on top of their existing uses. There was a certain care from the cores to the places they were installed into.

With the pylons finished she took them and replaced the old ones. The change was instant as the energy from the pylons seeped deep into the plot. Different from the cores used in the rooms where their effect remained inside the room. The four pylons in the plot considered the whole place their region. She could feel them linking with each of the rooms too, and just on the edge of her awareness she could feel them all resonating together.

She nodded, pleased that the place was safe now. She headed to her room and took a good hour of deep sleep after checking that Eri was safe. It was a big surprise as she awoke a few minutes later, feeling like she didn't need sleep at all.

It took her a moment to realize her mistake. She had gone to sleep to recover her energy and let her brain rest, but being part titan appeared to take care of that, especially with all the enchanting she had done to her bed. Now she could sleep but just for the wish of it, otherwise she would need just a few minutes of eye closing unless something big affected her truly.

She looked back to when she went to sleep holding Eri, she wanted to be there for her, ergo, she had slept as long as the child needed her next to her. Junko decided that it was okay for now. She got up, cleaned herself and went directly to the workshop, her mind was full of ideas, especially as she mentally revised the list she had been making.

She started by building from the knowledge Muria had given her to halt power usage. It was beautifully simple, anything affected by it would not be able to do anything supernatural, mutation quirks most likely still work as they had changed biology to work but some of the most extreme effects wouldn't activate.

Wings large enough with bodies light enough could still fly, but if the person had wings and needed some kind of air control for flight then they were out of luck. She quickly produced three variants of this enchantment.

The first was a set of handcuffs, made of the strongest metal she could get her hands on, just for safety they had been alloyed with ceramic in a complex pattern that would hopefully stop any kind of quirk or power with control over metal in affecting them.

The second set was a variant of Eraser Head's capture tape, it was interesting how the, she decided to call it naturalize enchantment, played along with the stamina drain.

The third was a pylon, the last was indiscriminate and would most likely work on her and most of her enchants while leaving most pure tech untouched. She would keep it in mind, but it was useful to have.

Next thing on the list was to make large amounts of ammunition for her weapon, both shells and slugs in all types of dust she had discovered. She filled more than a handful of spots in her Sylladex with all types of ammunition and potions. Next time villains try something with her they better bring an army.

The last thing she did took her the whole morning. And it was remaking Damage Creator, her titanic heritage was just speaking to her in ways to improve it. It was strange, she could feel her blessing of Dundr before, it would have made her a godly smith but she didn't have any divinity to call her own. Now it was different. While not exactly divine, being part titan put her above mortals. And so did for her creations as well.

Her skill and knowledge let her put the new weapon together in about an hour, doing the work of a large group of smiths in shaping, cooling and tempering all pieces. After that she decided to start refining the variable weapon's ability to channel her aura.

While forging the variable weapon had taken her only an hour, refining the aura-channeling quality took her nearly seven, and even then she could see plenty of improvement. She grinned and captchalogued the hammer and created two copies. A normal one, and an extra large one for her titan form, because you never know when you need to hammer things while being really, really big.

She created some extra large ammunition too, but she imagined that they would only be useful to clear small mountains or similarly sized objects.

She felt her omni-tool beep and saw that Mila had gotten her a meeting with Nezu after lunch, the Principal would receive her at his office in UA, he also had noted that little Eri was invited, like she was capable of leaving the little limpet behind. Junko was pretty sure he was smart enough to know that and was just giving lip-service.

She decided to check on the child who should be awakening about now if her monitoring was correct. She found herself humming as she walked to Eri's room, she was doing it a lot more lately and she was okay with it.

Junko stopped at the door and knocked. "Eri?" From the inside she could hear the girl rustle her blankets.

"Miss?" She heard her.

"Yes, I'm coming in." She opened the door and smiled at the girl, approaching her and reaching to stroke her head. "Slept well, dear?"

Eri nodded still half asleep and Junko proceeded to help her start the day, getting her cleaned up, eating breakfast and had her do another pass at the medical scan to get a reference for the girl's improvement.

Junko couldn't deny the thought of awakening Eri's aura to help her heal, but she was pretty sure that doing it right now would not be conducive for her.

She also took the time to explain to her that they would be going out after lunch as she had told her during dinner. Eri appeared to be less sure about going but conflicted because she didn't want to leave Junko's side.

She suggested Eri stayed home, she promised it wouldn't take long and her mother would look after her. Junko watched the little girl try and resolve her conundrum before deciding that she was going with her.

With the choice made, Junko got Eri to practice with her powers while under the medical scan. What papers she had gotten about quirk study were considerably vague when talking about time-manipulation quirks, mostly they talk about how rare they were.

Junko could read between the lines, the researchers were mostly bemoaning the lack of subjects to observe as most people with those quirks preferred to not advertise it. What she did find is that Eri's quirk could be considered an accumulation quirk, and its strength was directly tied to the size of her horn.

Her scan could detect the time-altering energy stored inside and could actually observe it decreasing in size as the child reduced some random pieces of wood to previous states, it was impressive to see a pile of ashes turn back into paper.

She also noted that the energy, while stored in her horn, laced every part of Eri's body, especially her blood. She imagined that this was what Overhaul had been using. She wondered what he wanted to do with it since it most likely would have the opposite effect to empowering quirks like Trigger did.

Chapter 42: Interlude Aizawa

Chapter Text

Chapter 42 – Interlude Aizawa

"Oh, Aizawa, glad for you to join me here today." Nezu welcomed the hero under his employ.

"You called me here, Nezu," The man sat on the chair on the other side of the Principal's desk. "Anyways, I have the first summary of the investigation into The Eight Precepts of Death's mansion and incident."

"Hmm, I will guess there's a lot of interesting things that have been found." The quirked animal served tea for both of them and sipped on his cup. "Any news on the villains?"

Aizawa thanked the principal for the tea and took a short drink before shaking his head. "No, there's not been any news about Overhaul or his two close aides. Neither have been any movement to try and free the other eight villains, most of them have totally clammed up.

"Most of them have admitted that they were following Kai because he approached them at hard times and helped them, he appears to be pretty intelligent and charismatic, having won them over into being loyal enough that none have taken any kind of deal.

"Not that any of them knew anything about the shadow-portal quirk user. The leading theory is that another group, most likely not a local one, had been vying their time to approach Overhaul and they took the chance to convince the man."

"That's worrisome," Nezu placed the empty cup of tea down. "Overhaul has a pretty strong quirk along with the intelligence to use it well, the idea of not knowing where he is now leads to a lot of possible problems."

"Yes, more worrisome is what we have found in the underground of the mansion. The laboratory installations for biological and chemical studies had enough samples left, we have a pretty solid idea that Kai Chisaki was using Eri's blood to develop a quick acting quirk destroying drug."

Nezu managed to place his cup down on the table with a serious expression on his face. "Now that's really worrisome, if the finished product gets into the wrong hands the results could be terrible."

Aizawa nodded. "The knowledge that he was developing this drug's currently being kept secret, general knowledge of it would cause too much panic. Thankfully there's no sign he had managed to develop it successfully and with any luck and no access to Eri he won't be able to make any more advances on it."

"Ho ho, I doubt he will ever get the chance to get his hands on Eri again, not with Miss Tetsu looking over the child." Nezu smiled.

"I would prefer to put Eri under the watch of a hero. With a quirk like that."

Nezu shook his head. "She's perfectly safe where she is, Shoto." Nezu grinned and felt a laugh bubbled from his throat. "Believe me that while Miss Tetsu may not be a hero, in many ways that's much better."

Aizawa simply let an eyebrow rise as he looked at the rodent-looking principal.

"I don't see how her not being a hero would be safer than being one."

"Elementary, Shoto, Miss Tetsu's a mother for little Eri. I'm pretty sure you are familiar with the concept of mother bear?" The Principal smiled. "Miss Tetsu will fight tooth and claw to keep her safe and not being a hero means she's not restrained by the training most heroes go through.

"I doubt you would be able to stop her unless you killed her, and something tells me she would be really hard to kill her before she dragged a lot of people with her."

"Well, that's grim." Aizawa scratched his chin. "Speaking of Miss Tetsu, there's a lot of damage in the mansion that points to her using a lot of technology she never showed before."

"I imagine she will be even more prepared from now on." Nezu checked his computer, bringing up images of the woman before and after getting into the mansion. "She apparently had a way to deploy a full set of armor and a weapon while being watched by Overhaul and his crew."

"One of the normal Yakuza thugs admitted to have taken possession of her phone and wallet, and he was sure she wasn't carrying anything else. Even more, while she was still wearing her armor when she came out of the underground, she didn't have the weapon many of them admitted to have seen her use.

"The strange thing is that while some saw her with a hammer," Aizawa had a faint memory of the woman using one during her first kidnapping. "Others have talked about a pretty big shotgun."

"Hmm…" Nezu checked the collection of images of the inside of the mansion, they had been set up in the chronological order formed with Junko's declaration and what investigators had rebuilt. "Ms Tetsu apparently used a variety of exotic ammunition, did she use any flammable shells?"

Aizawa picked the folder and checked seriously, knowing his boss tended to have an eye for the details sometimes ignored. "We found signs she used electricity to knock two of the villains, she apparently used wind for the first explosion, we found a large piece of ice that must have held one of Kai's closest men, one spot that we believe is where she took out his other close aide with what we guess was some kind of gravity increase…

"No, no use of fire of any kind, why do you ask?"

"Hmm, interesting." Nezu filled his cup again with tea and drank thoughtfully. "When I met Ms Tetsu before she left for her place, she smelled of fire, but no smoke whatsoever." Aizawa looked at the principal, asking him to continue. "Humans may have a good sense of smell, but you still lose against most animals, you smell fire and think smoke, but they aren't the same.

"And Junko smelled like a fire without smoke. If I had to compare, I'd say she smelled similarly to Endeavor." This made Aizawa look a bit surprised.

"Is that something to worry about?"

"Maybe, but I wouldn't bet on it. If you're curious, she also smells of metal, cloth, herbs and evergreen forest."

"That's eclectic."

"Indeed, but without further clues, it's best to ignore it at the moment." Nezu smiled as he got a message from his secretary. "Looks like she's here with Eri."

Aizawa nodded and turned when the door opened, Junko entered with the small child in her arms, he was glad to see her looking considerably healthier.

"Welcome Junko, Eri." Nezu greeted the pair as Aizawa nodded to them in greeting.

"Principal Nezu, Aizawa." Eri peeked and gave a similar greeting in a soft voice. Nezu was right, the woman was already acting as a mother for the child.

"Ah, it's good to see her doing much better." Nezu commented.

"Yes," She sat by Aizawa before ruffling Eri's head as the child sat on the woman's lap and curiously looked around. "I've been making sure she eats well." She pulled an USB and handed it to the Principal. "Here are the scans, the first are from yesterday, the second from a few hours ago."

"Thank you, Junko. This will help a lot." The non-human chimera looked at Eri. "And how are you, Eri?"

"..'m good." Eri replied softly. "Miss Junk's food's really good."

"Her body's still recovering from the torture she was put through. So I've kept a close eye on her diet." Nezu nodded at Junko's comment.

"What are those?" Aizawa caught the two bracelets on Eri's wrists, the attention back on her made the child curl to hide till Junko calmed her.

"They are to help her control her quirk."

"How?" It was Nezu who asked a bit more brusquely than necessary.

"I asked someone that knows more." Junko answered smugly. But soon added. "I can tell you she's one of my teachers, they are a group of like-minded people that don't really interact with the world. They take students from time to time and I was lucky enough to be one of them."

"How do they work?" Now it was Aizawa who asked, definitely curious.

"You can consider them between a faucet and training wheels. They prevent Eri's time rewind quirk from going wild and also take some of the strain in using it."

"So you know how Eri's quirk works?"

"Yes," Junko ran her fingers through Eri's hair, making the child enjoy the attention as she moved the hair off her horn. "Eri's quirk is a stockpile type quirk that carries some mutations.

"She collects 'time energy'" She drew the quotes on air with her fingers. "On her horn, and she can release it to rewind the effects of time on things around her. The Bracelets let her control the output and target said energies.

"Of course, some of that energy spreads all over her body. That's why she appears to suffer from albinism as all the damage and color has been rewind. And while it doesn't stay in most of her body, it's usually in her blood. I still don't know what Overhaul would want with it."

"For what was left in the underground labs," Aizawa commented as Nezu gave him an approving nod. "He was trying to develop a quirk erasing drug."

"Oh…"

"But all we found is that he didn't manage it yet. We doubt he has enough of Eri's blood to advance or create more." Aizawa continued. "And if what you say about the time energy in her blood, he will most likely never make it."

"Good, let's hope he's smart enough to not try and come after Eri."

"Don't worry, now that we know about his plans, he won't be getting away." Junko turned to Aizawa and smiled.

"Then I wish you luck getting to him."

Aizawa would easily remember the moment for a while. Because on one hand, he was sure that Junko wasn't talking about Kai getting away. On the other, he had only seen All Might mad at a villain once and Eraser Head was currently feeling the same sensation of pressure on him.

He could see that Nezu was definitely feeling too, the only one spared from it was Eri, who had gotten distracted.

It only lasted a few seconds, but for both professional heroes was longer than a minute. He now understood what Nezu meant about Junko being unrestricted by not being a hero, she would most likely not have a doubt of erasing the villain from the surface of earth.

"Yes… I wish you luck before he does something… ill-advised." Junko nodded and turned down to Eri.

Aizawa felt his back soaked in cold sweat as the woman turned to him.

"Ah! Aizawa, I had kinda forgotten after you saved me last time, and with this we make two, so I made a gift to pay you back." She reached into her pocket and pulled a capture tape roll not visibly different from the one she had already sold him. "I heard you have troubles when you have to blink when using your quirk."

"Oh?" He grabbed the capture tape, inspecting it, he didn't notice any difference from his current one.

"It has been treated so that anyone wrapped with it won't be able to use their quirk, similar to being under the effect of your own quirk." Junko stated smugly.

"I would like to ask how you have managed it, but I suspect you won't explain it."

"Just accept it's magic." Junko grinned and Eri giggled. "After all, any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from it."

"It may as well be." He checked the capture tape. "I'll still have to test it later to confirm it."

"I'm sure it will help, tell me if you need more." Junko looked down as Eri yawned. "I think I stayed long enough, is there anything else?"

"No, thank you for coming, Miss Tetsu." Nezu said. "I will be sending you the forms to legally put Eri under your care later."

"Thank you very much Principal Nezu."

"Thank you." Eri mumbled after her.

After that, the pair stood up and left, leaving the heroes alone.

"She's a lot more dangerous than we thought." Aizawa commented as Nezu climbed on his desk and walked across to approach the chair she had been using.

"I think Miss Tetsu's hiding more than we think." The rodent-looking Principal ran his finger down the deformed curves in the chair's armrests and cushion.

"How?"

"I'm not sure, it's not super strength, we would have heard the material deform." Nezu hummed. "Do we have information on her quirk?"

Aizawa pulled the files and read them aloud. "Junko Tetsu, quirk: Material Eating." He read a bit further. "Apparently, her bite is capable of softening any material, and she is able to consume anything that gets into her stomach."

"Didn't one of Kai's subordinates have a similar quirk?"

"Yeah, Soramitsu Tabe." He read the name after pulling up the respective file. "His appears to be a more developed version, she's restricted to biting down and can't eat more than a normal person. Soramitsu, on the other hand, appears capable of eating large amounts of food without feeling sated.

"Do you think she's in contact with All for One, sir?"

"No, Soramitsu's currently under observation to prevent him from eating his way out and as far as we know, All for One hasn't shown the ability to duplicate quirks."

"Got something else." Aizawa hummed after doing a quick search. "Before being forced along to the Eight Precepts' mansion, Junko visited a man called Jin Donran."

"Yes, I read her declaration, he's apparently her father."

"Biologically? Most likely, but he apparently not only left her and her mother shortly after Junko manifested her quirk, but it also appears he was the one who informed Kai or one of his thugs about her." Aizawa pulled a file and sent it to the screen.

"Oh." Nezu sounded surprised as he looked at the pictures of the man's reshaped desk. "It's beautiful in a very angry way."

"That's what most people think." He scrolled through a few more pictures.

"Is there any recording of their meeting?"

"Yes, apparently Mr Jin tends to meet with individuals on both sides and likes to keep a recording of his meetings for 'safety reasons'"

"Blackmail?"

"Not exactly, he always called it insurance. Just a thing, the audio cuts from a bit after she gets in till she leaves." He pressed play and they watched the events of Junko's visit to Jin.

As the recording ended Nezu could only nod.

"He's a lucky man. I don't think many people can be as controlled when they are that angry."

"I'm more impressed that she appears to naturally make art when angry." Nezu commented. "I can see a similar style on the deformations on this chair."

Nezu turned to the screen. "Can you rewind to moments before she clapped?"

Aizawa did as asked, stopped and looked at the still image. "What are you looking for?"

"Look at the palms of her hands." Nezu noted and Aizawa did. Took him a moment to see it.

"What's that glow?"

"Miss Tetsu barely lied during our talk today." Nezu rubbed his chin. "Magic indeed."

Chapter 43

Chapter Text

Chapter 43

Junko felt her power reach five charges, but interestingly enough, the cost of her options was six, six and one. Mentally shrugging, she took the only option available as she drove to pick the car she had left outside of Jin's office, luckily it wasn't exactly in view of his office and she barely stopped by the car and captchalogued it before driving back to Junk Town.

No, that didn't work either. She would keep thinking of names for the place. She looked at the new perk, it appeared to be a pretty basic improvement in creating and modifying weapons, nothing especially exotic but for a single charge it was okay and would most likely add to the other similar perks.

"Miss, what did you do to the car?" Eri asked from the back seat.

"Stored it." Junko replied as she parked inside the company's basement and helped the child get out before showing her how she could make it appear and disappear.

"You'e like a magician, Miss" Eri said, amazed.

"And you can be too, Eri." She booped the child on the nose, making her giggle as she led the girl to her workshop to get her her own Sylladex. "Here." She quickly taught the girl how to equip the inventory system and add a few cards. Showing her how to store things and retrieve them. "Well done."

Eri giggled, enjoying the praise, Junko was happy to see her act like a child her age after just a couple of days.

"Now, you will stay with my mom while I go visit my teachers, and no pouting." Eri still pouted a bit as Junko laughed softly and took her to her mother's room, letting her know that she would be back in a bit, before walking into the Forge Lands.

"Welcome back, Junko." Muria greeted her, the woman had gone straight to visit the shamaness.

"Hello again, Muria, and again, thank you for helping with Eri."

"It's a pleasure, that child's soul needs healing and giving her a bit of control will go a long way."

"Now, I know it's not exactly a problem I'm having," Muria chuckled at Junko's words. "but it seems the Forge decided to change me."

"I noticed on your last visit, it was elegant in the way it's added to your soul. A new piece that appears to have always been there." Muria peered at her and Junko felt naked in front of the blind shaman. "A bit closer to an elemental of some kind?"

"From what I understood, I'm now a descendant from the Titan Prometheus, the titan known to have stolen fire from the gods to give it to mortals."

"Ah! Yes, I have heard of him, he was later punished by Zeus, chained to a rock and forced to have his liver eaten by birds everyday so it could grow back during the night and continue the torture the next day."

"Well, it seems to have made me immortal to begin with," Junko explained. "Gave me the gift of fire and immunity to the element and has also given me nearly divine crafting skills."

"I can see some of those gifts in you now." The woman sat by Junko. "What bothers you, my child?"

"I… I think I hadn't thought that the idea of having my lifespan stretched so far would affect me." She scratched the back of her head. "Right after changing I felt fantastic, and even the next time I thought about it I felt that it would be okay. But I suddenly started to think what it would be to outlive Eri and…"

"Oh Child, given your abilities I doubt it will be like that." Muria gently stroked Junko's head and the woman felt like a child next to the Maker. "It's not been half a year since you have gotten your powers, do you really think there's no way to live forever in the Forge? You were right at first, you don't have to think about it right now.

"Now, how about you change and show me your larger form." Muria smiled at her and Junko nodded before getting up and walking slightly away before starting to shift.

Growing to her larger form was as natural as flexing an arm, there was no strange sensation. Bones grew larger and stronger, her muscles stretched along and grew taunt. Her skin went from her normal color to a sun-kissed brown, her hair grew longer and the orange tones appeared mixed with her normal rust red. Her eyes glowed with power as the air around her heated up when she exhaled.

"Very impressive." Muria looked up to her. "I'm sure Ulthane will be more than happy to give you special lessons for this form, fighting as a giant, even one as small as you, is completely different from fighting as a human. Got a weapon already?"

Junko grinned and pulled the large version of the hammer. Wielding something designed to channel her aura while in such large size felt a lot more draining but it soon had finished soaking.

And the weapon lighted up in her vision. Next time would be easier, the aura she had spent filling the hammer right now would still partially be there. She nodded and stored it before shrinking back to human-size.

"Once again, thank you for helping, Muria." She hugged the Maker who happily returned the affection before Junko headed back home.

"Hey mom, grandma, Eri, I'm back." She greeted the group currently in the kitchen of the apartment, Junko was happy to see Eri helping her mother make cookies.

"That was quick." Her mother commented.

"It wasn't that much, and besides, time passes four times as fast over there."

"Sounds useful." Her grandmother said as she walked to Eri and wiped some icing from the girl's face.

"Eh… kinda. It's great for learning over there, but I can't really take anything from there back here and I get too many boons from crafting inside the warehouse to really be worth it, four times as fast's good but not the end all." Junko looked at Eri and stroked the girl's head. "And you, did you have a good time here?"

"Yes, Miss Nana taught me to make cookies and I was putting icing on them." She showed the childishly drawn figures on the cookies.

She congratulated Eri on her work and petted her head when she felt her omni-tool beeping with a call from Mila.

"Hey Mila, what do you need?" She asked after stepping away from her family to talk.

"Hey Junk, got some visitors here for you, don't worry, it's all good." Junko thanked her and promised to go right away. "Mila has something for me, I will see you later, be a good girl, Eri."

"Yes Miss Junk."

Junko smiled as she walked away, feeling her power reach five charges once more, though only one of the three perks was in her reach costing three, the other two were six and eight. Not having any options, she took the perk given.

She blinked a couple times as she kept walking to Mila's office. The perk wasn't the strongest, but gave her another bridge between magic and technology. Letting her create technological foci to cast magic wirelessly, or even through the internet, but it would also let her apply her medical knowledge to shape monsters. She knew it would happen at some point, she was glad that it was not the main purpose of the perk, and the support nature of it meant it was stronger thanks to everything she already knew about both fields.

"Mila, what did you need?" She entered the Felyne's office and was surprised to see Ryuto, Fuon and Darma all there.

"Junk, glad to see you are okay, we tried to come as soon as we heard the news of the incident." Ryuto greeted her.

"I can't believe you are not a hero and were already part of the event taking down one of the largest Yakuza groups in the country!" Darma spoke.

"Yeah, because I simply decided it was a great idea to get kidnapped for the second time, because some people who think they are smarter than they really are want me to work for them." Junko snorted.

"Doesn't mean there hasn't been rumors about your own tech helping you survive being kidnapped by villains." Fuon spoke clearly after giving Darma a soft slap on the back of the head.

"That's why we three talked and decided we had a second reason to come visit besides seeing if you are doing okay-" Ryuto was swiftly cut by Darma.

"What our stalwart leader means, is that we want to work as heroes for your company." He said with a completely shit-eating grin. And quickly added. "And we want new toys."

Junko couldn't not laugh at that. She turned to Mila.

"Any problem actually employing them?"

"Not really, more than one support company actually has one or two heroes who work for them to test their equipment and such." Mila checked in her computer for a few moments. "Yeah, even a mix of employed and patronage is not unseen in the business."

"Sounds good, now," She turned to the trio. "I don't see a problem, but! I will be testing you to see if you are worth it." Junko let a vicious grin grow on her face.

"I will take care of the needed contracts, please don't break our future employees too hard." Mila commented with a purr on her voice.

"It's ok, the training room will take care of all of that." Junko guided the trio to the med bay first. "Okay, I know I said I would be testing you, but before that lets do some quicker testing, one by one, just stand in the center of the room and try to not move till I tell you." She ordered the three.

"I will go first then." Ryuto took the lead and Junko nodded, one by one the three of them got scanned and let the machine do its work.

"I will guess that none of you brought your costumes, no?" At the negative responses she led them to the training room. "Wait here for a moment."

Junko rushed into the workshop and created a copy of each costume carrying cases and returned them.

"You can't say I'm not prepared." She handed the cases to their respective heroes and sent them to change in the adjacent rooms.

Junko waited for them to leave the room before swiftly changing into her armor and pulling out the latest version of her hammer, keeping the weapon melee form for now.

"You three are so slow I feel tempted to ask if you are turtles." She joked as she held her hammer across the back of her neck, her arms hooked on it as she looked at them.

Fuon huffed. "Yeah, yeah, joke all you want."

"Okay then kids, it's three-on-one so you better show me something good." Junko cracked her neck and shifted the hammer till she was holding in across her body in a slight diagonal.

"Are you sure, Junk?" Cape Kappa asked.

Junko grinned and didn't say another word as she shot forward, stopping just in front of Shieldtoise and hitting her with her hammer. The female hero barely managed to put her armored arms up before the hit sent her flying away from the other two teens.

She swiftly turned as Exchange was the first to react and prepare to attack her. Instead of letting him attack her, she reached down with the hammer head, hooking it behind his ankle and whipped him off to the other end of the room.

Junko felt Cape Kappa turn to her, a bit too slow for her tastes, so she decided to end it by switching her hammer into shotgun mode and blast him with a wind shot that sent him flying too.

"I thought you three were good." Junko grinned looking at the trio.

"What the hell was that?!" Exchange exclaimed as he got up and walked over to pick Kappa. "I was sure the rumor of you taking out a couple of Overhaul's minion was fake."

"Nope, a lady has to know how to defend herself, you know?" Junko grinned and Shieldtoise had to give her a high five for the comment.

"We spent the last three years training, and I'm pretty sure you never went to hero school." Exchange walked closer.

"Well, that's the difference." Junko switched her shotgun back into a hammer and used it as a cane to lean on. "You three have been training as heroes. I, on the other hand, have been training how to fight."

"When did you get time to train to fight and learned to do all this?" Kappa asked as he pointed to the whole room.

"I have great teachers, and a great paw-rtner in Mila." Junko stated smugly.

Two of them groaned and Exchange looked delighted.

"Looks like you also trained your pun-ishing skills." Exchange grinned and the other two teens groaned again.

"But yes, if you three will represent my company as heroes you'll have to do much better than that." She pointed out. "You should already have the hero-part of heroing figured out, now you gotta train the actually doing it part."

"I do have a few ideas for support items I can equip you with along with your costumes. You will also have to sign a few NDAs because sooner or later you will learn some of the secrets I keep. Don't worry, no one's losts any limbs they didn't already have before in over ten days, it's a new record!" She joked as the three of them paled for a moment. "Jokes aside, my mother, grandmother, Mila and a child I rescued from the Yakuza live here.

"They each have their own place, I would like you to keep that in mind. I'll set up a room for you to use as an office, and also get you the badges so the security system recognizes you and you don't end up restrained."

"Restrained?" Exchange asked and Junko simply activated her omni-tool, not afraid to hide it from the trio, and set the security system to restrain the hero.

Instantly four triangular walls appeared around the young hero and shrank till he could barely move.

"As you can see, the system's reaction is immediate. The walls are a solid hologram." She lied as the walls were actually just magical force walls she had customized. "They will let normal air through but will stop other things like poisons, toxins, drugs, etc…

"It will also stop sound one or both ways." She tapped a button and Exchange's voice was cut while the other two heroes could still see his mouth flapping. "Of course, it can also be set as a rudimentary obstacle course." Junko released Exchange and activated one of the designs she had inputted.

The empty room around them filled with translucent buildings, cars, signs and other such props.

"I do have some plans to improve this even further, but for now this should be good enough as a training room. Objects can be set to tally if hit but can't mimic moving things or people, that will come later." She hid the hologram of her omni-tool and grabbed her hammer "Now, let's try it again, ready for round 2?"

Chapter 44

Chapter Text

Chapter 44

Junko let herself drop onto the couch inside Mila's office. Letting her body relax after an hour of fun kicking the trio's butts. Of course, they had quickly adapted and past the half-hour mark they had started to give her a much harder time.

She had started to cheat near the end too. Changing the world around the heroes to separate them, corner them, set up ambushes and even have them attack each other in the confusion. She marked it as a great lesson for them.

"Had fun?" Mila asked as she ended what she was doing to look at her friend.

"Yes," Junko pulled a bottle of water from her inventory and took a long swig from it. "yes I did."

"Good to hear. I'll take a guess and say the three passed whatever test you had for them?"

She snorted and waved a hand. "Like they really needed a test, the three of them work great together, all they need currently is more worldly experience. I'm glad to see they approached us, I'm pretty sure we can do good for them."

"I think the same, I've already set up three contracts and sent them to the kids for reading. I attached a message for them to discuss them together and recommended they talk it over with their teachers as well. I still set up a date for them to come and talk with me before signing to make sure they understood everything." Junko nodded in approval at Mila's words.

"Thanks, that takes a weight off me, Mila."

"I know, that's what I'm here for, and I enjoy it, Junko." The palico reached for her computer and typed a few times, Junko's omni-tool beeped at the incoming message. "This came a day or so ago, there's no rush but I think you could see it now."

The human thanked her felyne companion and pulled the email to read it.

The email was to invite her to the annual Support Equipment Expo. The convention aimed to put small companies in contact with each other while large companies showed new advances. It was the place to set up all types of connections.

Junko didn't have to hide her chuckle at the event. For what she and Mila had managed to pull together, this was where about eighty to ninety percent of technological advances went. And while maybe half of that was aimed to help people with severe mutations, the rest was usually just aimed to help a quirk or another.

Here were all the country's smartest people, looking to make people's abilities stronger while she was half-way to finishing her designs for a drone system to start cleaning Earth's orbit of all debris. And that was just the first step before she started her own moon colony on the dark side of the Moon as a second step in her project to reach Mars and the rest of the solar system from there.

Junko was still reading the letter when she felt her power reach the fourth charge and three options approached her. The first was quickly discarded, twelve charges for a combo of two, six charges, perks.

The second choice was four charges and would make her perfectly efficient at doing anything, from moving and living to construction and design. She didn't really feel it was much of a necessity, she had already moved past material limitations.

The third was another combo perk, three charges for a one and two perks. The first appeared to be a list of simple potions with exotic effects, the second was more interesting, if she understood right, not that she always did, it would let her combine multiple potions into one without ill effects. Choice made, Junko took the third.

"Junko… Junko stop that, you are scaring me." Mila sounded a bit afraid from her desk.

"Sorry, sorry, I…" She giggled again. "Ever wanted to be in more than one place at the same time?"

"Junk, please don't tell me you are going to clone yourself, one of you's already a handful, but you control yourself pretty well. I don't really want to imagine what more would lead to."

"Don't worry, it shouldn't be anything permanent." She rubbed her chin. "I will have to experiment with it."

"I fear for my sanity and reality. Especially for reality." Mila said in a deadpan tone.

"Don't worry, they shouldn't last more than ten minutes. That's not enough to develop individuality of any kind. Also I'm already okay with this, no reason they won't be the same." Junko tried to comfort her friend.

After putting some time down for experimentation in her schedule she turned back to the nearly forgotten email and continued reading. Pleasantries, contact numbers, information to reserve a spot in the convention grounds. She liked what she had right now and was pretty sure Mila found it easier to roam around and decide who to approach.

Lastly there was a note that the lifestyle support items company Detnerat would be joining the hero support equipment business. The company was already a giant in the industry, having a pretty good reach and now they were expanding.

Junko had mixed feelings about it. Under normal circumstances, news like this meant small companies like hers, though not really, would be either joining together or joining hero companies to survive, she was pretty sure a number would be devoured by the larger company too.

But she wasn't in any danger, her company had been just profit from the start. The patented advances she had put out had taken like dry tinder in a wildfire. That made money a complete non-issue, materials were another non-issue. Didn't mean she had an uneasy feeling about the whole situation, sadly there was nothing she could do.

"I see no problem attending, Mila, but I don't think we need to set a stand."

"I agree on that, I will reply to confirm, just us two?"

"Yeah, let's keep it simple." She nodded and stood up. "Time to try those potions."

"I'd advise you to be careful and try not to get burnt, but you literally can't do that anymore. Take care still."

Junko thanked her and headed to the workshop, ideas in her head bubbling as the cauldron she would use to brew the potions provided by her perk.

She headed straight into her alchemy lab, letting her power grab the ingredients to mix them. She ended with four potions, a red, a green, a yellow and a blue potion.

The red potion would make her grow twice as big, it was kinda useless to her given she could already grow about eight times. The green potion would turn her invisible, but it wasn't perfect and could fail if she stayed still for too long. The blue potion would create three clones of her, they would last about five minutes, but any strong hit would dispel them. And lastly, the yellow potion would create a shield, it wouldn't restrict her and could tank a single hit, but if she was right even a punch of All Might would not hurt her, though the aftershock may still send her flying.

She still tried the four of them, first red and let the duration end naturally. Then the green, it was pretty good but didn't exactly cover sound and running could easily expose her. The yellow potion felt strange over her aura, but worked as advertised, taking a good hit, sadly it lasted only for about ten minutes normally so she couldn't just keep one up at all times.

She looked at the last potion, she had been pretty confident when she talked with Mila, but with the potion now in front of her she was doubting herself a bit. There was no reason to not do it. She steeled her nerves, grabbed the potion and downed it.

"Well, it looks like it worked." Her voice came from her right.

"I would say so, still strange to see myself." Another voice, identical to hers, came from her left.

"Why am I the one on the back?" A third voice made Junko turn and look at three identical copies of herself.

"Well, I'll say this is indeed strange." The original Junko commented as clones one to three nodded. "Any problems?"

"All feels normal, the only addition is a sort of mental countdown." Said number two.

"Yeah, apparently we will last about seven and a half minutes." Said number three.

"Okay, that's not the longest, more than enough to set up a lot of things, with three pairs of extra hands we will hopefully expedite work around here."

Number one snorted. "Like we weren't already working pretty fast." The clone looked down and tapped on her omni-tool. "Okay, I've set a shared folder, we should use the last thirty seconds to make notes about what we managed and what's left to do for the next iteration of clones."

"Hopefully I'll find ways to improve this potion." Said the original. "It's strange, from what I understand, it's not completely a potion."

"No," Continued one of the clones. "It's a mix of potion and spell, I think it's why it's so simple to make, I wonder if we could discover the spell and improve it."

"Longer lived clones, maybe a way to share memories and information, make them not poof with a single hit."

"Aura's already doing that last one." Commented one of the clones. "But it's not as strong as the original, I think it's because we are shadows of you?"

"No idea right now, but we just got this, the second part of the perk will also be useful." She felt her power reach a second perk. "And talking about perks."

The clones nodded. "I can feel it, but I can't choose, interesting." Said one of them.

"Oh, that first one would have been nice." One of them commented and Junko agreed, it would let her iterate on any prototype and improve it at least fifty percent better, the more she pushed the harder it became, but it was a solid perk. Sadly outside of her reach.

The next option was also outside of her reach, it apparently was an extension to her nanotechnology knowledge perk that would give her ways to control and manipulate the nanites.

Last, for the two charges she currently had was a perk that would give her the knowledge to add elemental effects to weapons. It was strange, it was like she would be given the knowledge someone else had already discovered and worked on. Nothing she could do but take it.

Junko and her three clones shivered.

"Oh, some of those are pretty interesting." One of them said.

"Is it weird that some of those are focused on the weapon and some on the guns?"

"Not really, there's some logic in the acid effect being carried by the ammo rather than the gun applying it."

"This will mesh interestingly with dust ammunition." Another commented as their trains of thought started to divide. Soon time was running out and they all typed on their omni-tool before they popped like soap bubbles.

She grabbed the second copy of the clone potion that was created thanks to her multiplication perk and downed it.

"Okay girls, I haven't looked, but your previous iterations left some notes, check them out, choose and get to work. We all have plenty to do, understood?" They all nodded before heading out as Junko turned back to the potion brewing station. "Time to do some experimentation."

She quickly also got to work. Her first try at the cloning potion was pretty successful, she had managed to 'flip' the potion into a spell with physical components. It exchanged the ease of just swallowing the brew for the ability to simply cast the spell while holding the components.

And it only took her two iterations of clones, she felt her omni-tool beep with the disappearance of said clones. Junko decided to give it a try casting the spell this time.

"That's different." One of the clones commented when Junko finished casting the spell. The clone also sounded impressed. "Ten minutes, what's the diff… oh, I see."

"Yeah, casting it as a spell seems to be a bit looser, it took a bit more than just brewing it, but I could lean more on my magical ability."

"Here." One of the clones handed the main Junko a chunk of gold she absorbed into mana, the clones soon followed. "Uh, we appear just after you cast the spell so we will need to top off too."

"Maybe see if you can add gold to the casting to prevent the spell from taking your mana." One of the clones offered.

"Sounds solid, I'll keep working here, go continue your work." She smiled and continued her development.

Sadly, progress after that turned much slower, only getting one or two minutes more after several hours of experimentation.

"Hey main." One of the clones wandered back. "Found something interesting~"

Junko could literally hear the smug in her own voice and rolled her eyes.

"What's that?"

"Here." The clone placed a big and bulky cellphone-like object in front of her. "Equip it."

Junko blinked, her power told her it was an ECHOdevice and how to use it. Didn't take her more than a minute to have it working.

"Oh…" She watched as her vision was filled with information, the set-up taking a bit as the automatic process scanned her and her surroundings.

"It appears that not every aspect of it is working, but it's basically a head's up display, or HUD as they are usually called." The clone noted.

"Looks straight out of a game."

"Hmm, yeah, it has a good idea of your current health, it can read your aura and mana reserve, it interacts with your Sylladex for some reason, or maybe it's the Sylladex interacting with it."

Junko listened to her with one ear as she also checked the thing by herself. "Did you look inside?"

"Yup." The clone showed a few copies she must have made with the Alchemiter. "One of the other clones started a rewrite process of the building's systems so the ECHO can link to them. It apparently should work with a larger system."

"I can see, some of the options here indicate a capability to at least communicate between star systems through the network."

"Yeah, it has plenty of potential, clone number… 2? Yeah, 2, decided to try and make three of them for the heroes, something they can use to stay in contact between them and with us, and since they will be using the omni-tool's quantum entanglement communication, our systems will keep an eye on them to keep them safe."

"Sounds good, I was going to-"

"Give them an omni-tool, yeah, but I think it would have been a bit of an excess, these babies will be much easier to sell as really advanced technology."

"Sounds like a good plan. After this I'm thinking of doing some repeated tests to see if we can break the fifteen minutes barrier on the clone spell. I may have an idea for exchanging the number of clones with increased spell duration."

Chapter 45

Chapter Text

Chapter 45

"Okay kids, Christmas came early this year." Junko stood in front of the hero trio. It had been a couple weeks since they had signed their contracts. August had just ended and Junko had been a busy bee.

"Yeah yeah yeah, we can't wait, end with the fanfare and show us the goods." Darma sounded a bit impatient.

"Okay." Junko didn't stop herself from grinning as she waved her hand over the table and made three piles of items appear, one for each teen. "These babies are some of the best support gear that I can make that won't be visible. It's a few pieces, so hold onto your pants, because you will like what you hear.

"First," She grabbed the blocky, cellphone-like accessory. "this is an ECHO, it'll be the spine of your equipment." She showed the teens how to equip it. "You will notice that your vision's got some new additions now. The ECHO will keep a good reading of your health, air-reserves for the face masks, temperature around you, etc… It will also share that information with your teammates so you can easily keep an eye on each other. It covers everything a smartphone does too, calls, video calls, takes pictures and video from your point of view. Anything you think a phone can do, the ECHO can do better."

"Sweet." She heard Darma mumble, as the boy appeared to be exploring the ECHO's menus like his friends.

"They are also connected to the building's system 24/7 and nothing should cut that communication. But with all sorts of weird quirks around," She shrugged. "can't promise, I did my best. Each ECHO has a huge amount of memory, but I still have set up two backups for each of you, one for personal stuff, that's protected for only your access unless there's an emergency, the other backup's just for work hours. This way you can have a constant recording while you are out. If you are going to work for me, I will make sure you three keep a good image."

The three of them nodded, they understood the seriousness of the hero's image even when they were of the philosophy that saving people and keeping them safe came first.

"Don't worry, I will mostly use it to base my advice for you. Get ideas if you need new equipment and see the equipment in use." Junko smiled and reached for the Sylladex and the small pile of cards. "Now, next part, if any of you ever played an rpg game you will know what this is." She showed them how to equip it too. "The inventory system is simple, especially with the ECHO showing you what's in each slot or card. I will get you three trained later in proper use. Basically just imagine it's a set of pockets only you can reach into with your mind. Each has a good amount of space, the details on what can go into them can be finicky but you will get used to it."

Junko shrugged as the trio proceeded to add the pile of twenty cards into their Sylladex and watch their HUDs show the addition, noting everyone slot to be empty.

"This is amazing." Ryuto spoke up.

"I'm glad that you like it, I want you three to do your best, and keeping you safe is barely a bother for me." She pulled three blister packs containing bubblegum-sized pills. "These are still going through testing, but I want you to have them just in case. Each of these pills were designed to deal with any injury of complexity below a broken bone.

"They will momentarily not only improve your natural healing, but also provide a concentrated dose of nutrients to help your body heal from cuts, bruises, burns and other similar injuries."

"That's huge." Fuon was the one surprised this time.

"They should have zero secondary effects, as long as you don't pop a whole blister of them into your mouth. But their testing hasn't been completed yet. It won't be a problem if you use them personally, but try to not give them to civilians or other heroes unless there's a true emergency." Junko's serious tone got the three of them to nod. "I'm glad you three understand it, a few things, their effect's not cumulative, taking multiple won't heal larger injuries, I'm currently still in the design phase for stronger versions, but it will take a while." She felt a little bad for the lie, but getting stronger potions out unless really needed was a slippery slope in the attention she would be getting, for now, the current version was believable enough.

"Now, I know this is the most boring part in any game, but I installed a tutorial in your ECHOs, you should go to the training room and follow it, familiarize yourself with the equipment, I'm sure you will find what I didn't mention interesting. Now go." She dismissed the trio who thanked her before heading for the large room.

Junko turned and headed into the workshop to continue her work. She had decided to take a break from developing the clone spell after reaching the twenty minute mark, she could up it to twenty-five, but she would lose one of the three clones in exchange, making it a loss. She had been able to reduce the components of the spell into a gold marble containing a couple ingredients from the potion along with a simple enchantment.

She kept a few hundred copies of them stored in her Sylladex for quick use. And talking about use, she pulled one and created three clones, watching them nod to her, acknowledging what she was thinking.

"Since we all agree, let's do it." Junko and her clones quickly got to work.

The four Junkos got to work together, putting an altered version of the modular compact rooms. This version has a magitech version of the transporter provided by her futuristic engineering knowledge. It had enough reach and a good power efficiency that she could use it to send items from earth to orbit once she had gotten the room up there.

The current version would only send inorganic materials given the lack of enclosure, it also had her best version of magical and technological stealth and a mass shield to protect it from debris and other artificial satellites, the current version would have any object coming in contact with the room would flow around it and keep its orbit.

Junko felt her power reach a second charge and noticed she had missed the first batch during her talk with the kids, apparently with no options and her being busy she had just let it pass unconsciously. She shrugged and let this pass too as the options were too expensive.

Her clones noted to finish their parts one by one till the original Junko was the last to finish the system's checks.

"And done." She watched all the results come green as the room clicked and shrank down into compact mode. "That's always a pleasure to see."

One of the clones proceeded to store two of the resulting rooms in a card and recycle the other three for their grist.

"Good." One of the other clones nodded. "The systems are ready for whenever you want to, main."

"Stealth passed all tests?" She asked as the clones nodded. "Only thing that was capable of breaking through was the beefed-up tricorder, but even that came closer to a reading error."

"Good, you all can go do whatever you want, I will take this outside and send it up." Junko stored the room and walked out of her workshop and into the J-complex and walked to the rooms currently acting as the terrace for the building.

She deployed the room and sent the order to go up to orbit with her omni-tool. The building started to float before rising higher and higher, the speed quickly rising as the room would aim to reach geosynchronous earth orbit, or a bit below forty thousand kilometers from the earth's surface.

Once it reached the designed height the systems would keep it going at the proper speed to maintain the spot roughly above the complex' position on earth.

"Now to wait." She returned back inside just in time to cast another clone spell, her copies heading to continue their work, right now she would have to wait till the first room was in orbit and deployed before sending the cleaning drones.

She wondered what people would think once they realized Earth's orbit was clean. Apparently the planet was actually quite happy with her project, the few times she had taken to meditate and commune with the world had told her that much.

The planet would prefer some more active cleaning of the water, ground and air, but she had plenty of time and it would be harder to hide her work when working directly on the planet, rather than above it.

With the clones working on the drones and the VI that would control them, she aimed for the space suit, she already had a few to work from, especially the one that had come with her ability to sing.

With that as a base she started re-designing it to have a near infinite reserve of air. Shielding for radiation, heat and the void of space. Finally she added the Eezo shield and propulsion system.

She nodded at the resulting space suit, doing another cast of the clone spell before checking the space room's status. Only a few more minutes before it reached proper positioning.

"This is gonna be good." One of the clones said as another controlled the holographic set up one of them had developed to show a projection of their Space Room approaching GEO and deploying properly.

"Girls, looks like it went perfectly."

"Was there really any doubt about it?"

"There was a very small, but real chance something would've happened."

"Shush you," Junko exclaimed. "Now for step two." The clones nodded to the original before they headed to the room still on earth and started sending drones up to orbit. The second step was to transport a few thousand drones to start the cleaning process, each one monitored and controlled by the J-complex main VI.

The drones were interesting too, each about the size of a medium dog and used a similar technology to the room and expanded to the size of a car. Their insides were mostly hollow to carry the scrap and other materials they harvested from orbit. Using Eezo as a way to catch the fast-moving trash and not damage satellites that were supposed to be up there.

Given a restriction on the number of drones they could send at a time, the clones would be busy for a while. After that they would start working on the reclamation rooms, these rooms would be sent up to attach on the existing room and act as a drop-off point for the drones' cargo.

The recycled materials would be sent back and most likely sold as product of her recycling machines. Which it technically was, but no one had to learn the difference.

And speaking of recycling materials, it'd been a while since she had been there to receive Izuku, mostly letting him use the automated system to deposit the beach's scrap. She made a note to prepare a gift for the kid, he definitely deserved a reward for keeping the hard work to reach his dreams.

She started to do some mental designing of a pair of reinforced gauntlets and boots, something that would be useful for training or any hero work. Nothing especially supernatural about them sounded like a solid gift.

Junko felt her power reach the three charges. Two of the options were four charges, one out of her reach, she wasn't sure she was too interested on them anyways. One would improve her ability to keep a mental design in her head to a full-on design program along with a solid idea of the working result. The other was scientific knowledge in manipulating gravity, and while there may be interesting stuff, she was already quite good at that.

She blinked a few times, it looked like the roll had finally done it, she had been taught how to build giant robots. And plenty more, it looked like the perk had crammed more than five years of studies in some kind of futuristic college/company.

She mentally went through the information, and it was quite a bit, literal years of learning, multiple classes and courses. Some of it was useless to her, the artificial gravity system for space stations was prehistoric compared to the actual artificial gravity fields she had currently in development.

She also wasn't sure the Minovsky Particle system would be of much use for her. It was certainly quite strong as a "clean" fusion reactor, but the problem it brought for communication and electronics was a bit too much of a drawback. Especially when she had better power systems.

She would see about using some of the ruggedized designs in her technology. Some of the alloys were also pretty interesting, having lightweight, yet incredibly resistant materials to build would be useful. Also more products she could patent, as while had expensive process of manufacture, others most likely would take really well.

And the cherry of the top. She now had the knowledge to build and maintain twenty meter tall war machines, bipedal and capable of dexterous movement. Designed to work both on the surface of the planet or the void of space.

The problem was that easily half of the designs in her head to pilot said warmachines needed one to have some type of psychic power. It wasn't restrictive, she could see plans for technology that would let anyone with the training use one of the robots, but only one of these "newtypes" would get the most of them.

She mentally shrugged, she would check the so-called Quasi-Psycomu system, with some luck and good intent she could improve to the same standard as the full Psycomu system.

"Hey," One of the clones appeared in the Workshop's door. "We have a giant robot in the hangar."

Junko had to facepalm, because her power had actually given her one of them, she had no idea how she would get such a big thing out to begin with.

Oh... Apparently her hangar now could launch them into the real world for her. That could be useful for some other projects.

"One of the other clones was in the hangar when the new perk dropped and watched it materialize next to her."

Junko could only put what she had been doing in pause and follow the other her. She had to see the giant robot after all.

"Okay, I can see it being used for the shock factor, at least." Junko looked at the robot as one of her clones had assumed her titan form and was walking around the thing.

So here she was, looking at a titanium-alloy body of over twenty meters getting checked by a woman of nearly seventeen.

"You know, I'm tempted to simply hollow it out and wear it like an armor to go out in full height." One of the clones commented.

Junko was glad that the clones were nearly about to time-out. She was pretty sure she would have to get something nice for Mila, if she could be this stressful to be around.

Chapter 46

Chapter Text

Chapter 46

It was a few days after the giant robot incident, and Junk was glad the clones had clocked out shortly before they decided to work together in the vehicle. Honestly, she still feared the thing because she too was tempted to dismantle and upgrade it, but she didn't like the current design much. The young woman had decided to leave it for another time, maybe once she had been forced to take another and see which was better, more examples would lead to improved results.

Right now what she was doing was so simple, it felt silly, But Mila had recommended it as something smart to do. In front of her was the final sketch of her business card, It had taken a lot to keep the little piece of cardboard ordinary. It had become way too easy for her to push a bit of her energy into the card, and she didn't want to be handing out examples of her energy around.

This final attempt managed to look perfectly ordinary while being expertly designed within mortal skills. She would store the other examples, they looked too good to just discard. Happy with her work she created a few dozen copies and stored them.

Her current job done, Junko got up and did a few stretches to wake up her legs.

"Computer, bring up the progress on the sky cleaning project." She called out loud.

"Order received." A mechanical voice replied to her, her current VI activated a hologram was projected in front of her, showing the work her drones were currently doing on GEO. "Current progress calculated on 58%. A total of thousand and twenty four drones are still online and working. No new problems reported since last check. Currently about twenty thousand tons of material have been recovered, only about one 1% has been identified as exotic."

"Good, a few more days and it will be pretty much clean, I wonder if people will notice." Junko rubbed her chin as she looked at the screen. "Computer, bring up project Moon Pool."

The image projected zoomed onto the moon and turned the satellite till the dark side was presented to Junko. The perfectly opposite point to the Moon's perigee, a circle formed and the image zoomed again.

"Current test on project Moon Pool continues successfully." The VI spoke. "From the two hundred rooms deployed only twenty have been impacted by asteroids and other objects. Groups one, three, seven and nine are still untested."

Junko hummed as she expected to have more natural events but if she needed results she wasn't above throwing rocks at different speeds to her shields and test their limits. Currently the ten groups of twenty rooms each had a graduation in the potency of their shields to set a baseline to work with.

"Continue testing, and update me when at least two of the untested groups get hit. What's the status of the Red Probe?"

"Red Probe's currently scanning Mars' surface for landing spots. Currently over three hundred and fifty potential spots have been listed."

Junko felt her power reach a second charge and a new selection of three perks be offered to her. Sadly they were three, four and three charges, meaning she let them pass and turned back to the hologram in front of her. The image of Mars was currently about fifty percent colored to mark the area the probe had scanned already.

"Computer, how are the three musketeers?"

"Heroes Cape Kappa, Shieldtoise and Exchange are currently in patrol. No incident observed or reported."

"Maintain regular checks, that's all for now." The hologram turned off. She turned to walk out of the workshop and headed to Mila's office. "Hey Mila. Ready for the con?"

"Please, stop calling it that, it's a Tech Expo." Mila groaned.

"Oh, come on, people will be there to look at stands, get free samples, some people will be dressed up and I will have to dose us both with plenty of potions to make sure we don't bring back any kind of pest from the place."

"Come on Junko."

"Okay, okay, I know it's important, doesn't mean I can't find some fun on it." She reached into her Sylladex and placed a pile of business cards. "Here are yours."

"Thanks, amazing as always."

Junko snorted. "I would say it's more amazing I managed to make them stop glowing all mystic and stuff, got so many perks that I relaxed for a moment and the letters came out floating… Maybe the next version, it would be fun to watch people trying to figure them out."

"How are your projects?"

"Progressing," Junko replied. "The sky's almost three fourths cleaned, the tests on the moon continue successfully and mars is looking lovely. I also sent you the design of the fully technological face shield choker, it came out a bit larger than the magi-tech version, but since it's meant to be used by rescue heroes and firefighters, I think the version integrated on the neck armor will be plenty popular."

"Yes, I'm actually offloading the construction of them to a couple of factories I've been eyeing for a while. It shouldn't really affect the costs, and providing work is always a good thing."

"I'm happy to hear that. How are the plans to sponsor possible heroic students?"

"Well, I have found a handful, I policed the list a bit and sent it over to you, are you sure about this?" Mila asked.

"Yes, I would have liked to set up to do this earlier, help them train and prepare both body and mind. But we were certainly not in the position. Maybe next year, especially since the trio will already be working for us full-time."

"Aren't you worried about stepping on people's toes with so much expansion?" Mila's tone was slightly worried, but Junko still snorted.

"If they were moving and not letting technology outside of quirk support stagnate then I wouldn't be stepping on their toes. Let them complain, by the time anything starts moving on their side we will be plenty far ahead."

"I will be by your side then." Junko thanked her friend and partner for the vote of confidence. "Also, have you been having weird dreams? I feel like I have been having the same dream again and again."

"Do you remember anything about it?" Junko asked curiously.

"Not really, I just keep dreaming that I'm in my room."

"Weird, I think I dreamed the same, but…" She shrugged. "I don't think it means anything, even the medicine knowledge I have doesn't tell me anything useful about dreams."

"Nothing we can do at the moment, maybe you should create something to look into dreams…" Mila turned to see her friend deep in thought. "I was joking, please don't look into my dreams, Junko."

"I may see about making one for me…" She rubbed her chin, deep in thought. "I think a mix of technology and magic would be best suited for something like that."

"Okay, okay, out of my office with your crazy ideas. And Junko, see you tomorrow, we'll have to leave early to get there on time."

The human woman nodded as she muttered ideas. Deciding to visit the child under her family's care, she stopped and noted down her ideas, created a new batch of clones and sent them to continue their work as she walked into the room.

"Mo-Miss Junk." Eri cheered.

"Hi Eri." She reached down and picked the little girl up. The child squealed in happiness as Junko happily cuddled her against her body. "How are you doing?"

"I'm good, miss." Junko could see how the child's health had returned, right now it was hard to recognize her compared to the girl she found in the Yakuza mansion.

Eri's skin and hair, while still pale and white, had gained a bit of color as the child now had her time rewind quirk back in control, no longer constantly flooding her body with temporal energy and instead using it daily to improve her control.

"Have you eaten yet?" She asked and Eri shook her head. "Then how about I prepare dinner for us tonight?"

She laughed when the child quickly wiped the drool on her sleeve. "Can we have dessert?"

"Yes, we can have dessert too after you eat." Junko felt slightly guilty knowing Eri wouldn't refuse to eat anything she gave her. Didn't mean she wouldn't aim for nutritious and delicious food. She made sure to scan the child frequently and balance her diet to her needs.

"Can it be something with apples?"

"Of course, I've seen a recipe for apple pie that should be delicious and can cook while we eat dinner. Even with some ice cream." She smiled as Eri squealed in happiness at the promise.

As Junko carried Eri to the kitchen she felt her power complete another charge and reach for three options. For a cost of six she would get some kind of psychometry or technopathy, it appeared to be aimed to understand technology and how to use it. For two charges she could get a set of tools to develop something she lacked the skill in use.

With two options discarded she looked at the last. For three charges she could get an improvement in any task she did exclusively. It apparently was broad enough there was no reason not to take it.

Junko kept herself from swearing because Eri was on her arms. The new perk would double the quality and halve the time needed to perform any action, as long as she was only doing that action. Just by taking this perk she had doubled the quality of any of her creations by simply being a bit more focused. It was an exchange pretty worthy in exchange for not multi-tasking.

She would have to balance how she approached construction, focusing on important parts and doing basic parts at the same time.

She would try it later, like when not spending time with her… Who she was kidding? She had completely adopted the child. She would call Eri her daughter all she wanted in her mind.

They spent a lovely evening together, Junko enjoyed having Eri help along with cooking dinner and dessert before spending time with the girl while the food was in the oven. After dinner and dessert Junko made sure the child didn't get too riled up before her bed time and tucked her in before heading into the Forge Lands for a few hours to continue her studies.

Her three teachers agreed she was advancing even faster than expected, Muria had admitted that for all their power, their restriction of her perks and powers wasn't perfect and some of the perks may still be active in the most passive levels.

The shamaness had also stated that in her humble opinion, Junko was ready to learn how to create magical life, even if it is just of basic sprites with no real purpose. The human woman had to admit she had come a long way since she even was told about doing it the first time.

Alya, on the other hand, had started to teach Junko the more mystical forging method of influencing the metal through the hammering process, from the basics of Damascus steel to the secrets of the Wave Ripple irons ability to run unimpeded by any liquid and the Blazing Gold's cold burning ability.

Last, but not least, Ulthane just admitted she had pretty much mastered all he could teach her and all she needed was more live experience with the war-hammer, going out and fighting beasties and other nasties.

The Maker had no problem with her cutting her time spent at the training ground to attend more hours under the shaman and the forge siblings.

After returning to her workshop, and with a few hours till they had to leave. Junko decided to start creating her first intelligent construct, aiming for something between the level of her VI and a guard dog.

In a way, the process reminded her about the action of weaving. Each of Junko's fingers was currently glowing as strands of magic connected to the growing pattern floating in front of her, a pattern that expanded into three dimensions, similar to what she used for her solid magi-batteries, but so much more complex.

The resulting mind would be able to learn and remember, it would find ways to solve problems when following orders, and most important of all, it would be a companion for Eri, a loyal pet and guardian. It would also have a constant connection to her computer system.

Having focused only on weaving this mind, the effects of her latest perk made themselves known, finishing in half the time it would have normally taken her and the quality was doubled. A Fact that she now realized brought the resulting mind much further than she had expected. While still not to the level of a human, her calculations were pointing to a very smart dolphin or raven, and it most likely would develop a much stronger speech center.

With the mind completed and currently 'booting up' for a lack of better term, Junko started on the second part, the body. She decided a teddy bear would be the best to pass unnoticed, with a height of about fifty centimeters, with a pair of mana crystals for the eyes and alchemically treated fabrics and thread for the body and clothes.

Sewing the teddy bear turned out to be an interesting way to explore the reaches of her latest perk. The action of sewing itself was actually multiple actions at the same time, but being all aimed for the same result let her perk come into effect and make the guardian's body faster and with better quality.

After that was time to enchant it. As much sheer resistance to damage she could put in the little fella before aiming for general recovery of any damage that went through that. She connected the mind's senses into the mana gems, it would have constant vision in several layers all around itself at all times and be immune to being blinded in any way.

With passives done she added three active magics it could use.

A bubble shield, to protect itself and Eri in case of an attack.

A healing spell, while it was showing some of the cards she has on her hand, if it was needed it was better to have it.

And a combination of spells that would let the toy fight with increased strength and speed. Given how many quirks' only came in effect when the person actively touched an object, she added a way for the Teddy to hug the shield close to its body, giving it a bit more height and reach and to make it nigh-impossible to be touched without breaking through the defense.

She finished the work and grabbed the still asleep mind, the process to join them was as simple as pushing the magical construct to soak into the body.

She watched as the mind soaked into every thread of the plush body before it blinked and looked at her.

"Hello there," She greeted the burgeoning mind, still too young to speak or reply. "You will be Carinho."

Chapter 47: Interlude Cape Kappa

Chapter Text

Chapter 47 – Interlude Cape Kappa

"You know-" Exchange began.

"No, shut up." Shieldtoise immediately cut him off. "I don't want to hear you complaining about nothing happening, I really don't want you tempting Murphy."

Kappa snorted softly.

"Especially with how you seem to have Murphy's ear every time you speak. So no complaining about nothing happening, I want an easy patrol for once, not another noodle incident."

"But they were some really good noodles..." Exchange whined.

"You have to admit he's right, the man was a master noodle maker, one of the few in the country." Kappa added with a grin on his face. "And you have to admit-"

"No! We aren't talking about it anymore." Shieldtoise growled and both accepted the order.

"How are the new suits treating you two?" Kappa asked his partners.

"Impressively, this is even better than the last version." Exchange praised. "And the previous one was already something amazing."

"I like the fact that the ECHO device lets me control my mass without having to reach for it with my hands." Shieldtoise noted and Kappa agreed with her.

"It's great to see how much charge my armor's carrying." Exchange used his quirk to jump and do a flip before falling back in line with them, he smiled and waved to a few children that were watching.

Kappa and Shieldtoise also waved to the children, but something caught Kappa's eye.

"Robbery on course at 11." He commented, bringing the two others' attention back to the patrol.

About fifty meters ahead of them they could see how most of the people had cleared up the street around one jewelry store. Just outside the smashed glass door was a masked man holding a baseball bat that looked used.

"Civilians?" He asked as the three of them activated the private communication installed in their ECHOs.

"Most people are about a dozen meters away at minimum." Shieldtoise commented as Exchange moved away from the group.

The young man used his quirk to quickly move up to the roof level and peer into the store from across the street.

"Two civilians inside and what looks to be the store owner." He added as he kept looking. "Three villains inside, plus the one outside. One of them's looking over the civilians, one's taking some of the display pieces and the last's holding a pretty big gun at the owner so he opens the safe."

"Anything of note?"

"No remarkable visible mutations." And he quickly added. "But they seem to be carrying some equipment."

"Think it's the same from the rumors?" Shieldtoise asked in their private voice line.

"You mean the black market support equipment rumors?" Exchange asked completely non-sarcastically. Kappa was pretty sure his teammate rolled her eyes at that.

"Yes, that. There's been a lot of those lately but most have broken down into slag before they could be inspected."

"You know…" Kappa started. "If we take them out quick enough, I think we could take one of those pieces into the cards, and given that they normally end up reduced to broken pieces, I don't think they will notice."

"I like the sound of that, illustrious leader." Kappa could hear the grin in Exchange's voice.

"Good, Shield, wait until the criminals separate from the civilians and store owner ,then slip between them and plant yourself like a wall to protect them."

"Ok."

"Exchange, you and I will take care of the masked four, do we do two each or combine to take them all at the same time?"

"I think two each will be swifter."

"Ok, on my mark." The three of them tensed as they watched, the robbery progressing without much trouble. Thankfully the civilians were stressed by the situation but calm and none of the criminals appeared ready to do more than look scary.

"Ready… Shield, go!"

The three of them jumped into motion at the same time. The heroes had trained together enough to predict each other, and the HUD system didn't hurt their ability to cooperate.

Shieldtoise was soon at the front, reducing her mass to accelerate and get past the stunned criminals. The moment she was past them she restored her mass and used a new feature Junko had added to her boots, friction increasing high enough that the hero had to tense and absorb the whiplash.

The second she stopped moving, she changed, growing in size, the armored pads on her arms following the change. Soon she was a filling good part of the store, covering the owner and the customers inside the store with her body.

Behind her, Exchange and Cape Kappa moved. Both of them used her pushing through as a distraction, moving together as an individual, they reached for the two villains visibly armed.

Kappa moved to the bat-wielding villain, increasing the humidity under his suit. With his quirk active he reached for the bat and squeezed, the wood of the weapon splintering and breaking in half. The surprise of breaking the weapon with his bare hands gave him enough time to knock the villain out with a well-aimed punch to the solar plexus.

Exchange, meanwhile, used his body to cover the other villain's shotgun. The masked villain dropped the bag with the store's money in surprise and pulled the trigger on the weapon. After the loud noise that scared more than one person watching the event, the many pellets of the shotgun fell to the ground anticlimactically.

"Oh dude, that was such a bad choice." Exchange grinned, the glow from his quirk activating and the energy from the received gun traveling from his chest to his arm.

A moment later, said gun was flying off the crook's hand, the trigger are of the weapon completely destroyed as the shotgun was now shaped like a V.

The hero's next punch quickly knocked the villain's lights out before he and Cape Kappa turned to the remaining two villains.

"Goddammit I didn't sign in for fighting heroes!" One of the remaining villains screamed and threw the bag of valuables he was carrying at Kappa who caught it as the man ran away, Exchange quickly running after the fleeing man.

Meanwhile, Shieldtoise had given him a quick nod as the male hero put the bag down and turned to the remaining criminal.

"Now, give yourself up, and we won't have any more problems." He spoke clearly with a steady tone.

"Screw you." The criminal glared as Kappa, now that the hero looked at the man better he could see some slight mutations that made him look like a raccoon given the blackened area around his eyes and round ears. "Like you can stop me."

"We can end this here and no one else has to be hurt." Kappa still tried to deescalate but it appeared the raccoon-looking villain was having none of it.

"Ha! Like I would believe you, you are no one." The villain pulled a tube-like item from behind his back. "Let's see how you fare against this baby."

"Woah there, you really don't want to do tha-" Kappa quickly dodged left, an electrified net flying through the spot he was just occupying.

"Dammit." Kappa grunted, quickly dodging another shot as he sent a message to Shieldtoise to advance while he kept the criminal distracted. "That looks impressive. You? Not so much."

Copying Exchange's lines helped rile up the criminal and quickly shoot more as the turtle-like woman reached from behind. Her large hand wrapping around the illegal support item and storing it into one of the cards.

"Whu-?" A quick hit to the back of the head knocked him out, making Shieldtoise nod.

"Aw, the fun's done?" Exchange appeared carrying the last criminal, tied up in more than a few rolls of capture tape. "I have to give it to the guy, he just kept slipping out."

"Any surprises?"

"Only his when I took the equipment he pulled out, it looked like some strange sonic gun."

"Did it break?" Shieldtoise asked.

"No, he didn't even notice I had taken it off his hands before he tried to shoot me, how was it here?"

Kappa pointed at the charred marks on a light pole and the remains of the net wrapped around the base. Exchange recoiled at the sight.

"Crap, that would have taken you out, no?" Kappa nodded.

"Yeah, and I'm pretty sure your quirk can't do much against sound, right?"

Realization filled Exchange and he turned to his leader. "Are you saying…?"

"Yeah, I'm pretty sure someone set this up."

"But how did they know we would be around here? This area tends to get a pretty diverse with the heroes that patrol through." Shieldtoise commented.

"I think we should omit the existence of the gadgets from the report and talk with Junk about it." Kappa stated and both of his friends and teammates nodded.

The three turned their private voice chat off and looked at the coming police officers, Cape Kappa taking the lead and dealing with the officers, giving their recount of the events and handing them over.

None of them commented about the illegal support equipment as Exchange showed them the shotgun instead, the weapon was bagged and taken away. The criminals would not be getting away, they had chosen an area with plenty of security cameras and the laws about guns were especially rough in Japan. Possession and use of a gun would put any criminal on a one way train to a long sentence.

With the villains handed over and all matters done with the law enforcement the three heroes decided to call it a patrol and head back to base. Kappa had sent a quick message Junk's way to confirm she was available for talking.

An affirmative response had the three headto Junko's office. Ryuto looked at his two friends who smiled before he turned back to the door and knocked.

"Come in, you three." Their boss' voice called from inside. The heroes walked in and greeted the woman. "I saw you three had some fun today." She grinned.

"It was certainly eventful." Darma replied.

"I saw the recording, you three carried yourself really well there." She praised them and turned serious. "Now, what did you want to talk about?"

"We think it was a set up." Fuon decided to talk.

"The store they were robbing is in a heavily patrolled area. A lot of heroes pass through there, with a minimum of one every fifteen or so minutes," Ryuto explained what they had discussed on the way back. "And two of the items they were carrying seemed designed to work even through Darma's and my quirk."

"Hmm… That's worrying, I thought that they would try to go after me again, not start aiming at other people. In a way I'm glad it was you three rather than my mother again." Junko grumbled.

"Don't worry about us. In a way, we are trained for this." Ryuto tried to comfort her.

"Thank you for the thoughts." She still shook her head. "But if you three will be targets too, I will have to do my part."

"We got the gadgets they were using." Darma added in a quick comment and made the motion to take it out, but Junk quickly stopped him.

"Don't, hand me the card instead, there're better ways to do this." Junko held her hand, Darma nodding and pulling the card from his inventory and handing it to the woman, Ryuto doing the same. "Now, you three, follow me." The woman stood up and walked up to the door.

Ryuto was surprised to see her locking the door before actually opening it. Just instead of seeing the hallway they were now standing in a completely different room.

"What are you waiting for?" She called and the three moved behind her. "About next room, it will trick your eyes, so don't try to understand it and just follow me."

Ryuto wondered what exactly she meant, but only till they all stepped through the doorway and the four of them found themselves standing in an infinite hallway.

"There's no true end, you three better forget about it. Now, follow me." She hurried the dazed heroes and they all walked into what appeared to be a huge workshop.

"Welcome to my workplace," Junko chuckled. "Or at least one of them, in a way the safest one too… maybe? Depends on what I've been working on this week." She huffed and pulled the two cards and walked over to a strange white machine.

In Ryuto's eyes, the machine was the unholy combination of what he remembered seeing in his history class as a punch-card machine, combined with a 3D printer, a normal printer, half a dozen gauges, twice as many buttons, multiple screens and a rubber duck. He was not sure where the last one was, but he was pretty sure it had been part of the creation.

"Hmm…" Darma tried to say something but the machine activating cut him off.

Junko slid one of the stored items into a slot of the perfect size and activated the machine. Instantly five copies of the card came out of the printer. He was pretty sure Junko was humming a catchy tune when she moved to the expansive workshop table.

The three heroes moved just close enough to watch as the woman made the electric web cannon deploy on the table. Faster than he thought she could move, Junko proceeded to take it apart, sadly half way through a cloud of black smoke rose from the item and the remains broke down in front of their eyes.

"Is…?" Fuon tried to speak next, but Junko ignored her, making a second cannon appear in front of her, even faster than before her hands picked the item apart. Sadly another cloud of black smoke marked her failure.

"Isn't she amazing?" A familiar female voice spoke from behind him, but Ryuto was a bit too captivated by what he was watching to turn and look at the speaker.

"Yeah…" He managed to reply as Junko pulled a third cannon, it was obvious by now that they were exact copies of the original, he could even see the marks where Fuon had grabbed a bit too hard on the original.

This time she didn't fail, moving even faster than before the piece of equipment ended pulled apart down to the smallest screw.

"It's been a while since I had troubles scrapping something." She chuckled and nodded before she pulled the sonic gun Darma had recovered from the villain and created five copies like with the previous piece. "But now I know your tricks."

The three of them watched as she only failed once before the gun was also picked apart and the components ordered in a strangely artistic fashion.

"Haha!" Junko triumphantly celebrated.

"It's always a pleasure to see myself work." The female voice spoke by Ryuto and he had to turn his head at the strange commentary. "Hai~" The other Junko greeted the three now word-less heroes.

"What are you doing here, number three?" Junko facepalmed and groaned out loud. "I was going to ease them in… no, don't tell me, I can imagine 2 went to set up the robot?"

"You know yourself so well, don't you? The three of them?"

"Yeah, but with a bit of time, maybe sooner now."

The three heroes, completely at a loss, simply stood there, watching as two more Junks appeared from the doors and waved.

Chapter 48

Chapter Text

Chapter 48

Junko groaned as one of her hands ran down her face.

"Okay, everybody pay attention to me. First" She looked at the clones "I hate you all myselves, you do know I would have told them, there wasn't a need to shock them." She then turned to the heroes. "Okay, many things to explain.

"First, these are me, and not really me." She willed it and the three clones poofed into a gold and red mist. "I'm sure you must have seen at least one cloning quirk, they are similar. I worked them out from a development about a month ago, they are great for extra hands during work, but I can't keep them running for too long or that happens. They diverge a bit too much, they are still me and they won't do anything I won't, but they start to accumulate life experiences and I haven't found a way to synchronize, yet. Once that hurdle's broken, I will most likely be at multiple places at the same time."

"Uh…" Darma smartly tried to speak.

"It's magic, next question." Junko couldn't stop herself from grinning.

"Magic?" Fuon was the next, still at single word questions.

"Yes." And she had single word answers for them.

"How?" Ryuto was the next, and Junk felt a little mean if she didn't reply correctly.

"Making a long story short, I was chosen by a greater power, I'm not sure why. But I've been given many gifts, skills, powers, knowledge, teachers, etc…" She waved her hands around, showing off the space. "This is just a bit of all the stuff I've gotten." She looked seriously at the trio. "I can't promise to tell you everything, there's a lot that for your safety will have to be omitted. But you three, like my family, like my close friends, have become targets because a few villains decided that I was a trophy big enough to try and get."

"What do you mean, villains? Shouldn't you be going to heroes to get help?" Ryuto asked, still confused. The situation had changed too quickly even for him.

"There's two or three groups, depending how you look at it. First," She turned to the workshop and picked an unmarked chip she had gotten from the electrified web cannon and an identical one from the unused sonic gun. "there's been identical chips, albeit those were broken, in all recovered leftovers from the illegal equipment that's been running around." Behind her, the trip could see the images recovered from the police documents, multiple examples of the same design of chip, but broken. "But I do have one other example."

Junko reached into one of the many drawers of the workshop table, pulling it open and grabbing a small bag containing another example of the broken chip, just a real one, not a photograph.

"I got this when I was kidnapped a few months ago, it was part of a bag designed to knock out a person. Without a quirk that would make you immune to it, just slip it over someone's head and they pass out, simple as that."

"Wait, weren't you kidnapped by the hate group Humans First?"

"Yes, or at least it appeared like that, if I had to guess they were used by some other group." Junko kept a serious tone while talking. "Mila and I had our doubts after the incident, especially because of this." The image behind her changed, the images of the chip replaced by the news note about the incident. "Two heroes responded to the case, Mila contacted Mr Aizawa, or Eraser Head as you may know him.

"But Slidin'Go also got there shortly after the events finished, if Mila hadn't contacted Aizawa, he would have been there to 'save' me."

"Oh…" Darma said, still quite eloquent as Junko felt her power fill up to four charges.

She did her best to hide it as she felt the three options come into her reach. Two of the options were out of her reach, each costing six charges, something about increasing production and the science of physic powers. The last was three charges, she was forced to take it anyway.

Her technological knowledge instantly received a huge improvement, multiple types of vehicles, decades ahead of the current ones, ground, space and everything in-between. Space stations with artificial gravity and human-like robots, really human-like.

She hid the shudder as the knowledge of synthetic life was added, if she hadn't created Carinho just a few days ago she would be feeling much worse, but she now had personal experience in creating intelligent life.

She felt that there was another addition, but she would have to look at it better later, right now Junko had more important things to concentrate on.

"Honestly, till now it was all coincidence. If it was just that one time, then it was easy to imagine the Human First's members just got their hands on the item, but this marks two. And with two points we can draw a line. And whoever they are, they have heroes working for them."

"You said two or three? If this mysterious group with the ability to arm villains with support equipment and have heroes working for them is one, who are the rest?" Darma seemed to find the words once more and ask, the smart question made Junk smile.

She nodded at that, activating her omni-tool and the holographic screen changed. "One of the other two is Overhaul." The yakuza villain appeared, next to him pictures of his two closest aides who had escaped with him. "Of all people obviously after me, he's the one that truly hates me, mysterious group number one obviously wants me to work for them or something that I have. The last group is a wildcard, they did take Overhaul and his two patsies out of a conflict, right under the heroes' eyes. Right now they could be biding their time, or maybe they had their eyes on Overhaul and just wanted him in their debt."

"So we have some evil support company, a yakuza on the path of revenge, and a mysterious backer who we don't even know what they want."

"A backer with the reach and skills to get three villains out of a full-on police and hero operation." The image behind her changed again, showing the three groups. "I don't think the mysterious backer will move anytime soon, but we can't discard them, we just can't do anything but prepare.

"Overhaul's intelligent, but I don't think he will move until he can do something, till now he has been on the down-low even while he was trying to set up some kind of drug peddling scheme. So I don't expect him moving anytime soon, especially with the mysterious backer most likely holding his leash.

"Now, the evil support company," She chuckles softly at the name. "They have shown their hand, and I can guess they will move soon. And, since it's an evil support company, I will guess they may be included in the tech-con happening tomorrow."

"Then what will you do?" Ryuto asked.

"I will have to prepare you three, set you up with some better stuff, I'm sure you like what you carry, but there are a few extra things I kept for the difficulty of explaining." She created three clones and smiled. "There's a limit to what I can do between today and tomorrow. There Are plenty of projects that won't help in the short term, so to start, you three will stay here tomorrow, just as an extra precaution, the security system's already strong, but I would prefer if you look after my family at least for a day or two."

The three of them nodded.

"Thank you," She smiled. "Okay, first thing, let's make sure you three are just a tad stronger. This is one of the perks I was given, it won't be anything impressive at the start, but it will grow with time and training." The three clones stepped up to each hero. "I will remind you, you can't tell anyone about this, if you think quirks threw the world in disarray when they appeared, this would bring things down hard again.

"Okay, let's see, how did Muria say it went…" She breathed in deep, her heart beating at the same rhythm of her clones, the four bodies flaring up, that rust red energy. " ...We become beacons, shining hopeful to guide our brothers and sisters, we take sword and shield to keep them safe, we stand proud, we show the way, and we share the path, because it's in passing that we achieve immortality. "

The clones reached for the forehead of the three teens and Junk's aura flared higher, before spilling into them. It was in that instant that she really got to know them.

Ryuto, Fuon and Darma's bodies went stiff as Junko's aura stretched and pushed into their very selves, reaching deep till the most delicate of the touches made contact with their souls, soon pulling back but leaving the smallest sign that she had been there.

A tiny particle that glowed in a place that had been dark and still. And then there were two particles, and then the two were bigger, and another, and bigger. The rest of their very souls ignited with a warmth of care.

Junko had reached into the very core of their selves and got to know them even better than they knew themselves in some aspects, she knew they were good people, loyal to their friends and believed that they could bring good change to society, the three of them thanked Junko for giving them this chance to show it. She didn't doubt for a moment this was a good idea.

The three clones poofed, and even having used them as buffers for the process and having a superhuman soul, she felt the drain, she wouldn't be doing this for a good while.

She felt another charge, but with no option worth two charges, she let it go and turned to them. A quick change on the settings of their ECHO's and the aura level would appear now along with their current health status.

"I just awakened your aura, your very soul now will keep you safe, a shield over your body, enhancing your strength, speed, reflexes." Junko explained when she saw the three of them come down from the high. "Right now you are at the most basic level, barely above a normal person, even with your current training, it will take time. But I don't doubt you three will quickly become even better heroes using this."

She grabbed a piece of spare metal from the workshop table "There's a second part, with time you will develop a personal ability, something that embodies a part of you, it's called a semblance." She activated hers and the piece of metal softened to clay or silly putty, letting her fingers reshape it easily. "I have named mine Hands on Clay , anything I touch will be such, hence the name, for as long as I want and hold contact." She kept working, reshaping the once firm metal into a beautiful rose, only once she finished she turned it off and handed the rose to the teens to observe better. "I don't know what yours will be, all I know is that it can be nearly anything. I'm telling you so you don't get scared but I don't think you will awaken it in less than six months or so."

"Now, you three should go rest and think about this, I feel like a teacher saying this, but write down questions you may have." She grinned at the three, ignoring Darma's comment about homework. "Believe me, you will soon feel exhausted, you've been keeping your aura up for a while and it's not an easy thing, go, sleep, think, we will talk more later or after I come back from the convention."

The three nodded and left, looking a little unsteady. Junko instantly sighed and fell back to her chair. The whole process and explanation exhausted her.

"Fuck." She cursed and groaned, covering her eyes with her arm as she felt a painful beat inside of her. Like a migraine in her soul. "Never again."

She turned her attention back to her latest perk. The technological knowledge she now had was considerably impressive. Some of the additions would help her in advancing if not finally breaking the hurdle for three-dimensional computing systems and true, uncapped multitasking.

Thinking about the computing system, she had to start on the process of writing an AI for the complex, a VI was good but it was obviously starting to show its limits.

"Computer, how's the status of my projects." The hologram that still held the images of the villains changed, showing a list of names, some on green, others on yellow and a few in red.

"Project Sky Cleaning is ninety-eight percent complete, efficiency of debris cleaning has fallen to less than ten percent given sparsity of material." The VI's voice stated.

"I think that counts as a success, still, maintain the probes at work for now." The yellow on the name changed to green.

"Project Moon Pool has achieved over ninety percent threshold in testing for the shielding of the lunar installations." The name of said project was already green. "Red Probe has finished it's scanning, the landing spots have been listed."

"Okay, space done. Start with projects Red Tomorrow and White on the Dark." She ordered, the projects changing from red to yellow. "How are the projects earth, water and air?"

"Projects Earth, Water and Air continue at the fastest pace calculated to prevent discovery. Project Earth's still listing garbage dumps all over the world, project Water has identified main garbage currents in the ocean and polluted rivers, project Air's currently getting in place above major cities to start the filtration process."

"So much to do. So little time" She groaned, pulling another clone spell bead and created three bodies.

"No." Said the first clone as she stumbled closer. "You will go and rest, I'm sure Eri will like to spend some time with her mother."

"But…" Another clone shut her up as she grabbed Junko's shoulder

"No, we can still work for a while, but if you are feeling anything like we are, then you need to rest."

"But I could just get something for it."

"Still no. We don't have any potion or pill or poultice to recover from soul exhaustion. So you will go and rest. We will take something to last the spell's length and then just poof. Now scram."

Junko could only grunt as her clones pushed her out of the warehouse as one of them headed to the alchemy lab, looking to get something to feel better till the spell ran its course.

"Hi Miss Junk." Eri greeted her and Junko smiled.

"Hi dear, how are you doing?" She sat by the child, stroking her gray hair as the bear-guard acknowledged her presence.

"I'm good, miss, I was drawing and teaching mister bear how to draw, he's so smart!" She smiled and Junk felt warm inside, slowly relaxing with the child as she talked about her day.

She would work more later or tomorrow, right now, she was spending time with her daughter.

Chapter 49

Chapter Text

Chapter 49

Junko felt herself be woken up by a new charge. Strangely when she turned her attention to the options, she found none were actually in her three charge reach. A six charge option that would increase her ability to understand and adapt technology that wasn't hers.

The other two options were four charges, one would improve her ability to come up and design new technologies and the other had something to do with mind-controlled nanites.

Still a bit groggy from waking up after the hour of sleep she actually needed was enough for her mind to take the choice and let the options go as she got up, from there she headed to take a shower and start the day.

After a stop in the kitchen for a big snack, and a lot more awake than before. Junko headed into her workshop, bringing up the list of the clones' doing from the previous night.

Apparently they hadn't actually done that much, the most impressive thing was the space-worthy variations for the modular rooms, they had still not deployed them, leaving them prepared for her order. One thing that was interesting, was the unfinished project of one of her clones.

Junko walked into the magical workshop and had to admit the project was ambitious. A small order and in front of her was holographically projected the plans for the clone's idea. It was the next step on the idea behind Carinho.

While the bear was a hundred percent magical, and her latest perk had given her the knowledge of how to make a technological version. This was the step that took both of them and formed a magitech creation.

Enchanted, flexible, space-age alloys that would act like the muscles. Each strand strong enough to hold an adult, their power only increasing thanks to the braiding of the fibers to form a metallic tissue with lightning fast reaction.

Lightweight, hollow bones made of strong metal and reinforced with an especially designed, internal fractal growth to increase their strength against shock.

Articulations designed to provide zero friction in movement but hold firmly when necessary, still providing completely free range of movement.

The ability to see and hear everything in a large radius around the body. A sense of scent above any animal. A sense of touch capable of identifying differences of a micron. A sense of taste finer than an advanced chemistry analysis. Everything was collected, analyzed, cataloged and stored in the complex's systems.

And that was just the plans for normal senses; perfect balance, thermovision, seismic sense, and others were planned to be added too. One of the interesting ones would let the body have a type of clairvoyance by connecting to the sight of drones.

All that and the body would actually be just a drone, a puppet for her future AI that would live in the complex, quantum entangling giving it control with absolutely no lag and no danger in case of being destroyed.

Junko hummed as she created the clones. "Okay girls, we all know what we want to do, let's get to it." Her clones nodded.

Clones one and two headed to experiment on different alloys for the muscles and bones, one of them heading for the Volcanic Forge to try and create better versions of the ones they already had.

The last clone went to work on the body designs, Junko had had a few ideas of possible human and non-human ones when creating the clones, this clone would go through with that.

Meanwhile, she would take care of the programming of the AI. With a few hours till they had to leave for the convention, she would spend the next six hours either refreshing the clone spell or just programming the AI.

With all her focus on a single task, hours flew by. It took one of her clones reminding her that she would have to leave soon for Junko to realize it was nearly seven AM.

With that warning she decided it was enough programming for the moment, letting the system compile what she had already and start working on the base seed the AI would germinate from. In her opinion, the base was solid enough that the AI would already be efficient, but she wanted to improve a few things before calling it complete.

Not like she thought it would ever truly be complete, the level of complexity in the AI would need different corrections as it developed to help a balanced mind to grow.

Right now she had to take a shower, fill her stomach and make sure Mila was ready for them to go. She also made sure to meet her mom.

"Okay, we should be okay, the convention lasts two days, we already have a hotel room to share and I'm taking some personal security just in case. So please, stay at home this time." Junko frowned at her mom and the woman looked away. "I'm joking mom, but stay here with grandma and Eri, the kids will be in the building too."

"Okay Junko, don't worry, one kidnapping experience's more than enough for me, unlike you apparently." Junko had to blush at her mother's comment before both of them broke out laughing.

They soon stopped and shared a hug before Junko let go and turned to Eri.

"And you, be a good girl, ok?" She ruffled the girl's hair, the child nodded with a smile on her face. "Otherwise Carinho will tell me." The look of betrayal made her giggle. "I'm kidding, but don't make it hard for my mom, I will be back tomorrow night, okay?"

"Okay miss Junk." The child gave her a smile while holding her bear-guard. The woman ruffled her hair one last time before she joined Mila in the car.

"Ready to go?"

"Yup."

With all preparations done, Junko introduced the direction in her car and let it drive itself as she relaxed. Especially as she felt another charge. She quickly discarded the first option, it was five charges, one more than her current collection.

One of the other options gave her an almost innate ability to find faults with any building, hardware or vehicle. The other option, for four charges, would provide knowledge of weapons, robotics and something else.

Both options were very tempting. Being indecisive about it, she finally chose the one charge option, it felt useful enough for the price and this meant she would have another four charges choice next roll.

"Anything good?" Mila asked.

"Just a general skill to find faults in objects." Junko commented as she looked around, she was glad she couldn't see much in the car.

At most she could see the spots where pieces were welded or screwed together, not that there were many of those as she had used large amounts of transmutation to make sure the car had as few pieces as possible.

Looking outside brought a lot more examples, bad soldering on pipes, rusted metal surfaces, degraded floors, between many other things she could see failing in the next few months if they weren't maintained or fixed.

"It's cool, I'm glad I have to concentrate to use it, otherwise I would feel the need to fix everything I saw broken." She shuddered. "I can already see it, I would quickly devolve into madness, finding ways to make things fix themselves around me… Actually that's not a bad idea."

"Please, don't go mad on me." Mila joked.

"Don't worry, I promise the Grey Goo won't go into your room." She teased. Soon she leaned back and relaxed, the car driving itself better than any person could let her shift her attention to something else.

Like the hologram currently projected in front of her. Hands working at lightning speeds, prediction software designed for her by her increased the speed of her work. Multiple perks working in perfect harmonization. Line after line of code, not an error in her typing as she made sure to comment everything of importance as she poured all her attention into her work.

Junko spent the time by programming a self-updating, language matrix that should, under perfect circumstances, be able to translate any Earth language in real time. Even dead languages shouldn't give it more than a small delay.

Beside her, Mila enjoyed the time switching between watching movies and taking care of some of their patents and other investments.

The few hours of travel between their home to the convention center was spent calmly, Junko felt a little worried about problems cropping up, but apparently the evil support company wouldn't move just yet.

As the car stopped, Junko was glad to give the last command and let the program compile. It would take it a while, even with the processing power from the complex, to go over every language and create the understanding and translation functions between them. It would especially take a long time in studying the different languages' slangs and idiosyncrasies.

The pair of woman and cat got out of the car and did a quick check-in at their hotel before heading to the convention ground on foot. Junko had stored the car into her Sylladex in a quick moment when she was sure there was no one watching.

"Relax already, nothing will happen out here with so many people around." Mila commented as Junko sighed.

"I know, but I can't stop thinking about it. It doesn't help that one of my perk's more or less telling me that danger's coming."

"We are both technically equipped to withstand hits of tank-sized caliber. I haven't awakened my semblance yet, but I have been practicing with my aura, the variable weapons you made for me really helped on that." Mila spoke calmly as she looked at her friend. "Plus the enchantments on my clothes and the accessories you gave me let me hit like a truck and withstand similar hits, don't worry."

"I think it's more that I can't stop being jittery about it." The woman sighed. "It doesn't help that not only are we aiming to trip the ambush on us while also being the first time we interact with other people in the industry."

"Ha! Junk, they are not in our industry, we don't just do the same they do, we do a lot more." Mila chuckled and Junko had to smile at that. "Some of your technological advances have become popular world-wide, I have had I-island requesting to know if we will be visiting after the new year."

"Hmm, that would be interesting. I wonder what their reaction would be if instead of going there I just invite them all to my moon base?"

"Don't break their minds too hard."

"But Mila," Junk joked by using a very whiny voice. "I wanna show 'em my sweet moon base, and my space base, and my mars base."

"Don't give me that tone, little lady. All you want to do is show off." The felyne joined on the joke.

"And what's wrong with that?" She chuckled. "I'm currently starting to clean the planet and no one has noticed yet. I wonder how long till someone notices Mexico City or Dehli can see the clean sky again."

"People so rarely look up." Her partner commented.

"I know, I can't believe just how much trash's around. I barely started and I have already made more to change the world than all those technology companies put together." Junko huffed.

They soon reached the convention grounds, signing in and retrieving their passes before heading in.

The convention was currently being held in a hall actually owned by the same hotel they were signed in. Tall ceilings, large, open rooms, most of the walls were actually fake, built to specification of each company's stand, larger companies held the privilege of renting more spots.

Some large companies rented multiple spots together to show off, hiring heroes to wear their equipment or even hold spaces for people to try some of their items. Other companies peppered their presence all over the convention's grounds.

"While I admit some of these give me ideas," Junko started, as she walked by Mila. "My latest perk just points out all the faults on some of them, like that."

She pointed to an especially large booth that had a hero with a rock-like skin currently showing a variation of the grapple hook.

"That thing's an accident waiting to happen, it will work to go straight up, but as soon as you swing even a bit the hook part will break and…" Just as she spoke the hero did that, when one of the onlookers moved closer the rock-like man swung to dodge and the metal hook loudly snapped. Sending the poor hero falling on his ass.

Luckily the fall in itself was less than two meters and the largest injury was his pride, and the company's image.

"That will be hard to fix." Mila noted. "It's the first day and people still haven't seen much, I bet everyone will be talking about it tonight."

Junko nodded as she felt her power reach four charges once more. Having her current attention caught by the many companies and the rapidly filling hallways as more and more people joined, she had to give up the notion of paying much attention to them. Instead she did a quick look over only. One perk of twelve charges, the most she had ever seen in a single perk. The other was six charges, the last was just two charges, with no other available option she took it.

"Fffff…" Junko cursed when she understood the new perk she acquired.

"Good stuff?" Mila grinned, using their private line of conversation to be audible even in the populated place.

"Yes," She sighed and ran her hand over her face. "it's good, really good. I can make my creations improve as their owners keep using them. That covers weapons, armor and accessories."

Mila winced at that. "That sounds really strong."

"Yeah, but it's not simple, I mean, it's aimed as a way to restrict the power of unfathomably powerful artifacts for human use. I just get a very solid idea of how I could apply that to other things. That means remaking my armor, my weapon, my accessories, my tools…" Junko pulled a bottle from her pocket and took a long drink before offering Mila who accepted the bottle and drank too. "I will do it for you and for the hero kids too."

"Well, it's not the worst, and I bet it wouldn't make much difference for what's coming."

"Maybe, but I don't doubt that any fight we get would help it grow, if we are lucky they will come tomorrow and I will spend tonight redoing my hammer." She also added in a much lower voice, though still audible for Mila. "And here I wanted to finish the drones."

"Drones? I thought you had those done already."

"Well, yes. But not what I mean." She sent an image of the plans to Mila's HUD. "One of my clones came with the idea, they will be controlled by the growing AI of the building. Basically be there to help and work for me."

The felyna whistled. "They look strong."

"Oh yes, I'm not skipping a thing there, the building will be able to multi-task with a few dozens of them, each one as strong as any hero in the single-digit list."

"Can't wait to see that, just…" The felyne hummed. "I feel like I've seen them before…"

Both of them sat down on a bench as they looked at an image only they could see. An image of a tall, white-bodied biped with a broad neck and large, red-lipped mouths and no visible eyes.

Chapter 50

Chapter Text

Chapter 50

"Well, so far all we've found is that while a lot of companies know of us, most of the people that they send to approach us were terrible at personal relations." Junko groaned as Mila and her had decided to take a break on one of the convention ground's terraces. It worked to hide for a few minutes as most people outside with them were looking to just smoke or make a call.

"I feel so dirty, why did they send their most slimy, unscrupulous, misogynistic men." The felyne shivered and her fur stood up before she brushed it down. "If it wouldn't have killed him, I would have kicked the asshole that kept insisting that you stop lying and present him the "real" man behind the inventions."

"At least we can rule all of those companies out." Junko did her best to forget about the slimeball that still made her feel dirty, so tempted to give him a first-hand experience on Damage Creator. "Four small companies, half a dozen medium ones and two large ones, half of them work with well known heroes. Of course that last detail doesn't really detract them from the possibility of being our mysterious support company, but it would be too rough of an approach if they were the ones."

"I think the guilty party hasn't approached us yet." Mila commented as the pair headed back into the hall. In the last few hours they had walked less than half the small booths, had meetings with representatives from other companies that had recognized them and approached for talking.

They had stopped about an hour ago for a light lunch as Junko had kept a level of awareness on the place, but had failed to pick up anything besides one or two accidents like they had seen just after the start of the day.

"Look, it's Detnerat's booth." Mila pointed and Junko's eyes followed the line the felyne made with her paw.

It definitely was the largest booth she had seen so far, while most small and medium companies had rented booths with sizes between eight and twenty square meters. Detnerat appeared to have rented something closer to two hundred if not more.

They had various open spots, not only showing off some of their usual specialized products for everyday use, but also some of their new hero support equipment.

"Think it could be them?" Mila asked.

"Maybe, but I won't be throwing suspicion just yet."

The pair took their time checking out some of the booths on the way, but soon they stepped into Detnerat's booth. Slowly they looked around, mostly trying to mix with the rest of the people.

"Ah! Junko Tetsu and Mila Smirnov!" A female voice called from behind the pair, making them stop and turn around.

In front of them stood a quite beautiful woman who knew and used it. She was of average height and very feminine figure, her skin was a very pale light blue that made her black sclera and lilac hair stand out more. She wore a red dress that hung lightly from her shoulder, giving a good view of her cleavage and went down to her ankles, hugging her figure and only being covered by a light orange jacket she wore open.

"Hello," Junko smiled, putting on a business face. This was the first woman that had approached them in what was of the day. "well, you seem to know us, but who are you?"

Junko felt another charge complete and felt glad that the three options were out of her reach, something telling her this was not the time to get distracted.

"So rude of me," The woman's tone was almost self-deprecating even as she maintained a smile on her face. "I'm Chitose Kidzuki, I'm here from Shoowaysha Publishing." She offered her hand and Junko shook it with a smile. For a moment she felt a strange tingle that both of them seemed to notice.

"I thought you were an executive director at the firm." Mila asked with a raised eyebrow, breaking the moment for the pair.

"Yes, I still am." She hummed. "But I've always believed the best interviews must be done personally and face to face." She spoke to Mila before turning back to Junko. "And you, Junk, have been the rising start in the support equipment company."

She fought a blush at the intensity of the woman. "I think the only thing rising is the number of times I've been forced somewhere against my choice." She joked a bit darkly.

"Hey, I was the first to put myself down, don't encroach." She joked too. "Miss Tetsu, you and your partner have managed, in just a bit more than half a year, become a nation-wide known company for hero support equipment and your name's started to be heard all over the world given some of the advancements you have released."

"Come on, it can't be that much. I'm sure there are many other technological advances that overshadow mine." Mila nodded to Junko's comment, even while she really didn't think that way, she had seen the numbers.

"I don't believe that." The blue-skinned woman chuckled. "Your first got barely any attention, a revolutionary recycling equipment that could be set up for nearly perfect recovery of the materials put in. Soon after that, patents for alloys that managed to be stronger while being also cheaper and cleaner to manufacture.

"And you didn't even stay in a single field, you produced the medical miracle that are the tri-corders." The woman tapped her fingers as she counted. "At least half a dozen patents came out a month since then. Covering many fields that humanity has nearly forgotten."

"It's as you have said Miss Kizuki." Junko smiled. "Those fields haven't had advances in years, if not decades, it wasn't hard to find forgotten projects and work them out. You say I provide multiple patents a month, but most of those are simply various applications of a single advancement. And even multiple months may just have been the time spent proving and testing them before patenting them."

"So you aren't hiding anything, Miss Tetsu?"

"I'm part of the hero industry, hiding things has always been part of it." Junko grinned smugly. "Obviously I would keep some secrets, especially those behind my success."

"Ha! I like your style. Well, I can see I won't be getting more from you right now, can't deny I would love to make you tell me everything." Junko felt a shiver at the almost insane glint in the woman's black and green eyes. "But there's a lot to do today, maybe your partner will be kind and we can set up a proper interview?"

Junko nodded, turning to Mila who smiled. "Sounds proper." The felyne exchanged cards with the woman who gladly took it and wished them a good day before heading away.

"She's dangerous." Junko commented through their private line.

"Yeah, I would say that there are people that will go mad with truth, I don't think she would really stop if she could get what she wanted."

"Think she's with those behind the attacks?" Mila turned to look at her before looking back to look at a smaller booth.

"Maybe, she could always be just another crazy, the world's filled with them. Some, like her, are just that good that they find success." Junko stopped at one of the booths to talk.

The woman had noticed a big danger in one of the show pieces.

"Hello, excuse me," She tried to draw the attention of one of the booth attendants. "I'm sorry to be a bother…"

"Welcome to Kodai Enterprise, we have the ultimate in Energy Control equipment for heroes of today." The man quickly threw himself into reciting a whole speech about their tech.

"Yes, I'm sorry, but I wanted to note that there's a problem with one of your equipment." She did her best to cut the man.

"Our equipment's of great quality, I would prefer it if you didn't give the people watching a bad idea." The man stated angrily even as Junko's second to last perk let her see multiple failure points in the set of batteries that were quickly overheating to her pyrokinetic senses.

"Please, it's visible how they are overheating quick-"

"Ma'am, I would like to stop trying to defame our-"

"Down, you fool!" Junko, tired of his ignorance, shot him a glare to make him shut his mouth before dragging him down as her hand pulled one of her portable shielding units.

A small, broad item, not far in looks to a claymore mine, designed to always fall standing. One of the completely technological advances of Junko in the last month. It quickly projected a hard-light wall that let everyone see the currently expanding explosion.

In a mix of good and bad, while the explosion didn't spill over to the hallway and hit all the people, it still did go the easiest way. And that was up.

Junko was glad that her aura protected her at all times, especially for her hearing as she could see a bit of blood dripping from the stubborn idiot. She saw her disposable shield finally burn out as it absorbed too much energy and heat from the explosion.

"This is what I was talking about." She spoke firmly and shoved him in the direction of the broken remains on the battery. "I could see it overheating from a dozen meters away, how did you ignore the temperature next to it?! Are you a frog or something?!"

She huffed as the sprinklers above soon activated. Junko flexed her pyrokinesis while the water came down, hiding the fact that the leftover flames were doused quicker than normal.

She gave up on the notion of getting away when she saw security get to the spot. Luckily she felt her power fill another charge and come with three options all costing a single charge each.

She didn't understand the first, it's a minor blessing from a god, but which and what was left unspecified. The second option was a knowledge in modifying and repurposing weapons, armor and other tech. The last option was a source of an exotic material with spirit properties.

She discarded the blessing, it didn't sound useful at all for her, and then she discarded the modify and repurpose perk. With that, she ended taking the third option.

She only got some sparse information about it. It was called Spirit Pyroxene, an amber-like material that existed slightly outside of reality and carried a great ability to increase spirit channeling on items it was used to create.

Junko was glad to have Mila with her, the felyne had developed a silver tongue and used it like the sharpest knife, quickly getting the security camera to prove that Junko was just trying to help and did not tamper with it in any way.

Soon, after the idiot who had been ignoring her help finally admitted that what she said was true, the pair got to walk away. Tired from the event they decided to retire for the day, heading back to the hotel room.

"Never a dull moment with you." Mila joked and Junko groaned.

"Shut up, you. As if I enjoyed having so much attention on me."

"Look at the good part, you did a good thing and we got some great publicity for your shields. And we didn't even have to pay for a booth!" Junko could only groan at that.

"I hope no one notices they are still in the testing phase. The magical and magitech ones work great, but the technological version still burns out so quickly."

"It's okay, I doubt most people would have noticed. I don't think they even noticed you pulled a laptop-sized item from your pocket."

"Hmm, yeah." Junko pulled four floating pylons she placed in each corner of their hotel room, interfacing with them using her Omni-tool and making the room safe to be in.

"Much better." Mila smiled and activated her personal computer. "There's already rumors about your shield device, congratulations." Junko only groaned at that as she deployed a portable door.

"Going to be in the workshop, gotta relax a bit." Her partner gave her an acknowledging nod.

Junko could hear a few laughs from her partner at her expenses, mostly about her intentions of lying low not lasting a day. She did let a snort out when she got into the workshop.

"Okay, let's see, I should remake my armor, and my weapon before I try to finish with the drone body." She pulled one of her clone beads and willed three Junkos to materialize. She gave them a quick, wordless nod and the four of them started moving.

One of the clones headed to the storage area, getting the materials they had already decided to use as the other three headed to the volcanic forge, already setting things up as Junko pulled Damage Creator and her still unnamed armor.

Damage Creator saw a rework that kept the heart of the weapon intact, the war-hammer had been refined to improve its ability to channel aura, and what was aura if the soul's light and with that spirit power. The Junkos worked together, their smithing already reaching the threshold of the divine, not only mixing the spirit pyroxene into the war-hammer's heart, but also improving the weapon's ability to channel aura even further, to a level that it wouldn't be strange to say the war-hammer was just an extension of her soul.

Soon Damage Creator was impressive enough that her artifact perk become available. Four nods and eight hands got to work together.

Normally, it would take a single person over a hundred days to turn an artifact into a usable form with this method. But she wasn't a single person, four bodies working as one, each with abilities bordering on the divine, each one counting as a whole team of smiths and crafters, each one focusing in a single action.

The combined work of four clones drove the once amazing piece into the next level, several hours of work, pushing the clone spell, consuming tons of gold to maintain the growing cost in mana to keep the extra bodies going.

Till they were finished, except... not. Junko finished the work, Collateral Damage breaking through to the next level, but there was something missing.

"T-the Ar-armor." One of the clones managed in a pained voice, Junko thanked their work and let them finally de-materialize.

She breathed in deep and let herself rest after the expenditure before she turned to her armor. Junko headed to one of the rooms she had set in the hangar, a large bathroom she set up for relaxation.

Taking nearly an hour to recover in a bath mixed with more than a few potions she had come up. Mixtures and ointments to help her body, mind and soul recover before getting out, drying and getting some light clothes before recreating the clones.

She had spent the hour in hot water relaxing and mentally designing her new armor. If her understanding of her perk was correct, she would be uniting both pieces into a single divine artifact if she did all correctly.

"We are ready for round two, boss." The clones shot her a confident smile that she returned and got to work.

Chapter 51

Chapter Text

Chapter 51

With Junko and her clones properly refreshed, and there was a joke about quartet singing somewhere there, she got to work on her armor. With the knowledge of the perk she was using, she knew she would be using the armor more as a resource and guideline for Damage Creator's full form.

The piece of light armor went from a pair of rugged boots to protect her feet at the bottom, to a leather coat that covered her arms and back while being designed to not encumber her movement at the top.

Between those pieces, were a pair of pants strengthened with a fine mesh of enchanted metal to prevent cuts, a shirt that hugged her figure enchanted to improve healing and stamina, a chest piece to protect her torso, enchanted gauntlets for better dexterity and finally a newer version of the featureless mask she had used during the Yakuza incident.

And all that was what she had already, and now improved with her clones. Each enchantment was improved, increasing their strength and reach, when healing only worked on cuts, burns and bruises before, it now would set bone and make it whole once more. When before the dexterity increment only affected her hands, it now improved her senses too.

Each piece taken, studied and improved. Her work soon turned much more complex when she got to the mask. Putting safeties against blinding and deafening while also creating a magical link to the Junk Complex' system.

Enchantment done, she put the suit through the armor-shift treatment, giving it the ability to change with her. Doing a quick refresh of her clones before continuing.

Once all that was done, she started to adapt the armor into the last part of Damage Creator, the work going much faster this time around, the experience of working on the war-hammer streamlining the process as each part was modified till a final movement put it all together. The ritual completed as four masters worked as a whole group of experts.

The two pieces of equipment glowed till none of the four clones could look at it. It was quickly over and in front of them rested five copies of the finished product.

"I...I forgot about that." Junko could only snort at forgetting she would end with copies of her creations, at least she didn't end with a larger weapon that would've been much harder to wield.

"We could just recycle them." One of the clones pointed out.

"I don't know, it feels like a waste." Junko bit her lip. "Just store them all." One of the clones nodded and took four of them away.

"Well? Will you use it?" One of the remaining clones asked her.

"OK, here it goes." Junko grabbed Damage Creator, the weapon carrying a weight that wasn't there before. Just under the metallic surface a thrum of power responded to her presence.

The weapon had transcended mortal-level skill, it was definitely past anything humanity in her world had seen, if not outright divine. It was just that the conversion process had grabbed all that power, all that potential and locked it, locked it behind millions of locks, each one restraining her power more and more. Over three hundred million steps to release its full power.

And it wasn't like that restrain lowered its power, each minute of use, each experience lived with its user would do two things. It would work to release the next lock on the weapon's power and utilize all that power to refine the item to fit her more and more.

She understood that the original idea behind the process was to make artifacts of great power, items almost alien to the people who found them, into workable pieces. But Damage Creator wasn't like that, she had received it as the perfect piece for her soul and she had only worked on from there.

" Damage Creator ." She whispered and the weapon unfolded in ways that gave her more ideas. Dimensions she never thought about using before, some only reachable by magic, other just by technology.

The almost modest war-hammer expanded, once polished metal surface growing silver with rust-red accents, the same color of her soul and the energy released during her transmutation. It expanded all over her body, soaking in. Turning her clothes into the full armor set, the mask covering her face, hiding all of her features but giving her an even larger field of vision.

"...Whoa." One of the clones commented. "Okay, I think that we can put you down as a magical girl badass now."

One of the other clones snorted. "Well, you have magic, it came from somewhere, you got a magical talking animal as a partner…"

The sound of her reinforced gloves hitting her face came from Junko. "With that out of the way, this is amazing." She twisted around, her armor wasn't the same as before, the armored plates now extended to other parts than just her chest, the design streamlined in a way that denoted the power behind her while also having that almost rusted metal theme while not appearing abandoned.

"This will be hard to get used to." She swung the hammer around, the simple air pressure sending the three clones flying. "Whoops, sorry not sorry."

"Congrats Junko, you are now in top tier-hero material." One of the clones commented as another pulled a series of spheres from her inventory.

"Brought these to try." She activated the orbs that quickly floated up and moved in perfect coordination. Junko's field of vision expanded more, utilizing the orb-drones to form a larger image of the world around her.

"Okay, I can see behind things, see temperature, magnetic fields, and a lot of other details. That's another thing I will also have to get used to." She hummed. "I wish I could take this to a ride, but I haven't created a good place to withstand All Might levels of destructive force."

"Well, there's a good place for that…" One of the clones grinned. "I mean, you can always go to the moon, by now you shouldn't feel much bother by the void of space."

"That's bloody brilliant." Junko grinned, Damage Creator responding to her mood and almost lighting up. "Can one of you go get the teleport room? I bet I could use it in the hotel room without people noticing."

Before leaving Junko felt her power reach five charges, power swelling inside of her, strangely, the options that came felt slightly muddled. Was Damage Creator affecting her connection to the Celestial Forge?

The first option was seven charges, offering her a collection of 'minor' magical abilities, each of great potential. The next one was four charges, it would make any weapon she made almost incapable of breaking, jamming or not working.

The last was interesting, she was sure she had seen it before, but right now it had a strange allure, it was two, tiny half-charge perks bundled under the cost of one. One part would keep her at the head of fashion wherever she was, the other would give her the ability to temporarily ignore bodily functions.

With five charges, there was really only one thing she could do, she took the half-charge option for staying at the lead of Fashion, it's pretty interesting, it was a sixth sense, or more like eleventh for her, about the local fashion, what was in, what was out and how to guide the next big fad.

The clone nodded, heading into the storage. Meanwhile Junko headed out, looking at Mila once she stepped out of the portable door.

"Hey-" Mila looked up when Junko came out. The young woman was still being followed by the two dozen orb-drones, feeding her the information of the total surprise from the partner. "What. The. Hell?"

"You like it? Going to take it for a ride." she grinned behind the featureless mask, one of the clones coming behind her and deploying a compact version of the teleport room.

"Junko, I… I hope mine will be as cool at that, hopefully."

"It will be easier once I make yours, I did a lot of guessing in some parts of this." She showed off "I will be taking a break in space to take it for a ride, I don't think Earth's up to the standards of the power I'm carrying right now."

"Please, don't leave the moon waning." The felyne grinned.

"Don't worry, I know you like to bark to the full moon." She laughed as she stepped into the teleport room and was transported into her developing space station.

The first step was the weirdest, because when Junko lowered her feet to catch her fall, she found herself falling back instead. Or more like sliding on her center of mass.

Swiftly her hand shot to a side to grab one of the handholds she had put in the walls. Thanking the foresight when designing, Junko dragged herself out of the room and looked around.

She was thousands of miles away from where she was moments before, surrounded only by her space station and a few of the drones that stopped to deposit their loads from time to time. She pushed a bit, igniting four thrust sources on her back, basically magical repulsor enchantments designed from the long-jump technology from one of her space suits. She willed it harder and flew off the space station.

She floated in complete zero-g for a few minutes, simply basking in the sensation of detachment from everything. Even as the orb-drones maintained formation around her, she simply let herself go and float in space, sometimes facing the Moon, shining in all its glory from the light coming from the sun. Sometimes facing the Earth, the jewel of life she would work hard to keep together and safe.

"Okay, enough woolgathering." She cracked her neck and the rest of her articulations followed.

She opened her palm and her weapon flew off from her back to land on her hand. "First Shot." She pulled the trigger, but not as much with her finger, the trigger was just another action of her will.

Her shotgun chambered the first round, not really carrying actual Dust, either in powdered or crystal form. But the concept of the highly energetic material. She started with Fire. And in front of Junko a literal ball of fire that burned in the void of space shot out, flying true like a comet.

With nothing to catch it, nothing to impact with, it just flew true. Soon nothing more than a prick of light in the distance, just another star in the background of space before it burned out.

She chambered and shot again, and again, and again. Each time the gun barked silently in the void of space. Wind was like a maelstrom of forces, moving in directions and with enough strength to tear anything that ended inside into small pieces.

Ice was a huge concentration of cold energy that burned out like the fire shot when nothing interposed in its path.

Electricity, a glowing star that seemed to zap around, trying to find anything to latch on and discharge.

Earth, Gravity, Magma, or even just pure Force, the elements just kept coming, built upon the idea of mixing dust into something more. Feeding on Junko's knowledge and imagination to create destruction at her will and thought.

The shotgun shifted back into the hammer. It felt heavier in her hands than before. Even in the void of space each swing was a wave of destruction. She turned back to her Space station and stepped inside, this time falling down, but not as fast as it would on Earth. Instead she was in the Moon.

She gave a few trying jumps and looked around. She was currently on the deemed 'Dark side of the Moon', she stood in her developing moon station, project Moon Pool, and all was proceeding successfully. The Shielding for the rooms had been tested to set up standards and now she would need to start proper building with areas that would support actual, living humans.

And not whatever category she fell under. She stepped out of the station grounds before willing herself to fly a few kilometers and make sure to keep facing away from the station and keep any collateral damage to a minimum if it happened.

She tried again, shooting each elemental round, the results much more impressive as she quickly remodeled the area in front of her. She shifted the shotgun into a hammer and proceeded to run one of the katas Ulthane had taught her.

The ground shook and quaked at her feet, each swing, each hit, each slam. She would have to do some deeper scans to make sure she didn't end leaving failures on future building sites.

She felt a new charge of her power and quickly clicked on the second part of the half charge, this way, the next selection would, hopefully, have a six charge option.

She let out a heavy sigh as she finished, feeling herself start to tire. Activating her flying once more she rushed back to the station, taking the transportation back to the space station and back to earth after making sure there was no moon dust on her.

"Looks like you had fun." Mila welcomed her back.

Junko gave a nod and released the transformed form, her clothing going back to normal and Damage Creator went back to its restrained form.

"Yeah, the moon's lovely at this time of the year." Her comment made the Felyne snort.

"You will be doing the same for my weapon?" She asked.

"If not the whole thing, I'm pretty sure I could at least give it the evolving aspect."

"Well, you will like to know there's been a lot of going around after your actions at the con." The Felyne grinned.

"Blegh, I had forgotten about that. Why do you spoil my mood like that?"

"Don't worry, It's most if not all good things. A lot of people like the idea of having easily deployable shields." She showed her partner some of the collected information. "It was pretty interesting to see how they calculated the amount of force absorbed by the shield by going through the explosion frame by frame."

"I know that type, there're a few in my class during high school. I won't say it's not impressive, but can you imagine them actually working with that kind of knowledge to improve the world?" Junko sounded a little frustrated.

"Come on, it's not all bad, I'm pretty sure a few of them only did this during downtime at their works in some labs and similar." Mila tried to calm her. "Their post history points to most of them being quite the professionals."

"Okay, okay, I will drop it." She dropped herself back on the bed and relaxed. "Any news of strange sightings in the sky? Or anything about the moon?"

"Eh? Let me check." Her partner quickly got busy as Junko closed her eyes for a bit. She wasn't really tired and she definitely didn't need the sleep, it didn't matter she couldn't enjoy a few minutes of just not caring.

"Nothing in particular, a few mentions of strange comets, but no one managed to get anything on them even as most mention they saw them follow the same trajectory before disappearing."

Junko couldn't stop herself and just laughed. "Well, I'm certainly guilty of that. I wonder if I should go up there and do that from time to time to make people wonder and try to catch me?" The dry glare from the felyne told her it was an awesome idea.

Chapter 52

Chapter Text

Chapter 52

"Come on, I was joking." Junko groaned as she looked at her partner.

"No! Stay there for five more minutes." The Felyne stood on the bed to look down at her. Sitting in seiza wasn't even a bother for Junko, it was mostly keeping her in place for so long when she wanted to return to the workshop. "Repeat after me, I won't make people want to investigate what I'm doing."

"I won't make people investigate what I'm doing." Junko repeated in an even tone.

"Good, now, a couple more minutes and you can go. So don't make me act like your mother, Junko." The woman stuck her tongue out at her partner when the latter turned around, a perfect show of her maturity.

A few minutes were spent in silence as Mila headed to sleep before Junko headed back to the workshop, checking the development done by her clones after she left. She was glad to see the white bodies almost finished.

The white, almost featureless bodies, synthetic figures mirroring more biological systems. Designed with the peak of what she could do. Strangely, the clones had done away with the idea of creating animal or non-human types. Only creating two, a masculine and a feminine body.

Both about a meter and eighty centimeters tall, the male barely a centimeter above the female. Her figure was slightly sleeker, Junko's design skill letting her communicate the body's gender with minute differences, just a bit more curvy or a bit stockier, and one body would read as male for everyone, and the other as female.

White bodies with black details, the only colors on them were the red on their expressive lips and an orange triangle between their throat and their shoulders. Their heads were almost lizard-like, connected to the rest of their bodies by broad necks that extended to their shoulders. She had ended not giving them visible eyes, utilizing systems similar to those in her mask to observe the world around.

They were still not complete, they were just bodies, no systems installed, no AI to drive them. That would come with time. She casted the spell and three clones nodded to her before moving.

While they worked, Junko started with something that she had almost ignored till now. She started programming a set of cyber-warfare programs. She would need a way to deal with technology, and her knowledge had more than enough tools she, her VI or her AI could use.

A handful of programs, from algorithms complex enough to erase her presence from recordings to simple tools she could adapt to spells and force a total blackout in the area with a flex of mana. She's impressed as one of the clones had finished what she was doing and instead of starting something, joined her in the process, second guessing her choices, giving her new ideas while discarding some others, giving her a different point of view.

She felt something shake her body and forced her to take a deep breath. Noticing the clones stopping what they were doing. "Okay girls, it's showtime, you should finish quickly what you are doing, a big one's coming."

She got three nods before the clones simply ended themselves when she felt the charge reach the threshold, six charges, three options. She looked at them, two of them were six charges, but the last just two.

The first was a collection of knowledge of a future version of humanity, it tasted like technology and war, strange hints mixed in it. It was the most advanced perk she had seen this far.

The second perk was really strong, it appeared to be another type of alchemy, giving her the ability to take the materials and turn them into wondrous things.

For two charges, the last option, she would get the knowledge on designing and creating 'holy' power armor, of course, there was more than she could see.

She had chosen to take a six charges perk, so she quickly discarded the last option, the alchemy one looked interesting, looking at it better while she could tell that with time and experience she could create weapons and armor capable of dealing with concepts.

She looked back at the first option and she was surprised.

It had changed.

It was similar, but instead of humanity, now there was another species. A completely alien race, pardon the pun. Now the perk showed marvels of technology and psychic energy, even more advanced creations, but long stanganted.

There's no real choice here. The Celestial Forge, or something else, had changed her perk and offered her something even bigger. She took it.

The next moment she's looking over a green planet, for a moment she thought to be looking over earth, but it was wrong. Instead a memory not of her own came. This was another planet, in another universe, in another galaxy, in another time.

This was Aiur, home planet of the Protoss. She watched as her position zoomed into the world. A beautiful world of blue seas, green and lush forests and jungles, mountains, rivers, clouds and storms. Another jewel. She felt like she loved it as much as she did Earth.

She watched the Protoss, a race of psychically active beings. They weren't that far from humans, two legs, two arms, two eyes, but there were as many differences.

They had no mouths, because they fed on water, air and sunlight, their skin went from blue to purple. They stood between two and three meters in height, digitigrade legs and instead of hair they had braided nerve cords, making each of them connected to something greater. A species-wide mental link, one that connected them over large distances, a connection they called the Khala.

She watched, she watched how such psychically strong species went from strife to order, giving their gestalt form, and from the order progress was born. They moved as one, developed as one, each one pushing for the greatness of the species.

Cities of gold and beauty, developing technology that let them spread through the stars. She watched and learned, skills developed from master to student, and then to greater groups, their version of universities and colleges. An empire.

But with time came problems, factions, those who cut themselves from the Khala, developing their own culture. Those whose minds were turned to machines, abused or forgotten most of the time. Those who followed a false god and brought chaos and death.

She watched war on levels she didn't imagine possible. Alliances between old enemies, great power came from unity. She saw other races, she saw the humans, and she understood she would originally have gotten their technology. She saw the Zerg, and something roiled inside of her, flesh and blood that imitated machines, beasts capable of great destruction and the twisting of all life.

She had a peek at those who set things up. Beings that came before, beings that could be called gods, eternal and incredibly powerful. But in their eternity, in their power festered corruption between their numbers.

She watched the alliance of lower species stand up and defeat the so-called god.

And at the next moment she was back in her workshop. Taking a deep breath and checking her omni-tool. It hadn't been a second, and she had watched the life history of a whole species and more. She could see things continued after she left her trip. But she now carried their memory.

" En aru'din Aiur. " The words didn't come as much from her mouth as her mind, a prayer on the memory of the Protoss, something she would carry from now on. "Okay, that was definitely a lot more than I thought."

She created the clones, and now felt them.

"Maybe you should have waited five more minutes," One of the clones said. "I think this one changed things a bit more than before."

"Yeah, I feel you all like I didn't think I could before."

"You should go check the storage, I bet there are more goodies." One grinned.

In the storage area there were definitely a few things waiting for them. Her new knowledge quickly fed her all she needed to know about them.

In front of them were waiting six probes, and Junko had to admit they were quite cute and expressive for what they were. The six of them were identical, peering up to her as they recognized her as their leader, six single-eyed probes of gold metal and red-rust accents, floating under their own power, the six chirped in acknowledgment. These little fellas would be her hands to build most, if not all, the structures she had learned about.

There's also three pylons, floating crystals that channeled psychic power through the network, coordinating her units with a galaxy-wide reach, Junko had to boggle at the sheer magnitude she could work now. The pylons were decorated with rings of the same golden metal and rust-red accents.

There were also two metal rings that her power provided as infinite sources of Minerals and Vespene Gas, the basic resources all her new technology was based on. Apparently she could use it here or deploy it to the world. Both materials were incredibly versatile, she was glad her power had provided them. Apparently the Minerals grew with time, she would have to seed Mars with them and the Gas was an incredibly efficient fuel that made a lot of technology capable of great things.

Junko felt her power reach a charge, but none of the options were in her reach and she had much more important things to do.

"We got power armor!" One of the clones celebrated as she apparently had left for the Lockers room and come back in a very snazzy golden and red armor with a design similar to the rest of her new tech.

"Okay, that's really sweet." One of the clones commented and moved closer.

"And look." The power-armor wearing clone raised her arm and a blade of psychic energy glowing blade quickly dismissed the approaching clone. "Whoops."

Junko had to turn and quickly appease the drones who were surprised by the accident. Explaining to them that nothing bad had really happened.

"Okay, surprises aside, I will have to send one of these pylons to the Moon, and another to Mars. That shouldn't be too hard." Junko thought out loud. "If you have the resources you could start the building of a Nexus?" She asked the drones who cheerfully, and very eagerly, nodded with their whole bodies.

One of them approached her as it separated from the squad, chirping at her eagerly.

"So I should send one of you, and you will deploy the pylon over there?" The probe chirped affirmatively. "Okay, that will be easier to set. I already have a few spots I had listed to set up my Mars base. The rest of you, I will need you to harvest some of the minerals so I can duplicate enough that you can start the building of the nexus once our intrepid Probe gets there." The five remaining chirped and quickly got to work.

The Mineral source activated and large crystal formations grew out of it. The Probes getting to work as one of the clones went to grab the drone she had created for her Mars Mission originally.

She activated Damage Creator and stepped into the teleport room, followed by the probe as they stepped into the Moon. Junko internally groaned as she thought how inefficient her teleport network was when her new knowledge gave her the understanding of how to teleport whole buildings across solar systems at minimum.

She watched the probe look at the ship and turn to her, she was pretty sure the probes' AI shouldn't be so sassy, but she had no problem with it. Most likely they were reflecting some of her thoughts at her. The probe latched onto the ship and she sent it flying, it would take a few hours at a reasonable speed given she wasn't sure the probe would keep a hold under greater speeds.

After that she headed back, making sure she didn't wake up Mila before stepping back into the workshop after releasing Damage Creator. She had been surprised to note the 3D movements-slash-flying system had improved since the first use, the weapon already evolving. Or more like refining what she had put in it into a more workable form.

She returned to the workshop, finding the two clones working to quickly duplicate enough harvested minerals for the probes to start the construction once it's time.

"Any news?" She asked.

"We are pretty sure that the last perk has led us to develop psychic powers. Or maybe it's better to say it's quickened their development."

"How did you figure it out?" She asked, curious about the matter.

"First, the probe seems to be always at the ready for our needs, knowing what we want them to do."

"Yeah, I saw that, the fella I sent to mars was acting really sassy at me when I was thinking how bad my tech looked to me after this last perk."

The other clone nodded. "We also have started to feel each other's thoughts too, I imagine you will too and become easier the more time we spend under the pylons' effect."

"Then another thing to train with…" Junko sighed and tried to think really hard, whatever that really meant, and was quickly surprised as one of the probes chirped at her. "Well, looks like I can call one." She reached down and pet the probe, it was like a very eager puppy.

And right now, under her touch, she could feel it, the mind really basic, no real emotions, just loyalty for her. These six probes were special, even broken they would come back, they would be always at top quality, same as the three pylons and her power armor.

She decided she could take a few minutes to think, walking over to the couch one of the clones had constructed at some time or another. She dropped herself on it, the supernatural comfort hugging her body as she let out a content sigh and just let herself relax.

She went over her plans, this would cut her plans for Mars by a few months to just a day or two, with the six probes working together she would have the nexus done before noon. An actual, livable base in another planet, all the knowledge had thrown all her projects out of the window, the shielding system she had taken time to develop and test wasn't bad, but it paled in comparison with the plasma shielding.

She would have to work in adapting both systems together, set up a middle ground and see how to weave her white body drones into her new knowledge of robotic units and AI. She had been thinking about construction drones, and with the probes that was done, the knowledge of such a space-faring empire was in her head, awaiting her to bring it out.

"I almost feel bad for them now." She chuckled, thinking about the mysterious support company's actions. She wasn't sure what they expected of her, but if they took too long, she would quickly reach the level of having armadas capable of glassing planets.

And that… that terrified her. But that was the kind of knowledge that was part of any species with the reach of the Protoss.

Chapter 53

Chapter Text

Chapter 53

Junko felt a new charge about the time the six probes started their work in Mars' nexus. By now she had deployed a pylon on the moon and another on the red planet, the last one was still in the warehouse, luckily, this transportation system worked from inside the pocket dimension as her clones worked to send minerals through the network to continue the construction.

Between the given options, the only available for her were a single charge scanner perk and a two charges magitech engine. She went for the single charge, not being too interested in the other. The new perk was interesting, apparently building upon her omni-tool, she would be studying it later. Given its capabilities to scan whole planets and life forms she may be able to add it to her Protoss tech.

She had spent the last hour mentally going over all the new tech, and there wasn't much to improve, even with all her knowledge, the Protoss were an old species, they had already reached a plateau in their development. They had only started to advance again after meeting the humans, or Terrans as they called them, and the Zerg.

What she could do was add magic. Not that the Protoss' psychic technology wasn't nearly the same. She would need to improve the probes to channel magic energies for the construction of magitech buildings. But she could already see ways to do that. To start she would be adding Mantic Cores to the buildings, and finding if she could combine one with a pylon.

She re-casted the clone spell as she felt the previous one's duration ended.

"Uh… I kinda feel the previous clones are still there." One of them commented.

"Now, that's interesting." Junko rubbed her chin, trying to feel for them with own mind. And it was true, strangely, she could feel them better if she tried to reach for the new clones first.

"I think we're forming a Khala of ourselves." One of the clones added as she closed her eyes to concentrate. "It doesn't feel like we are strong enough yet, they are mere shadows, once we grow stronger we'll leave more solid minds behind."

"We'll have to make a choice then," The clones turned to her, still young enough their minds were copies of hers. "Do we end with countless copies of us? Or do we aim to synchronize?"

"Both sides have interesting pros and cons."

"If we take the first option, we will most likely end not needing the AI's, or have very basic versions of them for taking care of less important subjects."

"If we synchronize, we'll have to develop our ability to multitask and most likely we will develop many AIs to delegate much harder."

Junko watched the clones voice out her thoughts.

"But if we end with a multitude of Junks, we will have to find ways to keep them occupied." Junko was suddenly reminded of Mila's teasing her about not being able to stay still.

"But if we synchronize we lose that bit of extra. I mean, it's hard to balance the choices."

"Honestly, I think that some clone iterations may decide to stay around, and we can always send them out into the galaxy," Junko's smile turned into a grin. "Beware aliens, here comes Junk"

The four of them broke out in laughter as they felt the probes finish their work on the nexus, the building had developed a weight in the network during its construction that only now seemed to solidify.

"Well, it's still quite early," She said after doing a check for the time. "I think we could set up a few things on Mars before leaving for the second day of convention."

The clones nodded and the four of them made way to the pylon still floating in the storage room. Junko had to pin down the ideas that would have her spend weeks, if not months, hiding inside her warehouse, working to hybridize the Protoss technology with magic.

They disappeared from the warehouse and appeared inside the Nexus. The building was as beautiful as her memories had shown, design and efficiency married into a marvel of architecture. The psychic power of the network thrumming in every wall, floor and ceiling.

From all versions of this building she knew about, this was one of the smallest that still held the mineral and gas processing infrastructure and the probe manufacture line. It still was about four hundred meters to each side and about two thirds as tall, pyramid.

The nexus was currently situated on the area denoted as the Daedalia Planum, if her idea of turning the red planet green and blue worked, the zone should be high enough to remain above water.

Junko looked at the three clones getting accosted by the half a dozen probes that chirped at them, almost like eager puppies wanting to be praised. She smiled and activated Damage Creator before leaving the nexus to deploy the sources of Vespene Gas and Minerals.

She felt one of the clones order the probes to start the process of harvesting the minerals, reserving about five per-cent for sowing across mars. For now they would harvest minerals and produce probes till they reached twenty in total. From there they would proceed to build an assimilator over the gas source.

With an economy going the subsequent probes would start the creation of a pylon network over the planet while scattering the reserved mineral samples in some of the places she had listed for bases previously.

It would do for now, the completion of the pylon network over the planet would take weeks unless she wanted to rush the construction of the buildings needed to reach the creation of the so-called air units.

She had no rush, and maybe she should see about heading back to earth. "You guys staying here for now?" She asked the clones.

"Yeah, we want to explore the building, our memories give us an idea, but it's nothing compared to actually visiting the place."

"Okay, have a good time, and leave notes before disappearing." She nodded to them before the Nexus transported her back to the pylon resting in the warehouse.

As she stepped out of the warehouse, closed the door and stored the door in her Sylladex she felt her power reach another charge. Since only one option was in her budget, she took it quickly as she saw Mila stirring up from her sleep.

She blinked and groaned, the perk was a dud, apparently it was another version of the transmog, just a little better, it didn't need to sacrifice one of the two pieces of clothing. She mentally huffed and headed into the bathroom, taking a good shower and cleaning up before Mila took the installations.

Junko reopened the warehouse to prepare a breakfast for two of them while Mila cleaned herself. The pair eating in silence, Junko feeling smug as Mila did her best to not be the curious cat and ask what she had gotten during the night.

Finally the Lycan groaned and gave up. "Okay, I have to ask, what did you get into?" She glared at her partner.

"Well… to start I got another six charges perk." Mila's eyebrows rose at the comment. "And it wasn't like the first time, it hit me like a truck, I got the experience of watching an alien race grow from tribes to an empire covering a galaxy and beyond.

"And there's a lot there, and by that I mean I have gotten more than just their technology." Junko took a good sip of water and breathed deeply. "I've been learning their language bit by bit. At first I only knew some phrases, it's slowly developing more as another part of the perk came into play. It made me a psychic, or at least improved what I already had.

"It also provided me with a start-your-own-space-empire kit, six robotic probes to construct most of the buildings, samples of the resources their species used. I have them working on Mars already. I'm not going to do much with it, yet. I want to redesign all the technology to adapt magic and some other things into it."

"Goddammit, Junk! I went to sleep and I woke up to you with plans to conquer the galaxy!" Mila sounded confused as she tried to sound angry and laugh at the same time.

"Hey, I'm doing with what I'm given."

"Don't you dare give me that excuse, I can almost feel you chose it over something else." Mila groaned as she saw her partner blush. "See!"

"Come on, it's not that bad. I still need to do a lot of work if I even wanted to take over the galaxy, at most I will fortify our system and send a few unmanned missions to explore the near systems, just in case aliens are actually around."

"Junk! Did this perk affect your mind?" Mila asked, actually concerned for a moment.

"Yes...no...kinda? At least not directly… but what I watched… it was a lot, and I mean a lot, I saw a race barely after they were born as such, saw them grow, develop, expand, I saw them meeting other alien races, humans between them. I saw great wars between them, alliances and other dangers. And I can't ignore that there could be danger out there."

"Do you really think we will be attacked?"

"Not really, even our oldest radio waves have barely reached a distance of about ten to fifteen hundred light years, and that's tiny. So I doubt they will really notice us unless they went out looking for us, and then, again, that would still be less likely than if they just stumbled close enough to sense us."

"Okay, that's a relief."

"Doesn't mean I won't be sending feelers out. It costs me literally nothing. But it will still take a while before I can build starships capable of making those trips in efficient times. I will also not tempt fate, so I'll work on setting up installations on every planet of our solar system and a few stations in the asteroid belt and the outer ring."

Mila just facepawed. "Okay, let's forget about it for now, I think we should get going."

"I wonder if they will try today, I heard there's going to be a large number of shows by some of the larger companies."

"Think they will try something?"

"I...I actually don't think they will try anything overtly, but I would bet them trying to approach us, no idea for what… maybe try to judge our worth?"

She shrugged and both of them left their hotel room, already storing their belongings and doing the check out at the lobby before heading to the convention grounds.

Junko couldn't stop herself from peering from the corner of her eyes, almost missing the small level of omniscience that her drones during her transformed form gave her.

"Calm down already," Mila gently tapped her arm. "come on, Junko, looks like the first company will start their show."

The woman nodded and the pair walked up to the stands, going a bit farther and higher than most people. Aura had improved their eye-sight enough that they didn't have any problem with the distance.

"Uh… well, some of those are not bad." Junko thought out loud as she watched the companies show their new developments one after another. "I'm pretty sure that last flying gadget was using our patent for the new battery design."

"Let me check." Mila pulled out a pamphlet and checked the company. "I think you're right, I remember them in the list of companies that had looked into them."

"Good for them. It would be interesting to see if their design for the wings along with the propulsion system in the previous company could lead to better airplanes. Some of the longer lasting battery packs we have patented could lead to actual electrical passenger flights."

As Junko watched the companies listed for the morning pass she felt another charge fill her in well of power. Three options became available, one was six charges, meaning outside of her reach, she peeked at it, apparently having to do with psychic powers. She would definitely have liked to get it given some of her latest knowledge. But it would have to do another time.

The other two perks were a charge each. The first would let her improve any weapon she wielded over time as long as she infused some of her energy into the weapon. The other perk would add to her ability to identify the composition of anything she wanted.

She was okay with her understanding of the composition of materials. So she chose the first option. It was an interesting ability, a mix of the knowledge of how to imbue her aura into a weapon, something she already knew how to do. But it also gave her aura an extra quality, it would slowly accumulate into the weapon, improving it over time.

She was a bit bothered that it would only affect her energy, but her evolving perk covered that for everyone else.

"Ah! Junko Tetsu," The new voice broke her train of thought and bothered her. She had been hoping to not be approached. "I would have liked to approach you yesterday, but apparently you left before I could make time in my agenda."

Junko took a breath, quickly changing the gears in her mind, facing the man. He was of average height, a very angular face topped by a receding orange hair. He spotted an immaculate black and white suit that hugged his lithe body and accentuated it more.

"Rikiya Yotsubashi." She smiled kindly even as the man instantly rubbed her the wrong way. "A pleasure, I didn't believe that I had earned the attention of the Detnerat Company CEO's attention."

"Oh, I had heard you preferred to keep to yourself, but didn't know you were shy too." The man kept a good-natured tone and a gentle smile on his face. "Please miss Tetsu, you have in a way traveled the road opposite to what I have done.

"I started my company to help people with difficult quirks live comfortably in the world today, and only recently I've decided to move into the super hero business.

"You, on the other hand, started equipping heroes and moved to greater scientific developments."

"Since you have found me and want to talk, then please sit down. I feel ashamed to be sitting down while a man of your stature stands by my side." Mila stood up and gently excused herself for business reasons. Junko saw a silent message from her about moving away from the blast zone.

"Thank you." The man took the spot a chair away from Junko to keep a bit of a distance, something that made her mentally thank him. "Ah, it's my company's turn to show, I would like to get your opinion on some of the gear we have developed."

Chapter 54

Chapter Text

Chapter 54

A young woman and an older man watched silently as men and women dressed in funny and eye-catching costumes showed marvelous pieces of technology. The already sparsely occupied seats in their vicinity were quickly evacuated by their patrons as they subconsciously felt the need to be somewhere else, leaving the pair alone by a large margin.

The silence hanged in place, none daring to utter the first word as only the distant voices filling the background.

The man grunted as the woman saw him fight to keep the gentle smile on his face with the corner of her eye. This made the young woman smirk lightly as she leaned back, watching technology that for her was yesterday's news, at most.

As the people working under the man's leadership walked to the center of the field the man smirked. The woman's gaze sharpening, not as much as impressed, as curious in their making.

The first man stood proud, wearing light blue and green colors on his costume as he started by showing how his arms could stretch and return to normal, albeit in an uncontrolled manner. He showed a pair of bracers that let him control the flight of his hands.

He proceeded to fling himself through a complicated obstacle course with just the use of the equipment and his quirk. The young woman was not impressed, having seen someone else do something similar with just athletic ability and no quirk to help them.

The man by her noticed it and frowned.

The next was a woman wearing a light blue and white colored costume. She started by showing off her quirk, it apparently let her create life-like constructs out of air, almost literally breathing in life. She had to admit the quirk was interesting, the constructs showed either a good intelligence driving them or an ability to follow their creator's orders quite well.

While versatile, the constructs didn't show to be long lasting and incapable of really affecting solid objects well. She then showed off her piece of support equipment, she pulled a set of compacted items, showing off one by one how they expanded into lightwell, hollow birds.

The woman breathed life into them by filling them with her constructs, the building of the birds apparently capable of holding them safely, bestowing the air constructs with greater strength and resistance to prevent their instant dispel when hit.

The woman had to admit this one was better than the previous, it had turned an interesting quirk into a very useful quirk, she wondered how they had managed to keep the constructs going inside the shells, how expensive each really was. And how much better would it be if she used wind dust-alloyed metal for the construction of the shells, would the woman be able to breathe life into them directly.

The man grinned when he noticed the young woman's interest. Then the next man walked in and the woman's eyes sharpened enough they would cut as any sword.

The man stood proud, broad chest and shoulder, strong jaw, a mask that covered the top half of his face leaving only his eyes visible. He entered the showing grounds by literally sliding along the ground without moving a muscle.

The older man's eyes opened large and his healthy skin tone paled down to white as his head quickly whipped to a side, looking at the woman who was now glaring at him.

"Is something wrong?" Junko asked. "From here it looks like your subordinate's not having any problems… or is there something else?"

Junko felt her power come up and she quickly willed it to take the cheapest option available, her power tried to tell her something about an addition to her warehouse garage, but she ignored it for now.

"Eh..ah… n-no, don't worry," The man tugged on the collar of his dress shirt. "I'm just wondering what happened that they had to replace the person that would have shown off this next part."

The woman nodded. "I hope that person's okay then." She turned back to the presentation. "You know… It's interesting that he works for you…"

The man's color quickly dipped again after returning a bit with her comment. "Slidin'go has been a model hero for our company."

"That's great to hear, do you think you could set up a meeting?" Rikiya started to smile at her comment before she continued talking. "I never thanked him for coming to help during my first kidnapping attempt."

"I-I think I remember hearing about that…" The man licked his lips, feeling his mouth dry. "Terrible thing, to think those people from Human First did that."

"Oh~" Junko's mouth formed a smile. "I would imagine a man of your caliber likes to be informed," The sound on the background was almost muted, a line of sweat running down the side of Rikiya's face. "but I don't remember ever saying they were the ones that kidnapped me. Actually, there was never a mention of my connection to that incident."

"W-well, it's like you said, I need to stay informed. Also, Slidin'go saw you there-" A hot weight fell on Rikiya when he realized his misstep.

"Talking about that," She cut him off before he could speak more. "What was he doing there exactly?

"My partner had gotten in contact with Eraser Head, and a bit of luck and police work did lead him to getting there quickly. But Slidin'Go was there before even the police…

"Almost. Like. He. Knew. About. It."

Junko turned to the man, noticing how he appeared to have developed a nervous tick on his face.

"Tell me, Rikiya, why are you so stressed?"

"I don't know what you mean…"

"You came here wanting to talk, so talk. How about you start what's the relation between you, Slidin'go and the kidnapping by Human First. I wonder, is it the first time that happened?

"Tell me, if you don't want to answer that, what caught your attention about me?"

Rikiya had to chew on his words for a few seconds, getting his mouth wet enough to speak. "Well, it was your work with Met-…Quirks, obviously."

"Ah, it always comes back to that." Junko grinned. "It's not about the advances in technology. It's about Quirks. When was the last time a human stepped on the Moon? How long till Humanity can walk on Mars?" She internally grinned, as unknown to the world at large, the answer to both questions was 'This morning'. "Our society has turned quirks into a worship factor."

"Of course they are, they are the future of humanity. Society won't improve under current norms, the idea that people need permits to use Superpowers is the greatest problem-"

"Is it?" Junko asked. "I asked you about the moon. When was the last time a scientist was interested in going to space? What's humanity's currently largest center for technology development?"

"I-Island, obviously, what do you mean about that?"

"I-Island, an artificial island designed and funded by a multitude of companies that shared a similar quality." She looked at the man who looked almost sickly by now. "They're all involved in the Pro Hero Business."

The man snorted. "Ah, we come back to the problem, the restrictions on quirk use are obviously the cause that heroes are needed, people grate under restrictions, it's not strange so many decide to go villain to use their meta-abilities freely."

"Is it? I will admit that a lot of people ended in bad situations with missteps of using their quirks. But a lot of the problems started with extremist groups, egoistical groups that look for their own wishes and hide them under fake goals. Human First, Anarchist Anonymous or the failed Meta Liberation Party."

The man's pale face quickly switched palette's to an angry red.

"Ah~ That's it, no?" Junko leaned back, reaching with a hand to rub her chin as she didn't look at the man directly, but still kept every muscle tense and ready. "I will admit I didn't make the connection at first.

"Rikiya Yotsubashi , most would just put it down to chance, after all, surnames are not unique. But now I can see the similar face features.

"Chikara Yotsubashi , also known as Destro, leader of the Meta Liberation Army, a man who believed in the free use of quirks and was against the strict controls put down by governments to control the chaos that existed during those times. Labeled a villain for lots of his actions, he was later captured and convicted, dying in prison, the Meta Liberation Army disbanding with the lack of a strong leader.

"But it wasn't that way, no?" Junko took a deep breath, her Aura already thrumming on her skin, her semblance softening the materials currently on contact with her body. "The man had a son, a son who shared his ideals, a man charismatic enough to take up his father's dream and organization. But instead of taking a loud voice and leading forward, you stayed in the shadows."

"My Father," Rikiya spoke through clenched teeth. "was a great man. With his view, we could have progressed so mu-"

"He was a pretentious man." Junko's words cut him out. "I've read his book, he wasn't looking for a free society, he wanted chaos. He wanted a chaotic society where he could cut his spot and rule it.

"Well, I think you managed it, no? After all, Deika City's all about the Detnerat company, I bet your group owns every important aspect of it."

BLAM!

Rikiya's grotesquely enlarged arm slammed Junko's side. Her aura-improved reflexes being the thing that let her turn her body and receive the blow with her arms crossed in an X in front of her body.

Her semblance flaring up with her aura, making her carve a long trench through the plastic and metal stands.

A few moments later, people started screaming as the nature of the incident became apparent.

Junko grinned as she felt her blood start to pump. "Now, that's a villainous look." She spoke loud enough to be heard. Rikiya's healthy face had been replaced by the red of anger and splotches of black around his eyes. "So, what should I call you, Destro Jr. ?"

"You pathetic imbecile." The villain growled. "You should have accepted the offer, not called for help, you just had to wait, and Slidin'Go would have been there, you were under no real danger. And after he heroically saved you, you would have known it was better to join us in glory. And it's Re-Destro for you, Junk ."

"So original." She laughed. "But I guess, I did manage to get you to spill the beans." She smiled and swiftly pulled one of the shield units from her Sylladex, throwing it to the side, this unit locking on the air and projecting a shield that resisted the punch from the arm-stretching hero.

"Surrender already." The man clenched his fists hard enough that Junko could hear them crack from the distance. "We have you surrounded. Do it quickly and we can easily pass this as a misunderstanding."

"Pass what?" She cackled internally as she externally put a confused look before snapping her fingers. "Oh~! You mean you admit to being a villain? Yeah… that's too late." She deployed another of the shields, stopping a punch from Slidin'Go, and she easily snipped one of the construct birds with a small shard of ice dust. "I doubt many people missed the live show straight from your lips.

"Smile, you are on candid camera." The image currently being shown on the big screen on the field was replaced with a close-up of Re-Destro's face.

"You! YOU!" The villain's body started to swell, his suit failing to expand along and tearing, showing off the skin-tight costume he wore under it.

"We are suiting up?" Junko pulled Damage Creator but didn't release it, instead she swung it and hit a surprised Slidin'Go.

The Hero-but-actually-a-villain was surprised as the weapon had come from nowhere. Intercepting him right on the chest before the wind pressure lifted him off the floor and sent him flying into the distance.

"Don't worry, I had the safeties on, he will be just a bit shaken." She quickly shifted the weapon and shot three times, two more of the bird husks were frozen mid-air as the Stretchy-Arms-Guy got his hand frozen together to the ground. "If these are the soldiers you managed to gather I will have to go back on my comment about you actually managing to do something interesting."

The villain growled, ordering more of his men to attack her, most getting simply batted away, frozen in place, shocked out, knocked out when gravity slammed them to the ground.

"GRAH! Give up already!"Re-Destro screamed at her, throwing large pieces of debris that dislodged during the fight. "Why. Won't. You. DIE!"

Junko laughed as she dodged them easily. "Maybe if you came and hit me yourself, instead of letting your useless subordinates show their poor quality." Junko's laugh only made Re-Destro become even madder at her.

"I will show you! 80% Liberation" The man growled and Junko was surprised as a number of the villains she had been ignored quickly cooperated to pin her down in place. "Got you Now!"

Re-Destro's face was covered in the same darkness that had stained his skin previously. By now that energy or substance layered over his body like a mask and costume. While the mask looked smooth like metal, the energy over his body appeared to form into bulging muscles. His whole body was almost titanic in comparison with before.

"STRESS OUTPUT BURDEN!" The monstrous villain held his hands together and hammered down on Junko with them. The spot exploding like a bomb going off.

Re-Destro panted as he slowly shrank down as he looked at the men and women around him celebrating. "Such a terrible loss." He breathed in deep and lifted a hand, making an L over his forehead. "Okay people, time to get moving, we don't have much time before more heroes get her-"

"Ah~ Leaving already?" A female voice came from the slowly clearing dust cloud. "Congratulations! I actually felt that." The sound of rock moving came from the spot, completely audible in the silence reigning the battlefield. "I think I have to get serious now~"

A pulse of force from Junko blew all the dust away. The woman now stood in complete fight regalia. Damage Creator had released a moment before receiving the hit and now she wore her armor and mask.

By now the artifact had gone through a few refining evolutions, its power hadn't increased much, mostly streamlining its design.

The thick, reinforced cloak now looked like a leather duster, from the open neck and front to the material hanging to the sides and behind her legs, magic and design keeping it from being troublesome.

Her pants and combat boots had fused into one seamless piece, almost a second, armored layer of skin over her legs, her shins covered in armored plates that went down to the boots keeping her feet safe.

Her armored torso mixed the idea of protection and femininity, extending up to cover her neck with a flexible design that disappeared behind the bottom of her once featureless mask. Now her mask sported a simple flame design over the right half of her face, and a delicate growing mandala in a light blue.

"Time for round two." The weapon part of Damage Creator shifted back to the war-hammer.

Chapter 55

Chapter Text

Chapter 55

Junko felt like laughing at the adrenaline of a good fight, and the utter gobsmacked expression from all the goons and villains helped the situation. She felt her power reach another charge, but a quick peek showed all options were above four in cost, making her quickly push them all away before she got too distracted.

"How?!" Re-Destro screamed out.

"What? You expected me to go all out?" Junko laughed at him. "I'm sorry, but I don't hate you enough to try and kill you. Also, I needed to make sure it would be obvious I was defending myself." She deployed the six orb-drones which swiftly took a circle formation behind her back.

The man growled at her comment, his figure swelling up again as that black and sludge-like energy covered his whole body.

Even without his orders, many of the men and women under his command started to attack Junko once more after breaking out of the surprised daze.

While she had at least been dodging the attacks before, now Junko let most of them simply slide off her armor. Two of the drones behind shifted their form, each sphere opened in half and extruded a projecting lens each. Instead of actually blocking stronger attacks by herself, the drones created short-lived hard-light shields to stop them dead in their tracks.

"Tell them to stop before they hurt themselves Re-Destro. I'm pretty sure it's only you and me right now." Junko outright sneered as she batted a few of the stronger attacks away.

"Between us? I will show you there's nothing between us besides me killing you for what you have said and done!" The man growled and rushed at her. The mob of villains moving away from the man.

Junko grinned as she saw the messages from Mila about the heroes finally getting around.

Her Partner had been keeping her up and informed during her fight with the super villain and his band of criminals. The heroes providing security for the convention had only expected the technology thief or two and had been taken out by the sheer numbers of Re-Destro's forces.

And it was only now more heroes had finally gotten to the ground after moving out. Apparently, the news that such a numerous group had been under everyone's eyes had gotten some of the big names interested.

Internally, Junko wanted to groan, things would get much harder to deal with in the aftermath if a hero like Endeavor got here before some of the others. She hoped someone like Mirko, the heroine's attitude would most likely help her slip off without repercussions.

The situation started to escalate as the men and women under Re-Destro's orders became a lot more suicidal in their attacks. They had stopped bothering about friendly fire and were now hitting each other.

"Fuck!" Junko cursed as she could see more than a few end in severe condition and still tried to get up and attack her.

"See! This is the power of the wish of freedom people want!" Re-Destro kept attacking her, she was glad to see his minions actually dodging his attacks. It was pretty obvious that any of his punches would have turned them into a paste.

"They are just willing to die by your order!" Junko screamed, more mad and angry at the sheer lack of self-preservation.

She felt a weight on her, a weight on all the lives that would be lost if this madman ran away. She never thought that a counter-ambush like this would explode into so much, or bring so much damage.

"Why. Don't. You. All. Get THE FUCK DOWN!" Junko lifted her hammer, power welled up on the head of the weapon and a whirlpool of black and white energy formed before she brought it down.

SPACE PRESS!

BLAM

CRUNCH

The fight instantly stopped and all noise was swallowed by the weight and force pushing every single villain in a radius of a hundred meters around Junko. Most of the already injured villains get knocked out by the unexpected attack.

"Y-You-" Re-Destro groaned from his spot on the ground, being one of the closest to Junko, the weight on him was continuously digging him deeper into the rubble. "H-HOW?!" He screamed through clenched teeth.

"I… I…" Junko took a deep breath and released her hold on the force pinning everything around them. "I have no idea." She wanted to laugh out, that had come out of nowhere honestly.

"I will… show you." Re-Destro panted as he slowly got up. "With this I will destroy you." The villain laughed as Junko's sensor suit picked up a strange object flying in their direction.

Actually, it picked a few, she imagined it must have been reinforcements, but for who was up in the air. They were also quite farther away at the moment.

"That's yours?" She asked, trying to understand what exactly it was.

"You think the toys you made for those pathetic heroes that work with you are advanced?" He laughed as he stood up, his body once again growing to its larger form. "I will show you what real technology in quirk support is!"

Junko smirked and lifted Damage Creator, the hammer switching back to shotgun mode and she loaded a slug of wind, aimed and proceeded to blast the object with an attack clocking a speed of over two kilometer per second.

The elementally charged payload instantly bloomed into sharp currents of wind capable of shredding the tough metal on the armor pieces to slag.

"Eh, four outta ten, looked nice, but you shouldn't tell your enemies about the obvious piece of armor flying your way." Junko couldn't stop herself from laughing at the befuddled expression on Re-Destro's face.

"I will kILL YOU!" The villains' figure swelled once more before barreling at Junko.

She was ready to shield against the attack when she noticed a large object, most likely human, flying at high speeds and about to hit the spot in front of her. Not wanting to get hit she swiftly retreated. A couple of jumps and she was a few dozen meters away from her original spot.

At that moment a large figure slammed into the ground, a cloud of dust exploded out as Junko felt a charge in her power complete and three options came up.

One option was instantly discarded being six charges when she only had four. Which made the next part hard as the other two options were four charges each. One would improve her smithing ability, the other would improve her general production ability.

In all honesty, she didn't think there was much comparison between the two and swiftly took the last option. Swiftly, the knowledge of how to manage and guide a production line entered her mind along with the knowledge needed to be a capable military engineer.

The first part was interesting as it extended from factory work, which covered all work done by her Protoss tech, down to single hand-crafted objects, it cut by half the time of production and necessary materials.

The second part was also interesting, as it gave her the knowledge of what exactly was in her secret lab, the material only noted down as ragnite was a highly volatile element that would work just as well as fuel for vehicles as a source of energy for some kind of healing machine. The second part was the most interesting and she would be looking into it later.

"IT'S ALL RIGHT. WHY? BECAUSE, I AM HERE!" An unmistakable voice boomed through the dust cloud before all visual obstruction was flown away.

Just as his voice, the blue, red, yellow and white suit was hard to forget, the man who bore the title of Symbol of Peace. Sporting a figure that was the envy of all body builders, though, something niggled on the back of Junko's mind.

It was the first time she had seen the man live, till now she had never felt the need to go out of her way to see the hero work live. There was a real difference between any picture on the screen. She had to admit the man was a world-wide renown hero for a reason.

But, once more, something was wrong, maybe it was the adrenaline, or her synchronization with Damage Creator. It wasn't till the scanning from her orb-drones finished that the problem was revealed. And Junko felt her eyes open wide, All Might was incredibly injured if he didn't show it.

Her attention was soon back on the fight, apparently Re-Destro had also been stunned by the hero's sudden appearance.

"OH! MISS TETSU, IT'S-" The Hero cleared his throat and turned down his voice from booming to just really loud. "It's good to see you are doing okay."

"All Might, I knew this had become much larger than expected." Junko focused on swiftly taking out the stragglers as the Number One hero dealt with the villain. "But I didn't expect you to come as reinforcement. And please, just call me Junk."

"That's an understatement mis- Junk." The hero easily exchanged hits with the villain, for all her experience fighting with Ulthane, the hero made fighting look easy, and it was even more impressive when one added his poor health. "The Meta Liberation Army's forces didn't take well getting exposed.

"Heroes from all over are currently busy dealing with villains coming out from the proverbial woodwork."

Apparently Re-Destro wasn't up to the latest details and doings of his group. "No! So many years of planning wasted!" The villain once again swelled to maximum size. "I will destroy you both! STRESS: 100%!"

"HO! So you want to test your might against me?" All Might grinned and cocked an arm back. "TEXAS SMASH!"

Junko's eyes opened like saucers as she changed Damage Creator back to a hammer and rammed it into the ground to pin herself in place. She had seen what the hero was capable and right now she was about to have a first line to witness it.

All Might's arm twisted as the hero punched forward, his lower body twisting with the rest of the movement, but holding in place as his first intercepted the villain's own.

Junko was glad for her mask protecting her face as the winds created by the shockwave pretty much flew every knocked out mob in the area like toys. Even in her spot, with her hammer dug into the ground and having the four propulsion projectors on her back constantly pushing away from the center of the explosion.

"I'm not done yet! Because I will go," All Might's muscle rippled as he slowly lifted the leg he had on the back and brought it forward, taking a step as he screamed. "PLUS ULTRA!"

The hero's fist pushed forward and the villain lost the match, the power and force coming from All Might's fist slowly started to erase that black energy covering Re-Destro's hand and arm.

For Junko it was like she was watching things proceed at slow motion as All Might's fist flew true and hit the villain right on the chest. A second, stronger shock-wave exploded out of Re-Destro's back, making all of the energy once covering his body blow away.

She weather the second shock-wave and watched every second of it through her orb-drones, glad they didn't so much as fly on their own power, but instead hung locked to her position. She also recorded every second of it, for science.

Re-Destro… no, this was not Re-Destro anymore, the man laying on his knees was just Rikiya Yotsubashi. This was the end of the fight, a scan from her long range sensors let her see police and other forces, already moving to check and restrain the villains scattered out on the destroyed field.

"H-his dream…" Junko could hear the villain still talking as she pulled the hammer out of the ground but didn't release the artifact, she slowly walked closer. "...it could have been… gr-great..."

"You are wrong," All Might's voice was clear as he posed, Junko could see it was just a way to hold a front, the man was straining his body badly. "While at first the Meta Liberation Army started with good intentions, being an opposition to the extreme restrictions put in by the nation to control the growing chaos. It quickly turned into a group of people looking out only for themselves.

"It wasn't a great dream, it was an egotistical dream that would have plunged things back into the chaos of the first years, there's a need to have some control. Maybe Japan's too strict, but real change only comes with time and education!"

Junko felt a single charge complete, but having no option available for her stores she swiftly discarded them as she turned her attention back to the hero. All Might's charisma was undoubtedly impressive.

She finally let out a sigh of relief when she watched law officers put Rikiya in power suppressing cuffs and take him away. Only now she removed her mask as she turned to All Might.

"Miss Tetsu, it's good to see you are okay," His voice and presence was impressive, in a way it reminded her of the Makers, not as much in the power, but he was certainly there in a way. "while I would have preferred to meet under better circumstances.

"I've to say that I'm impressed by your gear, given the nature of your quirk, I don't think I've seen technology capable of putting someone in the level of a top hero."

Junko had to fight a blush, this was one of the most honest praises she had received in a while, and from such a hero. "T-thank you." she stammered a bit as she looked around. "I have to say I didn't expect someone like you to come. And please, just call me Junk."

"Ha Ha! It's fine, Junko." She took it as a victory to have the hero drop the formality. "I would like to speak with you about your armor and some of the technology you have developed. A good friend of mine currently lives and works on I-Island."

"I did receive an invitation for this end of the year exposition, after this experience I don't know if I should tempt my luck." She laughed nervously. "But if you suggest it, I don't think I could pass the opportunity."

"It's always smart to expand your frontiers, Junko." She honestly felt like a schoolgirl in front of her crush, even if she didn't see All Might that way at all.

"Thank you, All Might." She hanged her mask on the side of her coat before rubbing the back of her head feeling embarrassed. "I do have a question," She looked around, no one was close. "Who hurt you like that?"

Chapter 56

Chapter Text

Chapter 56

All Might winced at the question.

And for a moment Junko didn't see the shining symbol of hope the world knew. Instead, in front of her stood a beaten man, his bright gold hair, just a dull yellow. His sharp eyes, sunken and tired. His prodigious posture, frail and hunched.

Something niggled on the back of her mind, but she wasn't in the situation to try and remember what. She took a deep breath as she noted people coming closer.

"Ok… Ok, you don't have to tell me now, but this is too big to ignore now that I know about it." All Might's eyes gave her a thankful look before she turned to the people coming in. "But, just in case." She handed the hero one of her personal cards, the kind she hadn't given to anyone else, holographic glory and all. "If we don't see each other after this gets done, please call me."

Junko quickly put her business face, sad she couldn't put her mask on instead, adrenaline was already starting to run out and she would prefer to throw herself into her bed or into her workshop. She was glad to see Mila between the people coming.

The next hour was a commotion as the extent of the incident slowly came to light. Blame was thrown one side to another, more than one group wanted to put all at Junko's feet, but the complaints were weak at best. She had the whole thing recorded from start to finish, especially how Rikiya had gone looking for her and had attacked first.

A number of crimes committed by Rikiya had also come to light when hero-led investigation groups moved into Deika city, uncovering how many of the important people in the town's leading positions were lieutenants under Re-Destro's command. Thankfully, most people were just living there and hadn't, as it's said, drank the kool-aid.

Between some of the people apprehended were the leader of the Hearts and Minds Party and one of the board members of the Feel Good, Inc. Junko was surprised to have found Chitose Kizuki, who had interviewed her the day prior, was another of the man's lieutenants. Apparently the woman had been taken out by her large telekinetic attack.

Some guilt had fallen on Junko at the end, but Mila had managed to, in a mix of her silver tongue, and the group of lawyers she had put together, reduce it to a fine that their company was more than ready to pay and prevent more problems.

While the fight was near noon, the mess lasted nearly a whole day, and it was already morning when Mila and Junko were left to rest in a hotel room of much lower quality than the original one they had gotten.

"Calm down, Junko, you look like you are suffering from abstinence." Mila commented after her friend had set up a privacy field.

"I know, it's just so boring, and they always kept coming up when I tried to distract myself."

"I know, it's on purpose." Junko looked up at that. "They need you out of balance, and keeping you uncomfortable is sadly part of it."

Junko grumbled as she deployed the door and opened a way to her workshop before she cast three clones directly into the place, letting them head in to work before she closed it behind her.

"Well, hopefully we can head home pretty soon." She grumbled more since she would have to take the hero license exam after showing off like that. "At least they let me call Eri to calm her down." she sighed.

She felt her power reach another charge, but the three options were out of her reach and she wasn't in the mood to check them out. So she let them go.

"So, what has you so anxious?" Her friend asked.

"What else? Ideas!" Junko groaned as she dropped herself back onto the bed to relax. She could feel her clones on the back of her head, they were close enough to the pylon they still had a level of connection.

"Hmm, tell me, what ideas?" She knew Mila was trying to keep her distracted, and she was glad for it too.

"Well, mostly I'm looking to finish the spare bodies, especially now that I need bodies to use a lot of the Protoss' technology." She rubbed her chin. "I mean, I could go unmanned drone on all of them, but I would like to keep it easily accessible for normal people when things become more open.

"So I sent the clones to work on that, part of that is to include the psychic linking technology they had developed already. It will also provide bodies for the clones that decide to stay inside our burgeoning network. It may not happen anytime soon, but I doubt it will be long till at least one of them is strong enough to remain whole after losing their body."

"Junko, do you remember I asked you to not clone yourself? Because I'm pretty sure this is just you cloning yourself in a new way." Mila actually looked terrified by what she heard.

"Come on, it's not that bad, they will be busy enough working on other planets, I doubt you will see them around much, if at all. Also, that's in the future, right now we also have to modify the bodies for the evolution method. That will keep them useful even as I continue adapting and evolving my technology."

"As I said before, you are terrifying. I'm glad I'm on your side."

Junko stuck her tongue out at her before both laughed till the door was knocked.

She turned to the door and eyed Mila who shook her head. Instead of going herself, the woman deployed one of her drones who floated over to the door and peered into the peephole.

The pair looked at the image of a dull-blonde man standing outside of the door.

"I'm here as you asked, Miss Junko." The man talked just loud enough for them to hear, the pair looked at each other, both obviously drawing a blank till the man pulled the same card she had given All Might.

Junko's eyes went wide before she calmed down, nodding to Mila as she stood up "I'm going." She dropped the privacy to be heard before she walked to the door and opened.

Facing the man erased the last of her doubts, she could feel it, this was the man under the surface, this was what she had seen at that moment of weakness.

"Al-" She started to greet him, but his hand stopped her.

"A pleasure Miss Junko, I'm Toshinori Yagi." He presented himself.

Junko nodded, understanding what this meant, moving aside and inviting him to come into the room. Once the door closed, she raised the privacy field once more.

"It's okay, no one should be able to spy on us now." She offered the man one of the chairs as she sat on the bed next to Mila. "Once more, thank you for coming to help. I don't know if I could have taken Re-Destro non-lethally."

"Ah… I'd hoped to present myself as All Might's manager, but you saw through me the moment you laid your eyes on me, no?" His voice in his current form was, for a lack of a better word, weaker. The difference in size was the main part of it, but she could note there was something else.

Junko shook her head. "I may have not noticed if we didn't meet before. But… I don't think I could mistake you after the whole thing." Junko smiled. "Anyways, it's a pleasure to meet you, Toshinori Yagi, I'm Junko Tetsu, I prefer to go by Junk, this is my partner Mila Smirnov."

"It's a pleasure to meet you two, please call me Yahi." The man was a sad sight.

"I'm sorry to ask this way, but," Junko had to lick her lips "What happened to you?"

Yagi winced and took a deep breath, the next moment Junko and Mila cringed at the sight of the damage under the man's shirt. Especially Junko as she has the knowledge to get a much better idea of what was hidden under the skin.

"I would normally not talk about it, but a good friend suggested that you should be made aware of some matters." Yagi rubbed his chin as he looked for the words for it. "It was a few years back.

"In the underworld there're names that bring terror in all those who hear them. Toxic Chainsaw over at Texas, White Glove in London, Daji in China… But all of them will admit there's one name they all respect in their ways.

"He took the name All for One, it's believed he was born during the early years of the emergence of quirks into society, his actual name has long since been lost. He was born with a very special type of Emitter quirk, this quirk lets him steal quirks from people, use them himself or gift them to others."

Both of the women gasped at this, the mere idea of stealing something so personal as a quirk was terrifying, like taking someone's sense of sight.

"This man decided that having this quirk meant he was destined to rule the world from the shadows, he stole and accumulated quirks, he got people loyal to him and equipped them with quirks to use them as pawns."

Junko bit her tongue as she felt her power achieve another charge and bring the total up to three. The first, for four charges, would give her the knowledge of solar-powered technology. The second, for two charges, would impart her knowledge to be a combat technician.

"...the man had a brother, who by the fact he was born apparently quirkless, was tortured by his older sibling as he didn't share his older brother's ideas of controlling the world. Even when All for One kept insisting it was a way to help the world."

The last option was worth three charges, just on the limit of what she could get, and it would improve her psychic abilities. The perk was a temptation, she wasn't interested in the two charges perk, and the four charges were outside of her reach. Time for choosing was starting to run out as she tried her best to follow the story told by Yagi.

"...unknown to both of them, the younger brother wasn't quirkless, instead he had a strange quirk that let him pass it to other people. When the new quirk was forced onto him, they merged, becoming the first instance of the quirk that would come to be called One for All."

Later she would blame being bored, not that the perk wouldn't be a huge boon for her abilities. The perk carried what could be considered the minimum possible knowledge, just the easy way to provide people with a basic of her psychic ability. The rest was an expansion on her burgeoning psychic powers.

It was like finally opening her eyes, one moment she could barely feel the other clones working inside the warehouse, the next she could see what each of them was doing , what they were working on. And each of them could feel her and each other.

She could also feel the growing network of pylons on Mars and hear the growing number of probes wanting orders.

"Miss Junko… are you okay?" All Might's voice pulled her away from her train of thought.

" Oh, I'm okay, don't worry. " She replied with a smile, but apparently that didn't sell it as Mila facepawed.

"Junko, you aren't moving your mouth." The felyne groaned. "Also, your eyes are glowing."

Junko blinked a couple of times, she couldn't see it, but she still stood up and walked over to the bathroom.

" Crap ." She cursed before she sighed and returned. "I apologize for that, it looks like something paid off in some strange ways." She had to do will herself to use her mouth, apparently the Protoss' mouth-less talking had decided to come up.

"Are you sure?" Yagi asked, more than a bit incredulous.

"Yes, yes , don't worry." Junko groaned. "Just having to get used to something, lets call it a side-effect of my advances on mind-controlled technology. Please, finish your story, you said your predecessor chose you to carry the quirk, even when you were quirkless."

"Eh? Oh, yes. I had a mostly exemplary career once I graduated from U.A. But with time I ended having to confront All for One. I managed to defeat him, but a great cost. And I thought it would be the last of him, until your encounter with the Eight Precepts."

"You think he was behind the Yakuza group?"

Yagi shook his head. "No, but I recognized that portal quirk, he used it once before to escape a confrontation with me in the past. That means he's still active, or at least his group's still going strong even in the shadows."

Junko rubbed her chin and hummed. "You think he will come for me? My quirk's not that useful, really."

"No, I don't believe he would come for your quirk, but he knows the importance of technology and science, he would be a lot more forceful than what those before did to try and recruit you."

"I see, you've given me plenty to think about." She sighed thoughtfully. "Would you let me do something before you leave?" She pulled a Tricorder from her inventory. "Would you let me scan you?"

Yagi looked surprised by acquiesced. She stepped closed and pointed the hand-held machine at the hero. Her expression didn't hold for more than a moment or two.

"How the heck are you still alive?" Junko checked and double-checked the results. "You are missing your stomach, a kidney, a large part of your intestines and one of your lungs, your liver's a fraction of what it should be. Your heart, diaphragm, other lungs and other organs are horribly scarred. And that's not going into the obvious problems in your muscles, bones and nervous system.

"How do you even stand up each morning? The amount of pain you must be living daily, not even counting having a hero career!"

"It's because I'm the Symbol of Hope, I can't retire."

Junko grumbled, biting her bottom lip as she thought.

"I have no problem, Junko." Mila spoke and the woman turned to her partner. "I know what you are thinking, I have no problem if you want to help."

"Okay, it's decided."

"Excuse me, Miss Junko, but I think you need my opi-" Yagi started but was swiftly cut by her.

"Nope, you helped me, I think helping back is the least I can do, now I will need the number of your physician, I need to talk to them, set up a meeting, and find a good way to strap you down to a bed before you kill yourself before we get to heal you."

Chapter 57

Chapter Text

Chapter 57

Junko celebrated to finally be back home and in her workshop for real with another charge, sadly none of the options were in the 1 charge range. And she let them pass.

After the meeting with Yagi things had petered out, they had had a few more meetings with law enforcement and Mila's lawyer group before the two got sent their way.

But now she could relax doing something useful, like finishing the series-A and series-E bodies. She was pretty happy for what the clones had done with the ideas they were given.

The original designs had been modified, now the white bodies had metallic golden accents instead of black and orange, the red had shifted to the rusty color that had become associated with her. The bodies had also had polished cores in the same color decorating the body, and while they looked completely decorative, each was a polished Khaydarin crystal, designed to aid the channeling of psychic powers, except the one in the center of the series A and E chest, that was a perfect core sphere, created with one of her advances on refining the mana crystals.

Junko nodded to herself, especially as she could feel the three clones' minds still floating around in the developing network, if she kept adding minds, she would soon have to build a larger and more specialized nexus to handle them, hopefully the series E would give them a physical way to interact with the world. Not even counting all the extras the bodies carried.

She summoned three new clones, getting a quick nod before the four of them got to work, they had things to do, like apply the adaptation and evolution method to the bodies, their work almost done, once this part was done they would end with five bodies of each.

Their work took a couple of hours and more than one refresh of the spells, the clones deciding to hang around in the network as they progressed. Unbothered by the world outside till they finished. Instantly ten bodies were standing in front of them.

" Good ." She smiled and mentally told a couple of the still remaining clones to store one of each series and create a few extra series E, the female ones, for the Junkos in the network.

" Okay girls, go ahead. " She sent them the message after the clone came back with the extra bodies.

"Woah," The voice that came out was a baritone. "I can feel a few kinks and hard places." She spoke clearly, the series E's large mouth letting her modulate well even when the bodies didn't really have lungs, and the voice box would actually let them talk endlessly. "But I imagine those will pass with use as the models evolve for each of us."

"The strangest part is all the sensors and the connections to technology." Another of them talked, in her case, the voice came a bit lower. "It's strange, but not weirder than our growing connection to the network."

Junko nodded as she watched the clones try different things, the bodies already starting to shift slightly in their looks. Even when they all had branched from her mind, they had their time and seen things she hadn't. One of the clones was currently trying to control a series A at the same time of a series E, with not much success.

"Okay, come here girls," She called for attention. "We have broken one of our main restrictions over our knee like it's proper. While we are still restrained by time we have the numbers to do a lot of things much faster now.

"Now, you three," She pointed to the three clones she just created, the previous iteration already inhabiting series E. "You should start working on Ryuto, Darma and Fuon's costumes. I want them as close in quality to our own armor. Armor first, we can see about getting them a variable, aura-channeling weapon later.

"The rest of you, we need ideas of how to improve the Protoss' technology, main idea is addition of mantic energy to the buildings, especially the pylons, possibilities of using Khaydarin crystals to design new and stronger cores and improving the designs in the buildings to channel the mantic energies.

"The other thing is that we have to perfect our energy-to-matter process, our sources of minerals and vespene gas' infinite but restricted. We need an actually workable design to add to our nexus and provide self-sustenance. Till then, we're limited.

"Good? Good. Now go to work." Junko sent them their ways as she turned back to her workshop, she had things to do too.

She quickly got into her programming, her AI was developing fast, though it's objective had changed a bit, now she was aiming its mind into a logistics leader. An upgrade on her current VI, keeping her many projects in order to help her and the series E from getting distracted.

"Central?" She called the AI.

"Yes. Question Sign." A flat tone answered her question.

"Glad to have you here, for now you can get used to the systems, don't fear asking me or any of the series E any question."

"Acknowledged."

"Okay, that's done, and will need time to come to fruition." With her current work done and now needing time to progress correctly, she headed out of the workshop, stretching her limbs before deciding to take some time out hanging with Eri.

The child was more than joyous to spend time with her adoptive grandmother and great grandmother, but she enjoyed it even more to spend time with her mother. Eri was lucky, she now technically a linearly growing number of said figures.

She felt another charge come and go as no option was under four charges, and she had only two. She returned her attention to Eri while she thought about her conversation with Recovery Girl, apparently Yagi hadn't told her Junk wanted to talk with her, and instead she had learned about it when Nezu told her about their meeting.

The chimeric principal had a nose for the gossip and had gotten it out quickly out of the hero. After that, the older woman had gotten in contact with her and they had set up a meeting, she would made sure to drag the hero along and Junko would put the place, facilities and skill to deal with the problem.

She already had some ideas, the scans from the Tri-corder had plenty of information to work from. The problem was how would his quirk react to the attempt to heal his body. If Junko was right, One for All would not take well any effort to modify its wielder.

With a few days till the date of the meeting, she had a bit of a time to come with multiple options. For now she had other things to deal with. Like how a group of series E had managed to adapt the design of the replicator she had gotten so long ago.

They had managed to improve its design considerably by locating the spots where technology had a hard time dealing with reality and replacing them with a complex set of magitech runes that ignored the normal technological limits. The best part is that they would most likely be able to be mass produced.

They were already passing the designs of the replicator to the team working on the new nexus design before starting to work on the next version of the replicator. It helped that all of them were working with the idea of making the buildings modular.

On the other hand, the team redesigning the building was going much slower. Mostly they had gotten stuck in finding the best design for mantic channeling through the protoss' building, one of the members of the group had moved into designing a new probe, adding magical production into the little fella but keeping it close enough they would be able to upgrade the fiat backed buddies.

That series E was also looking into doing another design that skips a few steps for the actual probes they would be actually using. The clones had already finished with the kids costumes, while not at artifact level, especially as they hadn't a weapon to break through that limit and reach the level Damage Creator had.

By now the clones had run their life and switched into series E and one series A. She would let them deal with those projects. After spending time with Eri, Junko headed back into the workshop, totally recharged and ready to continue.

She joined the group currently re-designing the nexus building, the primary elements of it would go to help adapt all other Protoss' buildings, but the nexus was the center of their war tech, and much easier to work with before going deeper into some of their more civil infrastructure.

Her joining the group had actually shown that the series E were restricted from full access to the Celestial Forge perks. While they kept all her knowledge and memories, some perks acted in more esoteric the series E and A didn't have access while the clones did.

And it showed, as now with Junko's help, they managed to break through, the new nexus building would not only channel mantic energies, improving the building's strength and keep itself whole, but it would slowly improve with time and use thanks to her other perks.

And it was just in time for the other group to finish the new probe designs, proceeding to send a couple dozen of them to production before having them start the creation of the new nexus building.

They quickly moved onto the next, even without Junko's help, the series E would easily manage to adapt the rest, first the pylons and then the Forge, Cybernetics Core, Robotics Facility, Robotics Bay, Air and Space Construction Bay. She was tempted to push through and build her first mothership, but that would need some heavy redesign and a lot of the technologies used on it were part of previous buildings and vehicles she would be working on first.

The mothership is also three kilometers by three kilometers, just the core of it was over two kilometers in diameter, they would need the Space Construction Bay to just start the project.

With thoughts of her future space empire, Junko left the workshop and walked out of the complex' building, deploying the beautiful Khaydarin crystal as some kind of decorative piece in the center of the park.

While the original pylons used a raw figure between a polygon or teardrop, the ones her pylons used was a much refined figure, starting with a teardrop, the crystals facets were polished to perfection before the upper half of the crystal twisted up like a drill. The psychically active crystal floated by its own power.

Around it's middle floated a gold and red ring, and slightly farther half a dozen petals in the same design, slightly arching out, circling the ring and crystal.

This new version instantly connected to the pylons on each corner of the plot, reinforcing the defense system while also streamlining the teleportation in and out of the building by using a more secure method designed by the Protoss.

She looked around, her senses were so much better now than before, she could see all the energies flowing underground, flowing up each plant, flowing from the main pylon to the old ones. Even while it was night, she could see like it was day, using more than just her eyes to see the world.

Junko nodded to herself and headed back in, she would have to ask Mila or Central to check the internet to see what people would say about the new addition, would they chalk it as completely decorative, or would they suggest practical reasons.

She hummed a soft tune as she felt another charge come up, making her reserves reach three. The first option, for three charges, would give her the ability to work with souls in multiple ways. Junko already thought it sounded especially useful.

The second option was one charge less, and would give her a magical engine that would automatically cast defensive spells, while interesting, she already had systems that did that, maybe if it was the only option available.

The last option was also two charges, and was about using magical energy to improve and quicken the growth of plants. In Junko's honest opinion, it sounded like asking for side-effects.

The perk paid itself immediately, while there wasn't deep knowledge of the soul, there was knowledge of all the tools needed to observe, study and manipulate said thing. Interestingly, while it treated the whole thing as science, it also considered the soul something… well… spiritual and not completely describable.

She walked into the workshop, giving the series E and A a mental nod, creating three clones to take care of some small things on Mars while she started to work on the tools needed for soul work.

By now she was pretty sure the Forge was giving her the tools needed to advance, and especially to heal All Might, given the nature of One for All, the characteristic of being a legacy passed from mentor to student, something of the previous owners stood around.

It was obvious the quirk was stockpiling something from each owner to grow stronger, and no quirk would make the eight bearer strong as Toshinori Yagi if there was not something else pushing along.

Just in case, she started to build eight phylacteries, one for each soul and one extra for Yagi if the worst happened. A stray thought kept going about cloning the man a whole new body, she had the technology already, and this latest perk gave her the necessary tools to make sure it didn't develop a soul.

She finished the first tool, a set of specialized glasses. Putting them over her eyes the world changed, colors and light dimmer, instead she could see the souls insides the series E and single series A, inside her clones, even in Central's main computer.

"Uh…" Junko rubbed her cheek as she compared all of them. Her clones didn't look much different from their physical bodies, but she could see the titanic heritage shining through, their bodies alight with divine fire and Aura going constantly.

Meanwhile, the series E and A's souls were smaller and softer, the fire had lost the spark of divinity, most likely they still were pyrokinetic, but not to the extent of herself or the clones, their auras also looked dimmer, but that was most likely temporary as they developed into their own beings.

On the other hand, Central was an amorphous mass, their soul barely over an infant by the fact they were a thinking mind. She would have to check Carinho too later.

Junko called one of the clones and handed her the glasses before connecting their senses through the psychic network to look at herself.

When the clones' souls were similar to their bodies, Junko's barely fit in, tongues of divine fire licked the area around her, her soul shining brightly through every possible place. Her eyes were like two searching lights, each time she opened her mouth another ray of light came out, the true nature of her barely constrained to her small human form.

In a word, it was beautiful.

Chapter 58: Interlude Yagi

Chapter Text

Chapter 58 – Interlude Yagi

The scene was almost cartoonish as an older woman forced the younger man to go to the doctor. Her figure was tiny even next to his tired and hunched one. He was forced to drive the car for both of them as she sat next to him.

"Stop grumbling already." The older woman spoke.

"I still don't know why we are going through with this. We have tried many things before and none worked." Yagi grumbled.

"We won't know unless we try, and Nezu's very interested in what she can do. And if you want to continue your hero career for longer you promised to take any chances at being healed." She glared at the man.

"But I have a successor chosen-" He started the same line he used before but was swiftly cut by the nurse hero.

"And after you pass your power what? You are being childish Toshinori, the chances you die after passing your legacy's too high, and do you think your successor won't blame themselves if that happens?"

The man took the loss, remaining silent as he drove into the complex constructed by the woman they were going to meet. Junko had asked them about what car they would come and to just drive into the underground parking.

Yagi had to admit the building was a thing to see, looking slightly different each time he drove Midoriya to deposit all the beach's trash. The many rooms that made the building changed place slightly, he was pretty sure the inhabited ones didn't while the rest did, or the people living inside would be having a hard time.

The garden around the building had also been growing steadily. His attention caught by the crystal monolith floating in the center of the garden. Yagi had heard many times about Feng Shui and similar things, but this was the first time he had seen something he could say had good energy.

He saw a garage door open for them and drove down. It was surprising to find the place empty.

"Uh, I was sure she owned at least a couple cars." Chiyo commented.

"Maybe she's currently working on them?" Yagi asked faintly.

"Hello, a pleasure to see you have come." Junko's voice called them from a small screen by an opening elevator door. "Please ride the elevator. It will bring you directly to the medical wing." She smiled and disappeared as the screen turned off.

"Well, it looks like it." The pair stepped into the elevator and felt it start to move before it quickly stopped and opened into a short hallway, the lower half of the walls was of a ceramic-like substance while the higher half was painted in soft colors.

"Uh…" Chiyo walked to the wall and rubbed a finger on the surface. "Completely antibacterial materials, interesting. I doubt she needs more than a short clean to keep this place sterile."

The pair kept walking and entered the room, the combination of operation room and laboratory.

"Ms Shuzenji, Yagi, it's good to see you." Junko smiled.

"Please, call me Recovery Girl or just Chiyo."

"I will, Chiyo, welcome to my infirmary, I changed a few things just in case. Have a few ideas, but I don't know what will stick." She chuckled.

Yagi started to look around, walking the room as Junko and Chiyo descended into some more technical talk. He had been in both top of the line laboratories and some of the best hospital rooms, but this room combined both of them and went a step further.

Just standing inside made him feel better, joint aches and breathing problems seemed to ease just by being here. Apparently Chiyo was thinking the same as she asked Junko about it.

"I was wondering if it would be noticeable, I based it on a very old study about cat's purring to make people feel better. The room works kinda like it, there's a few items making an imperceptible vibration at all times that makes you feel better and reinvigorates the body." She smiled slightly awkwardly. "It's not a cure at all, but it certainly makes patients inside have a better time and helps them relax. I'm working on a better version that will help the body heal small injuries, if my theory's right, it could help with healing things like broken bones up to twenty percent faster."

"Very interesting." Chiyo rubbed her chin with one hand as the other rested on her syringe-like cane. "My quirk makes healing broken bones very easy, but if it was fast enough, I wouldn't mind leaving the kids to wait, maybe that way they would learn a lesson." She obviously eyed Yagi who winced slightly at that.

Junko laughed lightly. "Okay, to start, Yagi, I would like if you step on the podium, we will run a few scans to have a baseline, you'll need to shift forms when I tell you and hold it so I can scan that form too." Junko stated, and he could only follow orders as Chiyo appeared to approve of the situation.

He walked onto the slightly raised podium and stood as a light slightly above him went from blue to red, kept like that and went back to blue.

"Good, now change and hold." Junko's voice called him from where she and Chiyo looked at the large screens showing the insides of his body and the lack of very important things, like stomach, a lung, a kidney, etc…

Yagi took a deep breath and activated One for All, his body flooding with the power, his stature growing as his back straightened, his muscles swelling with power and, for a few moments, all aches were gone, he didn't feel like a sack of bones and pain.

Once more the light changed and held.

"Uh…" He heard Junko. "Hold a bit longer." The light changed to green and then yellow. "Good." The light changed back to blue. "You can let go."

He relaxed and instantly felt the iron taste of blood on the back of his throat.

"Here," Junko offered him a glass of water. "it has some pain medicine mixed in, just something light that should ease the pain from changing if I'm right."

He wordlessly thanked her with a nod and took the glass, the water felt amazing as it went down his throat, it did indeed ease the pains on his body, helping him relax after the burden of changing quickly.

Yagi sighed and walked over, the large screens on the wall showed his body in both forms, marking the list of injuries and ails. Some of them even brought memories back.

He remembered the villain who gave him that criss-cross scar on his back, he had taken it when shielding a family. Or the circular scars on his arm from that criminal who's quirk let him enhance ranged weapons, making them strong enough to punch through his body.

There was a fracture from a bad fall before he had gotten One for All, and his extra joint in his pinky toe. His reminiscence was cut by Junko's voice.

"Your quirk's definitely the only thing keeping you alive." She pointed to different parts of his damaged body. "The energy of the quirk's actively feeding parts of your body, muscles, bones, remaining organs. You would have long died otherwise, it's also while you would need to eat for half a dozen people, you most likely never ate more than the amount of two or three bodybuilders. Still quite a bit, but nowhere as much needed to produce the power you used."

"We knew that already." Chiyo commented. "Our studies of it has helped a lot in treating other people with similar stockpile quirks."

"I can imagine that, the problem is that the same energy's also keeping the damage in place." Junko pointed to some visibly minor wounds. "All of these should have healed even in a person in your state," She looked at Yagi. "If they were kept alive, that is. But One for All's keeping your body from healing.

"My theory is that One for All's energy acts as a sort of stasis effect on your body, as another layer of protection. After all, it would be trying to change an immutable object. I would guess that All for One either used a quirk to break through this effect, or he did all the damage at a low point in the fight, maybe after you had used a really large attack or had all the energy collected in a single place."

Yagi rubbed his chin as he remembered the fight, it hadn't been just a small encounter, he had gone out looking for the villain, and they had gone back and forth in the fight for nearly an hour before he put all of his into one last attack.

He'd concentrated all of One for All into his right arm, and All for One's attack had come from the left, his obviously undefended spot.

"Yes… right on my right arm…" Yagi mumbled just audibly.

"Exactly, if you take note of that, your right side's in much better state than your left, that's why in part why you survived." The screen showed his body and a circle to represent One for All, she slowly made it shift to the right, leaving his left side visibly exposed. "If I'm right, even Chiyo's quirk would affect you if we replicated the situation.

"Of course, that would be counterproductive, not only I bet there would be a huge amount of collateral damage, but it would be really, really obvious.," Junko stated but mumbled something too low for him to hear.

"I doubt he would survive getting that far." Chiyo commented. "What else do you have in mind?"

"First, I would like him to try one of the medicinal pills I designed, it shouldn't affect anything major, but if he takes it under the scan I can see how it affects his other injuries. I'm tempted to do a repeat while transformed, but I don't want to push too much given his daily time limit." Junko walked to a small drawer and pulled a blister with half a dozen pale red pills. "I just finished testing this and will get them produced in small batches for hero use, it should heal anything under severe burns and deep cuts, it should also heal muscle strain." She handed Yagi a glass of water and one of the pills. "You know how it is, get on the podium and wait till I tell you to take it."

He nodded and got on the stand once more, waiting for her to give the go before taking the pill and swallowing it down with the water.

He instantly started to feel better before it stopped, like it should have been more but couldn't fulfill its purpose.

"Hmm, yeah, just as I feared." Junko thoughtfully looked at the screen. "One for All's keeping your body from changing. Small things have been fixed, microfractures in bones and tears in some muscle groups have been healed, more than one of the old scars have slightly faded away, but others seem to have returned, I would say it's only about twenty to twenty-five percent effective.

"Technically, I could have you take five and end with the same amount of healing that one would normally do, but it's never a good idea to overdose with these. Each one has a collection of nutrients and other minerals meant to give the body a way to heal, and will still accumulate otherwise."

"And don't you have something stronger?" Yagi found himself asking.

Junko grinned. "Of course I do. I have one strong enough that would help you regrow a limb or missing organ, but I would bet it would be even less effective on you, and I don't want to have to open you up and clean the mess a tenth of a stomach will do inside you."

"That's not the face of someone without a plan." Chiyo commented. "I've seen enough heroes at work to know that glint in your eyes, child, speak of it."

"Well, it's simple, if One for All won't let me heal your body, there's only one thing to do, stop One for All from stopping me, this would be much easier if you had passed the quirk already, but at this point, I doubt you would live more than a few days to a few months after passing it. So I will be restraining your quirk."

"Quirk nullification doesn't really work on me. It weakens One for All for a few moments, but not much more."

"Of course it wouldn't work," Junko placed her hand on the screen as the image changed, it was Yagi in his full All Might form. "Why would a quirk that stops another quirk work when you technically have eight quirks in you?" She grinned. "Remember, the original quirk is a stockpile, accumulating the power and quirks from all the previous users."

The image shifted, different parts of his body showing in different colors and slowly moving around, seven colors, all surrounded by an eight.

"Of course…" Chiyo mumbled, rubbing her chin as she took the revelation.

"I won't be restricting one quirk, I will be restricting eight of them." Yagi would never admit the chill of fear he felt when looking at Junko's smile, he was glad she was a hero, or at least on the side of angels.

She clicked a button on the keyboard and eight spheres dropped from the ceiling, each perfectly polished and clear made of some type of crystal.

"I don't think you will survive much once we start, so I will have you take the strongest version of my medicinal pill, don't worry, it works perfectly on quirked and quirkless, it's just hard to test broadly given the need of people lacking parts. Just have a little hope." Junko smiled and Chiyo seemed to approve after the woman explained the technical details.

Yagi took a deep breath. "Are you sure it will work?"

Junko nodded. "I won't say it will be perfect, but if the worst happens, I'll act personally to fix it."

Yagi nodded and walked to the podium, sitting on the operation table that had risen from the ground. He grabbed the offered pill, different from the pale red, this was bright purple, he wondered if it tasted like grape.

"On your marks." Junko actively taped on the keyboard. "Go ahead." She waited till he swallowed the pill before she inputted the activation sequence.

Instantly Yagi felt himself be torn apart, eight clear appendages reached from each sphere and latched into his body, grabbing a hold of his power and pulling.

He watched the clear and barely visible tentacles dye with multiple colors as the pain suddenly became inscrutable. The void in his torso turned into a burning hole, the ache of decades of abuse on his body compressed into a few seconds as the cool sensation of the pill started to spread inside his body.

He felt his insides melt and move around as his perception stretched to each of the orbs around him. He could feel each of them trying to reach back to him, like stretched rubber bands about to snap back in place. But he could also feel the process inside his body was still going on.

Suddenly he felt, more than heard, a loud comment.

"FUCK!"

Chapter 59

Chapter Text

Chapter 59

" FUCK ," Junko mentally cursed as the warnings on the soul holding crystals started to pile up. "I knew One for All was a strong quirk, but even while still asleep they are this strong?"

She grumbled as she ignored Chiyo asking her what was happening and the useless charge when none of the options were in her reach, the scans told her the healing was only sixty percent done, still too much there as the soul holders wouldn't last more than ten or twenty percent.

Stopping before it reached completion could be instantly fatal from the shock or actually be survivable, but she didn't want to try her hand at a coin flip that she didn't even know if it was balanced. She was pretty sure One for All wouldn't let itself be restrained like this again.

"God dammit." She rushed into the center of the room, ignoring Chiyo's screams as her hands started to glow, each grabbing four of the souls and restraining them.The sheer pressure she felt was incredible.

Even while separate, each soul in One for All worked as one. She could feel herself losing ground, slowly getting pushed back against Yagi's own soul. Junko was forced to flare her soul to push back, but only enough for that, if she pushed harder she would end creating a deeper kind of damage.

A stray thought passed her mind and she quickly sent a mental message to the series E. Quickly she started to feel their minds as they stopped their current work and joined her in her work.

Slowly she started to feel the burden decrease as more series E's souls joined her, even from the distance, in keeping the previous bearers of One for All from reaching Yagi's body.

She watched the screen from the corner of her eye, the numbers soon reaching the nineties and approaching completion. That's when a new problem came up, how would she release the soul shards. She didn't know if letting them just bounce back in would damage Yagi's soul or any of the other pieces.

Junko mentally connected to seven other series E still accompanying her to gently grab one of the souls each and help her as the number finally reached a hundred percent, then they started to metaphorically lower the souls back into Yagi.

But even as things worked so far, they couldn't be perfect, and as she slowly deposited the last soul her fingers, coated with her soul, lightly touched Yagi's soul and ignited it.

The resulting explosion sent her flying back, away from the man and impacting one of the walls hard enough to dent it.

Junko couldn't hear anything else but a loud ringing, she actually felt blood dripping from her face's orifices before her aura started to heal the small damage. She slowly groaned as she got up, cursing her actions and hoping she hadn't done more damage with that little bit.

She blinked a few moments as she couldn't believe what she was seeing.

"What are you doing here?" She asked, still confused from the hit.

The white and gold face grinned with their large mouth, one of the series E stood by Chiyo. "You suddenly call for help and you think none of us would come and check what happened?" She turned to Chiyo. "Sorry about not presenting myself, I'm a series E, completely autonomous synthetic life form, Junko built me to help her with work."

The older woman sharpened her eyes as she glared at the eye-less being in front of her. "One of the strangest designs I've seen, are you an AI?" She asked curiously.

"Not exactly, I'm a mental copy of Junko, but I think we have more important matters right now." She pointed to the clearing cloud in the center of the room.

"I Have Never Felt So Good!" Yagi's voice was once again full of strength, his body looking similar but not the same to his fully powered for. If Junko had to point a difference, the man looked younger.

"Okay, okay, looks like everything's okay, just in case," Junko rushed to the table and grabbed a Tricorder. "Lets run a quick scan." She moved up to the man, maybe a bit faster than a normal person could, but overall, she was glad to see the results coming in clean.

Chiyo stepped to her side and watched the results. "All looks good, everything down to the major scars have been healed, you appear to be the perfect specimen of a super-powered human male."

"I feel so full of power." Yagi spoke a little more restrained as he clenched a fist and an aura of gold lighted up.

"...oops." Junko swiftly turned and smacked the series E who started to giggle.

"Well, congratulations Toshinori Yagi, looks like you have an activated Aura now." The series E spoke.

"Do you all have to have such loose lips?" She smacked the series E again and groaned, covering her face with the tricorder in her hands.

"Oh dear, you made us this way." The synthetic life form pointed to her large mouth.

"Child, what did she mean by Aura?" Chiyo turned and glared at her.

Junko groaned more, hands running down her face as she sighed, clenching her fist and showing how it lighted in her red rust color. "Aura, also called the light of the soul, an old technique created in a world, far, far away by a race under the assault of literal soulless monsters.

"When sword and shield falter and the monsters are at the gate, let your soul shine, coat your weapons and your armor and fight, because life's on the line, help your brother and sister, be a beacon of hope because there's a tomorrow."

Yagi hummed as he observed the golden light on his hand. "Appropriate..."

"If it came from so far, how did you get it?" Chiyo stared at her the way only an older woman used to deal with kids for most of her life could.

Junko was glad that Yagi's attention was caught by the series E's presence and interrupted Chiyo before she asked for more as she felt another charge pile for a total of four.

The first perk was six charges, and offered the knowledge to make some kind of giant robots, she ticked another one of those and looked at the next. The second, for four charges, would improve her ability for modular designs, but aimed mostly at tools and weapons, it sounded interesting even if apparently needed a second perk to work better.

The last perk, also for four charges, would make her the daughter of the Greek god Hephaestus, giving her all the abilities a demigod with his parentage would have. Junko may be descendant of Prometheus and have his gift of foresight, but that didn't mean she was more than a bit greedy, and this perk almost made her salivate.

She saw the series E turn to her as she mentally shrugged and took the perk. Junko felt her perception of the word expand, once more.

It started with her understanding of fire, oh so much fire. It took the spark of divine fire already living in her soul and fed it so much fuel. Given the surprised look the series E, Yagi and Chiyo was giving her, she was pretty sure she was currently on fire. She understood why Zeus was so angry with Prometheus, divine fire was so much more than just fire, she would have to really experiment with it… maybe restart Mars' core?

The next part that expanded was technopathy, all technology and magitech around her turned into an extension of her will, if she wanted she could order the building to reorder and know perfectly well what each part was doing. She understood everything so much better, her perception reaching the pylon on the grounds outside and suddenly catapulting all the way to the network in the Moon and Mars, it was so beautiful.

Last, but not least, she suddenly understood Greek, but not the current one, old Greek, the one spoken when the gods were worshiped, she knew the rituals to the old gods, Hephaestus's between them, she would see to construct the god a nice temple somewhere.

"Is everything okay, child?" Chiyo called her and Junko turned.

"Oh? Yes, yes, sorry, I think the explosion hit me a bit harder than I thought." Junko used the series E's senses to make sure she turned the fires off. "Well, I would say this was a success, Yagi." She smiled. "If I had to guess, One for All has put your soul under a lot of pressure, helping it grow stronger. Under normal circumstances it shouldn't have happened, but apparently the process of restraining your quirk's parts exposed your soul enough that slight contact with mine… well, ignited it."

"She means you are lucky." The series E spoke. "Call it good luck, or karma for all the things you have done for the world. Other people may have just burnt out from the inside out."

"I didn't want to point out the really bad thing that didn't happen." Junko facepalmed.

"Ah, sorry miss, I don't think we met before, I'm Toshinori Yagi." The man looked at the series E.

"A pleasure, tho in a way we did, I'm a series E, mental duplicate from Junko, I'm just one of many, I think you could call us Junk-E's."

"That's a terrible name." Junko groaned.

"We are you, we have the same taste for names, after all series E and series A, really? You literally named us Adam and Eva models." The series E grumbled.

"I hope you are sure about what you are doing here, little girl." Chiyo grumbled.

"Yeah, yeah, they are all okay, I originally meant to have them be automated workers, but things developed differently than expected and ended with them. But it's safe, they all know what and who they are, there's no chance any of them wanting to replace me, they have all the autonomy they want and so much to keep them occupied that they won't go bored for a really long time."

"She's right, if we go bored terrible things may happen. Enough of us and we may decide to take over the world and rebuild it."

"We are not doing that."

"You're right, we already have Mars for that." The cheeky Junk-E commented.

""Mars?"" Both Yagi and Chiyo screamed.

"Next version won't have any mouths if you continue being so loose-lipped." Junko was pretty sure that she would dent the wall if she smacked her head against it, but she was pretty tempted at the moment. "Yeah, I reached Mars, and the Moon, but that was much earlier."

"That's the kind of stuff that happens when we get bored." The series E grinned, Chiyo mumbled under her breath about crazy tinkerers, Junko was pretty sure she had experience with the situation.

"But, how?" Yagi seemed to have lost most words in the situation.

"Lets run a few tests on you before we check on that, I would like to see that you are completely healed, also, I can tell this is your new 'unpowered' form, so you can still bulk up, and I would like to see that nothing breaks when you do." She shushed the man back to the podium and activated the scanner. "And-"

The door opening cut her off as another series E entered. "Hey, before he does that and ends in his boxers." She handed the hero a newly made costume.

Junko opened and closed her mouth a couple times. "...ah, you are right." She only now noticed the man's clothes barely fit his new features. "You can change behind that curtain." She pointed to the corner of the room.

She mentally groaned and rubbed her face, she had forgotten that little detail and mentally thanked the series E for the help. Watching All Might walk out of the curtain looking actually healthy soothed a bit of her worries.

She felt a single charge drop into her well, but none of the options were worth that and she let it pass.

"Okay, now," She activated the scan once more. "Change."

Yagi's new figure was easily over two meters tall, broad shoulders and straight posture, but once he bulked, his figure easily shot up by over twenty centimeters. While his muscles were there and well defined in his new form, once he bulked into All Might they all swelled, a shiny glint of gold seemed to glow from his figure.

"Don't fear, because I'm Here!" He laughed.

"Well, all looks to be working correctly, One for All seems to have accepted the new, regrown organs as completely yours, no sign of rejection of any kind. Well, I can't give you a complete check up on health, I will leave Chiyo to give her professional opinion, but except having you run through a complete physical test, I can't see any problems."

Junko smiled, he had to admit All Might looked better, his face had lost that shade that seemed to spell his demise, the end coming soon given his injuries.

"I have to thank you Junko, not even in my most remote dreams I expected to be healed." All Might praised her and she felt warm inside.

"I agree, child, I don't think anyone ever expected this kind of miracle." Chiyo agreed with him. "I will still have to run my own tests on him."

"I would suggest keeping the illusion you still have the injury, don't show yourself that much, I'm sorry to say, but if All for One's still around, exposing that you've been healed could bring more problems. Even then something tells me it may be too late. Also, you should keep the costume, it's a perfect replica of your own and should repair itself after a few days when broken unless completely annihilated."

All Might nodded, a third series E walked in with a small suitcase of normal clothes. "What? He can leave looking like that unless we want more attention?" the synthetic spoke before nodding and leaving.

Junko groaned, but still thanked her. "Also, you can keep the clothes, they should be enough to keep you from having to run out to get a whole new wardrobe." The man thanked her and headed behind the curtain to change.

"Again, child, I have to thank you for doing this and actually doing it." Chiyo spoke warmly.

"I… I just couldn't not do something, and it's more than just him coming to help me with Rikiya, he's the symbol of hope, and no matter how much I look down on the popularity contest that the hero listing has become, the world still needs people like him, just letting him pass' not in my nature." Junko smiled as she spoke honestly. "I will still want to conduct some more scans after he passes One for All, I've no idea what will be the result to his body now that he has Aura."

"Don't worry, he will be working at U.A. next year, it was originally for us to keep an eye on him, well, that won't change, but it will let us make sure he doesn't go overboard. He's already burning his body even when he was restrained for just a couple hours a day."

Junko nodded and smiled, the normal Yagi looked good in the clothes the series E had made, and having him being healthy was a huge win in her books.

Chapter 60

Chapter Text

Chapter 60

Junko was currently multi-tasking, mentally grumbling while she also made a list of the new additions the last perk had brought to her body and general skill over crafting and smithing.

She was also cursing the series E about spilling the beans on Mars, because apparently Chiyo wouldn't let the matter pass, and she didn't believe the lie that she didn't have a way to get them there safely.

"Look at it this way, child," The older nurse hero spoke. "You should be glad it was us and no Nezu, the principal would have been over the moon about the idea of visiting another planet."

"I have to admit I'm also interested in the prospect of visiting another planet." Yagi spoke.

"Okay, okay let's go to the transference room," Junko grumbled a bit more as the series E accompanied them.

She didn't really need to take them to the transference room for the trip. This room had been designed as a more inconspicuous way to get in-coming traffic from other pylons instead of using the one outside. It's also a way to hide the fact she could transport anyone in the complex' grounds to safety.

The transference room was one the larger rooms in the building, holding a pylon installed into the center.

"It's the same thing as the one outside, no?" Yagi asked.

"Correct, the crystal carries a series of special and esoteric characteristics that lets it 'connect' to similar ones even over really large distances. I have copies of it on the dark side of the Moon and over a good part of Mars by now." Junko explained as she walked up to the crystal. She didn't need any kind of physical input, her quickly growing psychic powers made the control easy as breathing.

"So we need to touch it, or?" Yagi asked, a little confused.

"Just don't resist." Junko smiled and selected the four of them before a quick blue flash filled the room before the four of them were deposited in the center hall of the new Nexus building.

She had to admit the place looked nice, she hadn't had the chance to visit it since it had been built. And while it hadn't been designed to hold people in any type of long term, it showed just how far her design perks worked.

"Wha- Oh…" Yagi lost all words, the same as Chiyo, as they noticed the area around them had changed.

Junko was glad she could do away with the more ostentatious looks of the Protoss of just gold and crystals everywhere. She had managed to blend different colored alloys to soften the looks of the room even with the massive Khaldarin crystal at the center.

She cleared her throat. "Welcome to Mars' Nexus. Not much to see here, follow me, we will stay outside of the production rooms for safety reasons." She guided them to one of the larger windows facing the outside of the pyramid, giving them a view of the reddish plains of Mars.

"This…" The older woman mumbled. "I may have an idea of why, but would you tell me why are you keeping all of this a secret?"

"Hmm," Junko rubbed her chin as she thought. "If I had to say it in a few words, I don't trust humanity with it, yet.

"I've developed more than one technology that would reshape society. Medicine, transportation, energy, etc… I have developed matter-energy conversion at a profit. Do you think people are ready for that kind of thing?"

Junko shook her head, looking out as she let her mind momentarily wander over the many series E and A working inside her warehouse or near her. While the silence hung on the air she felt another charge fill up in her well. Doing a quick check up she took the only perk that was available for her charges.

"I believe humanity can be great, but it's too early, the same reason why you don't give a baby a knife, it would only lead to hurting themselves."

She swiftly went over the new knowledge the perk had imparted. A varied set of alchemical techniques to create from potions to charms to weapons to rituals. She felt a small shiver go down her spine, apparently since the knowledge was aimed to counteract evil proposes, she had to know about evil rituals to stop them properly.

"That's why I'm slowly releasing the things I find to be safe and help the progress. Better and cheaper medicine production methods. Safer and easier construction materials. Cheaper ways to produce energy and clean water. And if someone's an idiot and thinks they can get smart about hogging it? I will just lean on them till they understand.

"I'm not restrained by cost, time or materials. I also still own the patents and can advance much faster than they think." She explained.

"An impressive principle. I hope you will never stop caring for the morality of your advances." Yagi spoke honestly.

Junko actually snorted. "And make Eri cry?" She asked half-jokingly. It looked to be enough for the two heroes. "But I doubt I will even need to do that, with the series E and being practically a one-woman post-scarcity civilization, I've no need to do 'evil' things, I also have a list of things to develop as long as a mountain to work on. I will be busy for a while.

"Oh, this will be good." She pointed to a spot not far from them where a number of probes were working.

"What's that?" Yagi asked curiously.

"They're finishing with the latest design for the robotics production line. While the Nexus can produce the probes you see working around, for larger construction I'll need specialized factories."

There's no less than two dozen probes working together in perfect synchrony, Junko could feel at least half of them were actually being controlled by some of the series E. The Protoss' construction method utilized the same psychic power that connected the network to forge the minerals and temper them with Vespene gas.

All the materials were transported by the same general process the network transported units directly into the psychic energy shell where the same forces shaped them down to the nano-scale, letting the probes flash-forge whole buildings in less than an hour.

And that was before she came in like a wrecking ball and broke limits held for millennia. Construction times had been reduced by half for all construction methods at least. Material was used better, ending with less wasted product and higher efficiency on reclamation of minerals. And the buildings worked so much better, three or four times better at the worst.

So the three of them watched it, even as dozens of Junk-e's worked there or on something else. The psychic energy shell blooming and the whole building coming into being after being constructed slightly outside reality.

"That's frankly impressive."

"Thank you." Junko smiled. "I still have a few kinks to work out, but overall this should let me proceed to build the next steps in the advancement."

"And what would that be? What are you working for?" Chiyo asked, a bit worried apparently.

"Space." She smiled with her response. "While it wasn't hard to get a probe from Earth to here quite quickly, they are not meant to carry any type of intelligent life-form, and building it here in Mars helps keep it a secret, so please, be kind and don't pass it around."

Chiyo snorted as Yagi just nodded. She thanked them and took the two older heroes back to Earth. She asked Yagi to contact her about anything going wrong, and also to Chiyo to make sure he did. The older woman took it with good humor but agreed to do that and keep what the young woman was doing mostly a secret.

"Finally!" Junko groaned. "That should appease things for a while. Hopefully All for One won't take this too much as an insult."

She headed back into her workshop, itching to try her latest perks. Especially as she felt all the machines hum to her new senses. From the Alchemiter's chaotic tones, to the electro-jazz from the cybernetic bay. Technology around Junko felt more alive to her.

She felt an idea come to her and created three clones, who nodded at her thoughts. With the robotics production line finished, she could start to produce better construction probes for air and space buildings.

Unless she skipped a step and created a ground-to-space probe. She smiled and felt a few words escape her lips as she slowly dived into the working mood.

" We built this city ," The words escaped her lips easily, her hands and those of her clones working together in the design of the Probe mark II. " We built this city on rock and roll ."

She would be building a city, a city and so much more.

" Built this city, We built this city on rock and roll, " Slowly the clones joined her as they did their part. " Say you don't know me or recognize my face, Say you don't care who goes to that kind of place ."

Four minds like hers doing the same work, completely focused, made easy work of problems that could stump even large civilization, and had stumped the Protoss.

" Marconi plays the mamba, listen to the radio, don't you remember? " She finished the design and sent it to the series E for production.

" We built this city, we built this city on rock and roll, " The series E started with just a mumble before one of them grinned with her large red lips and joined the chorus with more energy. Soon there were many, joining on the song.

" Someone's always playing corporation games, Who cares, they're always changing corporation names, " She sang openly as hers and the clones' work shifted to the space constructions bay, anchoring points that could modify their respective position but would be quantum locked once working. " We just want to dance here, someone stole the stage, They call us irresponsible, write us off the page. "

A few of the spare series E, more than a bit taken by the sway of the song, had crafted guitars, electric pianos and even drums.

" Marconi plays the mamba, listen to the radio, don't you remember? " The series E sang the chorus as small applications of magic created a fog effect. " We built this city, we built this city on rock and roll. "

The chorus repeated with the series E and A worked together.

" It's just another Sunday in a tired old street, Police have got the choke hold, " The design was simple compared to the probe mark 2, quickly completed and sent for production by the already working probes. " oh, then we just lost the beat. "

" Who counts the money underneath the bar? " The clones sang with her, slowly opening up the blueprints for the mothership. " Who rides the wrecking ball into our guitars? "

" Don't tell us you need us 'cause we're the ship of fools, " She sang as she got to work on the ship's core, the clones working on habitable, weapon and production zones. " Looking for America, coming through your schools. "

" Don't you remember ?" The clones sang and the series E repeated the last word.

" Marconi plays the mamba, listen to the radio, don't you remember? " She sang as the core's processes were streamlined, awkward choke-holds in technological design replaced by simpler magical components.

The clones had divided the remaining area of the mothership, weapons on the outer ring leaving no blind spot, a mix of the original protoss' tech with esoteric magitech weapons.

" We built this city, we built this city on rock and roll. "

The next ring, sandwiched between the outer and inner ring the first area under the ship's dome was left for production of needed units, be it for battle or construction, each side of the massive construct holding outputs of up to hundred units per minute.

" Built this city, we built this city on rock and roll ."

The last ring, just outside of the core of the ship would be used for habitation, enough space for a few thousand people to live in complete lavishness. Though she doubted motherships would ever be used for that. If she wanted civilian ships she would be building an Ark Ship, but that could wait.

" We built, we built this city, yeah ." She sang and the clones along with the series E repeated.

" Built this city. "

Every piece of the design was checked, reworked and checked once more, some of the series E taking the more tedious work as Junk finished with the core, enough power to glass a planet alone or punch a hole through a moon, and it would run nearly forever.

" We built, we built this city "

An infinite power source plus the matter-energy conversion systems, it may be capable of annihilating entire planets, but enough motherships and you would technically be capable of constructing a new planet.

" We built, we built this city yeah. "

Designs completed, tested, reworked and accepted she sent it for production, already thousand probe mark 2 were on orbit above the Mars' Nexus.

" We built, we built this city, " She sang with all of her heart as she watched the construction advance at neck-breaking speed. " We built, we built this city yeah. "

With just her the process would have gone twice as fast, having her clones pitching in for the micromanaging plus the perfectly synchronized series E made the whole process go even faster.

" We built, we built this city. " She sang, the chorus picking up with the last few chords.

The psychic matrix expanding several kilometers in all directions in space started to shine brighter before the last rift played and space buckled under the weight of her first mothership coming online.

The elation of the moment instantly crashed down as she realized what had gone through. First came the blush, then looking at the giggling clones next to her.

Then to the large rock band formed by series E and A, all with master crafted instruments and more set up for this single song than most large bands had done for their concerts.

"Great song, boss!" One of the cheekiest series E commented and Junko dropped her face onto her hands and screamed.

"Look on the good side," A series A talked, his voice definitely much deeper than the series E, even his posture had shifted to a masculine one. "I doubt we would have managed a mothership for another two or three weeks otherwise."

"Yup," Now it was one of the clones piping in. "The construction bay will also hasten the other projects quite a bit, and that's not even talking about the core's power."

She groaned as she noticed that during the musical number, and she was glad to see the series E already storing all the instruments, she had missed another charge, but no perk was available and just passed.

She felt the clones expire and join the network as lesser minds, at least temporarily. A quick peek to their souls showed a slight difference to the ones made before her ascension to demi-godhood, she would have to look into that later, right now she had a long list of things to test on her newly completed ship.

Along with tests to see if the series E/A and the clones had joined her for the pleasure of making her groan or there had been something more.

Chapter 61

Chapter Text

Chapter 61

Junko relaxed, eyes closed, leaning back on the chair she had chosen as she awaited the practical side of the hero license exam. The theory had been boringly easy, especially as the series E didn't miss the chance to whisper the answers to the law questions. The rest was quite obvious and straightforward, don't be an asshole, follow the orders of more experienced heroes in crisis, respect police officers and other emergency responders.

All pretty basic, helped by several dozen snoopers peeking in frequently and looking for the more complex problems. As she waited her turn, she felt another charge, making it to two in her well.

Seeing that her options were all over two charges in cost, she's more than ready to let them pass when she felt the tug on her brain about having to choose. A closer look made her notice the option worth four charges was actually a group of four smaller perks.

The first option was just half a charge, giving her a source of water-proof metal and metallic thread, for one and a half charges she got a source of an esoteric crystal and some super fertilizer, for one charge she got a source of an energetically charged material and for another charge she got a source of a really hard metal and one that apparently could regenerate.

She had seen some of these options before, and looking at them better, she now saw plenty to use for them, given the nature of her options, she could most likely get them all. The question was, where to start.

Mentally shrugging she took the most and least expensive perks from the four of them, she would take the other two on her two next charges.

Just with those two perks she got access to four materials, the first was Titanium, interestingly it was just a slightly harder variant of the natural metal existing in earth, it was also blue instead of the silver of normal titanium. The next material was much more interesting, called Glassteel was a naturally occurring metal that grew in vines that could be harvested and processed into a strong filament for multiple uses.

The third material, Mithrite, had quite the interesting characteristic, growing in long, green crystalline lances, the material worked really well when used with one of the materials she still hadn't acquired if the knowledge that came along with the perk was right, she would have to save the experimentation till after she got the perk.

Last was Hyperium, going over the knowledge given to her by the perk, she had already sent a warning to the series E about storage procedures for the material given the noxious fumes it created. It also made for some near miraculous fertilizer, increasing harvests for up to thirty percent.

The series E had apparently gotten quickly into testing these four materials, while the perks only produced about an ingot a week of each, they hadn't needed more than a handful to start replicating them in large, and much more workable, amounts.

Junko was mentally going over some of the test results when her name was called for the practical test. She hummed softly as she got up, walking out to the testing grounds along with other five people that were trying to get their license.

It had been quite a while since she competed against other people in anything physical. Gym class was something of times long past, she had always been a very fit woman, maintaining a good physical condition after school by taking the work at the scrapyard. Between some of her perks and the training with Ulthane she was easily a top athlete by now.

Her height had increased by a dozen centimeters, putting her above a meter ninety, making her tower over most people in Japan. Her figure was, literally, shaped like the gods, the mix of titan heritage and demi-godhood made even her muscular figure perfectly appealing to the eyes. Even her modest bust looked perfec.

She didn't need her empathy to tell her the exam's proctors and the other testers were jealous of her figure, she did enjoy stretching a bit to show off, nothing too bad, just a warm up even if she didn't need it.

"Okay children, form up." An older man spoke, he had a slightly tanned figure, black glasses covered his eyes and a notepad on his hand. "For formality reasons, when I call your name and your quirk speak up."

She watched the man slowly go down the list of names, one by one the people waiting with her replied as their hero names were called along with their quirks. She was deep into imagining what each quirk did given their names and how she would provide support for them to use in different fields that she almost missed her call.

"Junk, Material Eating."

"Here." She replied with a smile, given the looks of the people around her, they didn't believe she could be a hero with a quirk like that. She had to snort at the idea of her needing her quirk to be a hero if she wanted to.

The man continued down the second part of the list till everyone had been called.

"Okay people, the exam's simple, it's divided in three parts, first." he lifted a finger. "we'll check your physical capabilities, you can use your quirk for any of the parts of this, we need to see how far you can push things.

"Two," He lifted the second finger. "One at a time you will go into one of the buildings back there and save the civilian inside. Again, you can use your quirk, points will be awarded by how safe you keep things.

"And last," He dropped his hand. "You will go a small bout against one of our people alone, your objective will be restraining your opponent, once more, you can use your quirk and points will be awarded for speed and skill, and taken away for damage dealt to your opponent and collateral."

Junko mentally nodded, it was all pretty simple, she felt her power fill another charge and automatically flipped it over to get the next of the perks, the new materials were called Adamantian and Palladian, the first was near indestructible and just as hard to work with, normally, and the other possessed the ability to regenerate when treated correctly.

As she slowly went over the list of results the series E had been compiling, the other people went through the physical tests till it was her turn.

"Junk, your turn." She was glad to see no sneer coming from the proctor, either he knew of her, or he was actually unbiased about people. Honestly, she hoped for the later, it would mean the man was professional enough to not judge books by the covers.

She quickly moved into position, taking on the first part of the practical exam. She grabbed the lightest weight and picked it up before moving to the next and so on, soon reaching the four hundred kilograms and finding a bit of a resistance, only then she flexed her burgeoning telekinesis to help herself. Her test continued, weight lifting, grip strength, hundred meters dash, etc...

"That's enough." The man called to her, sounding a bit impressed as she nodded and returned to the group, waiting for the next part.

Junko pondered on the reason why she was being forced to take the hero license test. The incident with Re-Destro had brought her abilities, not only as a support gear creator, but as a combatant to the light. The Hero Public Safety Commission had tried their best to leash her down.

Nezu had contacted her after she fixed All Might, the principal had commented how there had been talks about taking away her support gear creator license and have her work exclusively for them, but the old men that sat high on their tower hadn't had enough reasons to force that on her.

She was glad to have Mila on her side, the felyne and the group of lawyers she had cultivated had managed to clean the problem quite well. She noticed she was being called for the second part of the practical test.

The civilian saving scenario was a cakewalk for her, her technopathy told her exactly where the mannequin was, letting her get to it just fast enough. Plus a thin coat of telekinesis over the doll as a shield kept it from even noting she had rushed out a bit faster than safe.

Finally it was her turn for the duel with the professional hero. The man had been one of the proctors looking over the people taking the tests. He had a herculean figure and Junko was pretty sure she would have looked pretty similar if she had been male instead of female after getting some of her perks.

He sported a padded full armor suit that while covered the necessary parts, didn't hide the appeal of his figure. He respectfully nodded to her and smiled, she returned the nod and got ready.

"You have five minutes to restrain your opponent," The proctor looking over the test spoke. "Points will be awarded for speed, skill and safety, you can knock your opponent out, but doing it so violently will reduce your total. Getting knocked out, extreme violence or not achieving the objective in the time given will be an instant fail. Is this understood?"

Junko nodded and fixed the gloves she had gotten, cracking her neck and leaning forward.

"Then ready, set, go!"

She wouldn't let this take long, with a quick push she fell into one of her old tactics with a little twist.

First she leaned even further, her feet digging into the ground, as her center of gravity moved down, her flexed legs straightened and shot her forward at near neck-break speeds.

Once she was close enough to the hero, and before he could even notice what happened, her hand shot out from her side, grabbing the man's wrist and twisting it as she slid behind him.

A quick tug along with the twist of his wrist, hand getting dragged behind his back as her other hand lay open between his shoulders as she pushed down, hard.

Just to be sure, Junko extended her psychic grasp all over his body, creating a shield to cushion the slam of his body to the ground. Hand firmly holding his wrist, the standard pinning position.

"I give." His voice came more than a little surprised, but the shock was mostly mental as she had made sure to keep it as light as possible..

"I think that's the fastest bout we had." The proctor spoke as Junko moved to a side and helped the man get up.

"That's a perfect pin, congratulations, not many people had managed to surprise me like that." He smiled.

"Thank you." She spoke honestly, thanking the proctor too.

With that done, Junko turned and left the arena, the practical done, she would need to wait for a few minutes, but her license was already a given. Especially since it wasn't one of the years the large hero schools choose to put all of their students through.

She took a chair and relaxed, letting her mind go over the more recent results on testing the new materials. Adamantian would be used to produce better structures, while normally hard to work with, the Protoss' forging methods bypassed this restriction, meanwhile, Palladian made great armor plating, the regenerative nature of this material made great ablative armor.

The Titanium appeared to be just a heavier isotope of the metal, while useful, it wasn't anything out of this world. Now Glassteel, on the other hand, opened up a whole new branch on metallic textiles, treated properly it could be braided into strings with the same tensile strength of steel cables many times their size, it could also be weaved into light, soft and flexible fabric that didn't show any difference from normal cloth while being extremely resistant.

Junko felt the last needed charge come, she gave it a quick mental nod and the last perk of the group was bought, adding one more source of exotic materials in the warehouse. She could feel the series E rushing to test the material.

"Junko Tetsu." A voice called for her, the woman on the other side of the screen smiled and congratulated her for passing the exam, handing her her new license and having her sign the needed permits to note she had received said item and she knew what it meant and yadda yadda yadda.

As she listened to the woman with one ear and signed the needed papers, she went over what the perk knowledge told her, apparently she now had a source of Dust, a golden dust-like substance that could be used for so many things you could literally run a large city with a good access to it.

Once all was finished she thanked the woman for her work and headed out of the testing building, she looked around. She had some free time, and with nothing important left to do, she decided she could go enjoy a cup of coffee or tea at a near cafe. Also try and ignore all the excitement she was feeling from the series E, she was pretty sure there was nothing urgent or they would have contacted her already.

She checked her phone before finding a cafe close enough, apparently they had some great tea, and with no real preference she headed there. She was glad to see a small, old-style house still exist between the many tall and modern buildings. The garden on the front was well taken care of.

She could literally feel the gratitude coming from the planet for this little spot. It wasn't large, but it was there, she made a mental note to buy the place to keep it safe if something happened.

She walked in and greeted the older woman taking care of the place, ordering a cup of tea with some cookies as she leaned back to relax. She thanked the woman for the extra cookie and took her time enjoying the place and snack.

She was finishing her last cookie and taking the almost empty cup of tea when the door opened. A, honestly, mismatched duo walked in.

The man was tall, definitely above the average Japanese man, she gave him something slightly above the meter eighty, it helped that he held a perfect posture, back straight as a rod. His hair naturally silver made him look older, the groomed mustache and beard didn't help in that, but she would put his age about early thirties.

The woman, on the other hand was easily a decade younger seventy centimeters shorter, her figure could be described as alluring. To his silver, her hair was bright magenta.

Invisible to normal eyes, but glowing to her empathic senses, the two trusted and relied on each other, she would be any of the two would easily sacrifice for the other. She was also pretty sure she had seen the pair before.

Chapter 62

Chapter Text

Chapter 62

Junko felt the presence of one of the few series A pick up the query and run a search of the pair's faces, soon getting the results, identifying them as Danjuro Tobita and Manami Aiba.

He also brought their presence on the internet as Gentle Criminal and his partner in crime La Brava, respectively. The series A proceeded to feed her more info about the duo, first with the openly available information and then digging deeper.

The more she learned about them, the more Junko decided the pair had been dealt a bad hand. She watched records of the young woman's abuse from her classmates to the point she had locked herself away. She read about the man's dream to be a hero crash down and burn after he tried to be a hero and help during an accident.

The series A, and more than a few of the series E currently without something better to do, was all up to making contact with the duo, he had pulled up more than a few laws about probationary licenses for ex-criminals as long as they hadn't done anything too big.

Junko was pretty sure the series A would be approaching them personally if he wasn't a towering, eyeless, white and gold synthetic life form moved by science, magic and the power of the mind. But those were minor details, and given the message of Mila to go ahead, he had already gone through that part.

Junko snorted and finished her tea, her eyes still on the pair as they finished what they had come to do and prepared to leave. She thanked the older woman manning the store and left a big tip in gratitude for the service before heading out to follow the pair.

She smiled when the man noticed she was walking after them, letting herself be led as the duo. Soon they stepped into an abandoned lot.

"Ha Ha! You think yourself so good, trying to catch Gentle Criminal, but it was I who has set the scene of your defeat!" Gentle talked loudly as he stood in front of her the hole obviously left from some collateral damage on a hero-villain fight. He had changed into his costume, she was pretty sure La Brava had moved slightly off view, most likely deeper into the building.

"Yes, I know." She internally grinned as the offhand comment seemed to throw him off-balance, she walked closer, pulling out one of her business cards and offered to him as she jumped up to the spot he was.

"Ha! You thin-..uh, what?" He took a bit to grab the offered card.

"I'm Junko, from Junk Emporium. I've read about you and your partner, I would like to give you a chance to be a hero."

"Uh… umh…" Gentle Criminal appeared to still be lost as La Brava skipped into the situation.

"You are really Junk?!" She squealed. "I've been following your career, your companies' systems are the only ones that have never been hacked! How did you do it?!"

Junko chuckled at the eagerness of the shorter female. "It helps that I built my system from the hardware to the software in an entirely different architecture." She answered honestly, not that it gave much to work with.

"Bu-but… that's insane! You mean to tell me you have developed a whole new system?"

"Yes, but it helps that the current systems' have been stagnated for a while. In a way it was easier to ignore it all and create something new, it's also good enough that if I need to simulate any older system there will be no lag."

La Brava looked at Junko with stars in her eyes as she turned to her partner, the size difference made it quite fun to see the short woman shake the taller man by his pants.

"You have to say yes, Gentle! I've to get my hands on those systems! I want to see it all!"

"Calm down, my loyal partner. We can't just accept without knowing what's in for us." Apparently not talking wasn't a loss of words, but picking them carefully.

"I… You are right, Gentle, I got blinded by the shiny things." La Brava giggled very girly.

"Okay, lady, let's say we are interested, what would you expect from us?" His tone was completely serious, even as his face held a gentle smile, the man was currently talking business.

"I'll be honest, you won't be instantly pardoned, you two have been marked as criminals and have a rep sheet each, much shorter in La Brava's case, but a number of incidents have been put to her name." Junko decided that honesty would work best at this time. "So you two would end in probational positions under my watch, since I do have a hero license," She didn't feel the need to add she just had gotten it. "and I do have one or two contacts with people who could help. I could get your cases expedited.

"Your power," She spoke to Gentle. "show that even simple, sounding quirks have tons of applications, I have seen enough recordings to know you have learned to exploit it in some amazing ways. And you," She turned to La Brava. "have one of the rare quirks that work on others, I can't count more than a dozen known cases in the world, so you can imagine how rare that is. Plus, you two have shown to be quite smart, tho I would suggest using a bit more wisdom before acting."

The smaller female looked ready to reply when the man's hand came to stop her. "I've to say that the offer is very attractive. But I feel you are leaving things out."

His comment made his shorter partner look at her. "Well, you will most likely be following orders directly from me, or from one of the three heroes that work for me. I can't promise that you two will be able to go out together for a while. I'll most likely have La Brava working support from base. I'll also put you two through a lot of testing, not only to assess your skill, but also because I can't deny to be interested in your quirks."

"You'll have to forgive me for not accepting that outright, I would like to speak with my partner in private."

"That's okay, I'm glad you won't rush into it." She pointed to her card. "Please contact us, either me or my partner Mila will answer any and all your doubts about it, most likely Mila will do it as I tend to be quite busy with my personal projects."

With a smile on her face, she wished the pair a good day, and hoped to hear from them soon before she walked away, once she was far enough she transported herself back home before something happened.

She stopped by Mila's office to update her on her meeting with the mismatched duo and then went to spend some time with Eri, the child had done some amazing recovery from her initial state since she saved her. Didn't mean she still looked to sleep in Junko's bed at least half the nights of the week, though Carinho had helped with that.

Her time with the child ran short as she felt the series E starting to get really excited about something, deciding there was no more delaying it, she apologized to Eri, who was each day closer to calling her mom if her own mom's smile meant anything.

Junko headed into the warehouse to find a series E with a river of golden dust flowing around them.

The synthetic grinned with her large mouth and spoke. "It's not magic dust," She giggled as the material coalesced in her hand and reshaped into a perfect sphere. "We got an image of what the perk told you about this. All that about enchanting, talismans and such? Total bullshit.

"This is not magic dust, they are pico-machines, whoever designed them were complete geniuses!"

Junko felt the series E connect telepathically to share their findings, having had previous experience with the situation, she just let the connection feed her the findings.

The Junk-e was right, each mote of Dust was not solid, it was a piece of technological art a thousand times smaller than a nanomachine.

To give herself an idea, she thought of a helium atom, which was a hundred picometers wide, while the nucleus with its two protons and two neutrons was one femtometer, which was about a thousand times smaller than a picometer. And helium was the second smallest atom.

Meaning that while Dust couldn't change the atomic structure of matter, it could change the molecular structure of it. With enough of it and an intelligence behind it, she could use Dust to imitate her alchemical transmutation.

The magic-like effects described by the perk? All basic uses of Dust, enough of the material in a single place and the picoites worked to make things better. That was the other thing, their processing power increased almost exponentially the more of them were in a single place. Definitely a nearly miraculous material.

Junko felt another charge with no available options, and with something much more interesting in front of her, she let it pass.

"Okay, this is much better than I thought. I was sure I would be getting a magical material, but instead I get the near-holy grail of technology."

"Yes! And it interacts with Mithrite in quite an interesting way, the picoites seem to work better when in presence of the crystal, apparently the crystal resonates with Dust. If I had to say, I think both of them were created by the same beings."

Junko nodded, at least from what they had found, she had to agree to the theory.

"Also," The series E continued. "We've found that pumping large amounts of Dust into a planet will terraform it, we think either you, or more likely one of your clones, should produce as much Dust as possible in with the Alchemiter, we think that it will help the process of taking over Mars faster."

"Wouldn't it better to try it somewhere safer? Like one of the moons? If these results are right, it should survive even in Venus quite easily." Junko tried to reel back the series E 's excitement.

The synthetic instantly deflated. "Party pooper, okay, okay, we will set the production of a Warp Prism and send it to Venus, the plasma shielding should have no problem with the temperature and solar radiation."

"Much better than finding Dust creating monsters on Mars or some other strange thing."

The series E blew a raspberry and left her as she groaned at the possible headache the perk turned to bring. Finally she cleared her mind and summoned three clones.

"Okay girls, one of you go and replicate as much Dust as possible, don't be afraid to call for help if you need an extra pair of hands." She ordered. "The other two, you should see about finding a way to have the Protoss' psychic matrix construction method to use Adamantian."

"Gotcha, boss." The three of them headed quickly to work. Junko was left alone to work on her own projects.

Right now she was working on an adaption of the Zealots armor for the series A and E to apply onto their bodies. Strangely, she reached a point that designing an adaption for the armor to be used by the closest thing she had for mechanical units, a new branch from the Protoss' knowledge entered her mind.

While not as throughout of an experience as the first time she acquired the perk, she saw things that hadn't been shown on her first trip down this memory lane.

Apparently this species had once created metallic shells for the minds of their greatest fighters, they had then shunned these mental copies in such a way that Junko was impressed they hadn't rebelled right then and there and killed their creators.

Wait, no, they had actually rebelled and killed their masters for being treated as slaves even as their minds were the closest replications of their best warriors. For that act they had been turned off and exiled.

With time they had been turned back on, and from there they developed quickly, replicating every piece of the Protoss' warmachine, from ground units to the massive mothership, they had reworked every piece to be used by their digital minds, everything a shell for them to inhabit and fight with.

She let a small curse escape her lips, the Purifiers, as they called themselves, design for the mothership was so much closer to her own compared to the original Protoss' one that it wasn't even funny. She would still have to modify its design to add the enchantment, better power source and the matter-energy conversion engine, but it felt like she had worked a good part of the redesign for nothing..

She sighed and ordered the construction of a few normal purifier shells to inspect, while she could do it digitally or in her mind, it would be nice to see them in person.

She also sent the mental note to the two clones doing the re-designs to go over the Purifier's version of all the units and buildings.

She felt a mental connection from the series E that had decided to take the trip on the Warp Prism to Venus, apparently the other Junk-e's had decided to up the speed of the vehicle.

The speed freak apparently had enjoyed the trip quite a bit, while it wasn't the closest the planet was to Earth, it still had been sixty million kilometers in fifteen minutes.

Or nearly a quarter of the speed of light in a ship that really shouldn't have traveled at that speed. Some of the other series E were currently going over what the Speed Junk-e had experienced over the trip.

The ship had already helped deploy a reinforced Probe mark 2 to start the construction of a Pylon and a small outpost. Speed Junk-e had also scanned the whole planet with her new scanning technology to set a basic image of the planet when the changes started coming.

Some other series E had been transported to the planet and taking copies of the fast Warp Prism to set up a few other outposts on different parts of the planet before they started pumping large amounts of the golden picoites into the planet's atmosphere.

Apparently the dry and hot weather of the planet did wonders for the material, because the Junk-e explorers noted the material seemed to thrive, covering large areas quickly and seeping into the ground.

It was obvious it would still take time to show actual change. They calculated about two days of Dust deployment till they had saturated the planet enough.

What was to note, was that the Dust had quickly shown to coalesce into different, but distinctive patterns, what would become of them was still a mystery.

Junko felt the Speed Junk-e rope other series E into starting the design of a faster spaceship. She decided that future Junko could deal with that headache.

Chapter 63

Chapter Text

Chapter 63

"Are you sure about these results?" Mila asked a little more than just perplexed.

"Yeah," Junko replied, leaning back on the couch, the pair were currently in the Lynian's office. "Right now Venus' closer to habitable than Mars, and all I did was dump large amounts of exotic material in it."

"And it's been what? Two weeks?" Mila rubbed her chin. "Will you do the same to Mars?"

Junko shook her head. "No, not yet, the changes have still not settled, things keep developing, I will give it at least a month more."

She brought a holographic image of Venus from when she first reached it. Photos of the once yellow and ocher plains, she cycled through multiple spots, some of them showing the outposts she had placed all over the planet.

"This was back then," She switched the images. "and this is now."

The pictures had been taken in the exact same spots, making it easy for Mila to notice the differences. Not that it was hard to see when the once barren plains under toxic clouds were now large, luscious plains growing strange blue-hued plants. Some patches of grass were almost purple.

Changing the picture showed a forest of long and thin trees, it was like someone had taken normal Earth Trees and stretched them up before peppering them all over the area. They also appeared to be filtering the atmosphere at an impressive speed given the visible wind currents moving through them.

"And all of this is being created by the Dust?" Mila studied the pictures.

"Yeah, we've a good idea of what's the process for all of this. The dust particles congregate at one spot, work on something till they run out of energy, without energy they float higher up the atmosphere where they charge up with the sun's energy before flowing back down to continue their work.

"This movement up and down helps start the greater changes and spreads the Dust further. It's been slowly increasing even without our help."

"What the hell is that?" Mila asked as the new picture showed a field of flowers, flowers that were dripping a deep purple syrup-like substance.

"Oh, those," Junko pulled a small vial filled with the thing. "believe it or not, it's dye, completely natural, it's even edible and completely safe." She shook the vial. "Royal Purple, if you could believe, if we didn't have a cheaper and perfectly okay artificial version of it, just one acre of those plants would make anyone rich. We have found a few variants, apparently latitude makes it go from deep red to electric blue."

"And those plants just produce it?"

Junko nodded. "In large quantities, they barely need some water, sunlight and a fertile ground. And that's not all." She made a few pictures show on the screen.

One was a picture of cracked fields, the almost black surface broken to show the glowing green veins under it. "The material appears to be close to emeralds, but it can be used to reinforce basic stone and mortar construction, we are still seeing if we can use it to alloy metals."

A picture of large, golden spheres growing from the ground. "That's actually gold, Dust appears to have been collecting any and all strains of the metal from many miles around and concentrating it there, they appear to grow underground before sprouting as the ones below push those above up."

The last picture was of strange plant formation, the fields where they grew didn't appear too far from how they looked originally, except the orange-tinge was due to the pollen growing from large dark gray flowers. "Every part of those plants can be easily treated and be used as spices and food preservatives. It's quite impressive, we have tests ongoing right now and it has naturally increased the duration of freshness in food by several times."

"And all of this is naturally occurring?"

"As far as we can tell, Dust in enough quantities starts to form these spots, and we are pretty sure we haven't seen all, some concentration spots seem to still be developing into new things."

Junko cycled pictures, showing a much larger forest, given the series E standing next to one, they were massive, and most of them appeared to be growing clusters of something, nothing ripe yet. Another picture showed red spikes growing from the ground, another picture was a pool of silver.

"Given how they keep changing and developing, we haven't taken samples yet. The problem is that we have no idea where the Dust's getting the information to produce all of this. The atmosphere's also slowly changing into a non-toxic and actually breathable one. The clouds seem to be under the control of Dust too, or there's enough of it up there that it's been balancing the planet's temperature."

"Junko, I hope you understand how nuts all of this is." Mila still looked and sounded quite perplexed.

"You don't have to say it twice. We've been trying to understand really hard how it's doing all of this, we know each mote can reshape matter, but we have no idea what's guiding it. In some way, we know there's no intelligence behind it. It's like someone designed the material to naturally form all of them when in enough quantity."

Junko shook her head and turned off the screen. "The series E and myself have decided to maintain a constant number of people invested in studying it. The leading theory we have, is that it was designed to do this, be dumped into dead planets and terraform them. ...It's pretty crazy."

"I… I see," Mila rubbed her chin. "I can't really understand everything. But I'll leave it to you to keep me updated. Talking about updates, the pair of kinda-criminals have contacted me."

"Oh, that's good news, so? Are they taking the offer?" Junko twisted from her laying back on the couch to sitting on it.

"I doubt they wouldn't be interested in taking the offer to begin with. But they apparently were cautious enough to ask questions first, and good ones." Mila grinned. "It's nice to work with smart people." The felyne handed her some papers with the notes of the questions they had asked, and what Mila had put down as their answer.

"All looks okay, maybe leave very clear what it means that they will be in probation period?"

Mila made a little go-on sign with her finger. "That's on the next page."

Junko nodded as she checked, reading it through "All looks good."

"Great to hear then. I imagine they will be coming around the start of next week, you will be testing them?"

Junko nodded. "Most likely will do it myself, or have one of the series E do it. I doubt I will manage to keep them hidden for too long. Call it a hunch or gut feeling, I'm pretty sure All for One will be moving soon."

"Be careful then, I know you prefer to spring their ambushes, doesn't mean it's the best thing to do."

"I know, I know, I will just stay safe, the series E, A and myself have set up more than a few techniques for quick deployment, for example, I have a portable pylon in my Sylladex, all I need is to deploy it and I will have an access point for all my forces, we have also been re-designing some defensive units originally created by the Protoss, things like shield projectors and such to protect civilians."

"Ok, think you can set me up with a beacon like that?"

"Oh, that's a nice name, and yeah, I'll send one your way, and most likely get one for mom, grandma and Eri, except for Eri I'll leave it to Carinho."

"Sounds like a good plan." Mila commented before their conversation devolved into less interesting subjects of the business side of their enterprise. And once all that was done, Junko retired to work in her warehouse, where she created a new set of clones and let them go to work.

Her first project in the list was going over the designs created by the series E and A for specialized bodies. The few boys and many girls had been busy with their jobs, two weeks had been enough to develop the Mars outpost to the level of a small city. With around a dozen clones being created daily, their numbers had kept increasing.

They had come with two new designs pretty early, one for space work, they had included a three-dimensional movement system, a simple idea that hadn't stopped the series E to pump up enough power into the systems that they could go from the Earth's surface to the moon in a few minutes.

The design had ended broader than the basic bodies, their backs incorporating four turbine-like growths that could shrink when not in use.

The other design they had worked out incorporated the Probe's construction system. The body's design had ended similar to the base plus an additional tail that held the construction's equipment, they also had incorporated a design suite utilized thanks to a holographic system installed in their arms.

Both designs had gone through her hands before they were produced and were already in use by some of the series E. The new designs had more to do with the general feeling they had been having about an attack from villains coming soon.

They had come with three new designs: Attack, Protect and Restrain. The Attack model was a nearly pure offensive body, designed for strength and speed, great reflexes, while they had named that way, the network had decided they needed a forward unit more than a violent one.

Protect units, on the other hand, were tankier, equipped with a riot shield and a collection of force field projectors and a Sentry that would follow their orders. It was almost adorable how the sentries basic A.I. acted like a puppy to their respective Protector series.

Finally, the Restrain units, they were technically the most flexible units, their objective was to move around the field quickly, survive hits and finally capture villains. They had power suppressing restraints and could teleport the villains out of the field to prevent other people from freeing them.

Junko had made sure they all would work well and had fixed a few mistakes that could have accumulated into future problems before giving the designs her OK.

She was getting ready to start the next item in her list when she received a call, seeing it turnout to be Yagi she quickly picked it up.

"Hi hi," She greeted the man. "it's good to hear from you Yagi, did something happen?"

"Junk, it's nice I could find you." The man's voice was once more full of energy, Chiyo had made sure the hero didn't overdid it. "Don't worry, there's no bad news, well… not exactly."

"Sounds like you have a conundrum in your hands, tell me more."

"You see, this weekend there will be an event I've to attend. As you can imagine, a public event that will have my assured presence and a lot of civilians may attract All for One to act."

"You want me to attend too?" She asked openly.

"...yes." It appeared that even great heroes like All Might had a hard time asking for help from time to time.

"Don't sound so defeated, Yagi." She laughed at the man's woes. "I'd a feeling they would act soon, and thus have been preparing for it. It's nice to know something may actually happen and when."

"Ah! A hero should always be ready to face evil."

"Yes, even if I only have that license because it was forced on me." She replied as a joke. "But yes, I'll gladly attend and be there just in case, I'm pretty sure it will also be the safer place to introduce the series A and series E, they've been getting a bit rowdy at the idea of being restrained to non-public places." Even if they are freer than most people.

Junko felt her power reach a charge, she had noticed her power reacted less if she didn't have enough charges to buy any option, making her miss them more than once. She had managed to accumulate five charges, but she didn't think she would be using them all.

To begin with, the first option was worth six charges. The second was worth four, but only appeared to improve her mental designing program. The last, for a single charge, was an improvement for her workshop.

She took the last one, hoping that the next charge gave her better options. She quickly discarded any feeling of having wasted the charge as the workshop shifted around her.

She watched some of the tools that originally came with the workshop shift and improved by decades of advancement in quality while many new ones came to join them. She could recognize many from one of her futuristic tech perks. She would still need to improve more than a few with her perks to bring them even further.

With only a part of her following what the hero was saying she noted down the information.

"Okay Yagi. I will see you Saturday morning then." She mentally turned to the series E " I want at least two of you under the strongest stealth to go and do an initial check of the place, full scan of the place to make sure there's no surprises waiting for us there ."

She felt the network acknowledge it and already start to move. She also sent Mila a notice about the event. The cat had soon answered with some details of the event. Apparently it was a pretty common event where kids interested in the hero industry went to meet a hero.

It would also be pretty packed since it has been a while from last time All Might had chosen to appear like this. And it was quite logical, with his injury, the hero took any possible time to conduct heroics, and that kept him from doing public appearances.

With that done, she turned back to her work, plenty to do in preparation.

Chapter 64

Chapter Text

Chapter 64

Junko watched All Might, because there was no chance to confuse the man with his civilian person once he was in his costume and glowing with his unearthly charisma. The towering hero turned to her and shot her a smile and a thumbs up.

"I take it there will be no problem with me joining you?" She asked.

"Never fear, Junk." She was glad they had accepted her nickname as hero name, it made things much easier for her. "Apparently there was a minor miscommunication when I told them I would be bringing someone to join me."

She nodded, she couldn't really blame someone as if it was some kind of evil decision when mistakes happened, and there was really nothing she felt out of place. Either someone was an incredible actor, or someone did really miss that last minute addition.

Junko turned to look at all the kids, teens from twelve to fifteen, most wanting to be heroes if she could guess. "I dread to think the danger they could be in if he attacks, I dread to think even more if he doesn't do it. The series A and series E have been really excited about it."

All Might chuckled. "Are you sure it's safe to rely on them? The one I met looked to be a little…"

"Free spirited?" She grinned. "Don't worry, while they have developed on their own, they are still copies of me, they just enjoy not being me. They had no reason to hide certain aspects of my personality that I do have to repress to the normal standards we all respect. I bet they will calm once they start interacting with other people in person." She reassured the fellow hero.

"I'll take your word then."

"Then I hope that you maintain the image you had till now. I don't want All for One, or whoever he sends, to decide that all bets are off once they notice you are healthy. Me and the series will keep everyone safe."

The hero gave an almost noncommittal grunt, but she was sure that between Chiyo and Nezu, they had left it pretty clear. The hero couldn't show he had been healed or the villain would most likely aim for softer targets or go to ground.

"You tell me that I'll have to hold back, but you should relax, Junk." The hero appeared to be speaking from experience.

"Is it really that obvious? Between talking in front of the kids and the wait, it's killing me."

"I've done this song and dance many times before, it may have been a bit since last time, but you never forget how to speak to the public. I know you didn't really want to be a hero, but all will be okay if you follow my lead." Listening to All Might did help Junko relax as she looked around.

She felt the comforting sensation of the Forge reaching a charge and looked at her options. She discarded the first option as she didn't have the necessary charges and then looked at the other two.

For five charges she would get some kind of magical infinite energy generator, while interesting, it was too expensive, and it was obviously one of a pair.

She looked at the last option, for two charges she would gain an almost supernatural sense when trying to develop new things. With a little mental shrug she chose it and let the other options leave her.

The perk was strange, and sadly would most likely not be shared with the series A and series E as the ability was esoteric, a gut feeling that would lead her ideas. She would have to keep an eye out for knowledge perks, things she could share with the series, even when the girls and boys were finding their place a crash at a time.

She watched the lights of the large in-doors stadium dim a little and the background chatter of teens talking end as the event started. Her eyes moved over the kids, the lack of light not bothering her a bit as she still kept an eye on the surroundings and for All Might's key to step in.

Over the next fifteen minutes Junko watched All Might show why he had earned the title Symbol of Hope, she doubted even the best con-man could keep an audience like the man was doing. And it was pretty obvious why too.

He was being honest, he was talking to all the kids like he was talking to each one directly, a comment here and a part of the audience felt represented, another comment there and another group did. Bit by bit, everyone felt he was talking about them, showing they could too become great heroes if they did the right thing.

"…and there are things that even I sometimes can't do with my quirk alone." Junko perked up as this was pretty much her call to step in. "That's why I want to present to you someone I met not so long ago. Don't let her name mislead you, Junk, would you come in?"

She smiled and putting her best business smile she stepped into the stage. "Hello everyone," She kept the smile even as the kids didn't look that impressed. "Thank you All Might, as the greatest hero said, I'm Junk, and don't let my name mislead you."

Junko couldn't help but grin as she let herself be immersed into the public persona she had been building.

"While I'm technically a hero," She did a quick show of her license before storing it again. "I'll never be the type to go out, if certain circumstances didn't align, I would have never taken the exam, I haven't gone to a hero school." She smiled as she spoke, more than one perk giving her the oratory skills to keep them interested. "I would bet most of you think that having a cool quirk is all that's needed to be a hero, no?"

She let that beat fall, the recognition of the statement in more than one was all she needed. "I would also bet that a number of you think your quirks won't be enough to make it to hero school." She let the statement hang in the air. "Let me tell you a secret, it doesn't matter. At the end of the day, your quirk's another tool, a tool that you have to learn to use well, but not your only tool.

"For example, my quirk is material eating, I can eat anything I can fit in my mouth, sounds good? Well, I can't eat more than a normal person could, I get full easily, especially with heavier materials and I can't eat anything I can't bite down."

Junko showed off by pulling a small rod of metal, showing what it was before biting piece by piece before swallowing it all. "Not a quirk that would actually help with heroic work except some very specific scenarios. So I trained my body, I learned to fight, and armed myself with support equipment."

She summoned her hammer to her hand, the weapon glowing to her eyes in a way no one else could see. "That's why I got into the support equipment business, if I can make it as a hero, then who else could with some help?" She waved the hammer like it weighed nothing, a stray memory of watching Ulthane doing the same so many months ago. She should visit the Makers, her study under them was almost done and she had been pretty busy lately.

"You need to be smart, to use all the tools you have available, and train, train and train a lot. Thought you trained enough? Sorry, you better get down and keep training, because villains won't see you showing off your oh-so-cool quirk and think they better give in."

Junko enjoyed wowing the audience by switching the weapon between the two forms. "I'm cheating, since I design my own equipment, but I try to help the heroes who come to me by finding how to use support equipment to cover where they are lacking or find ways for them to use their quirks more effectively."

She happily explained, showing off as she asked a random kid for his quirk, the teen mortified but he spoke, explaining his quirk could let him control any snow he came in contact with.

"Well, first thing, have you made sure it's just snow?" She grinned. "If it's just snow, there're plenty of ways to give you a snow making machine, some designs are even portable enough you could always be a few seconds away from having snow at hand.

"The other thing is to use your head. Snow can be packed to pack a meaner punch, you also may want to look into studies about insulating materials."

She knew she could do better for the kid, but she wasn't getting paid and it was already more than he apparently had ever thought about it. She asked a few more kids before she came to ask a young kid, barely a teen if she had to guess.

She felt her power reach another charge, but given two of the options totally out of her reach, she took the cheaper perk, two charges and would expand her ability with guns in multiple ways, but that was for later.

"... I'm quirkless ." She had to use her weak telepathy to get an idea of how much courage the kid had to actually admit it, especially given how the kids around him turned ready for a mean comment.

BANG

Her hammer hit the ground hard enough to make everyone jump, words and insults dying in their lips before being heard.

"Good, you will need that courage if you want to be a hero. Being quirkless shouldn't stop you. You aren't restrained in what tools you pick." She smiled "Learn martial arts, learn to fight and restrain your opponent, every part of your body can be a tool.

"Or pick a weapon, there're many that have been designed to take your opponent near harmlessly. Staves, batons, tonfas, between others. You are young, you have the time for it. Learn and most important of all, believe in yourself.

Ingenuity, creativity and willpower will meet any quirk."

A sense she was still developing tingled of something that was about to happen. She had become aware of this new sense a while ago. Many months back if she had to be honest, but it hadn't been till her fight with Re-Destro that she felt it much stronger.

She felt the space around her, while there weren't exact words to explain it, she could liken it to feeling the shadow of everything. Just like shadows projected a two-dimensional image of a three-dimensional object, for her the shadows had one more dimension as they were projected of things one step above.

And right now, something was pushing into this place, like seeing a shadow of something that wasn't there, yet. She looked at All Might, the man hadn't noticed it, but he had noticed her slight change of posture, giving her a nod of acknowledgment.

Junko felt conflicted, she wanted this over, but feared for possible accidents. The internal turmoil didn't stop her from feeling the minds of the network prepare their specialized series frames.

She watched the air buckle and a small spiral of black energy bloomed in the air, quickly growing into a larger hole, she felt repulsed by the technique, it was pure brute force, not an ounce of skill.

Junko was glad the stadium was large enough to still have empty space between all the kids near the stage and the villains now popping all over the opposite side of the field.

"Well, it looks like the clowns are here." She grumbled a bit, the staff she had still been holding for a while switched back to Damage Creator. All Might was not even hiding how he glared at the villains.

Junko did a quick count, easily five dozen criminals, she didn't recognize any of them, so they were most likely there to pump their numbers and hide the real heavy hitters. She doubted that any of them actually had a quirk that would affect All Might even before he had been healed.

"Okay kids, big lesson about being a hero." Her tone had dropped nearly all the humor, still keeping a bit to not send the teens into panic. "If you want to be a good hero, follow orders of those more experienced."

She watched as a particular villain moved forward, he had messy white hair and he appeared to have hands holding different parts of his body, one of them acting as a mask. He also appeared to be their leader if the looks from the other villains was something of a clue, plus the brute-looking villains that stood slightly behind him like two bodyguards.

"Ahh, we finally meet All Might!" Junko groaned as she noticed the villains apparently had something to hijack the stadium's audio systems, and she had forgotten to look into that, not that it changed much. "And so many kids, I wonder, will you be able to save them all before we kill you, Symbol of Peace?"

She watched some of the kids start to react and she let herself act.

"Calm down!" Her voice laced with power, pushing comfort and safety into the kids in a similar way to how she spoke to the minds in the network. "Don't let fear win, believe in us, trust that you will be safe."

"Oh, and if it isn't Junk." The villain's voice left no doubt she wasn't calling her for her nickname. "Overhaul misses his daughter, taking you out will make him very sad, I'm sure he would have liked to do it himself."

" They have cut all communications with the outside ," The message from one of the series E messaged her. " doesn't stop anything for us, but no phone will connect, we are ready, just give us the sign. "

"Oh, so you know me? And what's your name, five finger discount?" She gave him her smuggest smile.

"Tch, you heroes always think of yourself as soo good, I hate Pro Heroes." The villain rattled as Junko gave the mental order to lock space outside of her tech's wavelength. "We the League of Villains will kill the Symbol of Peace and show the world their dream finally ended!

"Kurogiri, do it!"

Her eyes quickly moved from the villain to the black fog guy, she easily recognized him as the guy that had taken Overhaul during the kidnapping incident and the one that brought all the villains here.

Apparently the space lock was good enough because whatever was bound to happen, didn't.

"Well, looks like someone's having problems performing, don't worry, I heard it's very common in adult males." She grinned. "Let me show you how it's done."

Damage Creator glowed a moment and deployed, her clothes changing instantly into her armor, mask covering her face and it's supernatural weight getting released.

"See, this is a show, and now, for my second trick." She deployed the portable pylon behind her. "Let me show you my friends." A flash of light, and the fight was on.

Chapter 65: Interlude All Might

Chapter Text

Chapter 65 – Interlude All Might

All Might took a step back from the center of the stage, letting Junk take the lead and start talking with the kids. He was impressed to see her having little problem in grabbing their attention as she teased them before pulling their interest.

He watched the woman easily sway the audience of kids as he thought about her. To him she was still a total mystery, even after she had shown impressive capabilities like healing him or taking people to Mars instantly. He was pretty sure whatever came from this event would change things severely in how people saw her.

It was during their first meeting he had seen some of her fighting, and later he had gone out to see the whole recording. In his opinion she definitely had the power to go against any of the top names in hero or villain lists, she just lacked the experience to do so non-lethally, it was obvious to him she had pulled back from actually killing any of the many villains that had attacked her on that day.

When Junk silenced all the kids and started to talk to the quirkless kid, All Might couldn't help but wince at the memory of his first meeting with Midoriya, the kid had the courage to ask him about being a hero and he had crushed his dream. He watched her give the kid hope to be a hero and completely shut up those around him at the same time.

Only his years of experience let him notice the subtle change in her posture, just guarded enough that he copied her even if he didn't see anything at first. It didn't take long for the villains to come in, a black whirlpool formed on the other side of the field. He watched it quickly open up to let dozens of villains step through.

The hero did a quick assessment, he could actually recognize many of them as C or B listers, he guessed they were just a distraction to hide the real dangers. By the way they stood on the other side of the field, he could only count on five of them as actually worth the attention.

The first was the villain who had created the portal, the fog covering his face was unmistakable. The second was the white-haired young man who stood at the head of the group, wearing hands was certainly a new look, but he had seen weirder villains' costumes in the past.

The last three that looked in any way intimidating were three brutes, each bearing similar mutations. He wondered if they were siblings, it was just weird that villains with such identifiable mutations had never been seen before.

Each was about two and a half to three meters even as they stood heavily hunched over. Their skin was a deep blue or purple, a bit hard to tell from the lack of proper light on the field. And All Might wasn't sure if they were wearing masks or the mutation made them appear to have their brains fully exposed.

He shivered at the thought of a mutation that made such a thing possible. It was always a sad thing, but uncontrollable quirks and mutations were a thing. People were worried about quirks growing stronger and stronger with each generation, but in his opinion, the danger was firstly the quirks that awakened before their users were old enough to use them safely.

Things like always-on effect fields, touch abilities that activated indiscriminately, or abilities with insidious costs that weren't visible till the person just passed out, or worse.

He felt his body tense and that warm sensation of his still pretty newly awakened Aura join the electric sensation of One for All. He was certainly impressed for the versatility of the ability, such a complete suite of enhancements put his recovered physique at the top of the game, even when he didn't need to hold back on his use of One for All, he found himself not having to use it as much unless he needed to go Plus Ultra!

He watched Junk easily rebuke the villain before she threw her hand behind her, making one of her floating crystals appear in a flash of light, it was soon followed by about two dozen glowing outlines form in lines right behind Junko.

If he remembered right, they had called themselves series E, if you ignored what they actually were, they looked almost cartoony with their lack of eyes and large, expressive lips. And it was nearly impossible to not think of them as statues when they stood completely still, perfect works of art.

These ones looked slightly different to the couple he had met previously, he identified three body types between their numbers. About half of them were equipped with shields and glowing backpacks, of what was left, two thirds looked designed for speed and the last group could be described with the word 'aggressive'.

This number of bodies could still pass as Junko pushing her resources, but something told the man the young woman didn't play at the normal level, he would bet quite a bit she had at least ten times more working. Not being restrained to just Earth meant she could work privately and if what she said was true, she wasn't restrained to materials neither.

"Okay girls and boys, you know what to do!" Junk spoke and the shield-wielding robots jumped forward, getting between the kids and the villains, their backpacks dropping to the ground, shaking a bit before opening into beetle-like robots that floated off the ground before deploying shields over the kids.

"...a copy-cat!" All Might stepped up to Junko's side, only catching part of what the villain's saying.

"Ha! If anything you are copying me, after all, the series E are definitely much more advanced, girls, take them out!" Junko spoke clearly as the robots that hadn't moved yet jumped forward, rushing to the villains who now looked much less sure about the whole situation.

As he watched the first of the villains swiftly get taken out, All Might also noticed some upbeat and energetic music start playing. The strange part seemed to be how the music came from nowhere.

" Don't worry, they have everything in control, " A message appeared floating in All Might's vision, even after having Junk hand him the technology and explain it earlier, it was still quite the surprise. " The series E will take care of the villains and keep the kids safe, I'm more worried about the big ones, plus whatever is the quirk of their leader. "

All Might gave a nod as he watched. The series E indeed had everything in control, while the shield-bearers stood protectively in front of the kids, the other two groups moved, the smaller group coordinated perfectly, taking out the more aggressive villains before leaving them for the last group to catch them.

He watched the slimmer models grab the villains, cuff them and teleport them away.

" Where are they taking them? " He sent Junko's way.

" Got some cells prepared for them, they are safe, don't worry, they will also receive good care and food, I'll bring them back after this is over. " The message swiftly came back.

It strangely didn't take care of All Might's worries.

Easily half of the villains were taken out, most of them surprised by the speed of the series E as they rushed their numbers, taking their forces apart and removing them from the field one or two of them every minute.

It appeared that the total dominance of the series E was making the villain start to panic, this bringing their already poor cooperation down completely and soon reducing their numbers to just a handful.

"This is cheating!" The hand-on-face villain screamed. "Only All Might was supposed to be here! You cheater!"

Junk laughed "What? Don't like the series E? They are my pride and joy."

"You cheater! Copycat! You can't compare those things to my Nomus," The villain grinned as he started giggling. "Actually, I have to thank you, you sent Overhaul right to us, he's helped us develop the nomus so much more."

"Really? They look like you stopped halfway, but…" Junko stopped talking and rubbed her chin, the woman concentrating before pulling a pair of glasses and taking off her mask to look at them.

Before All Might could look at her better, he turned when he noticed one of the last villains rush past some of the series E and try to attack one of the shielded domes.

The Hero moved without a thought, his Aura backing a small application of One for All and appearing right in front of the criminal.

"I wouldn't do that, young man." The man's hand grabbed the villain's own before he managed to hit the shield, not that he believed the attack would do anything. If what she saw of Junk was true, it would have changed nothing, but it was better to act and keep the kids calm than let them panic.

A couple of the slim series E rushed to his side. "Thanks All Might." The duo talked in perfect synchronicity before grabbing the befuddled criminal to cuff and send him away. "That was weird, we didn't notice him till you stopped him."

"Must have been a stealth quirk, I've found them before, but for some strange reason they don't appear to affect me." His comment made the series E grin at the comment, it wasn't hard for him to imagine they realized what he meant by that.

All Might almost winced when a weight came down on the field, worried for a moment that it was an attack from the villains he turned to look around.

"Crap, what did they do to make the boss…" The series E's voice turned into a painful hiss. "This is bad, bad, bad."

All Might turned to look at Junk, the woman had placed the mask once more over her face.

"What. The. Fuck. Did. You. Do?" Each word came through clenched teeth.

The villains appeared surprised by the sudden push from above, luckily the shields appeared to hold on the force as black and white energy formed a vortex around her feet.

"What? Don't you like how glorious my Nomus are?" The villain cackled, apparently ignoring the growing threat from the heroine. "Thanks to Overhaul we have managed to combine multiple quirks safely into one body, they aren't really intelligent, but they just need to follow orders." The man laughed. "Nomus, attack! Kill them all"

The three brutes shot like bullets at them, All Might quickly moved to intercept one as a number of the shield-bearers moved to block the attack of another, the last of them moved directly at Junko.

"You think your nomus are so great?" The young woman pulled a strange crystal glowing with a dark aura. "Let me present you Lady Gravity."

All Might couldn't look away, even as he held the Nomu at bay, his eyes couldn't move away from Junko as the black light stained her normally red Aura. The weight around them increased so much the shields started to crack.

Junk lifted her hammer, the glow only intensifying as it traveled to the tip of the weapon and formed a spot so black that something in the back of All Might's mind screamed danger.

And dangerous it was, as gravity seemed to buckle and change its direction from pointing down to pulling everything into the back sphere.

Junko swung the hammer and for a moment time just stopped.

BLACK HOLE SMASH

With the speed it had when rushing at Junk, the Nomu couldn't stop as the black sphere moved closer, her swing dying instantly the moment the sphere touched the nomus' fist. The creature's fate already decided once that happened.

As if life was in slow motion, All Might saw the Nomu's fist sink into the black spot much smaller than it, its arm swiftly following as for a moment, its monstrous face showed something akin as horror as the drag only grew stronger.

He could see the air itself moving in as it was swallowed, his large body, even as it was firmly held in place, could feel the pull increase as the rest of the Nomu was dragged in.

It was like the cartoons he had seen in his childhood, the brute's body shrinking into that infinitely heavy point, light itself bending around the pinprick. And a moment later all ended.

Gravity reasserted itself to the normal and a small shockwave exploded out of the spot at the tip of the hammer. Only a small, black sphere fell to the ground.

"Your things suck." Junko growled. "Girls, take them out."

All Might turned to the Nomu he was holding in place, seeing the two series E he had talked with before give him a sign to throw the brute their way.

With little doubt he swiftly punched "Nebraska Smash!" His fist twisted as it impacted the Nomu's chest, the sheer air pressure sending the beast flying before it even understood what happened.

The creature getting caught by the series E and swiftly teleported away. All Might turned to look at the last one, but apparently the other robots had already taken it out of the field.

"You-" The villain started to scream but was swiftly silenced as Junk's gloved fist impacted firmly on his hand-covered face.

"Shut up, you whinny villain, you are like a little kid who just learned his toys suck."

All Might turned to see the fog villain get taken out and transported away before Junko cuffed the last villain and let the series E take it out.

The young woman walked back to All Might, taking off her mask to show she looked much calmer now. "Okay, that went pretty well, if I would say."

All Might nodded as the shield-bearers checked around before taking down the domes and calming the kids.

" Don't worry, the force fields would have made any type of recording too blurry to see properly ." Junk's message came through her systems as All Might took a breath of relief. "I think my side ends here, Hero, I bet they would like to speak with you, I will call the police and see about helping with the criminals."

All Might nodded as he saw Junk walk away, he turned to look at the kids fawn over the series E who very certainly were enjoying the attention, only now he noticed that most of them had disappeared.

This was a mess, but there hadn't been any kind of real loss, except the Nomu.

"Don't think about it too much, they weren't alive." A series E's voice came from next to him. "Really, given what we have discovered from the other two, they are just big meat tanks, they have crammed their bodies with all kinds of reinforcement, but their minds haven't survived the process. Really, the other two are just completely unresponsive up there."

"Up there?" He asked as the comment felt weird to him.

"Oh, right, she didn't tell you. We put them in a space station, literally nowhere to go." The series E grinned and All Might groaned.

Chapter 66

Chapter Text

Chapter 66

"No," Junko groaned as repeated the statement for the n-th time. "They have no chance of going mad, they are perfect copies of me, their personalities' differences are from being me and not being me at the same time. They have as many chances to go insane as I do. And I assure you, you would have much greater problems if I went crazy."

The small glare she shot the police officer seemed to finally understand that no, the series E weren't going to take over the world, they were as interested in that as she was, and there was a reason she had Mila to take care of her paperwork.

"I understand, and I'm sorry, but there's a protocol for this kind of case." Junko didn't really believe the man, but let it go.

"Okay, okay." Junko hid a soft groan as she watched the reports from the series E and series A up in the prison station. First, the Nomus had stopped reacting to everything, without any target, they had just gone kinda dormant, the series E were currently running a multitude of tests on them.

Junko was feeling a bit worried now about her reaction, but given what she had seen on the poor souls used to power the thing. She withheld a shiver, it was frankly a crime against anything living.

The other prisoners were behaving quite well, none had shown any kind of problem with the meals provided, a quick scan with her medical tech had saved them from triggering an allergy in one of them, otherwise, everything was going perfect.

The portal villain, apparently going by Kurogiri had rejected the food, but was behaving well, the problem was what some of the scans brought to light. The man was actually an intelligent Nomu built onto a body, she would need further scans and tests, but they would need legal backing given their invasive nature. Who knew if they could bring the person back.

The last was the so called leader of the villains, apparently his mental health had quickly deteriorated after being defeated and captured. The series E had decided to withhold feeding him for fear he would try something with the food. The fact that they didn't know his quirk kept them at bay from accidentally triggering it.

Junko turned to the police officer. "So, where do you want the villains?"

"Villains? Didn't they run away?"

"Noooo…" She blinked a couple times as she looked at him. "I was pretty sure I told the nice lady when I called earlier and I'm sure I told you too before you started asking about the series E.

"I transported the villains away to a provisional facility to keep everyone safe, they are all okay, maybe a bit shaken by being taken out so quickly, but the girls made sure to not be rough unless they were doing something really stupid."

"Oh...oh! That's what you meant." The man didn't really look like he was sure what to reply. "I will have to talk with my Lieutenant, is there any rush?"

"No, no, they are behaving, I'm just worried about the state of one of them, but he doesn't appear to be in any immediate danger."

"Good, then, if you'll excuse me." She nodded and let the man turn and leave her.

Junko sighed in relief, with that done she just would have to head over to some specific or other government department in five to seven days to sign some forms or papers about owning fully intelligent synthetic life form, swear to take care of them and make sure they didn't go maniacal and take over the world.

The sensation of achieving six charges cleared a bit of her mental platitudes as she pulled her phone to appear busy as she peered at the options she had.

Two of the perks were six charges, and the last four, with freedom of choice, she started looking at the smallest one.

The perk was simple sounding, but definitely carrying some deep knowledge as it would help her bring out the best on any material she used, to the point even normal materials exposed supernatural characteristics.

The first of the two six-charge perks was complementary to her evolving improvement perk. Of course, with three times the cost, it definitely had much more hidden from first view.

The last perk, also for six charges, would provide her the knowledge and ability of crafting some kind of artifact made from big beasts.

She was sure there would be ways to replace the monster parts for the last perk, but she was certainly more interested in the other two perks.

Both had pros and cons, better material effects would mean everything she made would be just better. But improving on her artifact creation ability would make her improve her equipment. Given the difference in price, she was sure she had much better chances of getting the four charges perk sooner rather than the six charges.

With nary a thought more she took it. Time slowed to a stop and reality peeled away around me, instead of the field, I stood in front of a tower that reached the heavens.

And it was literal as this was the Tower of Babel. The creation of humanity as a whole, a show to god of what they could do when working as a unit.

But, apparently God didn't like this and the tower was made to crash down, the cracks running deep into humanity and fracturing humanity in thousand tribes that went their separate ways, growing distant, not working together any longer.

But the tribes remembered the Tower, and each one took a piece of it in their travels, for in them the memory of being one tribe remained. From these pieces great artifacts were born. Great power as history wove in them legends, and through them people used the original language once more.

For Music and Song was universal and relics tapped into that, utilizing what the perk explained was the Sakurai Theory, named after the person who must have discovered it in their respective world.

The image changed, and now she was looking at Damage Creator. She could hear her own voice in the distance, an eerie tone joining it.

" From my heart and from my hand, why don't people understand my intentions? "

The song turned into energy and saturated her weapon, the artifact growing in power and potential. There was no doubt, the weapon had stepped into the realm of gods with this. A tool that signified, like its name, the cycle of destruction of creation.

She now understood also how to repair it, how to lead its evolution, how to improve it even more, she even peeked at how the weapon could be fused into her body, but there was too much lacking there to do it without lots of study first.

" Magic and Technology, Voodoo Dolls and Chants, " The song continued, Damage Creator grows stronger in directions that didn't really exist.

" No hesitation—Heart of gold, Just flesh and blood—I do not know, " The song grew into a crescendo and Junk felt this was her song. " I do know, From my heart and from my hand, Why don't people understand My intentions? "

" It's my creation, my creation, my creation… " The song was lost in the background as she absorbed all the information from the perk. The song ended as she was one standing back on the field, not a second had passed, no one had noticed her slight change, or the new weight in the hammer stored in her inventory.

The perk was big, but didn't change her larger plans, what it actually did was open a few more doors, first thing first, she would be improving Damage Creator's armor, just infusing it with some of the metals she had acquired would push the defense.

She was already cataloging ideas for improving the trio's equipment, or Mila's. She was also wondering if she could use this Sakurai Theory to turn the series E into their own relics, a relic that wields itself, pushing an ever growing potential.

"Excuse me," A masculine voice broke her from her reverie and made Junko turn and face the source. There stood a man in a suit, on his arm rested a trench coat and he had a soft smile on his face. "I'm detective Tsukauchi, I was told you had the villains restrained, no?"

Junko nodded. "A pleasure to meet you, detective. Yeah, they are currently in single cells, they are mostly behaving, but there are four of them that worry me."

The man hummed. "Can you tell me a bit more?"

"Sure, most of them started a bit rowdy but quickly calmed when they realized they didn't have anywhere to go, I provided them with a simple meal and water to most of them. The four problematic ones are the two nomus," She saw him not recognize the name."Oh… eh… can we leave exactly what they are to somewhere more private? Let's say their nature's a bit complex, but you should think them as flesh robots, without the proper role over them, they are dumb as a rock, they haven't reacted to any stimuli, haven't made any attempt to eat or drink, the scans show there's basically nothing going in their heads."

"That's worrisome, I take that's not all?"

Junko nodded and gulped softly. "Yes… I didn't really react well when I put it all together. The other two problematic ones are the leader, who seems to have suffered a mental breakdown, we have had to put him into an isolated cell with constant watching to prevent him from injuring himself. The last one's the portal-maker that brought them all in.

"Our scans have found way too many similarities to the nomus," She let the detective make the connection. "Yeah, that plus the nature of his quirk and a few other details make us doubtful from transporting him without more tests first. One big difference between him and the Nomus, is that he's intelligent."

The detective hummed and rubbed his chin, definitely thinking about it. "Would it be a problem to bring the criminal for us to transport to our facilities?"

"Yes, there's no problem, I can bring them here or we can head to the place and deliver them directly."

"Give me a moment." She nodded and the man took out his phone to make a few calls, a few minutes later he turned to her. "If you could deliver them directly to the precinct it would be the best."

Junko nodded, she didn't have any problems, and it would definitely be safer to deliver them directly rather than forcing the police force to put the vehicles and drive the criminals from the field to the place.

She watched the man take the phone again as she received a message of her own.

" What did I tell you about not warning me about taking large perks? " She smirked softly as she recognized Mila's writing instantly.

" Sorry, I should have warned you before I chose it, but I was still running high on adrenaline ." She messaged back.

" A couple new abilities, one should be pretty useful, a nice suit, and a strange lantern I'll want you checking as soon as possible. "

Junko wondered for a moment if her latest perk had given her partner a relic of her own, did that mean Mila now would have to sing and turn into a magical (cat) girl?

She snorted softly as she noticed the detective signaling her to come over.

"Is there any problem?" She asked the man.

"No, everything's going well, all the kids have left, none were hurt in any way, so we can head to the station and take those villains off your hands." Junko agreed.

"Would you prefer I ride with you, or I take my own car?" She offered.

"You can ride after us."

She nodded to that "I'll have to apologize All Might, my car's a bit small for you."

The hero laughed "Don't worry Junk, I've my own vehicle." She nodded, she had seen the Might-car before, it was a bit ridiculous, but fit the hero quite well.

The drive to the police station was pretty chill for Junko, one thing she noticed was a newly gained ability to sing without her mouth, it certainly was a way to channel the power of Song while she was fighting. She would have to ask Mila if she could do it too.

She followed the Detective's car, but instead of parking, she got out of the car and transported it away. She just smiled at the officers looking at her and followed the detective into the station.

Inside the man led her to a group of officers waiting to help, she then proceeded to bring the criminals one by one, thankfully, most of them didn't complain.

One did start crying about the food being too good and wanted to stay in her prison, sadly they would need someone from the government to check them as proper for the holding of prisoners. Junko was also not really into the idea of making a prison space station, temporary lodging was okay for now.

Halfway through she saw All Might walk into the room, but she didn't stop, still having the series E transport in with the criminal one at a time.

"She's crazy!" The first villain to say anything besides thanking her for the food, screamed out loud. "She put us in space! She had windows looking out to the void of space, there was nothing out there!"

The detective turned to her.

"What? No, those weren't windows, they were projectors, who puts windows to the void of space?" And she wasn't even lying, the rooms hadn't been designed to have actual windows, she had cheated by projecting the other side of the walls.

The police officers shook their head and took the criminal away as he kept screaming. Junk practically ignored All Might's facepalm in the background.

"Okay, that's all the small-name villains," She noted, the police officers nodding and leaving the room, leaving All Might, detective Tsukauchi and her in the room. "Okay, now the really bothersome thing about the Nomus."

Junko really didn't want to think about them, it disgusted her completely that she knew how they were made, she could improve them even. She ran her hand over her head.

"It's not pretty," She took a deep breath. "The nomus aren't exactly artificial, they were made from people, I don't want to think what went in the process, but they have managed to meld multiple quirks into a single body, of course the process' anything but kind.

"When I said they have nothing inside their heads, I mean it, they won't react unless ordered to. The perfect, mindless, killing machine."

"That's very worrisome." The detective, Naomasa as he had presented to her in private, said.

"The portal creator, who I will guess is called Kurogiri given what the leader of the group apparently calls him. Is also a Nomu, but he was created on top of a body, a dead body.

"And if my searches are correct, his name was Oboro Shirakumo."

Chapter 67

Chapter Text

Chapter 67

Junko rubbed the bridge of her nose as she parsed through her thoughts, it had been two days since the fight at the field. Given the revelations that had come from it, she hadn't been able to really concentrate into any project, mostly waiting for the reply of important people to how to deal with the Nomus, Kurogiri and the so-called Tomura.

Tomura, also known previously as five finger discount by her, had completely broken down after being defeated, to the point she was pretty sure he was going to end in a psychiatric hospital rather than jail. Luckily, the series E had managed to get Kurogiri to help calm the man down and have him behave.

Right now, she stood along with Mila in Nezu's office. Besides the chimeric principal, there was also All Might, Detective Tsukauchi, EraserHead, Sir Nighteye and the retired hero Gran Torino. There was also some guy from the government, apparently something about hero-law enforcement relations, she pitied the guy.

The situation was a bit tense, making her clap her hands softly, cutting the small chatter that was going and bringing all the attention to herself. "Okay, I'm glad you all could come, but, before we can start, I will be moving us to a safer place for the conversation, and for that, I'll have you signing a NDA."

Mila nodded at that and stepped forward, handing each of them a NDA restricting the sharing of information of what they would see, mostly about where they were going, what they would see and a promise they would also be handed a summary that would be free of the NDA to work on after the meeting.

She watched them all read and sign the papers, and Junko was extremely glad Mila had gotten that perk, this eased some stress over what to show or not for the explanation.

"Good, some of you know of this already, but here we go." She deployed one of the portable pylons "Even if you can, don't resist." She warned before the group was transported to the largest nexus in mars.

Things had changed quite a bit in Mars, even without the introduction of Dust, which was still being observed in Venus, Mars' main base was a small city, not only the series E and series A had started developing infrastructure besides the production buildings. They had also developed a large dome over most of the area, creating an artificial atmosphere.

The shield was the perfect hybrid system between the Protoss' plasma shielding system and her magitech one, giving a multi-layered system where each layer would be ablative, when hit with enough damage, they would come down, exposing the next and tougher layer to take the brunt while the first reset.

She turned to the men and smiled. "Welcome to the main Mars Base, please don't touch anything, especially if it's glowing." She hid a snort as she guided them out of the main hall/receiving room. "Okay, first few questions you'll have, yes, this is Mars, All Might was here before along with Recovery Girl, I've not made this public for mostly personal reasons, leading being I don't think humanity's currently in shape to be let out of the planet."

Interestingly, it was Sir Nighteye who spoke first. "I'm glad I was invited, I've to admit, my quirk's been less and less reliable lately, especially when you, Miss Tetsu, have been near the events."

That made her hum thoughtfully for a few seconds. "I do have a theory, one of the things I've been working on very heavily, is psychic powers." She showed how she made some metal pieces she tended to carry in a spare card of her Sylladex float around her. "I've achieved Telekinesis, Telepathy, Blinking, Technopathy and even a minor precognition, I would bet it's the last one."

The man in the impeccable suit nodded. "It may be, while quite rare, I've the experience of facing similar quirks and their effects tend to clash with mine and vice-versa. The strange thing is that I'm usually the one coming on top."

"Ah! I see the confusion, yes, precognition tends to respect a hierarchy in power, and my precognition's nothing compared to yours, Sir Nighteye, barely a hunch feeling, but there's a bit more there.

"You are one person, I, on the other hand, I'm technically networked with all the series E in parallel, they are copies of my mind and share a bit of my precognition ability. So if I alone would be a fly, we together are a swarm covering your vision."

The explanation seemed to clear the man's doubts, not that Junko thought that was all, she was connected to the Celestial Forge, and everything of it actually came from outside reality, and she doubted the man could predict such things.

Their walk soon came to an end as they stepped into a large observation room, two series E were looking over some of the screens as one of the room's large walls showed four cells.

The two Nomus were currently just laying down, each with an IV drip connected to keep them alive, below those two were the cells of Kurogiri and Tomura. Junko had had the wall between them turn transparent and permeable to sound. While they couldn't pass over, and the cells nullified their quirks, she couldn't let the two come in contact just in case.

"Welcome to the observation room, first, we have the two Nomus, in my personal and professional opinion, both should be put out of their misery, the only reason their hearts keep beating is that one of the quirks added to them forces them to. For many reasons I'll explain in short, they're less than plants. They're basically crimes against nature."

It was Nezu who decided to speak. "As someone with… experience, in that, can you explain it more?"

Junko looked grim but nodded. "I will admit I haven't looked completely into their making, because what little I've found disgusts me, we have managed to get over a dozen DNA signatures from each body, and most of them are different between the two of them." She saw them realize what she was saying. "And there's this."

A series E nodded from her spot and activated the screen, outlines of the Nomus appeared on the screen, it was soon overlapped by a marbled collection of colors. As the heroes watched the screen, Junko dissimulated the fact another charge had completed, peering at the options, she could only pick the three charges one that would increase her ability with technology. And something about rings, she felt something change inside her, but she would look at it later.

"What you see here, is the most…" She licked her lips, trying to find a good word for it. "' Ethereal ' part of quirks, we all know, or at least suspected, that most quirks couldn't work if they were all physical, this is that other part, technology has no way to see it."

"Then how have you found it?" The man from the government asked, and Junko was pretty sure she felt some snide in his question.

"Oh, that's simple, I didn't use technology," She grinned smugly. "moving on, as you see, the quirks are not there naturally, I've found a few more people with more than one quirk, I'll say it's very, very rare, I won't say who they are, simple doctor-patient privacy.

"In their cases, quirks have either merged completely, creating a new quirk, I've a theory that this is what happens when two parents with very different quirks have a child with a quirk that does both, given the nature of quirks, there's been no tests and I doubt I'll be doing them anytime soon.

"The other case is when quirks coexist, one case has the new quirk create a symbiosis, in the other, there's a 'head' quirk, the rest follow through.

"There's one last case I'm still looking into that's pretty particular, the quirk jumped into the body of an animal when the original owner's body died, after that it did two things, one it rewrote the animal with the person's mind and forced the animal to grow a quirk, it also carried it along when said animal died, repeating the process, but the 'slaved' quirk merged with the new one developed in the new animal.

"As you can imagine, finding this subject's very hard."

"I see." She didn't pay attention to who spoke as she gave the series E the signal to change the image.

"This is Kurogiri." The image showed the villain before the image was overlapped by the man that laid under the fog.

"..that's him…" Junko barely heard Aizawa mumble, he had asked for the man being an old friend of the person Kurogiri once was. "I thought he had died."

"Saying it's complicated it's being British. Oboro Shirakumo died for all meanings of the word, his heart stopped, the damage to his brain was irreparable and without oxygen for hours. For all intents and purposes Kurogiri shouldn't exist.

"But… the best way to say it, is that Oboro's quirk is still there. For those who didn't know the hero before, Oboro Shirakumo's quirk, Cloud, let him create dense, cloud-like constructs which he could use for multiple things, one of them was that he could store things in them, usually this meant they were solid enough he could put objects inside.

"What I've to guess, is that during the incident that led to his death, he stored himself into one of his constructs."

Everyone kindly ignored Aizawa's words about the crazy monkey.

"I did some digging, while his body would have been cremated, that never happened, I would guess All for One, or a subordinate, stole the body and, sorry to say it this way, fixed it before reviving it and adding a new quirk that merged with the leftover cloud creating quirk to form the portal maker quirk, giving us this result."

The image on the screen was once again overlapped by the colored blobs, in this case, instead of marbled, the block was a single entity that went from near, pure-black on the edge to a bright light-blue at the center.

"As you see, while the quirks merged, they didn't homogenize, if I had to guess, and I'm feeling quite lucky, the original Oboro's still in there, given the records I've found of his personality, Kurogiri seems to show a handful of them still now."

"Do you mean we could get him back?" Aizawa asked, barely hiding his excitement.

"I would need more tests, some that would mean not transferring him to Tartarus, but I would give it a very good prognosis of working."

"And what you expect us to do about Mr...Tomura?" Asked the government lackey.

"Right now? Same as Kurogiri, keep him here, he can't do any damage, All for One can't retrieve any of the two, and Kurogiri's presence keeps him calm. I would bet that even if we retrieve Oboro from Kurogiri, the once-deceased hero could very well use his connection to the young man to help rehabilitate him."

"Are you sure it's possible?" Gran Torino asked, mirroring the thoughts of a few other heroes.

"Tomura, no last name provided yet, has a very childish way of thought, while he's biologically an adult, his mental age's closer to that of a preteen. Not that he's not intelligent, he has shown a very sharp insight, and if he hadn't been in shock of the defeat of his forces, his capture would have gone a lot worse."

"So you expect we leave them all in your care and not just reduce two of them to nothing?" The government lackey asked.

"Oh, I'll gladly hand you the Nomus, you can run your own tests and decide what to do with them, they are as easy to take care as plants, just make sure they are watered and fed through a tube and they will last, I just don't think it's a nice way of… well, I wouldn't say living, but existing sounds weird too."

"If we go through with it, will Oboro remember? Remember who he was before and what he went through?" Aizawa asked.

"Sadly, the answer is yes to both questions, given my theories of his quirk works, I'm pretty sure that Kurogiri's case is closer to a mind-controlled Oboro than anything else, the metal collar around his neck is actually keeping a lot of those restrictions in place and him in form. If we managed to 'switch' the quirks, he would most likely break any kind of lock he had on his previous memories, but he would keep all the memories he created since he was 'created'."

The tired-looking man sighed. "...I see." She nodded at his comment and turned to the rest.

"I've no problem handing the Nomus over, even handing you the results of the DNA tests, hopefully it will help you close some cases, but I will insist on keeping the other two here."

Most of them nodded, the rest abstained from replying, but they soon moved to more technical matters, ending with a decision of the detective and the government lackey talking with their bosses.

Junko agreed and handed them the summary of their talk, plus the extra information before sending them back with series E, meanwhile the heroes remained as she wanted to talk about a few subjects that she hadn't touched before.

Nezu turned to her and let out a soft laugh. "Now that they are away, would you clear some doubts about what you didn't say to them?"

She grinned. "Well, I think the easiest part to start and explain well how some of what I said works, is that part I called Ethereal, it is ethereal, because that's the part of the soul where the quirk resides." She led the heroes to another room, this one prepared to receive visits, with comfortable couches and a series A in a maid outfit expertly fitted to his body, who was already setting up warm drinks and snacks.

"You are saying souls exist?" Gran Torino asked.

"Of course they do, they always have, they can shrink and grow, but destroying them is very, very hard, not that I've tried, it's just a very intrinsic part of them. Once a person dies they go to the Ether, sometimes they reincarnate, but it's very rare, to the point I wouldn't bet any reincarnation happening in our world currently or in the last thousand years."

"That's something hard to take, I hope you understand that." Nighteye spoke.

"Not really? As I said before, quirks had something we didn't see to work properly, it's like in math, while we can't really see it, imaginary numbers exist because we can prove they fit. Souls do the same here." She waved her hand and projected a small diagram of it for everyone to see. "Souls are not all about quirks, but quirks tend to be a big part of them, one of the reasons I ask for the Nomus to be put down, is those souls that compose them are not having a good time there.

"For the same reason, Oboro can still be recovered, whatever crazy maneuver he did by storing himself into his own quirk has preserved him quite well, helped by the process that keeps Kurogiri going."

"So you really think we can get him back?" There was hope in Aizawa's voice.

Junko nodded. "Completely, I would actually say it has better chances than what I gave All Might before curing him." She grinned when the heroes who hadn't been updated on the matter turned to the biggest Hero around.

Junko just relaxed and watched the fun.

Chapter 68

Chapter Text

Chapter 68

After the heroes got a complete story out of All Might, Junko after covering a few more details, their conversation became a bit more social. She was glad that All Might had kept the Aura business out of the spotlight and she had seen to provide all the heroes with a pack of twelve emergency pills. Plus some general body health variant for Gran Torino to ease a bit of the pain of age.

Aizawa has asked her for permission to talk with Kurogiri in private, she had relented to set up their meeting through one of the transparent barriers, but only if she kept it short as she didn't want Tomura to panic or stop behaving.

She had let only the series E witness their talk for safety reasons, but didn't do anything to learn about the contents of it. The look on the underground hero's face when he returned after a dozen minutes told a story on its own. And by his words, it was like seeing a version of his friend, like a reflection on a funny mirror.

She promised him she would be doing her best to bring him back, and offered to extend an invitation for when she would go ahead if the procedure was accepted.

Soon she had sent them all back home, even Nezu who had managed to scurry somewhere for a tour of the place all of his own, a series A had found the principal and decided that showing him and explaining would be better than leaving the quirked principal to try and make sense of things beyond his understanding.

She's glad that the Nexus was a pretty solid building, as in there weren't holes in the walls, ventilations, or empty spots, meaning the short and furry principal couldn't disappear into them and dodge her search for him.

Once she finally was left alone, Junko let herself fall back onto the Relax Couch, and given the enchantments on the piece of furniture and the amount of hours of work put into it, it certainly had earned its capitals.

She closed her eyes and relaxed, looking back into the perk she just had earlier. It covered the fixing, maintaining and improving any technology that counted as modern or ten-years-in-the-future.

It also covered Flame Rings, and weren't those a bit more interesting. A series E had brought them the extras that had come with the perk, one was a ring with a deep green stone, the other was a small cube that fit in her hand, the design fit her, a mix of Protoss' gold and her trademark rust red on a black surface. The box had an indent perfectly shaped to the ring.

Flame Rings were a foci for the so called Dying Will Flames, a type of mystic fire powered by the person's dying wish, at least originally it was that. Whatever type of Earth it had come from, people there had a tiny chance to ignite these flames when on death's door, the rings were an aid and focus to channel them.

The rings came in different qualities, easily set from E, the lowest, to A, the highest, hers was a solid C, not the strongest, not the weakest, but being Fiat backed to not break unless there was actual intent of doing so.

She slid the ring over her finger and poked that little new extra that had appeared inside of her. The stone on the ring lighted up, but instead of looking like normal fire, it sparked, green arcs forming between the stone and the rest of her fingers, it didn't hurt but tingled a bit.

"So these are the Lightning Flames." She hummed, going over what the perk covered over them, apparently providing 'Hardness', and while they could easily harden her body or objects to resist damage better, she could easily see their effect was much more… conceptual, meaning that if applied correctly, she could make it 'hard' for people to notice her.

But that would need much more training, if she decided to train with it. She lifted the box, apparently called Box Weapon, and she felt creative with her names compared to whoever named these. The Boxes also came graded from E to A, and this was too a C. All she had to do is use her ring to push enough Lightning Flames into the Box to activate it.

Instructions acknowledged and understood, she put them to practice, maybe it's because both Box and Ring were hers and Fiat backed, but she could tell perfectly how much she had to push into it, all that green energy flooded the box and the top popped open.

From the open box a small, furry head came out to look at her. It was a ferret, a ferret that shouldn't fit inside the fist-sized box, the fuzzy noodle grabbed the edges of the box before sliding out, quickly grabbing a hold of Junk's arm and coiling around it before climbing onto her shoulders.

"Aw, ain't you just adorable." She reached and gave the large and warm creature soft scritches, she could feel a link between her and the creature, her energy giving it form. She understood that once all the energy was spent it would go back to the box, but not everything would be kept… maybe if she improved it?

"You should still be a weapon, no?" The Ferret chirped, hissed and jumped off her shoulders before reshaping into a hammer, falling comfortably on her hand, a few test swings felt nice. "I don't know if I would like to use a good friend to hit people." She thought out loud and the hammer shifted into a much more comfortable green-hued shotgun. "Now this is much better, I bet you can hit pretty hard ."

Junko giggled at the joke before letting the Box Animal shift back into a Ferret and curl like a scarf around her neck.

She looked at both pieces of the puzzle, Ring and Box, pondering what to do with them, she could certainly apply her latest large perk to the Box, the way the Flame was used wasn't that different from the Relic from Babel.

And on the subject of Relics, she had finally gotten around to study's Mila's new lantern. She had confirmed it was safe, the relic was called Will-o'-Wisp after the old European legends. She hadn't explained it completely to Mila what it meant to activate it, just that it was safe.

Junko got a very good laugh as Mila's voice singing Enka before the Lynian was turned into a magical (cat) girl. Dodging the laser rain after that was worth it. She had explained to her that the Relic had a super attack, but that she shouldn't use it unless completely necessary given the backlash her body would suffer even with Aura.

Given the exhaustion Mila described after she finished her synchronization with the item, Junko imagined that Damage Creator was different, not that she had found the time to use the weapon again after taking the six-charges perk. She also understood a lot of the wrong she had done during its creation, and now knew what to fix to improve it even more.

The ferret's nose poking her cheek pulled Junko away from memories and other thoughts. "I'll have to give you a name if you will be staying around, also…" She pulled her soul-seeing glasses and peered at the flame animal.

It wasn't exactly a soul, but neither was it a construct running completely in just her flame energy. As weird as it sounded, it was closer to an incomplete soul, how the fuck had the creators of those boxes managed that was a total mystery. The box basically used the user's flames, energy created from their life-force, to animate the content of the item.

Dying Will Flames were different to Aura, but not that far from them actually. Aura was the light of the soul, while the Flames could be considered the heat coming from the soul. Honestly, the metaphor fell apart about there. These were powers that had definitely come from very different worlds.

The ferret chirped at her before nuzzling against her cheek, the show of affection making her smile before she asked it to return to the box. "Let's see if we can make you better."

Junko felt a charge complete and brought her total to three, given there was only one choice of two charges, she took it, not interested in looking at the rest. The perk would help her understand languages and technology alien to her. Since the perk wasn't that big, she doubted it would open all secrets of Dust, but certainly it would help.

Looking at the Box and Ring, she could feel a bit of a niggling feeling that she could understand them better if she fiddled with the pair. Had they been made by aliens? In a way, they may as well, but she could notice the human touch, so they wouldn't help directly.

She pulled one of her golden clone beads and cast the spell, creating three copies of herself. "Okay girls, one to improve Mila's Relic, one to use the new perk for studying Dust, last one to make a list of things to do with Damage Creator, I gotta see what I can improve with this little fella." She shook the Flame Box softly.

They still needed to work together for her weapon, she was pretty impressed to have managed such a level of Artifact. She sat down at her magic workshop to study the ring first.

First thing she noticed after a quick search, was that the ring wasn't using a precious stone, but a semi-precious one, a Tsavorite, it was a bit more obvious once she grabbed an actual emerald and placed it next to the stone of the ring, the emerald was closer to aquamarine in color, it also tended to have a higher transparency than the tsavorite, giving a more delicate looking gem.

The next thing she found was that the ring didn't have any special enchantment, of engraving, or magic, it was simply that the gems's color seemed to resonate with the Dying Will Flames' spectrum.

That didn't mean she couldn't improve the ring's flame channeling in many, many other ways, from elemental runes, to empowering enchantments, even the concept refining smithing technique should be effective on it.

She could also run a few tests on other precious and semi-precious stones before moving to things like the elemental Dust crystals. Would an alloy of Emerald with Lightning Dust give her an even better ring? Or would both sources of energy clash? Did she need Fire Dust instead?

Shifting the Magic Workshop into its Jewelry configuration was easy before she got to make an emerald ring since just holding the stone let her feel it was better to her Lightning Flames. Silver was neutral enough to not bring any problem in channeling energies.

As she was reshaping a piece of emerald into a perfect Swiss cut she realized that cuts may affect the end product, but since she didn't have anything to compare the ring, there would be no difference starting anywhere. The gem was inserted into the silver ring, held in place by a silver spiral.

Hidden from view, just between the ring and the gem, she had inscripted a series of micro-runes to improve the channeling of energy, hopefully it would be the best place for them.

First test ring done, she slid it on her finger, the change was obvious, even without pushing her flames through it, she could feel the ring resonating. Actually, just the minor example of her electric-like flames sent a green arc of energy from the ring to the table.

"Okay, note for myself, improvements on Flame channeling must be tested in the proper place."

She quickly recycled the other four rings, they were a few minutes of work, so she could easily repeat them. She turned to the box. "Now, what to do with you."

She didn't think that using the new ring would make much difference, besides making it easier to open the Flame Box, and she didn't like the idea of looking into the box without hurting her new friend, even if any damage would disappear in twenty four hours.

But, what she could do was take what made her new little friend out of the box safely, using her soul tools should let her take him with no fear of damage and look into the box much better before placing him back into a better one.

She grabbed a crystal sphere pretty close to what she had used while healing All Might, this one was similar just a couple iterations further, improving all of its qualities. It should even help any soul stored inside to heal. Transplanting the proto-soul from the box to the holder was the easy part.

Junko had to stop and watch the electric ferret nap inside the crystal for just how cute it looked. After that she got to pull the Box apart. The people behind this piece of magitech were completely mad, and genius, but mainly just mad.

She had quickly found multiple problems. Like how the Box aligned the Flame that was fed in into the Lightning aspect even when it wouldn't work with any other flame type, not that she even had any of the other six? Thirteen? Twenty? Her perk wasn't even sure how many there were around actually.

She started by replacing the unnecessary Flame adaptor for a buffer, it would let her charge the Box to last longer. The next part was the completely lazy way the Hammer and Shotgun had been applied inside the box, it wasn't as much as a concept, but more of the idea of them. While she couldn't replace them for a variable weapon, she could do a bit of improvement on them.

If her theory was correct, it would mean the ferret friend would have some access to them even when not fully shifted. Just because there was a bit more space she added two more things. First a general size-shifting spell with a scale of four in both directions. The other was a bit more experimental, coming principally from her study of souls, it would help ferret-friend develop.

All this along with her many improvement perks, instant and over time. Finishing the Box she ended with five of them, of course with four being empty, she left them aside before placing her new friend back into it.

With the Flame Box decidedly at a much higher grade, same with the ring, she decided to move to a safe space before letting her new friend out.

"I think I shall call you Ryujin." The ferret chirped happily, enlarging to coil around her with affection.

Chapter 69

Chapter Text

Chapter 69

Junko turned to look at Mila when she felt her partner approach her workshop. With the increase in her psychic abilities, she had noticed that the felyne shared a connection with her, the exact nature of it wasn't completely clear, it could be from her having been brought to her by a perk, or maybe something else.

"Hey Junko, got…" The felyne stopped and looked at her.

Junko was currently working while standing and having Ryujin lay like a big, furry scarf. The fuzzy friend had ended in a comfortable two meters, making it over three times the normal size a ferret would grow.

He also mimicked her looking up and to Mila at the same time as Junko did.

"...ok… new thing?" The felyne groaned softly. "Before that, I got an answer from the detective, they'll take the Nomus, while they don't appear to be sure about not putting them down, they want to run their own tests." Junko nodded at that, already noting some series E to prepare the moving. "And I'm pretty sure either Nezu or All Might may have used more than a few favors to let us go through with Kurogiri and Tomura."

She let out a happy sigh at that, it meant she could go through with a few more tests that she would have been hesitant to do until she got the all clear. She messaged the series E to get started.

"Now that's out of the way, what's with the creature?" She asked.

"He's called a Box Animal." She lifted said box, still open and glowing slightly with her green flames. "A new perk, gave me some technological knowledge plus this new cool ability." She displayed the lighting flames. "Interestingly the perk didn't actually give me much info about the ability, just the rings."

"What will you do about it?" Mila asked. "And do I get one too?"

"Not sure yet, and depends if I manage to learn more about it. I have a basic understanding of what the rings should do, but I'm missing the part of getting people to activate their Flames. I'll leave it for the clones or the series E to look more into it. I'm just a bit worried given the effects some of the other Flames can have on their users."

Mila flinched slightly. "I really don't want to ask, but what are those?"

Junko sighed softly before using a bit of illusion magic to project images between her and the Felyne. "While my perk's not sure exactly how many flame types there are, it's sure it's shaped in groups of seven. I belong to the Lightning aspect of the Flames of the sky, the other six are: Sky, Cloud, Rain, Mist, Storm and Sun.

"Each flame has a characteristic, mine are Hardening, Sun's activation, Storm's destruction, Mist's illusions, Rain's Tranquility, Cloud's propagation and Sky's Harmony."

"That doesn't sound too bad, and I'm already regretting saying that."

Junko snorted. "Yeah, the problem is that Flame also needs a certain way of thought to activate properly, for example, Lightning Flames require focus, the more I focus, the stronger they become, and so I become more focused. You can see how that cycle quickly becomes ingrained and the person becomes really specialized, quickly falling into their way of thought for quick power.

"The other problem is the Sky Flames, it's not an error that they are called the same as the domain they belong to. Sky Flames harmonize with the other types, bring them in, and that quickly can become forced loyalty."

Mila winced at that last bit. "Yeah, I can see how that can be a problem."

"I'm mostly interested in the Box Animals, they could be a pretty nice way to give the trio companions. So I've been tinkering with a variant that uses Aura instead, still only in the design phase, but who knows." She shrugged. "I also finished improving your Lantern, should be safe for your use and pack a much stronger punch."

"Thanks about that, I'll most likely take it to the arena the Junk-es made on Mars." Junko nodded at that. It was half a training place, half a way to show-off. "Talking about Mars, how's Venus?"

"You know you can just check, no?" Junko brought the images, from the outside, the planet didn't look too different from the distance, it's clouded skies a bit whiter than before. The changes were all under the clouds.

"Looks like my previous world." Mila commented. "I'm almost expecting one of the large beasts that were everywhere to pop from between the trees."

"Maybe in a few years, but right now, besides plants we haven't found other life forms. There are a few really weird ones." She switched the image to large panes formed of golden hexagons. "That's honey, or similar enough. Completely safe to eat, rich in natural sugars.

"What we managed to find, is that each Dust particle holds a minuscule part of a puzzle, and while by logical means every part should be less than a rounding error and all motes should have the same piece, the more are around the bigger and more complex the image those pieces put together form.

"With the amount we pumped into the world? Yeah, they had an image large enough to code all those things and more we haven't seen yet."

"So they use the best information compression system ever?" Mila asked.

"Hmm… wouldn't be too far, honestly. Dust has all the characteristics to survive space travel, so it wouldn't be weird if you just let it flow till it lands on a proper planet and leave it to work. Most likely taking hundreds or thousands of years given the initial amount.

"But if you are a species capable of creating something like Dust, most likely you think in the long term."

"You'll be able to replicate it?"

"Nah, not even close, but it certainly sets a pretty nice long-term project in studying it." She changed the image to some metal nodes appearing through the dirt "Dust has also started creating some of the materials the perks gave me, not in useful amounts, so I will keep to my stores for that."

"What else has kept you busy?" Mila asked curiously.

"I've used those metals I just mentioned to improve mine and the Trio's costumes, I used one that had the nifty ability of the volcanic forge to apply the Adamantian's indestructibility to the Glassteel, and used those fibers to weave a nigh-indestructible fabric. In a similar way, I bestowed the regenerative quality of Palladian to Adamantian for use in armored panels."

"Let me guess, you are using that for your space ships too?" Mila grinned.

"Yes! But just in part, I still find it easier to have proper heat-sinks besides the runes that take care of the excess heat, on the other hand, runes created with a particular mix of Dust and Mithrite works amazingly well, meaning we can use them to improve even the most simple sets to levels that would have us running the whole ship's surface otherwise."

"You do remember you owe me a fighter jet, no?" Mila's grin turned feral.

"I...I had forgotten about it, but if you point me to an example of it I will gladly build a space fighter that can be used freely on Mars."

"Yes!" Junko giggled as the promise actually made Mila quite happy.

"I'm pretty sure you will have to be using Will-o'-Wisp to survive the speeds the ship will have, you know?"

"Doesn't matter, I'll happily sing while flying faster than people can think."

"Hmm… actually, I think I could see and add something to the ship to connect with your Relic, it should improve your handling of it." Junko pointedly ignored the stars in her Felyne friend's eyes. "With the correct design and enchantments, I could actually have a ship small enough, channel the pilot's Aura for overall improvements too."

"Junko, please, stop. I like you, but only as a sister and partner at hunting." Her friend joked and Junko simply stuck her tongue out at her.

They both laughed. "Jokes aside, it should be a couple of days unless you need me to rush it, better play it safe." Mila nodded to the comment.

"Talking about not rushing it, how long do you think it'll take you to work on the portal guy?"

Junko sighed and looked thoughtful for a few moments. "That's… a bit harder to say, while I don't doubt I've pretty good chances to save him, there's too much I can see that was done to him sloppily , the only reason he's alive is pure luck.

"His quirk should have Not stored him, his body should have Not been able to be revived after so long, his soul should have Not merged with the new quirk so well and achieved such balance."

"Then why do you think you have such good chances to save him?" Mila asked, a bit confused.

"Because while all those steps needed probability to happen, they have already happened, the next part will be just math in comparison. I'm sure about what I'm doing, and I'm leaving nothing to luck."

"...there's something you aren't telling me, Junko." Mila's posture changed. "Don't make me call your mother, or Eri and have her beg at you."

"Please, no, I promise it's not something bad, or at least nothing in the short term."

"Sounds like it's actually something if you actually have a time before it's something more."

Junko sighed and turned to look at Ryujin, scratching the over-sized ferret's chin. "My soul's growing a bit too big for my body."

"...o...k, and for people who have never attended Soul 101?"

"Here," She handed the pair of soul-seeing glasses to the felyne. "I'm not exactly sure which was the first step, either the Forge providing me the way to do magic or when it awakened my Aura, or more likely that I had both before it added my Titan heritage on top of that.

"If it had stopped there, then it would been decades till I noticed anything of importance, having an active Aura and use it does improve your soul, strengthens it as any muscle, and that supernatural part of it would slowly homogenize with everything, making me kind of a proto-Titan, not a full-blooded one, but certainly something above what the perk gave me to start."

She knew pretty well what Mila was seeing right now. That special pair of glasses let the user peer just under that layer of reality, showing how the young woman's soul was significantly larger than her fleshly body while strangely still occupying the same place.

Junko's soul was a sight to see, her skin appeared to be made of polished bronze, only marred by cracks that let tongues of divine fire licked out, her hair constantly waving like the same fire, eyes, nose and mouth alight with her Aura.

Her body also frequently showed the many types of energy she worked with, especially on her hands that maintained a delicate look in comparison to the rest of her body. Green lightning traveled between her fingers, especially near her emerald ring. And behind her, a ghostly spiral in black and white.

Mila looked grim when she took the glasses off her face.

"It didn't help when my father was replaced by Hephastus, the changes there ran pretty deep increasing the melting pot even more. And while becoming a psychic didn't add anything directly, being the leading mind of a technical hive mind?

"The many series E and series A that share a shadow of my soul are providing a bit more development to my soul every day. Like a strange version of tax."

As she watched Mila ponder her explanation, Junko felt another charge, reaching four and confirmed she wasn't seeing the charges when the options were out of her reach.

She looked at the three of us this time. The first, six charges, and sadly out of her reach, would have improved anything she crafted by hand by a huge margin.

The second option was worth four charges, but since it was another giant robot perk, she ignored it and looked at the last.

Also of four charges, the perk was a companion to a nanite knowledge perk she had taken ages ago. Deciding that she could do worse she took the perk. As soon as the knowledge of her new ability to control nanites and similar directly, Junko proceeded to face-palm and groan out loud.

"New perk?" The Felyne asked with a smug tone.

Junko didn't answer, simply lifting a finger as a sign of silence, a series A soon walking up to the pair and handing Junko a small bag full of a golden powder.

She sighed before taking a deep breath and sticking her hand into the bag and coming in contact with the golden Dust. The material stuck to her hand, spreading like a golden glove, thin as a second skin as Junko didn't look too happy about it. But she didn't look angry either, more of a mix of resolved and totally done with it.

"Let me guess," Mila started. "A new perk basically handed you on a plate the secret of Dust?"

Mila would never admit how Junko groaning was music for her lynian ears.

"I mean, I don't do it directly, but now I can directly interact with the Picoites, it's a bit hard given the perk was meant to work on Nanites, but since it's meant to control them, I can see what they are doing…"

Mila watched as the woman played around with the golden matter, reshaping it into multiple things, she then proceeded to feet the golden mass some random materials and watched reshape matter itself into new things, up to a small glowing plant.

"Looks pretty useful." Mila commented.

"It is...I mean...grah! This is so frustrating." The small plant changed, melting down into a soup before reshaping into a perfect, red apple, before she proceeded to take a big bite of it. "I mean, I can't do much yet, I'll need a lot more study and experimentation to understand how the fuck they stored so much information in basically nowhere."

"Sounds like I'll be leaving you with that for now, and remember, you have to make me that space fighter. And keep me up to date about your soul, I don't want to find you are about to explode."

Junko didn't reply, barely doing a few shoo motions with her hand, having put the note in the network, she wouldn't be forgetting it this time. But she had a lot more to look into right now.

The felyne left, leaving the young woman using her new found skill to reshape elements into much more complex objects.

Chapter 70

Chapter Text

Chapter 70

Junko put the last bit in place before locking it all firmly in place, the familiar shimmer of her multiplier quirk coming into effect and turning the bangle accessory into five identical copies.

They were the result of trying to make a way to easily carry Dust around, her first few designs tried to create an expanded space inside the metal ring, something to hold the miraculous machines. Of course they didn't work that well, mostly because she could miniaturize plenty of things, but the storage device was a bit too big, or didn't hold enough.

She ended with something slightly different. She picked a pair of the finished bangle and slid it over her hands, one small enchantment in them would keep both safely in place with no danger of slipping off without her wish.

Junko hummed softly and activated one, a series of diminutive portals opened all around the metal ring, none of them big enough for even a nanite to pass through, but Dust was smaller. Each portal connected her directly to a large Dust containment vat, giving her near limitless amounts of it, the throughput only restricted by the size of the portals.

She could still draw about a hundred grams of Dust per second, per portal, per bangle. With a bangle on each wrist and about fifty portals in each one. It gave her about ten kilos of Dust per second, more than enough to deal with most stuff.

It also helped that since the Dust she used was still in contact with the Dust in the vats, she was technically in contact with a lot more Dust that she had at hand, putting her in direct contact with the much more massive information stored in them.

Giving it a few tests by drawing enough Dust to reshape material samples into multiple things brought a detail out. One that was actually pretty important, her multiplying perk affected her work through Dust. Actually, it was a lot of perks that came into play, since she was directly controlling the whole crafting process, she was faster, more efficient and making everything look better.

Like turning a few grams of materials into a whole apple, or how she could technically make plants grow without the needed elements mixed in it, which took her a few tries, but as she had never had a lack of materials, she never tried this aspect of the perk she got back near the start, she'd actually forgotten about it since getting Mila to help her had been much greater.

She placed the plant away for study, there were issues with the plant actually being viable without some elements in its composition.

She retrieved most of the Dust back and turned most of the portals off, leaving one in each bangle to keep her in contact with the material. With just that bit of Dust on hand she tried the other part of her latest tests.

She started by turning some of her mana into gold as she had done many times in the past. A small nugget of gold formed just above her hand before the Dust reached to it, slowly reshaping it into the finest of gold chains as she kept creating more and more.

It was completely instinctual, different from other spells that created elements to attack, the gold she created this way would stay, it was pure gold, not a thing marring it. And it had taken her too fucking long to realize what this meant.

She stopped when the pile of gold chain-links reached her shins, reaching down and making contact with it, she reabsorbed all the mana, plus the ridiculous profit from crafting her mana into gold, and that gold into a chain, and that chain back into mana.

The perk that had given her the ability actually made the conversion perfect one to one, before her other perks came in. Meaning there was another layer under that, a spell to turn mana into matter.

And she hadn't noticed it, nor her clones, or the series E and A, who usually brought quite the new point of view for problems and aspects she had taken for granted.

She had managed to create a sibling spell to that, it was terrible, it sucked in all aspects, it took a hundred more times mana to create matter, but it worked. Junko concentrated, pushing her mana and making a small dot appear on her hand, slowly working into a much larger pile of black dust.

Soon her Dust reached for it, and from dark grew a perfect diamond, not a mark on it, and like the magic she was doing, once the diamond was completed it grew five times to rest on her open hand.

"Okay, that's a start." She closed her hand and easily recovered the mana from the diamond's carbon structure, leaving nothing behind.

She would need to improve this a ton, it wouldn't work for other elements, but it was a start, a nice proof of concept, she would need to look deeper into it, it certainly changed things. But with that done, she had more important things to do.

Like going ahead with inverting Kurogiri's soul. After getting the Nomus transferred to the police care, she had started to really study his soul. One of the problems was that she had nothing to experiment or practice on without actually getting her hands on him.

She was basically preparing herself to do brain surgery with no prior experience and about ten more degrees of difficulty. But she would make it work. She stopped at the incoming transfer room, watching a series E appear accompanied by Aizawa.

"Shota, glad you could come." She greeted him.

"I wouldn't miss this, I've to be here for him." She nodded at that, understanding the man still felt a bit guilty about it. She guided him to the observation deck, from there the man would have a good view of the operation room. Even if the operation room was the futuristic mix of hospital and ritual room.

Clean looking floors and walls were decorated with glowing crystals and spell circles. There were also a couple of specialized series E, they had been developed with many of the soul working tools her perk had given her, and a few extra she expected to never need to use, especially given the uses they actually had. At least on other people, every day she was growing more sure she would be needing to do something about her case, but that was for later.

"It will be okay, don't worry, I'm not pulling any stops here." She promised to the man, apparently he was in serious mode about this and just nodded as reply as he watched her leave the observation deck and walk down to the operation floor. She created three clones, better have them ready as the series E brought Kurogiri.

She would have preferred asking the man if he accepted what was going to happen, but Oboro hadn't been asked, so Junko had put him and Tomura to sleep to keep surprises to a minimum.

The portal creating Nomu was laid on the table and she activated the first circle of enchantment. Working as a sort of safety, it held the body in place to prevent any injury before the next activated and Kurogiri/Oboro soul was pulled from his body.

The fog that once covered the body's face like some sort of mask disappeared, exposing the pale features of the deceased hero, Junko mentally frowned as she saw the effects of all that was done on the man/corpse.

She activated the next circle, starting the process of healing the body, but not completing as the fixing the mind would be the last part. But what she could do for now was erase all the unsightly marks that were on the skin and under it.

Only a minute later the body looked pleasantly asleep, heart pumping by its own power, guided by the third circle as many cybernetic parts had been removed by the regeneration circle. This was basically the first and easiest step, Junko had basically nopart in it, all automated.

But now started the important part. She looked at the soul and felt her stomach roil, it was like cancer that had taken over all the body, every inch tumors and mutations showing how far they had gone into their crimes. They couldn't work on the soul, so they had chopped at the flesh till the cut was deep enough to reach it.

Junko took a deep breath and opened herself completely to her clones, turning four into one as they all looked together and started to work. Every inch of the soul was looked after before the unnecessary was removed, the spiritual tumors excised, scars treated, and where it was needed, they used some of the highest grade magic to help Oboro's soul regrow.

They slowly restored the original soul, enriching what had gone atrophied. But not all was removed, instead they worked with what had turned Oboro's cloud-making quick into a portal making one. While they had merged quite well, she found ways to improve it even further, streamlining whatever All for One had done when he had applied the quirk.

She felt a charge come and automatically took the smallest perk, gaining knowledge about how to make things fly better, and quickly pushed it out of her mind as she returned to her work.

While the second circle had brought out the soul from the body and made it visible, it was still a representation of it. Even for her it was hard to really visualize something like it. So while she worked on the image of a body, what she was doing ran a much different meaning. And that was most likely the reason for a crown of chains around his head.

It wasn't hard to realize what it meant, and what it was doing. But given that she could see the chain literally going into his head, she couldn't just yank it away.

So four pairs of hands worked together, removing each link, their touch gentle as they worked minute after minute. Each link vanished into the ether, releasing some terrifying implications about Oboro's actual state while they worked on him. She wouldn't be able to remove his memories of what he and his body had gone through. But she could soften them.

She didn't know if Shota understood what relief it was for her when she removed the last link, buried so deep into the skull she was worried about screwing every last bit of her work. Or maybe he did, but she was currently cut off from everything besides the clones that may as well have just been her given their current harmonization.

Two more steps and the process would be finished, leaving space for the slowest part of healing to take place. She proceeded to etch a few small runs around his forehead, a crown of protection for Oboro's mind, a little gift to ease with the experience of being Kurogiri.

Then she pushed his soul back into his body. She could see that missing piece fit back where it was meant, then the fourth circle activated, pushing the third even further and utilizing Oboro's soul to heal his mind.

While that magic worked, she utilized her Dust and some of the Adamantian-Glassteel alloy to weave a set of bands around his chest, enchanted to be unobtrusive and comfortable while providing her constant watch over his soul and mind.

She sighed in relief as she saw everything go well. It had been a constant rack on her nerves. She watched Oboro's bald head light up, but instead of the light blue and cloudy hair he had while he was alive, now they were darker, purple-ish. Like storm clouds.

"Woah there, slow, slow." She placed her hand on his chest as she noticed him trying to move. "You are being restrained for your safety, the operation was a success, welcome back to the land of the living, Oboro."

She slowly eased the restrictions on the restraining circles as the second circle had been turned off a while ago. The third and the fourth would keep running a bit more.

"W-w...whuh? W-g-uere mm?" Oboro mumbled, still not fully awake.

"Shh, listen to my voice and concentrate on it, you've literally returned from death a second time, so let your body get everything in order. The asshole that got to you before me did a terrible job, so I had to fix a lot of things." And Junko would deliver some pain for that.

She felt the disconnection from the rest of the world and network finally fall and saw the door open and let a Aizawa enter accompanied by a series E. She gave the man a sign for 'one more moment'.

"Remember it, you are Oboro Shikamuro, know it, believe it, internalize it. You may have lived as Kurogiri for around a decade, but that was a bad time, a nightmare that sadly happened, but you wanted to be a hero, you went above and beyond everything to be one.

"So become that hero you wanted to be, never forget where you came from." Each one of her words was laced with power, it wasn't the nicest thing to do, but it's necessary, it would help his psyche heal.

She smiled as she watched the metaphorical cogs in his head start to move smoother before she let Shoto approach them.

The man gave the returned hero one of his rare smiles before speaking.

"Welcome back." His voice draw the not-actually-a-zombie's attention.

"Shot-to?" The series E handed Oboro a glass of water. "Oh… you look old."

It was almost comical how Aizawa took it in stride. "And made it to hero before you, too."

Junko chuckled softly, letting the clones disappear before deciding to leave the pair alone for now, with only the series E as a point of contact or if they needed anything. Another Junk-e would bring them a meal later, for now she could relax.

She would need to do hourly check-ups on Oboro's mind and soul. Maybe in a few days she could lower the watch down to just a few times a day, and go from there.

For now she would still keep the man in the next room to Tomura, it wasn't like the cells weren't comfortable, she had designed them after all. She expected that the younger villain accepted the returned hero, hopefully it help get him to re-enter society properly, most likely not as a hero, but Junko saw it possible for the young man to turn his life around.

But that would wait, because first she would get Oboro to tell him in what dark hole All for One was hiding in.

Chapter 71

Chapter Text

Chapter 71

It was the first of November by now, and Junko was doing her best to forget what had happened a few days ago. She blamed herself the most, because of a stray thought that made her call the series E her living zombies.

If she had known better to not say anything a week before Halloween. She also blamed Mila for going through with it as the series E had approached the lynian behind her back, since it wasn't a prank, and what they had planned actually would result in good publicity she helped them.

She had also been a busy bee, making her miss the fact that the series E were designing a new body type that didn't go through her checking before it was produced, the so called series Z.

Their next step had simply been to wait and spring their surprise on October the 31 st .

Mila had managed to reserve a spot during the Halloween Festival the city held, basically a very hero-heavy afternoon to midnight event in one of the large parks. Stands, games, music, some hero meet-ups and other things. It was safe enough that Junko had let herself relax and took Eri with her to just spend the time like mother and daughter.

Things started to go weird when the speakers announced the next starting and for the public to not panic. Then came the fog and the creaky sound of old hinges moving before the beat started with a supernatural bass that made the insides shiver.

When she saw the first hand punch out of the grass she realized what the series E were doing, or more like, what the series Z were about to do.

Dirty, malformed, decayed, rusted figures pulled themselves from the soil. Missing their lustrous skin in many parts, showing their mechanical insides, limbs hanging powerless or actually missing as their rust-red coloring was shifted into a deep, dark, bloody red.

She had to snort as a series E wearing a red jacket started singing and the series Z danced behind her. Junko couldn't stop herself from mumbling the lyrics of Thriller as Eri giggled while riding on her shoulders to let her see better.

She could see and feel the many, small applications of magic to improve the atmosphere, fog coming from literally nowhere, dimming all light sources that weren't needed, clouding the skies and more. It wasn't hard for her to feel the mix of terror and fascination that people watching the event felt.

The vocal's died down as a thunder hit down, from heaven to the singing series E. The flash blinded everyone as the singer was replaced by another series Z. And with a voice that came straight from the deepest, and darkest, and oldest tomb, the immortal words once spoken by Vincent Price shook the souls of all those who heard them.

Junko knew what was coming and created a small silence bubble around Eri just long enough to protect her from the bone-rattling laugh the series Z let out at the end. She could see the laugh empowered by the strong emotions running rampant.

She was pretty sure more than one person would have nightmares later, but wasn't that one of the fun things of Halloween?

Noticing that most people were still under the spell she started clapping, breaking the silence and drawing all the public wild. After that the series Z played a few more songs, none as emotion-rousing as Thriller was, but still carrying plenty of power given how much people were listening to them.

Social media was a wildfire with the many pictures of the series E and series Z, especially since the only previous images had been mostly blurry, third-hand proof of their existence. It didn't help that some series E had been having fun by going out under the effect of the technological-invisibility spell, meaning they just weren't visible in pictures or recording.

But right now there were more important things besides all the fun the series E could get out of just existing. Like that Oboro had remembered where All for One stayed, or at least their main and larger base. Apparently lost in the middle of a mountain region, a zone normally inaccessible in a valley.

For most people the only way to get there was walking through some slim, mountain path or teleporting in as the mountains around the place made the air currents outright lethal to fly.

It had taken time for the returned man to put his memories back in place, and he still had plenty lost in the fog of his head. But he admitted that a few things were simpler to remember, he had made the trip enough times it was mostly muscle memory doing the job. The other thing was that he felt a sort of affinity to look over Tomura, describing the young man as brash and short-sighted, but also capable of hearing suggestions.

The young villain hadn't shown any type of remorse for what he did, and Junko was sure he must have killed at least a number of people given his quirk, the facility of simply erasing someone by touching. But she had time, and in a way, it was more productive to have the young man with a chance of reforming here than just being stuck in a prison cell, in Tartarus, growing jaded and colder till he finally escaped during a minor mistake.

Of course, just having their location wasn't enough to mount and attack. To begin with, they had no idea if the villain was actually there. Second, they didn't know what was actually there. Third, they had no idea who was there.

So they would wait a bit more, maybe Oboro would remember a few other places, like the small, underground bar they used for some shady business. Sadly the place was a dud, already abandoned for weeks, it hadn't seen a person since around their initial attack.

Junko looked down at the table, there rested Damage Creator. The weapon/relic oozed with power even under the many locks, of which maybe less than ten thousand had been released, and that was before her creation had been locked down to zero once more after getting the latest six charges perk.

She hadn't equipped the weapon since then, especially because she could feel something more in the weapon. It had taken a series A to point it out to her during one of her soul check-ups, the weapon had a proto-soul, similar to that of Central and Ryujin, but not the same.

Before she could decide what to do, she felt another charge complete and brought her to a total of four. The options were simple, another giant robot perk for two charges, a single charge one that would provide her everything to get a DOCTORATE, apparently the capitals were necessary. The last perk, for two charges, would improve her ability to make weapons.

Given the other two perks, she took the last one. The perk was quite passable for its price, it covered any 'normal' weapon, melee or ranged, everything from swords, axes and spears to handguns, sniper rifles and rocket launchers.

Maybe normal was an underestimation, it also imparted on her all the knowledge needed to customize those weapons perfectly for their user. And how to make them have practically unlimited ammo.

The next thing she felt made her shiver as she felt another change settle deep into her soul. It was becoming easier to notice them, and this one seemed to add a new quality to her and extend some sort of domain around her, if she understood what her perk told her, she now could run on rule of cool.

She could do anything if she did it cool enough, at least with enough training. She was basically a noob in showing off with style. It did help that her domain also weaponized her taunts, improving the power of her domain.

The last she felt was a change to her Strife Specibus, the weapon inventory melted into her, it felt more restricted by intrinsic. In a way she still had it, but now she could swap between any set of weapons she stored in it. Along with that, she felt a whole starter on how to push her new domain and channel it through a new style of fighting.

Strangely, it was named Swordmaster, but it let her use any melee weapon, her hammer? Sure, a sword? It was named after it, a bent piece of rebar? And kick all ass, a random piece of wood? If it was long and straight enough? Go ahead.

Basically, it was the ultimate melee fighting style. It came a bit late, but it was pretty nice extra to get.

In a way, this came at the perfect time, looking at the weapon in front of her, she had ideas of what to improve, she was also pretty sure this would be the last time she upgraded Damage Creator in a while. Unless she got a new perk that changed everything for her.

First step was to summon three clones, this would be a full workout as they headed to grab the materials they wanted to use before they all headed to the Volcano Forge. One of the things the clones brought was one of the soul-holders for Damage Creator.

The growing entity was removed safely for now before Junko and her clones started their worse with purpose. Replacing reinforced fabric and armored panels for supernatural metals that had gone through supernaturals treatments.

Metallic fibers made from Glassteel had been imbued with the indestructibility of Adamantian before treated to be softer than silk and enchanted with a dozen different effects.

Flexible armored panels were made of Adamantian imbued with Palladian's regenerative ability, enchanted to absorb any kind of energy or damage and turn it into energy for the user, Junk in this case.

Her masks systems were improved, enchantments streamlined no longer done per part, but spread all over the armor and weapon. She was aiming for a new level, something akin to a gestalt, all pieces working together to make the result just more.

The result filled her with joy, the finishing effect created by all the pieces made Damage Creator unalterable to any outside force. Damage was reduced to such a small amount that the old regeneration would have fixed, now it was like it never existed. And just to deal with powers like those of Overhaul, the whole thing was a single entity or a million small ones depending on the situation.

It would be very, very hard to damage her while wearing it. And she was happy about that. The clones helped transplant the Relic's soul back into it. While there was no thankful voice, she could definitely feel the pleasure the entity got from its new body. Happy with her work, Junko picked it up and headed to Pluto.

It sounded silly it had taken her so long to realize they could have a base in each planet without problems, and they had sent a few series E to each planet, placing multiple pylons in each planet.

The hardest hadn't been Mercury, even this close to the sun, her shielding system absorbed all the energy and radiation to power themselves many times over. It had been the gas giants, she had had to scour the Protoss' Tech for a good design of the space station.

The final design they had gone for was a sort of floating island, a mix of mothership and her old modular room designs. Meaning the city ships could connect to each other to create larger settlements.

She stepped into the dwarf planet. She had gotten used to less gravity in Mars and the moon, and no gravity in space. But Pluto was even smaller than the satellite, making the whole experience weirder.

She hummed as she equipped Damage Creator, feeling a shiver of pure power run through her body, and her song escaped from her heart, she felt her domain spread further as she took up flight.

"... why won't people understand my intentions? " She let her soul sing, the power emanating from Damage Creator cratering the ground in a line as she flew, even when she was a good distance away from it.

It took her a few minutes to draw her power much closer to her body. This also made her be wreathed in a visible aura of power. It still didn't stop her from creating another crater on the rocky ground of the dwarf planet when she landed.

Junko groaned softly, she would need to try the clone spell while using Damage Creator in a place with atmosphere, she didn't want to create them in the void as a torture.

Instead she let herself fall into the fugue of shadow boxing. And quickly reshaping the whole area around her, each swing of her hammer carving the surface, each shot of her shotgun erasing large amounts of rock.

She felt her newly gained fighting style cover every movement of her hammer, but not her gun. Her domain's power increased, even when not fighting, she was reshaping the surface of a dwarf planet and that was Savage!

She was pretty sure there wasn't much else she could do, except try her swan song. With a grin on her face she let her song's volume kick it up a few notches. She had to admit the light show forming around her was quite cool.

"... From my hand and from my heart ." She switched Damage Creator into its shotgun form and pointed up, the hammer would most likely devastate the planet, she hoped to not hit anyone as she aimed away from the sun just in case.

She felt the attention of all series E and A turn to her. The volume of her voice vibrating even in the void as her weapon shifted and expanded.

From a small handheld weapon, it shifted, growing larger and bigger, the bore of the barrel increasing by a magnitude of ten. The jets on her back shifting to catch the recoil of the weapon as she felt the chamber suck nearly all her energy. She watched her divine fire compact into a single bullet.

" Magic and Technology, Voodoo Dolls and Chants, " She grinned as she pulled the trigger. " Weird Science. "

Reality buckled as the single Divine Shot flew true into the void between solar systems. Even while flying nearly a kilometer above ground, the ground under her was reduced to a fine powder and her body crashed into it.

She let out a weak whistle as she felt the backlash of the final attack on all her body, the armor barely keeping her together as she willed herself back to base. The series E caught her half way back and let her crash into one of the transport ships.

Easy to say, she wouldn't be telling anyone the amount of damage it did to her, she would be looking to improve her synchronization with the relic more before trying that again.

Chapter 72

Chapter Text

Chapter 72

Junko maintained an even breath as she moved slowly, pushing her lightning flames into the area around her while retracting the aura of power that flared from her body while using Damage Creator. It had taken nearly a week of a few hours each day to control her power to this level and not pulverize the ground around her by simply existing.

Right now she was working on extending her lightning flames through the domain granted by her last perk, so far it was working, but the balance needed to maintain it meant she would only need a single distraction to...

Of course, there's humor in the world, and the ground crunched down to dust as she was surprised by a message appearing in her vision. She sighed and pulled her power back as she read the message from Nezu.

The principal had managed to work mostly in secret, reaching to numerous contacts, graduated heroes and many others he got to meet and was confident of their position. She slowly started to float back to base as she wrote a reply for the chimera, she would gladly provide the transportation service to the villain's base and suggested doing so soon given the many clues pointing to all the leading elements of All for One's forces.

She added the maps she had gotten of the place, with the underground tunnels plus the area she would be space-locking once they had moved in. She would be providing the number with the series E, she was also underselling them, offering them mostly as capture forces to quickly take enemy's forces off the field.

She touched down inside Mars' dome and released Damage Creator, glad they had used Adamantian as the landing pads material to prevent damage. She sent a note to fix the few new craters she had made for any series interested in it.

She sighed, it was becoming harder to hold back her power, especially when synchronized with Damage Creator. She had started to look into the knowledge she had of souls, not only provided by her related perk, but in some others that were a bit more tangential.

Her current main lead was actually some of the dark rituals given to her by one of her alchemy perks, there was more than one ritual to achieve god-like powers, based on them she was designing a few before taking them to Muria to see if the shamaness had any tips and warnings.

She felt another charge accumulate and three options appeared in her mind. She frowned as she looked at the first option, it was four charges and would provide the secrets of turning any metal, especially steel, into a wondrous material, sadly it was four charges, so she skipped it.

The second option, for three charges, would provide her masterful knowledge of alchemy, potions, essences and other secret techniques. It was tempting. The last option, for a single charge, would improve her ability to design, create and repair technology.

She wasn't sure if getting more alchemical knowledge was needed at the moment, so she took the last one. It was interesting, but nothing revolutionary, it added to her ability to infuse style into her creation.

Junko looked at Damage Creator, the weapon was becoming easier to use each day, it had also started to react faster to her orders for it. She was pretty sure she had felt a sense of longing when she disconnected from it.

Instead of storing it back into her inventory, she decided to let the weapon hang behind her back for now. She walked calmly through the main street of Mars' main city, the second Nexus they had built still stood at the center, but now a developing metropolis grew around it.

Most of the area under the dome was actually either parks, gardens and greenhouses, or ship parking and hangars. The rest was a mix of production buildings, development, housing and a good number of restaurants.

Apparently many series E and A had found some great pleasure in using ever weirder ingredients, like many of those gotten from Venus, to cook and develop new recipes. Being able to eat anything meant they could explore into some less normally edible meals.

She had tried some of the creations, one of the most interesting things were small electronic marbles that simulated a whole meal in flavor as it went down your throat.

Of course, it wasn't for everyone, but a few of the series C(ook), were already looking into opening experimental restaurants on Earth, Junko sincerely wished them luck, but left the matters to Mila, she had helped them with Halloween after all.

She kept walking in direction of the Nexus as she looked over the updates on her many projects. They had started to set up a number of small outposts all over the Oort Cloud, basically stations with some of their strongest scans pointing out to the void. It had been only a few days since they had covered enough the chances someone sneaked in was minimal.

By now every planet in the system had a base, even Pluto too. They had also set four shipyards in the meteor belt, she had honestly no idea what she wanted four shipyards with the level of output her technology worked with, but she now had it.

Getting closer to home, the plans for cleaning Earth were about half-way done, she had shifted many of the systems to a slower, but much stealthier configuration, as many countries had started to note the changes. She wasn't going to say anything about it, deny any question and just seek to finish things before pushing harder for better ways to deal with trash and pollution.

By now it was quite a pleasure to stand on the grass outside the complex, it made her giddy inside. Moving past Earth, Venus had finally stopped changing. The planet was totally habitable by now, the Dust had moved into a more passive state, just keeping the livable state of the atmosphere and temperature.

There had also been a number of series E who were calling themselves series F(arm) and had taken large amounts of land and large farming machines to experiment with some of the plants that had developed on the planet. It was interesting how some plants appeared to only be there to concentrate Dust in them for easy harvest of the material.

She finally reached the Nexus and transported herself back to Earth. Being back on the planet was like taking a deep breath after stepping out of the heat into a cold room. She smiled and noticed that Nezu had sent her a new message already.

She read it slowly, apparently a few heroes were doubting she could do much to actually help. Apparently her lack of public image as a hero was playing against her. And he wanted to set up a meeting today if possible. She quickly replied she could be there in a few minutes.

She quickly messaged Mila before heading out for UA. She transported herself to a small house they had bought a bit farther from the Complex to hide their movement, the outside hadn't been modified in any way except adding a SEP field on it.

She got into the Hero School through one of the service entrances on the back of the grounds and headed directly to the meeting room Nezu had set. She was impressed to find a few single digit Pro Heroes like Endeavor, Mirko and Best Jeanist, there were also a few other strong contenders like Gang Orca and Ryukyu between others.

Endeavor turned to look at her and snorted. "So this is the mysterious hero Nezu's backing?" Junko rolled her eyes, especially as she had noticed Best Jeanist to be the first to react to her presence, most likely his quirk was reacting to her clothes and how they had been made partly with exotic metals and enchanted on top of that.

She made a mental note to provide some Glassteel to the hero. "Hello, first, I just got here, so I've got no idea what you are talking about Endeavor, second, I'm working to help dealing with a very dangerous villain, there's a reason Nezu approached all of you."

"So because you fought against one villain and got All Might to save you at the last moment you think you can order us?" Junko wasn't exactly sure why Endeavor was being so combative with her, the number 2 hero stood up, his already flaming hair flaring up higher.

Junko mentally groaned, doing her best to hide it as she felt a throb deep inside of her. Of course her divine flame was reacting, she knew the hero's quirk was been called Hellflame, but she was pretty sure there was nothing hellish about it. This apparently didn't stop both flames to clash when in presence, her own pushing her to show the man who was the biggest around.

She sighed, given how some other heroes were looking, backing up right now would send the wrong idea. She lifted a hand and flexed her fire control, it wasn't her most used ability, mostly during smithing, divine flames were just above and beyond for processing metals. She pushed a bit more and her control expanded to cover the whole room, Endeavor's flames soon leaving him and coiling into a small and bright sphere on her hand before getting snuffed when her hand closed.

Endeavor's surprised look as he failed to reignite his flames with his quirk under her domain was worth a small cocky smile. "Okay, with that out of the way," Junko noticed the rabbit hero Mirko grinning at the sight. "For those of you who don't know me, I'm Junk, I principally do support equipment and technology development and more recently was forced to become a hero. Given the two first, I have also ended finding out about All for One." She deployed a holographic projector to the center of the room and activated it, showing the old images of the villain plus a few she had reconstructed from her scans in the last few days. "Age unknown, but there's been sightings of him for at least over a hundred of years, his real name's thought to be lost to story and his quirk lets him steal quirks from others, hoard them or hand them out to other people."

It was easy to see which heroes were unaware of the villain and his quirk and who were given their reactions. "He's been working with this man," The image showed Kyudai Garaki, both from stock and the images recreated from the scans. "His quirk has provided him supernatural longevity as we have found records of his birth from over a hundred years ago. He's very smart, completely amoral, and his studies on quirks and biology has led to the creation of these."

The image changed to the three Nomus she had seen during the attack at the meet , she also changed to some of the images of the laboratories underground in the complex that was their current target. Junko had a personal hate for the man.

"They call them Nomus, they are created from multiple people to merge their quirks into one super-strong and loyal tool of terror. Garaki has also advanced the field of quirk cloning by quite a bit, showing off especially in how all Nomus seem to share a similar regeneration quirk that will keep them going till they just die."

"That's… very worrying, but I'm sure more than one here's also wanting to ask the same, how did you get these images?" Gang Orca asked, his deep voice vibrating in her chest.

"Besides the air shots, the rest have been recreated from advances in long-range scanning technology, colors are an approximation, but the rest's a perfect reproduction down to the millimeter."

"Consider my doubts cleared." Gang Orca nodded at her and let her continue.

"All for One's forces include some known factors like: Overhaul," the image changed to show the Yakuza, "Chronostasis, Mimic," The images showed the right and left hand of the villain, "Gigantomachia," The image changed to show the giant villain. "We also have found solid proof Giran, a known underground information broker, works for him. And that's without accounting any other people loyal to him who may have received quirks from All for One."

"Sooo… you are saying this will be a big fight~?" Mirko commented, leaning forward, if Junko had to say something, the rabbit hero seemed to relish in the idea of getting personal.

"Yes, I'll be providing transportation and support, while also locking the space in the valley to prevent All for One escaping with any type of teleportation or portal quirk." She switched the image to her series. "These are the series E, they are completely synthetic and autonomous, originally I had designed them as helper robots, but things went…" She let out a soft giggle. "they kinda grew past what I expected of them.

"They will be providing support with numbers, they can be destroyed and it won't be a big loss. They've been installed with the technology to restrain and forcefully transport villains to power-nullifying cells."

"So what? We just stand back and watch them do the work?" Endeavor's voice had lost a bit of the earlier heat.

"Not exactly, while they could deal with low level criminals, and maybe group up to deal with a Nomu, they won't manage much against any smart person or skilled quirk user. They will be there for three things, lessen the pressure on the real heroes, take out the enemy's forces out of the field, and if necessary, take a hit for one of you. Let me make this clear, Overhaul's quirk makes him instantly lethal with a touch, I doubt he's the only one under All for One's forces to have that characteristic." She sighed. "Overhaul was also developing a quirk destroying drug before his fall from grace. While he lost access to the main ingredient, I doubt he hasn't found a way to imitate it if Garaki helped."

She was glad to see the heroes taking her warning with the needed seriousness. While she may be able to deal with the quirk-destroying drug, she preferred if it didn't come to that.

The discussion moved to more technical details, Junko trying to solve all of the heroes' doubts and questions. But at the end of the day, they were all for it, taking All for One would improve things. And if this cleared Junko's worries in advancing Japan's technology even further, who was she to say something?

She smiled, they would be moving in a couple of days, more than enough to get the last things in order before the decided day.

Chapter 73

Chapter Text

Chapter 73

Junko smiled as she watched the heroes meet and chat, the nerves palpable as their attack would be starting soon. Junko hummed softly as she felt another charge and made it to four. A quick look made it clear there was only one perk she could take, with no other option she took it.

It was a pretty solid primer for technology, robotics and engineering, she let it join the rest of the pile she had of them. She looked over to where the series E were setting a number of pylons from where they would transport the heroes to the valley, she had a number of stealthy Warp Prism deployed under cloak to not show their hand yet, they were waiting ten kilometers away, and would take less than a minute to get in position.

They would also lock down the area inside the valley to prevent escape of the villains.

She noticed Ragdoll from the Wild, Wild Pussycats approach her. "Hi~ Junk, right?"

She nodded and smiled. "Yes, nice to meet you Ragdoll." She did a quick look over her costume, while it was good, in Junko's opinion, the woman needed a rework given her age, and if the rumors were right, Pixie-Bob may approve of the idea.

"I've been going around to get a lock with my quirk on at least one person in every group." The woman had an energy even as she was obviously nervous about what was coming.

"Ah, I don't think it's a good idea to try that with me." Junko smiled wryly.

"Are you sure? I've had people be afraid of my quirk on them."

"No, it's not that…" Junko looked around and reached her hand for Ragdoll's. "Keep it a secret, and look for yourself."

Her hand grabbed the woman's, and for a moment she let her peek into her network. A few thousand series E and series A mentally turned to look at the new mind before they noticed Junko's stated 'do not bother'. She then disconnected from the feline-themed hero.

"...Oh…" Was all that came out of Ragdoll's mouth. The more experienced heroine turned to look at the working series E who smiled and waved at her. "How were they so far away?"

"How about you and the rest of the Pussycats meet me after all of this is done? I'll gladly tell you then" Ragdoll just nodded mutely as she moved.

Junko watched her go and turned as All Might approached her. The man looked grim but ready. "Hey All Might, got something for you." She spoke before he could get a word out, handing him a suitcase she pulled from her inventory. "It's a better costume, I'm sure yours is quite good, but this baby will survive some rather...let's say extreme environments and keep you alive much better."

The man looked at the suitcase, nodding as he opened to see the costume inside, it looked nearly identical to his normal one, the only difference was the small metal J on the wrist.

"Sorry, I had to put my mark on it, but if you tap it, it will change into an A, it also has a built-in communication system."

"Junk, I said it before, but you have my gratitude. I would have never thought this would be possible, or at least, this event with me being healed."

Junko nodded to his words. "Just remember to punch the guy for me, I've issues with Overhaul, I have a few ways to deal with his quirk and I'm the most likely to survive him actually touching me."

All Might nodded seriously at that. He had seen photos of the results of Overhaul's quirk in use, and not only they weren't pretty, there was no natural way to counteract his quirk that wasn't 'don't get touch'.

"I wish you luck with that then, I'll go change and I'm sure we will start moving after that." Junko nodded to the man and smiled encouragingly.

It didn't escape her eyes how Best Jeanist's fabric carried a slight metallic sheen, she was glad to see her specially treated glassteel fabric worked for his quirk.

All Might returned, his new costume added more to his presence than most people would notice. Junko could actually see that the hero had been training his Aura quite a bit, she wondered if he had developed a semblance yet.

Every other hero shut up in short order and turned to the number one, even Endeavor seemed to respect him.

"I thank you all who have come here today," As All Might talked, Junko tuned him out, she had bigger things to worry than hearing to his speech, she knew all steps of the plan, and given her connection to the series E, she would be keeping a near perfect overview of the whole event.

She kept an eye on the enemy's base scans as the stealthy observers and Warp Prisms moved into place, half a dozen of them evenly spaced around the valley. She prepared the needed space-locking spell to be cast through the Warp Prisms.

After that she checked the status of containment cells, a number of series E were currently cooperating with the law enforcement, The cells had been deployed to a prefecture over, in an area owned by the government. The series E were there mostly for tech support and operating the cells.

She noticed All Might peer at her during his speech and she gave him a thumbs up of confirmation.

"...let's show them why we are heroes. Plus Ultra!" All Might finished his speech and the heroes cheered, quickly moving to the set up places for leaving, a number of series E at each one. The groups were transported till only Junko and All Might were left.

"Good luck out there, old man." She smiled.

"You too, little miss." He nodded and was transported away, leaving Junko completely alone. She smiled and summoned three clones.

For a moment they were wearing the same as her before they switched into a new type of armor they had developed. A set of armor that shifted and closed over their heads, soon the three of them looked identical to any other series E.

"I can't be everywhere but I can damn make a good attempt at it. Stay back unless completely needed." Junko spoke as she pulled Damage Creator and hung it across her back.

The three clones stepped into a different pylon and joined other groups as Junko soon followed, stepping into the valley, she had set her pylon apart from the rest. She would be facing Overhaul, for many personal reasons, besides being the only one capable of taking at least one hit from his quirk.

She watched a reproduction of the place, watching the villains start to react to the many heroes attacking the place. She watched the steady stream of series E's thoughts as they updated on their respective situations.

She started walking down into the valley, she wasn't rushing right now. She breathed the fresh air of the mountain, but couldn't ignore the fetid stench she could feel through her connection to the planet.

She thanked the series E who guided the other heroes away from the Yakuza villain, apparently ignorant of the fact he was being led to her. He and his two close helpers appeared to be rushing out of the place, not the most loyal if she had to guess.

Damage Creator in hand, she switched it to shotgun form and aimed as she prepared a pair of ice charges. Two quick barks from the gun and tweedledee and tweedledum got frozen solid to their necks.

"Wha-" A third shot was quickly dodged by the bird-mask villain.

"Aw, why didn't you just let yourself get hit?" Junko stepped out onto the clearing with a cocky smirk on her face.

"You!" The man growled but instead of attacking her reached to free his two patsies. "So nice of you to come instead of making me go look for you and Eri."

"Like you will be getting away from here." Junko grinned, keeping down the sheer hate she had for the man in front of her. A small push of her will and both bracelets started to let Dust flow. "But don't worry, I will make it hurt, for each time you made Eri cry."

The man snorted. "Oh~ I'm so afraid, I heard you got a hero license, you won't be able to rea-"

Overhaul's words were cut as Junko shadow-stepped right into his personal space before punching him right into the stomach, her telekinesis behind her hit, sending the man flying back till he hit a moderately large tree.

"You think being a hero will stop from pummeling you down?" Now she chuckled. "Remember I know about your quirk, look at you, already all healthy again." Her grin turned feral. "Unless I really take you out, we will keep fighting. And that's fine for me"

The man moved his mask away to spit some blood before using his quirk to recover his body as his two helpers ran to his side.

"I will enjoy making you scream before getting that little bitch that got away." Chronostasis pulled a gun and Mimic melted into the area.

"Finally understanding what we are doing here? Good." She chuckled as Damage Creator shifted back into a hammer and charged some earth element before she pounded the ground under her hard enough to create large cracks.

The closer trees falling off as the sound of Mimic screaming and pulling himself out of the ground worse for wear. Junko grinned and shook her finger in a No fashion.

Junko saw the stream of updates show things were starting to heat up. She wished everyone luck, but she was busy, her clones would have to take care of the literal fires.

She felt a pair of objects bounce off her face plate and saw that Chronostasis had shot her, she should be more careful, getting distracted right now would be dangerous. But instead of showing off her surprise she grinned.

"Let me guess, a working version of your quirk-erasing drug?" She swung her hammer, the fire energy charged on the head turning the modified bullets into ash. "Sadly, I'm the worst target since I don't need my quirk to kick your ass."

Junko stood standing even as Overhaul sent a barrage of spikes from the ground, the material breaking as it impacted her body, the adamantian armor in her current costume was enough to make the attack useless.

The show she was putting seemed to only anger Overhaul more as he reached for Chronostasis. The effect of his quirk on his ally's and his own body made Junk's stomach twist.

Watching flesh twist and mix as the villain's body grew larger, two extra arms growing from his back and two arrow tentacles coming from his shoulder.

"I Will Show You!" The man, monster, villain screamed and ran at her.

Junko made a lifting sign with her hand and all the Dust she had spent the last few minutes releasing into the area reacted. Half a dozen rocky walls lifted in their way, they weren't aimed to stop the villain, each swipe from his hands erased one, but as he erased the last, what awaited him was her gun, already unleashing a powerful blast of electricity.

"Shocking, ain't it?" She laughed as dodged Mimic's attack as he had taken over some of the fallen trees to create some kind of wood golem. "Found how to replicate your quirk, and it's so much better."

Dust congregated to her will, forming golden shields and swords she used to fight the golem "Come on, you can do better."

Junko internally cursed as she felt another charge, as her fight started to become more heated it was harder to pay attention to it, so she decided to take the first perk, something about alchemy. She instantly pushed all the new knowledge away before it really hit her as she unleashed a fireball at Mimic and bated the chimeric Overhaul away.

"Come on, Overhow, is this what the man who wants to rule the underworld can do?" Junko grinned as she peered to a side as a giant villain was being fought by a group of heroes not a kilometer away.

Junko grinned as the villain rushed at her, she grunted as the fight in melee quarters was much more dangerous than with any other villain. She was glad that Kai wasn't used to fighting with three pairs of extra limbs and her Swordmaster technique was helping her quite well.

She could feel her domain starting to power up as they exchanged hits, Junko making sure each hit from Overhaul's hands impacted her golden shields and her hammer intercepted his arms. Even breaking them didn't stop him from having them recover an instant later and rejoining the fight.

"Once I'm done with you I will show Eri true despair." The Villain was almost rabid as he attacked her over and over again. She could feel how her domain was racking up power, going from what her power called D Rank all the way A and not stopping there.

As Kai grew more skilled in coordinating his attacks with Mimic's support, Junko's domain expanded further, climbing the rankings of S, SS and hitting SSS. Her domain was spreading farther, powering her further, making it easier and easier to react faster, parrying Overhaul's attacks, dodging his arrow appendages.

Dust surprised the villain as it created appendages from the ground under them, coiling around his legs and distracting him before she swiftly smacked every appendage of the villain away before changing it to the shotgun configuration and pressing the muzzle against his stomach and pulling the trigger.

The rock holding him in place couldn't resist the force as the villain was sent flying, impacting Mimic and sending them all together crashing a bit farther away. The shock of the wind element attack seemed to separate Kai from Chronostasis.

"Give up, you aren't winning here." She pulled three pairs of power nullifier handcuffs and teleportation beacons to finish the fight. But before she could approach them more she received a warning from one of the clones and had to jump away, the giant villain crashing between her and the other group of criminals.

"He he he, you think that's enough?" She could hear Kai laughing. "I will show you true power."

Junko growled as prepared another shot as he looked around, she suddenly noticed the movement near the gigantic villain, Overhaul had healed himself but had left his subordinates behind. Her eyes opened large in surprise as he put his hand on the giant.

"I will show you true terror!" The giant started screaming as the effects of Overhaul's quirk spread all over his body before she could react, his body getting pulled into the giant villain and merging.

Junko growled, but let a grin show on her lips. "Well, fuck."

Chapter 74

Chapter Text

Chapter 74 – Views of the Battlefield

Most heroes could go years, decades or even all their career and never be part of a raid on a villain's base, especially not one of this size. To begin with, the distance the base had from any civilization or even a road made it really hard to mount a surprise attack.

Having a way to get to the place instantly and having multiple ways to coordinate the attack cleared a lot of worries, and for once, having the advantage to be able to just throw bodies thanks to the series E made a lot of heroes more eager to bring the criminals to justice.

Others were just enjoying the chance for a good fight and have a reason to go all out. Like Mirko, the rabbit hero.

The heroine ran at top speed, having decided to separate from the rest of the heroes, it surprised her to see a couple of series E keep up with her easily.

"I don't need the help, dolls." She huffed as the two white, red and gold robots followed her close.

"We aren't here to help, just to take the villains you knock out." One of them spoke.

"Really, you can go ahead and go wild, we will keep out of your way." The other continued.

"And if something really happens…" The first talked again.

""We are free to go wild ourselves!""

The rabbit hero snorted. "What can you dolls really do?" She eyed the indistinguishable pair.

One of them lifted an arm and showed the energy blade protruding from just above their wrist, extending over a meter. A couple of waves of it and a near tree fell down in smoking pieces.

The other spoke. "There are a few other things too, we are really tough and since we aren't really people, mind altering quirks won't affect us."

Rumiko nodded and looked at them. "Then you better keep up." The woman grinned as she rushed once more, the two series E imitating and moving after her.

On the other side of the valley, Kamui Woods moved swiftly, jumping between the trees wasn't too different from how he used his quirk. Just behind him, but having a harder time moving through the vegetation was Mount Lady, the heroine already looked worse for wear, a few other heroes had been put under Kamui Wood's orders along with a decently sized squad of series E.

One of them actually perked up and rushed to his side. "Large number of villains coming from the front, none above C-list, though some do have international records and are wanted in a few other countries."

He thought it over, having such early warning let him, nodding in response as he turned to the rest of the heroes. "Villains in front of us, get ready to move. Immobilize or knock them out before moving, let the series E do their work." He spoke clearly, glad to see no doubt in his group. The series E by him gave a smile and a thumbs up.

They quickly started moving again as the hero felt a nagging thought worm into his heart. He moved closer to the series E and kept speed with her. "I have a question." He spoke just loud enough for her to hear him.

"Hmm, ask, can't promise to answer all questions for safety reasons."

"You could have done this without us, no?"

The series E smirked. "Maybe, there's enough of us, and you can't discard the power of perfect coordination. But it would have sent the worst type of message." The synthetic being spoke. "Right now All for One's between us and making the world a better place, so the best path was to cooperate with heroes to bring him down."

The man chuckled, it wasn't hard to see what they were doing, they didn't deny they had the ability, but had preferred to play support. If they had gone ahead and taken such a large villain group all by themselves then people would praise them as heroes as much as many would wonder if they didn't want to just replace the villains.

He gave a courteous nod as the forest finally opened up to a clearing, a few dozen villains were waiting for them. But the heroes moved unchallenged through them, quickly taking them out and leaving them for the series E to pounce in and restrain them before they were teleported away.

"Looks like we are done with this group." He spoke loud enough for all other heroes to hear him. "If everyone's okay we should keep moving." He smiled under his mask at the many agreement nods before they moved again, ready to take out more villains.

"Mandalay, send group seven over to help five." Ragdoll spoke out loud as she maintained her eyes closed, looking over the different groups with her quirk.

"Gotcha." The other hero stood by her side, the pair were currently being surrounded by Pixie-Bob's earth beasts, Tiger and a pair of series E.

"Group two's currently moving again, warn group three they should rejoin."

The pair worked as battle tacticians quite well, especially with such good bodyguards. The poor fools who tried attacking them after finding them found themselves quickly getting shown the error of their ways.

"It's nice to see things going well." Tiger spoke to the series E.

"Hmm, this is just the start, I bet they threw the rabble out of the base to slow us down. Not that it changes much." The synthetic answered. "I'm afraid what they may try to do once they feel cornered. Like trying to blow up the valley, release all the Nomus they may have, kill any prisoners they may have or who knows what else."

Given the pale look on Tiger the series E quickly amended. "Don't worry about them, first, we made sure there are no self-destruct or large amounts of explosives hidden, even at worst is a few kilograms of C4 spread over the base and it would be pretty hard to do it."

"I… I will take your word for it. How's it going over there Pixie-Bob?" Tiger turned to his other companion.

"The other Earth Beasts are taking care of the runners, but give the groups' movement they are a little few."

The series E perked up and rushed forward, a metallic pole on her hands, swiftly interrupting the charge from a pair of Nomus, the other series E falling on them to quickly knock them down to the ground.

"Looks like we have been noticed." Tiger snorted at the comment.

One of the series E let out a growl and Tiger understood her anger given what he could see. The Nomus didn't look as correct as the ones he had been shown, visible malformations, tumors, mismatched limbs. And given the number of them that were attacking, it wasn't hard to see they were sending the trash.

But even trash was dangerous as each of them looked to be still as strong and resilient as the others. Not that the series E appeared to be having much problems, it was surprising how much tougher and stronger they were than the Nomus.

And those weapons they used, albeit simple, showed to be extremely effective in their hands.

"Crap, all the groups appear to have found resistance with the Nomus, at least a couple in each one." Ragdoll spoke and opened her eyes. "Stronger villains are also joining the fray."

"Okay, relaying the news." Mandalay replied, sending the update to the rest of the heroes.

"Crap." One of the series E cursed. "The Nomus may be tough, but they seem to really need their quirks to live, a number of them are quickly breaking down once transported to the cells."

"It may sound callous, but don't think about it, right now it's more important to continue advancing, and we can't do so without removing them from the field. It may be for the best if it happens this way." Ragdoll offered her opinion.

"You're right, those poor souls." The series E quickly incapacitated the remaining defect Nomus and sent them their way.

"Oh… that's a big villain." A series E commented.

About a few minutes prior with Kamui Woods and company.

"Move into defensive positions, let them come." His wood constructs spread to form walls and funnel the mind-less creatures in their attack. "Now!"

His order was followed to the letter, a number of heroes riding on Mt Lady's shoulders shot down at the pile of up Nomus, quickly taking most of them out.

Under normal circumstances even the defects would have gotten up and continued fighting, but the series E rushed in, sending them out quickly before moving away before the Nomus further down shook out of their situation and attacked.

A loud roar made everyone freeze as a figure even taller than Mt Lady came out from the base.

"You came to take Lord away, Gigantomachia won't let you!" The figure roared again, most of the heroes retreating, taking distance from such a giant.

"Any plans Kamui? This fella's more than a few meters above me, and he looks like he eats mountains for breakfast." Mt Lady spoke as she set herself in a defensive posture.

"I'm thinking, I don't think even my strongest move will hold him in place for long."

"Well, better think faster, because here he comes." She replied as the villain came rushing at them. Of course the fist didn't make contact as a series E came crashing down from the sky, a long metal pole impacting the monstrous villain's wrist and sending him sprawling to the side.

"Woo, just in time." The series E grinned and held the weapon over her shoulder. "Bother if I give a hand?"

Before either Kamui Woods or Mt Lady could reply the villain got up, roaring again, they got to be witnesses of how his broken arm viciously pulled itself back together with more than a few sickening cracks and crunches.

"Oh dear, but…" The two heroes felt a shiver go down their spine at the tone from the series E. "this makes it the perfect chance to try this."

The change on the series E was instantly noticeable. The first to change were the colors, the white slowly growing redder as the reds started glowing the same as the gold on its body. The synthetic body soon started growing larger and larger, soon ending about a head shorter than Mt Lady. The pole on her hands disappearing and being replaced by a properly sized on.

"Woo, this is a rush." The giant series E was positively, and literally, on fire. "Come big boy, let's dance."

The fight quickly turned very hard against the villain, even being about fifty percent taller than the series E and a quarter taller than Mt Lady.

Kamui Woods, had ended literally out of his weight range, decided to help the heroine by constructing large wood weapons for her to wield, albeit inexperienced in the crafting of them.

In the privacy of her mind, the series E, or better to say the Junko clone currently wearing a series Armor, was having the time of her life. Fighting as a titan was pure adrenaline, even if her current form had fire instead of blood running through her veins.

It was also the only form the clones or the original, didn't feel the growing pressure of her massive soul. She still concentrated in the fight the most, giving Mt Lady plenty of openings to hit in as she intercepted his attacks.

At the same time they fought, another group of heroes had managed to get into one of the base's wings. Endeavor led the group, a couple of his sidekicks and a few series E followed after. The man had insisted that it would be more efficient that way.

And it wasn't a lie, the sidekicks were used to the stoic number 2 hero. The series E were quickly picking up downed villain after downed villain, they had actually added an extra one just to deal with the numbers.

The heroes soon stopped as a wall of blue fire rose from the ground. Reducing the villains in the way to ashes almost instantly. The screams did more to stop the heroes than the fire itself.

"Ah, if it isn't the Number Two hero, always the Number Two, isn't it?" The flames reduced enough to show a villain on the other side, his body marred by scarred tissues apparently sewed to healthy skin.

"T-Tou-ya?" The hero seemed to deflate at the sight of the young man. "N-No… it can't be."

"But it is…" His voice seemed to cut as the fire under his control was doused completely, prompting him to try to create more before two series E appeared from behind and the third knocked him out, quickly handcuffing him and teleporting him away.

"Let's save that for later." The series E grinned. "There's a time and place for everything, and this is neither."

"Ah...Ok." The hero steeled himself and nodded to the sidekicks who started moving. Sadly they hadn't been able to stop the murder of the villains, but there was still more to do.

Away from everyone's sights, even the base's security system, a series E moved, another of Junk's clones. This one had modified their series armor to be undetectable. It stalked deeper into the base, soon finding her target.

"No, no, no, this can't be, how are they taking out the Nomus out so easily." The short, bald and slightly overweight man panicked as he worked on the computer in front of him. "Samples B55, U73, F23 and I99 shouldn't be failing this quickly."

Behind him, without doing a sound or even moving the air besides to occupy a place, the series E moved before reaching with a hand to point at the screen right in the man's view.

"You screwed here, the folding of the protein should have been inverted, otherwise the flesh would suffer a chain reaction to prevent proper bonding on the skeleton."

"Rig-…" The man's voice cut and started to shake, slowly turning to see the vicious smirk on the series E' face. "No, no, no, how are you here? All entrances should have been sealed and hidden."

"Ah… but good doctor, I had a very important appointment with you, I just couldn't let a few meters of steel stop me." The venom dripped from her words. "After all, I saw what you did to those peoples to make the Nomus, I just had to meet you personally."

The man was shaking as he started to hit buttons next to him, but nothing happened.

" I can't let you do that~ " The image on the screen was replaced by another series E.

"H-How?! This sh-should be a co-comp-completely closed sy-sys-tem!"

"No one is coming, we will make sure nothing remains of your knowledge, that tainted knowledge, it wasn't hard finding the records of all those missing people." The large body containment tubes behind started to bubble as temperature rose quickly, soon boiling high enough the insides of the tubes burned and the glass cracked.

"He, he, hehehehehe, you won't win, All for One will show you all, and with All Might injured, he will fall eas-"

"Ah, bad news then." The series E sounded just so happy. "We healed him, he's better than ever, and if for some reason All for One wins." She leaned closer. "We will do the same that we'll with you."

The series E showed her open palm, a small ember flickering before quickly growing into an orange-sized flame that quickly started to burn higher and higher. "It's such a shame your laboratory's safeties failed, there must have been some infighting~"

The room was soon filled with a small sun.

Chapter 75

Chapter Text

Chapter 75

"Sorry!" A gigantic series E screamed from the direction the villain had been thrown from, behind the obvious Junko clone, stood Mt Lady and Kamui Woods.

"Well, this will make things harder…" Junko couldn't help herself and shiver, the so-called Gigantomachia was standing back up again, Overhaul was merged on the villain's chest. "Oh my god! You look like an RPG's villain!" The adrenaline made her start cackling. "Let me guess, this is not your final form?"

"What? You little fuck! You think this is a joke?!" Overhaul speaks in a double tone as Gigantomachia's mouth still works but lays under the smaller villain's control. "This creature's so dumb it didn't even resist me, I'm unstoppable!"

Junko giggled. "Hey, you may want to step back, I don't think I can hold back anymore." She spoke in the series E, Mt Lady and Kamui Wood's direction.

The clone currently wearing a series E armor and in giant form perked up. "Oh, dear, things are about to get much more dangerous." She turned and pushed the other heroes back.

"But won't she need our help?"

"Her? Oh no, I will need to start calling reinforcements to keep the collateral damage down, we still haven't balanced what she's about to unleash well." The giggle that promised pain made the heroes shiver.

Junko grinned as she looked at Giant-haul. "Well, you wanted me to be serious." Damage Creator thrummed as eagerly as she was. " From my hand and from my heart… "

The words leave Junk's mouth as Damage Creator releases all stops and its power floods her body, her armor deploying onto her body, each time she used it's just a bit more comfortable. Four jets formed out of pure energy on her back and a light step had her start floating, her power soon expanded farther than just her body, hardening the area around.

"What the fuck?!" She heard in the distance as the ground and nearby trees are reduced to dust in a sphere around her.

"Okay big boy, let's dance." She barely leaned forward, before she shot like a bullet, like if reality needed time to realize what happened, a trench was carved on the ground a moment after her charge.

Even as the gigantic villain was more dangerous, given larger hands made the danger area to dodge greater. In Junko's opinion, it was just easier to dodge them and there was just so much more area to hit.

She swung her hammer and pulverized the villain's wrist, sending Gigant-haul's arm back to where it came from.

"Grah! Stay still you pest!" The villain prattled, but she didn't feel like listening to it.

Instead, Junko easily zipped around, dodging the greatly telegraphed attacks from the giant's limbs, smacking them away when she couldn't dodge, but even turning the whole arm into a meaty bag filled with pulverized bones didn't seem to keep him down.

The area around them wasn't doing much better, each sweep that she didn't parry and hit the ground, created large hazards as the floor under her grew razor sharp spikes or large amounts of dirt and stone were erased by his touch. Her aura wasn't helping much, even as she had pulled it back to about two meters of range around her, it still destroyed things that fell in it's area of influence.

"Crap, she's getting frustrated." The clone spoke by Mt Lady and Kamui Woods, the heroes were nearly wordless about what they were seeing.

"What does that mean?" He turned to her to ask.

"It means I had to send a message to bring the series capable of creating barriers, or…" She shrugged. "Lets say we ended with this move just in case All for One decided to do something really stupid."

"What scale of collateral damage?" Mr Lady asks, her voice coming just above a whisper, her eyes not moving from the dance of destruction in front of them.

"Hmm…" The series E seemed thoughtful as a Warp Prism landed and deployed, letting the shield series get transported in. "The kind that if used more above minimum power can make this whole valley a few meters deeper."

"How?!" Both heroes screamed.

"It would be literally mumbo-jumbo if I explained how, let's say it has to do with the interesting interaction of some exotic mechanics mixed to form a single working item and its application through a controlled wave-form." The series E spoke calmly as the other series moved quickly to the edge of the fight.

Shields quickly started to rise, forming a dodecagonal funnel pointing up. Just to improve things, complex rune formulas started glowing on those same walls.

"You two better stay here, the other series E are helping heroes out and removing the last few villains. Also, here." She handed them a pair of sunglasses. "Things are about to get very bright."

They didn't reply, mechanically grabbing the glasses and placing them over their eyes as they watched, mouths open as the song grew in intensity.

Meanwhile, Junko was only barely alert to what was happening outside, instead she pushed more power into her domain, soaking the area with her Lightning flames, letting it wash up the force-field walls, empowering it even further.

"Overhaul, you have one chance to give up. After this I will go all out," She glared at him, the hate she still felt for the man for what he did to Eri made him stop dead for a second. "And I promise, there will be nothing left of you."

"Like you can actually do anything to me." The villain laughed. "In this form all your attacks are meaningless, it's only a matter of time till you make a mistake. You will have to kill me before I stop!"

Junko actually let out a sigh before steeling herself. "So be it." Her mouth soon sung her song, the area around her filling with her power as Damage Creator in shotgun mode thrummed to the tune.

She pushed herself hard enough that a step had her standing just below Gigant-haul, the gun's first bark had enough force to lift the villain off the ground.

She ignored his screams as she shot again and again, giving him more height, just enough to charge the next attack. She felt the metaphorical shell charge with her divine fire and reinforced by her Lightning flames. She was merciful, she would at least make it instant.

"Brace yourself." She pulled the trigger.

IMPROVED ANNIHILATION

Shooting in atmosphere was completely different, the power buried her down to her hips into the ground as the attack erased anything above her. The walls had instantly cracked, every last one of them, but had held at the end.

All that power rushed up into the sky, creating a pillar of destruction visible many miles away, like the smiting of an angry god. Soon it died down, several meters of dirt had been erased just from the backlash of the attack as Junko quickly released the transformation of Damage Creator and took some of the healing pills.

"FFFFFuuuuccck…" She groaned as forced herself to swallow the reflux. "I'll be feeling that tomorrow."

She slowly wandered over the clone and the heroes. The series E giving her a thumbs up.

"What the effin fuck?!" Mt Lady was the first to react. "Who the heck uses that much power? I'm pretty sure a nuke would be less destructive!!"

"He wouldn't give up, and in that form, I just wouldn't be able to knock them out, the synergy of his quirk and whatever the giant was," She drained a bottle of water. "because that giant definitely had more than one quirk, really made them unstoppable."

She closed her eyes to look into herself as she felt another charge come, piling up to six in total. But her three options were of four charges, nothing to do there.

The first perk would improve her ability to not only miniaturize her creations, it would also help her improve their efficiency to insane levels.

The second perk would provide the secrets of some kind of belief energy, even if it apparently called itself a science.

The last perk was one she had already seen, it would improve her ability to work with metals to supernatural levels.

She mentally groaned, all the abilities were interesting, and most likely really useful, but she couldn't spend too much time looking at them, or not only she would start to develop a migraine, but it would also become a concern with the heroes.

She finally went for the first one, she quickly decided it wasn't a bad choice, the knowledge packed in it would improve everything she could create, while originally meant only to miniaturize technology and increase the efficiency of energy used.

But once she computed the rest of her perks, things went a bit wilder. She would be busy reworking more than a few things, scrapping old designs and setting up new standards and baselines.

"All okay?" She heard Kamui Woods's voice and opened her eyes.

"Yeah, just recovering from the backlash, even at minimum that thing kicks my ass."

"That was the minimum?!" Mt Lady didn't seem to mind that Junko may be suffering a migraine.

"Yes, it's not a good idea to use higher power in-atmosphere."

"I… I..." The blonde hero groaned and just threw her hands up and turned away.

"Any news from the other sites?" She asked the series E.

The clone inside the series E nodded. "Yes, all Nomus have been neutralized and transported, same with villains, we still haven't found where they were produced. And about…" They all heard a set of very loud crash noises coming from the distance. "All Might and All for One started fighting about now."

"Well, I think we should move then, even if All Might may not need the reinforcements, call it a hunch, but I'm pretty sure the villain may have a trick or two still in his pocket." Junko sighed and the heroes nodded.

Junko decidedly didn't rush, her body still hurt like hell all over, it was like she had overworked every muscle, bone and organ in her body to the limit, even her skin hurt like she had laid under the sun for hours. Luckily it was quickly receding, but it was proof she was still not used to singing her Swan Song.

The noises of the fight kept ringing, growing louder as they moved closer. All Might and All for One fought in a clearing formed by the strength of their attacks.

"You were saying about Nukes." Junko teased Mt Lady as one of All Might's punches carved a trench up the valley.

It was a fight between two Titans, and she meant it, she was pretty sure that not even Gigant-haul was punching with that kind of force. Of course the combined villain was instantly lethal, using attacks that ignored most of her defense.

What surprised her, albeit only for a few moments, is that All for One wasn't in the deplorable condition Oboro has noted he had been left after his previous fight with All Might. It wasn't hard to imagine that Overhaul may have been forced to heal him.

She still watched in rapt attention as she felt a nagging concern, watching the two power houses fight each other was almost hypnotizing.

While All Might kept himself to melee range, using many of his signature moves and quick pace to get into the villain's range. All for One kept switching quirks, even combining their use to create even greater and more destructive attacks.

Junko was pretty sure that even if she was in top condition, she wouldn't be able to take out the villain, even using her final attack wasn't a sure thing, different from Gigant-haul who was big and slow, this man was keeping up in speed with All Might quite easily.

She felt a shiver as the villain let out a roar and charged at All Might who caught the man's hands, the hero barely held in place when Junko's fears started to bear fruit. The villain slowly started to push against the hero, pushing him back further and further.

"Fuc...FUCK! He's trying to get out of the exclusion zone." Junko nearly screamed. "Crap, of course he may have a teleportation quirk." She pulled Damage Creator. "Get the others ready, I will try to keep up with them, we have no idea where he will be aiming."

The heroes were surprised for a moment before they nodded along with the series E as Junko rushed after the fighting titans. She felt a charge and cursed, taking the single available option, a single charge perk that gave her pretty complete knowledge about farming.

She pushed it away quickly as the two fighting soon reached the edge of the restriction zone. The villain had pulled some kind of flying quirk as he was locked with the hero. She was pretty sure the later hadn't noticed his intentions first.

She barely reached for the villain's back when she felt him force space around them. She was glad to be close enough to piggyback, but wasn't when she saw them stepping right onto a very populated street.

She cursed and quickly deployed her portable pylon behind her, with a landing place, heroes and series E quickly started to rush out. The loss of life was impossible to prevent, especially as All for One was using the most destructive attacks and it took the series E a few moments to bring up the shields.

The heroes were quickly moving in to evacuate civilians from the fight scene, prioritizing those close to the two fighting and those who were visibly injured or incapable of moving. Meanwhile, the series E not in shielding duty were moving into the buildings, using her scans to look for injured inside.

While the street was wide with a few lanes, the attacks from the two fighting had more reach than apparent. Even as she moved to cooperate with the protection of the civilians, she gave the series E the go on using the potion pills to heal the lighter injuries and ease the strain of the first responders.

She was also coordinating with a few series E who were right now looking to bring Eraser Head in. The hero had literally jumped in when he received the call. Junko was very much tempted to unleash Damage Creator right there and jump into the fight, but it would most likely just make things harder.

A moment later a series E transported in with Eraser Head on tow. The underground hero nodded, knowing well what he had to do. All over the fallout scene, series E moved the heroes and last civilians away as Aizawa activated his quirk.

Junko was never more glad to have accidentally given All Might Aura, because at that moment the hero glowed gold, his soul shining bright as all defensive quirks on the villain came down, only his old and trained body being there to take the attack.

"You are done, All for One." All Might's voice thrummed with power, everyone heard his words, no one could deny this was history right here. The hero's fist glowed like the sun as he punched. "UNITED STATES OF SMASH!"

The punch connected with the surprised villain, for a moment incapable to understand how he could still attack with such power when their quirks had been turned off.

A visible shockwave exploded from the back of the villain, but his body didn't move instead he slowly fell to his knees and then to the ground, passed out and defeated.

A moment later the crowd broke in cheers, heroes and civilians alike. Even those who had never heard of All for One, they were swept into the moment. Junko breathed in relief, this was the closing of an era, from now on, things would be changing.

Chapter 76

Chapter Text

Chapter 76

In the fantasy world, after defeating the villain, everyone would have headed back home, maybe set up a big party first. But hers was a bit more realistic. The raid's fallout would extend for weeks if not months.

A multi-disciplinary group had to be formed to deal with the villains captured, pin the crimes to each one, some of them hadn't actually committed crimes before, simply worked in All for One's base, meaning they would have their cases treated differently, meaning detectives and other investigators couldn't let any get misfiled or end in the wrong group.

They also had to comb every inch of the base, go over all recorded data still around, uncover every crime that had happened there. The grounds around the base had to be explored too.

In total, over three dozen Nomus were captured, most of them either defective or not completely matured, soon dying once their quirks were nullified. Over forty people that dealt with janitorial and logistics inside the base, a dozen "researchers", nearly the same amount of low ranking villains, nearly a dozen known criminals from multiple ways of life.

And one villain mastermind, finally brought down by a man holding the torch for the villain's own brother who opposed his ways.

Of course there had been fatalities, while no hero had suffered more than missing limb under a bad reaction between quirks, a total of ten people had lost their life in the base, four under the villain named Dabi, three in minor accidents during the panic of the raid, two when they resisted arrest to the end and one dubious case as the head researched was currently missing but his personal laboratory was found completely destroyed but locked from the inside.

Civilian fatalities had been harder on everyone, All for One's final gambit had cost them a total of eleven people who had been in the area the villain had teleported himself and All Might onto in the first few seconds before the rest of the heroes and rescue forces were able to respond.

The damage to some of the surrounding buildings was enough they would need to be demolished as no fix would be good enough to consider them safe again.

Junko had, in a way, felt guilty for the loss of life and the damage, taking care of the costs. Even when Mila told her it wasn't her fault, not that the Lynian had much trouble in doing so, it was a drop in the bucket that was their profit at the end.

She also followed every step of the process taken to secure All for One, in curiosity she had taken a peek at the villain's soul. She had to excuse herself to go and puke. Junko was sure she would be having nightmares from the sight.

It also made her decision clear about what to do with the villain, she would be leaving him to justice, but she would be meeting him in private. A clone had been in constant watch duty while she was occupied with other things.

But even as she had to deal with the fallout of the raid, she also had to deal with the Hero Public Safety Commission, the old men were still trying to leash her, utilizing the fact she killed Overhaul and Gigantomachia during the events. Luckily for her, Kamui Woods and Mt Lady plus her constant recording of all the raid proved that there was little else to do as she had really tried to catch the man alive. Or maybe she could, but she was honestly not losing any sleep about the man.

The HPSC had complained quite a bit till their review had reached the details of her swan song. Apparently they hadn't read on the estimations of the power of her attack. That had them change their tune quite quickly. Junko wasn't happy that the damage she was capable of meant more to them rather than what she did to help and support the event. But she wouldn't deny the gift of her problems disappearing.

Finally All for One's constant moving had ended and the villain had been placed into some of the highest security security confinement there was. Under normal circumstances, getting to the man would have been hard, most likely she would left clues or something.

But magic quite easily said fuck you to normal rules. Junko's plan had a few steps, the first was technically done by creating a completely enclosed stealth suit. Second step was to create a single clone and have her wear the suit. Third step was to synchronize with the clone before teleporting them directly into All for One's cell after taking control of any and all methods of observation over it.

"I think this is the part where I say, look how the mighty have fallen." Junko (clone) spoke clearly, not afraid of being heard by anyone else but the villain.

"Ah...I wondered when I would be getting visits." The man didn't attempt to move, not like he could, besides the high-duty power nullifying handcuffs, his body was held by all kinds of restraints, it was impressive he could still hear and talk.

"I thought I would want to say something more when I got here, but seeing you like this." Junko (clone) sighed. "I think I should do my part and leave, you may be an old nightmare from the old days, but honestly, it's time to wake up."

"Hahaha, so do your part, kill me. I'm sure that's what you want."

"Kill you?" She grinned and slid a pair of special gloves she hadn't been able to actually install in her armor. "Oh, no, I'm not killing you, I'm doing something much... deeper ."

All for One made a confused noise as Junko reached for his chest, even as her body couldn't move any closer given the restraints, she grabbed and pulled hard.

"Whu-What are you doing?!"

"I'm just taking away all these toys you stole." Junko worked silently even as the villain screamed and tried to struggle as she started to rip the quirks held by his parasitical soul.

Different from when she worked with All Might's soul and One for All, the quirks didn't try to return to the villain. Instead, the moment they were free from his tentacles they flew away, finally free to return to the world's cycle.

"Stop that! Those are Mine! Mine I tell you!" She just kept working, while she wouldn't be found out, time was still the essence here, and taking too long would break the illusion the room was empty.

Soon the villain's words of struggle died down, instead it turned creepier as he related how, when and from who he got the quirks. Junko would be purging that from her memory or putting it deep away.

The man's presence started to grow dimmer, no longer being an oppressive and dominating presence. The process also grew faster, the less quirks, the weaker was its hold over the rest, soon they were almost flying away one after the other.

"No! Stop, I need that." There was a certain fear in his voice. But Junko grabbed the last quirk and removed it, it was interesting to see one actually trying to return to the villain, but it soon flew away too.

She watched as the man's healthy looks grew older and older, gaining decades of life in seconds.

"What have you done?! I will die now!"

"No you won't, you will live the rest of your life here, powerless, and then the end will come, naturally, but until then, enjoy your stay." The clone instantly dissipated and she was returned to her body.

She shuddered and sighed, a couple of series E brought Eri and some snacks. She didn't complain, enjoying the company of her adopted daughter, who was always more than happy to hang out with her, even if she hadn't called her mother yet. But Junko was patient with the child, there was no need for words when all their actions already showed their love for each other.

Eri's control over her quirk had grown to the point she could selectively affect only non-living objects. Her daily training had also made it nearly impossible for her quirk to run out of control. It helped that Junko had managed to reproduce her abilities as a spell and was using it alongside her adopted daughter during training.

She had also developed some further takes on the time control spell, not just rewind, but also a fast forward and even a pause. Albeit the last one was fragile, any physical disruption would break the hold of the spell on the object.

It had taken a bit of creativity to design training toys for Eri to expand her quirk. The only reason the "time energy" her quirk accumulated rewind people and objects (and herself to a certain bit) was to defend her. Meaning that with some training, the child had started to find a way to change the flavor she imparted on said energy.

She felt another charge, making it to four. She looked at her options as she also watched over Eri try to fast forward a small potted plant.

The first option, for a single charge, it's the mechanical knowledge to maintain some kind of giant robot. She quickly skipped it. For two charges the next perk would improve her ability to repair things, even those she didn't understand completely.

Last option was one she had gotten before, and one she had wanted to take, so she quickly chose it. The perk had two parts, the first would make anything that could be considered handheld or equipment be a masterpiece, this increase in quality combined with the many others she had acquired before, meaning anything she created would be of divine quality at minimum.

The second part was where the really interesting stuff came in. It helped her bring out the best qualities of any material while reducing the weaknesses to almost none. She could take something like gold and make it stronger than steel or titanium, or take something like her Adamantian and make it truly indestructible.

As she looked over the perk she noticed two additions, the first was a new element in her soul, for a moment she was surprised that she had acquired the element of shadows, but soon she saw it would be better to call it void and gravity, it would need proper experimentation. The other change was apparently a starter on combination attacks, making two attacks literally combine into a much stronger one.

It certainly gave her ideas.

She smiled when she noticed Eri's plant grow till a pretty purple flower bloomed. The child soon stopped and panted tiredly.

"Well done." She gave her a hug. "You are doing awesome, dear."

Eri laughed cheerfully as she soon yawned and fell asleep against Junko, tired from the exertion on her quirk.

She smiled warmly, watching the child sleep peacefully. In a way, the notion that Overhaul would never be able to come for her had lifted a fear from Eri. It wasn't enough to consider erasing the villain a good thing. But Junko never thought of not doing that if he had tried to come for her daughter.

She easily lifted Eri in her arms as she got up, carrying the girl in her arms to her bed, not Eri's, but her own, tucking her in and watching the girl smile in her dreams.

She ran her fingers through the girl's hair, pulling it off her face. The sight made her heart feel warm, and with more than just divine fire. It was for this girl she would perfect her next project.

She headed back into the warehouse and summoned three clones. There were no words required, soon the four of them moved to the magic workshop.

The workshops had never been a still thing, each perk she acquired, each piece of knowledge she found out on her own. It all added, mixing under her experimentation. Some things were much straightforward, like the many, many books on theories, rituals, evil beings, etc…

And she would be needing to look into all of them, she knew of at least a dozen different rituals to achieve greater power, some, even god-like.

But to that, she had to learn some horrible things, the results of some completely sick minds. Sacrifices of a thousand different flavors of purity, virgins, newborns, potentials, joy, riches, nature. She learned how she could burn down the world to gain more power.

And from there she studied them, worked out the basic mechanics, cleaned them from preconceived notions and distilled the basic architecture, there was a price, there was always a price, there a fuel, something had to push forward, there was a direction, in her case was stepping into true and proper divinity.

What she was missing was a way, the rail for her vehicle to take her from her current sort-of-mortality into godhood. She had clues and tools for it. To begin with, the fire that lived inside of her was definitely divine of origin, then there was that spark from Hephastus.

And after that there were a plethora of other things, her Aura had been feeding her soul into something greater, by itself it would never reach divinity, just something greater. Her magic had also added, not all of the types of magic she had learned came from the soul, but something in the Celestial Forge made her very soul magical.

Her psychic power, in a way, added weight to her mind, and since mind and soul were so close, it added too. And with those psychic powers and her ability to clone herself, the series E, plus other letters, who existed as a strange extension of her, experiencing on her own, they pay tithe, a tax, a bit of their life adding to her own.

Three clones would have been nothing, never existing for long enough to make a difference. But she had thousands of offshoots of her soul living, experiencing things twenty four by seven. Even a grain of sand added to a beach.

And then came the Babylon Artifacts perk, and her connection with Damage Creator had added more. If that wasn't enough, her Lightning Flames was actually making it harder to not grow in power. Plus her new cool domain she acquired with her perk for weapon making, constantly running in the background because she couldn't do anything mundane anymore. And just a bit ago she acquired a new element of magic in her soul.

And last of all, there were two little pips of something more she could still barely make sense of. All she could tell on them was that they had been with her since near the start, but she had no idea when. One was Space, it was nothing that simple, it gravity, it was literal space, it was void, it was so much. The other, the other she had not idea, the best she could say about it, was that it was asleep .

She looked back to the steps of the ritual. The price was the easiest, riches and power came easy to her, and with gold, it was the same for her, she could even use Dust and Elemental Dust Crystals too, they would also take the place of the fuel. Normally this was a waste, it was more efficient to use different things for each point, but she could work to create an excess of them.

The way would be marked by her qualities, and her goal was clear. Now she had to make sure it didn't kill her.

Chapter 77

Chapter Text

Chapter 77

Junko looked at the design for the ritual. In a way she was cheating, when usually people were restrained to the territory they could work on. Places of power, natural barriers, other interested parties.

Junko was thinking bigger. That's why she was designing a special set of space stations that would be best described as sun platforms. Her latest perk let her manipulate some of the more exotic materials she had into constructions capable of surviving the closeness to the star and harness power from it.

The platform was an upscaled version of those floating on the gas giants, a giant circle of about fifty kilometers in radius, a massive thing of nearly eight thousand square kilometers. Definitely noteworthy as it meant to hold the whole ritual and act as focus for her power.

Given the size and future use, it was still currently being built on orbit of Mercury, from there it would be towed close enough to the sun before a combination of magic and technology would let it float to proper position.

The impressive part was how the ritual barely fit on it. The ritual not only would harvest power from the star, but would also refine power from large amounts of different types of Elemental Dust and Eezo to power and pay the prize of the ritual.

The lines of the ritual were made using Dust and gold created with her mana. She had also managed to develop the carbon creation spell into forming actual diamonds and from there she had created a simile mana crystal by shaping the crystal with storage runes inside to fill with her energies.

She didn't have much more to do at the moment, it would take some time for the platform to be in place, till then she would have to wait. She had already visited the Forge Lands, Muria had looked at her apprehensively at first, Junko couldn't hide her fear for the process and the older woman had agreed to help her.

A warning broke her from her train of thought as she received the message she was getting visits. Junko got up and stretched her limbs, casting a quick cleaning spell on herself and changing into less work-related clothes.

Junko walked into the Junk Complex' lobby, she smiled as she saw the four members of the Wild Wild Pussycats.

"You came!" She greeted the group.

"We couldn't pass the invitation." Tiger, or Yawara Chatora, spoke quite softly for his size and build, the man was completely different in his civilian clothes.

"Well, I couldn't leave your teammate without answers after I what I put her through."

"Tomoko was quite tight lipped about it, what did you do to have her shaken like that?" Shino Sosaki, also known as Mandalay, added.

Junko invited them to follow her into the complex. "Well, during the preparation for the raid, Ragdoll offered to keep an eye on me with her quirk, but I declined." Junko explained as they walked into one of the meeting rooms. She had set a few of them, this one was currently overseeing the lot's gardens with a full wall window.

"Okay, that's nothing new, there's been multiple cases before where quirks had interacted in weird ways." Ryuko Tsuchikawa, also known as Pixie-Bob, spoke.

A series E walked into the room carrying a tray with drinks and snacks, handing every person a mug of tea or coffee. It may not be as good as if she had made it personally, but Junko didn't think it was a good idea to blow their mind with the food yet.

"Well," Junko started to explain after taking a sip of her drink. "it comes down to how a few of my projects had ended interacting."

"What she means is that she fucked up enough she made something great." The series E still in the room grinned.

"Shut your big mouth, I didn't fuck up." Junko groaned. "It was just an unexpected result between mind-controlled technology, I didn't want to deal with any kind of physical input or similar, and these big lugs." She pointed to the series E.

"That still doesn't explain it completely." Tiger spoke.

"I think I can explain things better than her." The series E brought attention to herself. "We are completely synthetic, my body does a good job at simulating biology where it should, muscles, some senses, even certain level of regeneration.

"But mentally we are copies of her," She pointed at Junk. "Who's best to help you than yourself? The idea was to make a few of us instead of having to go out and hunt for people capable and trustful enough to work with us. So she made us, for that she had to use the mental input technology not only to make the copies, but also to have them control these bodies."

"Sounds like a recipe for problems." Pixie-Bob commented before happily eating some of the snacks after trying one of them.

"Well yes, but we know what we were doing, we still do, we know we are not her, and she didn't skimp on these bodies" The series E flexed. "We are faster, stronger, have better senses and have more than one quality that could be considered a quirk all on its own, we also don't age, so we are okay with this."

"The problem," Junko started. "Or more like the unexpected interaction, was that we are close enough in the way we think that the technology consider us all the same being. So we accidentally created sort-of a hive mind."

The four members of the Wild Wild Pussycats blinked.

"You mean that you all are…" Mandalay seemed to lose her words.

"Yeah, we are all mentally connected, me and a few thousands of them." Junko finished her drink and happily let the series E refill her cup.

"T-Th-thousands?!" Pixie-Bob screamed, Mandalay and Tiger looked ready to imitate her, only Ragdoll looked calm about it.

"Yeah, they are really useful, and I can't be everywhere."

Ragdoll smiled. "But that's not all, right?" Tomoko put her cup down. "I saw enough when you let me peek, it was hard to notice at first, but I can tell most of them were quite far away."

Junko smiled. "Yes, I have nothing against showing you, but you will have to keep it a secret." She stood up and invited them to follow her to the transport room. "Keep hands inside and don't resist." She joked for the first part before the five of them disappeared from Earth at one moment and were on Mars on the next.

"That's some of the smoothest teleportation system I have experienced." Tiger spoke. "It felt even easier than the time at the raid. Where are we exactly?"

Junko smiled. "Thanks, this is a more permanent version of the system you used, so it lets me take better care of it, and we are on Mars." She smiled at their expression while taking them to one of the Nexus' balconies.

"Oh my god." Mandalay spoke softly as the rest looked lost for words.

Ragdoll leaned on the edge to look down. "The are all series E?" She asked.

"Most, there are certainly a lot less series A, who decided to go into bodies closer to a male, plus a few other variations."

"Why?" Mandalay turned to her, looking serious and almost resigned that she couldn't actually do anything in this situation.

"Calm down, I'm not going to try and conquer the world or anything, I've been actually working on making it better, I'm behind all those strange cases of disappearing trash and pollution." She spoke softly. "I just needed a place to work unimpeded, and I had the technology for it. Especially with Eri, I want to make sure she has a safe world to grow in."

"Eri… Isn't she the girl that was you during the Overhaul incident?" Mandalay asked.

"Yes, I couldn't not adopt her after meeting her." Junko shook her head with a soft laugh.

The burgundy-haired woman smiled warmly. "Yes, I know what you mean, after the death of my cousin I took on looking over their son."

Junko returned the smile. "Maybe we could set up a meeting between them? Eri needs friends her age." The other woman nodded.

They turned into lighter conversation, Junko taking them for a light tour and answering their questions. She also offered remaking their costumes, she also had to look away at Pixie-Bob's shining smile at the idea of looking more her age.

The woman loudly, and constantly, complained about her bad luck with finding a partner, apparently blaming their costume. Junko didn't agree completely, while their costumes weren't what most considered 'cool' or 'mature', in the tailor's eyes they were quite good and showed them to be quite approachable.

Junko suggested that maybe she could take the raid as justification to take some vacation by herself and meet new people. Apparently the suggestion had been made before but the woman didn't want to leave the close knit group and took someone from outside their usual circles to make throw the idea for her to actually consider it.

Soon their time together came to an end, Junko happily taking them back home directly and leaving a contact to work on their costumes.

Time quickly passed and the day for the ritual soon came, the platform was in place and while the location of the planets wasn't necessary, it was quite favorable.

"Are you sure about this?" Mila asked, the felyne looked concerned.

"Yeah, I could wait till I get a perk that gives me exactly what I want. I could even wait to see if I get some to improve what I will be doing." Junko shook her head. "But I could also end getting a perk that accelerates things, or outright break me."

The Lynian sighed. "I trust you, Junko, but you have to understand why I'm not entirely for it."

"I know, you have made your point pretty clear. I… I just want you to be there for them, the series E should remain even without me."

The felyne shook her head. "If, and only if, the worst happens I promise I'll be there for them, but you have to promise me that will stop the ritual if you don't think you will make it. Better that you fail than you die."

Junko smiled. "I promise."

"Then go, I will stay here."

With the last of the things said they went their ways. Junko heading first to her workshop before leaving for Sun Platform one.

The ritual was ready, tons of material place in the right places and every line drawn to a level of perfection that was supernatural. The ritual was based on the western set of elements, fire, water, air and earth.

Fire came two-fold, first would be by her divine fire, second would be the closeness to the sun. The star being a sign of life also helped improve the purification quality of the ritual.

Water, air and earth, on the other hand, came from the gardens she had handcrafted, or as handcrafted it could be when she used her direct control over Dust to turn the necessary elements into a masterwork example of the elements. It also helped that she had set up large reservoirs of Elemental Dust in special part of the ritual circle.

The other element she was adding was Space and Void, both close enough that the platform just needed to be designed to channel her aspect through it. Once she started to power that part of the ritual, it would connect with the space aspect with the void of space and her dark element. The sun would also add the element of Gravity.

Junko felt another charge slot in and the perks almost be thrust at her, two of them were six charges and out of her reach, she took the last and felt it slot into her. A shiver went down her spine and her posture changed minutely.

The new perk was another looks perk, but only applied to weapons she created, in exchange for its small scope, it improved them to the point of making anyone else in the business jealous, or it would if she didn't already made things unnaturally beautiful.

The perk seemed to come with a few extras, because she was pretty sure she didn't normal stick out her chest while standing, or stood the right way to show of her hips. She had never been the most vanitous about her looks. She sighed, reining in the new instincts.

She was glad the new perk only changed a few things in her mind. But she had bigger things to be worried about. Stepping into Sun Platform One was just the start.

It had been a last moment addition to the ritual, actually a suggestion from one of the series A, each planet, except Earth, they had gone for the dark side of the Moon, had a minor version of the ritual, connected to the main body of it by a pylon crafted from her mana crystals

The series had quickly gone all in and redesigned the individual sub-rituals to let them provide their part in the process. And Junko was starting to mentally monologue from the nerves.

She wore just a set of clean linens as she had left her normal clothes on her warehouse, she had also emptied her Sylladex entirely, only carrying Damage Creator with her.

She walked from Mars Pylon all the way to the center of the ritual, her many energies already starting to connect her with the gold under her bare feet.

The deposits of Elemental Dust already flaring up with their respective energies, flooding the canals created with her gold and Dust. As she stepped into the inner circle her Space aspect flared up, like dry earth drinking water for the first time, the platform expanded, space bending around her as it quickly duplicated its size in all directions.

So much energy of multiple types soaking into the gardens she created, grass, trees and others plants growing quickly and spreading, the rivers of fresh water that flowed all around the platform expanding too. Life growing more and more.

She took the first step into the center of the ritual and her divine fire flared up, growing into a massive pyre, sinking down the center of the platform and connected down to the sun. A thrum of ancient power pushing the Ritual's pace into the next step.

Junko had to breath deep, fire and plasma filling her lungs, her stomach, every part of her body firing up. The ritual starting to bring her soul from the immaterial to the material world, reshaping, crafting her into a true divinity.

The pain was indescribable, her very self was being chipped away, molding her soul like any other material, turning herself into a masterwork. Her Aura flared brighter as the many elements and aspects and powers that suffused her started to melt and mix together.

Her perception expanded, she could see each of the sub-rituals all over the system. She could see the series pushing themselves to help her.

And suddenly she realized the worst, she wouldn't make it.

Chapter 78

Chapter Text

Chapter 78

When Junko later explained the situation, many years later, and only to Mila in complete confidence to never tell another person about how close she had come and how she had actually taken a step beyond for a few moments.

She would relate how she felt herself sink into the sun, the whole platform being quite more effective than they had actually calculated, apparently, magic was a potential growth up to a point, and then it spiked up quite a bit. Most mages and magic users never stepped into that realm, left to gods and other greater spirits.

But Junko was doing exactly that, stepping into a new realm of power, with that all magic, ritual, supernatural energy and even technology changed the basic paradigm. Elements turned into concepts, growth turned into true creation, miracle stopped being an impossibility.

And mortal stopped being able to resist. And Junko was still very much mortal as the ritual was meant to step past that limitation. The ritual was removing the mortal in her soul, but it was being too efficient, it was reducing her too much, consuming her soul to empower the rest.

As the platform the ritual was being conducted broke its shackles of normalcy, it stopped being simply a space and turned into more, channeling the power of the sun and each planet, sans earth.

Of course there was plenty of significance to having a ritual on each planet, and the moon in place of the earth. And even on the day-side of the planet, the sky lit up like never before.

Resonance going from the center of the Solar system to the outer reaches, the pylons of Junko's network acting as relays for the energy of the ritual. In universes where magic had always been a thing, or at least for long enough, the rotation of the planets around the star would have long since carved routes on the void.

These channels would have multiple effects and multiple uses, from communication and travel, to sympathetic magic and other high-level concepts of relation and familiarity.

Of course, in her world magic had never been a thing before the Celestial Forge introduced it. And such a grand ritual was quickening the process. Visible lines of power extended from the planets, rings closing around the star, patterns going between planets and satellites and other planets.

On Earth, people did the natural thing people do when the sky lit up with unknown lights. They panicked. Most countries had long since forgotten about space, and those who didn't never had any kind of interest in it to begin with.

Things like NASA, CNSA, or ROSCOSMOS between others had long since lost all funding, not only the dream of being an astronaut had been lost to the dream of being a hero, given the nature of quirks, no one wanted to find what kind of reaction some of them could have on space. The fact that people just didn't think of quirkless when planning this was another black mark in Junko's personal opinion.

With no one looking out to the sky, the large telescopes had long since been abandoned and were in no state for the now, very, concerned nations to find what exactly was happening. Only a handful of people just sat back and watched the show.

One of them, a certain chimeric principal, issued a break from classes and invited all students of UA, from Class 1A to Class 3F to watch the sky and debate what was happening. He would later compile a list of the most amusing ones and hand them to Junko as a practical joke.

Back on Sun Platform 1, Junko was feeling her life slip away, her soul being consumed in Divine Fire and Solar Plasma, not even the hardening by her lightning flames keeping the erosion at bay as there was still not enough refined to create even a drop of true godhood.

Her body had been consumed long ago by this point. Barely anything was left in the crucible at the center of the ritual. It was then when she felt it, when all hope was lost and she knew only her will was keeping her conscious.

It was when she truly understood she wasn't coming back, when she accepted she had died that she was somewhere else. She wasn't surrounded by fire and plasma and other energies anymore.

She was laying on a cold stone slab, a black piece of stone with rounded corners and her white spiral on the center, she wasn't in Sun Platform 1, but she was too, she knew this place too. She felt a deep connection to that last little bit existing in reality, that bit she had never managed to describe, like a seed that had finally gotten water.

This was the moon of Prospit, this was her sacrificial slab and she was about to die. As her class and aspect connected her to this alternate body let all that energy through, Space buckled and the moon merged with the platform.

Towers of yellow sprouted, seamlessly merging with the platform as fire consumed her and her Class of Page, that of the one of great potential. Her class stepped into godhood, and with that the ritual fed that sprout into a tree.

Reality reasserted itself around Junko. Her soul quickly taking its new form, being crafted by her ritual, her energies, her will. Turning from mortal to god.

She looked at herself and noticed a very important fact, she lacked a body. The woman turned god grumbled as she would have to see about crafting a body for herself. She turned her attention to her soul and noticed the change was far more vast than she expected.

She felt each and every one of the series in each of the planets, not only because of their part in the ritual, but also because they were offshoots of her soul. If she were God, they would be her angels, if she was Odin, they would be her Valkyries, if she was Amaterasu, they would be her divine messengers, and so on.

She would have to inspect one of their souls from much closer, but she noticed all of them were being given a new baseline, from the oldest series E to the latest one, they all received a sizable upgrade to their souls.

She looked around next. It was easy to see that Sun Platform 1 was much more than it was before, Prospit had been dragged along the moon when it merged with it. She was glad she was on the opposite side to Earth, she would have to make sure to keep it as secret as possible, possibly some stealth or light-bending field around it.

She sighed with lungs she really didn't have, but her soul was an image of herself, so if she wanted to have lungs to sigh, she had them. She wondered for a few moments about how to craft her body.

She could order some of the series E to bring materials from her storage. But she had a better idea. Her mind brought her knowledge of mana to gold and mana to carbon spells. It was like she had never looked at them before. It was so obvious now.

She now easily understood the underlying spell, a much greater act of creation, most likely an impossibility to grasp as a mortal, or maybe she was a special case. She would have to do some proper soul-searching later, literally even.

She started to create the necessary elements, carbon, oxygen, nitrogen and a good number of others. Of course she only used a tiny amount compared to what really was on the body. She then used some calcium to quickly draw a transmutation circle on the ground before turning the floating mass of elements into a new body.

It was her body, she knew it inside out. It stood in front of her, thankfully dressed as creating the clothes on top of it wasn't much of a task. It was technically dead as not a thing moved into it till she stepped in.

Like sliding on a new glove made just for her, it fit her perfectly. There was no sense of confinement in it anymore, no bursting at the seams, this was truly her. So many perks added their part that her body most likely could survive a hit from All Might at full power and barely get her hair ruffled. And then came Aura and other things already soaking into it.

The strange part was how her clothes seemed to morph, short shorts, a shirt, a short cape and a hood, all in black with her Space sign, on her feet red shoes.

"Well, this is strange." She shrugged and altered them back into her normal clothes, she didn't feel like showing off her legs at the moment.

She felt the ritual finally start to end, but there was plenty of power still around. Deciding there were worse things to do with it, she pulled Damage Creator and used all the free-flowing power to utilize one of her old perks, improving all qualities on the weapon even more.

Junko smiled as she could feel the affection Damage Creator had for her, she sent back some of the same emotions before letting it hang from her back as she felt a charge fill her well to four.

The three options were in her reach, the first, for four charges, it was the perk that improved her work with Steel. The second option, for two charges, it improved her mechanical skills and the ability to find out how things worked. The last perk, also for four charges, would let her work with any material as if it was iron and help her find uses for them.

She hummed a bit and took the last one. It surprised her how easy it felt to absorb the new knowledge, maybe because her brain wasn't actually running on flesh and blood anymore, or the effect of her many perks.

She was glad to see that most of the perk was actually applicable knowledge, meaning she would be able to pass it to the series E, making the work with exotic materials so much easier, and most likely improving the production of her manufacture lines.

The only part that she wasn't going to directly teach them was the improvement on her ability to work with unknown materials and research applications and properties of said materials.

Junko hummed as she let the knowledge slide into place in her brain and merge with the rest, she could feel it connecting with other similar perks, exchanging tips as the perks synergized. As that happened she decided to explore the ritual platform. Or what it was after it had merged with Prospit's moon after the ritual had dragged the yellow planet into reality.

The platform had expanded a few times, her Space aspect had claimed the construction as she could feel the whole place and it was slowly expanding down the chain to Propit's proper. If she was a goddess now, it wouldn't be weird to call this her divine realm.

She could do many things, not only the whole space the platform/moon covered and a bit more, but there was also a connection to the sun. Junko doubted she would claim the sun, but there was certainly an amount of passive knowledge on the star.

She could also feel the elemental wells that had developed on the platform, most likely a side-effect of having refined large amounts of Elemental Dust. She had no idea what she would do with them, but they were there, maybe she would see if the Volcanic Forge could be brought into reality.

She looked at the planet at the end of the chain, doing a bit of space crunching, she stepped from the moon/platform right to the planet, wandering the empty streets, ordering the construction of a few pylons on the planet before she floated through the empty streets. She could already see some series E explore behind her.

Junko expected to find something strange, but not a sleeping Mila, especially since she was sure the felyne was still on Earth working. It took her a few moments to work out what it was. Especially after a series E mentioned to have found a replica of her room. Only then the memories of her sleeping self came to the surface of her mind.

For what she could make sense of, Prospit was technically in some kind of dream realm, in it existed a copy of her and Mila, she even remembered having dreamed of the place and so had Mila. The next strange thing was the message from one of the series E on the outer ring of the Solar System.

A dark twin to Prospit had appeared. The series were already checking it out, they had found one sleeper in it, Junko felt ready to rush there when she was identified as a sleeping Eri.

Junko mentally grumbled, she was sure this was obviously part of one of the many perks the Celestial Forge had given her, the principal problem is that she didn't exactly know which, or why it had chosen Eri too. Mila was obvious since she had technically come with the Forge.

All she knew the two planets were related to the class and aspect, and even then she only knew her case of Page of Space, she would have to ask Mila for permission to scan her soul, and do the same for Eri.

She decided it was enough thinking for now, the ritual had been a success, her soul was divine, her body could withstand it now, she got a cool new set of planets to do anything she wanted on.

Junko stepped from Prospit to the complex on Earth, finding Mila waiting for her.

"You sure don't do things small, Junko." The Felyne grinned. "Well, at least it's good to see you are okay."

"I feel like I'm missing something." Junko hadn't exactly looked too much into the effects of her ritual on Earth or its inhabitants.

"Central, show the sky images." Mila talked out loud and the building's AI projected a hologram of the lightshow.

"Oh dear…" Junko didn't know if to laugh or to cry.

"I take it you didn't mean that to happen?"

Junko winced. "No… not really, I'll have to look into that." She rubbed the back of her head. "I've no idea what exactly is happening, that means that I'll have to scan everything from the sun out, dammit, and here I thought I could relax a bit now that my soul's in no more danger of making me pop."

"Meh," Mila chuckled. "I don't think you gotta rush, no one had any idea, maybe Nezu suspects it, but most people are just blindly panicking."

"I gotta do something nice for the little rat."

"Look on the bright side, apparently having some unknown thing happen in space has restarted the interest of people for off-planet missions. We actually have received a few gentle questions about what of our technology could be used for it."

"Hmm… maybe we can use that to push some of the ideas I had for better education and other technological developments."

The two slowly devolved into talks that would most likely have villains shivering. Junko had decided to bring Humanity into a much proper future, and she had all the time of the world now.

Chapter 79

Chapter Text

Chapter 79

It had been a month since the grand ritual and the end of the year was coming. Weather had grown colder and colder, but Musutafu wasn't a city that got anything close to snow, being a coastal city meant mostly cold and dreary rain days.

It also had been a bit over a month since the raid on All for One, the villain getting taken out had many repercussions. The ripples would be felt for many years to come. Such a big player getting taken out of the game had left a huge void.

The villain had his fingers into as many pies as possible, and now that he had been put behind bars, and mostly depowered, the empty space had a certain gravity to it. Making lots of small, and not so small, players try and claim the fallen crown.

Of course that didn't mean the heroes would let it happen. There had been more than a fortune of information in All for One's base, some of his not-so-loyal minions had talked easily, leading the heroes and police officers to other bases and more sources.

Slowly a web of corruption and criminal work that had plagued Japan for over a century started to unravel. Some smaller villain groups quickly fell apart as the protection the mastermind offered them disappeared. Even as the criminals panicked, the change was already becoming visible, large amounts of arrests and dismantling of illegal activities.

Junko did her part, providing equipment for police forces while also promoting smaller hero groups and starting more than one foundation to promote better education. Because in her humble opinion, while education in Japan wasn't bad, it was certainly not doing its job properly, it would take time, she wasn't rushing the change, and she had plenty of it.

Junko had found a new, hilarious, hobby of reading through the many conspiracy theories after the ritual lit up the sky. Governments were in complete denial, denial of responsibility, denial of knowledge about it, denial, denial, denial. On the other hand, she also made sure to guide police to stop the crazies with anonymous calls before things got out of control.

She didn't exactly feel guilty about what some of them took from the unexpected development of the ritual, but she certainly would try to keep the fires resulting off to a minimum.

On more personal matters. She had gotten Mila, Eri and the rest of those living in the complex through a deep scan. As she expected, only Mila and Eri had those two extras in their soul.

She had easily identified their aspects, Mila had the Mind aspect, something that didn't surprise her as the felyne had taken some of her lessons on psychic powers quite easily in the more mental branches. Eri surprised her even less, as the child had the Time aspect.

The classes were harder to find, or more like near impossible. She had failed completely in finding anything about Eri's Class, deciding that maybe she needed to be older before it developed more. In Mila's case, she only found that the Palico's class to be linked in some way to hers of Page.

It made Junko grumble quite a bit, but decided to leave it for now as she couldn't do more at the moment. It didn't help either that she learned shortly after that the series E had started building temples and other religious iconography on her name.

At least she had managed to move them away from church-like construction and aim more for practical construction of parks and gardens.

It was about the middle of the month when she got a messy surprise. It started as a nice day, one she had taken to relax, especially as she had felt the slight tug of her precognition leading her to be at the lobby of the building when the door opened and All Might, in civilian clothes, rushed in with a kid on arms.

She didn't need to ask the hero anything, getting the pair to the infirmary. She was impressed with the reach of the damage, it was restricted to the arm but it had nearly pulverized all the bones from his shoulder down.

It still wasn't exactly difficult for her to heal it, everything was still there, just pulped. Though she was tempted to cut the arm and just regrow a new one, she took the time to fix it back to normal. Only then she realized she knew the kid.

"Yagi," She said in her best mom voice. "Do I have to ask you why this kid just nearly lost his arm by using your quirk?"

"Well… you see…" The hero chuckled and stammered as he appeared to lack a good explanation. "Midoriya has showed the soul of a hero, so I decided to make him my successor."

"Aha, and let me guess, you didn't explain to him how to use the mess of a quirk you have?"

"No, no, I explained it properly!" The hero gave her a winning smile. Junko sighed and turned to Izuku as the poor kid looked completely lost. "Kid, Izuku, please tell me exactly what this large lug told you to use his quirk?"

"Ehm… well, he first told me to swallow his hair, and then he told me to use it. I had to" The kid's face gave her the best imitation of All Might's. "Clench your asshole super tight and scream the word from the bottom of your heart: SMASH."

Junko put her hands together like she was praying and pressed her lips against her fingers, letting out a soft sigh. The many series peering in basically face palmed. And poor Izuku started stammering as she turned to look at All Might, who apparently had frozen with a smile on his face.

"Yagi, I put you back together, don't make me pick you apart. Now, I'm pretty sure Midoriya here's definitely not using One for All in the same way as you. But to help with that I need to see it in action." She guided the pair to the training room.

The large gym had gone through a few upgrades, not only the walls were indestructible, unless some serious esoteric effects were applied, they also absorbed most types of energy.

"Okay kid, your teacher could go all out here and the place wouldn't suffer, the neighbors wouldn't even know it. So I will need you to punch the target, while I don't want to see you getting hurt in such a bone-headed manner, I need to see your quirk in action."

Junko made a target grow from the ground and stepped back. Letting Izuku approach it as she stood by All Might. "I still want to kick your ass, you know?"

"And why would that be, Miss Tetsu?" All Might watched his student try and call the power of his passed quirk.

"I've seen him train hard for over half a year to be a hero. And I've to wonder, why does he think he needs a quirk to do so. The kid's definitely smart enough and more than driven. I bet he could have a pretty prosperous career as an underground hero, or even as a public one with use of support gear."

"Ah… most likely. I met him before I even dreamed I would not only be healed to the top of my health, but also take down All for One for real. I was more than ready to pass him my quirk and what came with it. Midoriya's dream of being a hero is definitely big enough that a career as an underground hero would just not have been enough."

Junko hummed, she couldn't entirely blame All Might, society needed to take the rose-tinted glasses on heroes a bit more often. She watched the kid start to sparkle before stopping him.

"Okay, I see the problem." Her comment made the two of them look at her. "I know you are plenty smart, kid so let's see if you can figure it out on your own.

"You definitely saw Yagi before he was healed, what happened when he activated One for All?"

"Uhm… he bul-ulked up?" The kid stammered and she smiled.

"Correct, now, imagine your body's a balloon and to bulk up you fill it with air. What happens if you push all that air into a single limb?"

Both Junko and All Might watched as the kid didn't reply, instead devolving into a mumble-fest as he appeared to think things.

"Told you he was smart." Junko's smile only grew larger as the green-haired kid walked back to the target, now, instead of just showing sparks on his arm, they spread all over his body. "Tone it down." She threw him one last tip.

They watched the kid take a deep breath and center himself as the lightning-like aura on him dimmed before punching the target right through. The surprise broke his concentration as he pulled his arm back out of the hole he created and turned, smiling triumphantly.

"Well done, Midoriya. I knew you could do it." All Might praised the boy, making him blush and start to stutter.

"Well done kid, I would recommend training yourself to achieve the lowest possible output and go from there. Believe me, the saying about learning to walk before running is still very applicable here."

"I will, thank you Miss Junko."

"And you, Yagi." Junko's tone once again took her best Mom Voice. "I expect you to tell the kid everything and inform his mother, ok?"

She felt a certain level of pleasure as the hero was turned into a stuttering mess in a similar manner to what Izuku was moments before. After that she let them go, extracting a promise from the pro hero to talk with Ms Midoriya.

"Good luck with your training and exam, kid, and don't imitate the big lug too much, remember you have more than just two arms." She winked and watched them leave.

Junko hoped the kid could tame that wild horse in the handful of months before the UA exam, not that she didn't see him passing, even without a quirk he was determined enough.

Junko hummed as she thought about hero schools, maybe she would keep an eye for promising kids and offer them an internship. She was a hero after all, even if she didn't patrol her kids did. It was still over half a year away, she would keep a reminder so she didn't miss the chance.

She stepped into the workshop and created a few clones. Just like her element creation spell, this one had become much easier and clearer to use and improve. Right now the spell was more of avatar creation than clones. She could let them be autonomous like before or simply an extension of herself.

Since she needed different points of view, she went with the old style for now and got them all to work with her. She wanted to break the secret behind Dust right now. The picoites were some of the most advanced technology she had access to. And she wanted to harness it properly.

What she had managed to work out of the material, was the nearly perfect way it stored information. It was a perfect infinite pattern, even while each mote of Dust held the same 'image' of information, you could put as many pieces of it together and they would always fit, but only that, they would also create a much more complex image.

Not only that, even with the same amount of 'pieces' you could put two very different images. It was a miracle of data storage on the same level of how Dust was a miracle in manipulating matter.

And suddenly it clicked, Junko wasn't sure if it was the true answer, but for her it was music. A symphony of a single instrument with a single note. But somehow the more you added the more it grew. Infinitely scaling information storage.

And like that a new universe of sorts opened up to her. The connection her nanite control perk gave her plus her advancing technopathy meant she could see it perfectly once she connected with the picoites. Or more like, she heard it.

She had to try something larger, so a quick trip through the pylon network placed her in Venus, and now she could hear. The planet sang, she let some Dust come out of her portal bracelets and connected with the Dust that soaked the planet.

And she sang with it. She led the symphony that echoed on the planet, guiding it into something new, curtailing some very dangerous aspects of the material she had never seen before. Very dangerous aspects that thankfully would have taken quite a bit to start making changes.

She would have to reprogram all the Dust she had, or just recycle all she had produced and kept in storage down to a single batch, reprogram that and work with that as the new baseline.

She started by curtailing the growth of Dust outside of the planet, better not leave it roaming free. She then curtailed the growth of Dust or the planet would slowly convert into a single ball of Dust with enough time.

She also cut the process of creating life from anything above plants, the already grown structures were more than enough. Now that she had access to all the information, she would be studying them personally before letting the material start with that.

She then started tinkering with Dust to see in which ways she could use it to guide the restart of Mar's core and create a new atmosphere. She could feel the interest of the network on her work.

Some groups were already forming to lead larger terraforming works, planning the planet's future biome and designing not only the atmosphere plants but also the plants for the planet. Since there had never been anything above the most basic micro-organisms on the planet, they decided to request all information on plants from Dust and work from there.

She acquiesced and sent her clones to start downloading the knowledge stored in the picoites into the network's database. Things soon grew strange as some of the series found a folder in the many, many that were being added to the database, which quickly got named Guardians .

Apparently Dust was capable of creating living elemental creatures, and the series were all over it. She had seen more than a few ideas to create actual dragons, down for an instinct to hoard and breath fire. She had to keep a clone looking over the list of ideas and ban so many, because creating actual suicidal lemmings was more than a few steps too far.

But the process of terraforming Mars was deemed applicable, now it was time to put it to work.

Chapter 80

Chapter Text

Chapter 80

Time had an ethereal quality, and not just because Junko had slowly developed spells to screw with it, or how Eri's control over her quirk resonated with her Aspect. Time usually passes whether you want it or not.

December passed, Christmas was spent with family, exchanging a few gifts with some people she had come to call friends in the year that had passed. Things like her anti-aging pills for Recovery Girl, a set of weights that would actually work for All Might, a trip around the solar system for Nezu, a complete library on how to be a teacher for All Might, among others.

New year came and went, January not changing much in terms of plans. Things kept moving ahead. She did have to move sneakily after she found some of the pre-reprogram Dust had escaped at sometime and had started to reproduce on Earth. Thankfully it was pretty easy to counteract by having her new version of Dust extend a sort of patch to the old pico-machines and make sure there was nothing left anywhere.

It was still quite a scare for Junko, but cooler minds prevailed and a possible apocalypse was averted. On another planet, Mars's core didn't take more than a couple of weeks before it was hot and spinning again.

This kind of energy brought an event long lost in the history of Mars, and that was volcanic activity, as energy was pumped into the center and things started moving, some decided that staying underground wasn't for them and came out in large, and very explosive, ways.

As the global magnetic field developed, the planet's surface gained a shield against the solar winds and other types of space radiation. It still took nearly till February before the planet was active enough for Junk to order the activation of the Atmosphere plants.

One of the first things they had to do was balance the different gases that actually existed on the planet, what little was there was mostly Carbon Dioxide and barely any Oxygen or Nitrogen, meaning they had to introduce large amounts of said elements. While also balancing things as the increasing temperature on the planet given the developing atmosphere melt the ice on the poles releasing Oxygen and Hydrogen.

In Junk's opinion, having access and total control over Dust made this quite easy. Breaking what little was CO2 down and use the carbon to start to create more complex materials that would later be part of the soil.

There was much celebration once the first clouds formed and it started raining. It was also not missed on Earth as the red planet was usually visible on the night sky outside, especially as Junko's cleaning of the planet had reduced the pollution enough that away from the city lights the planet didn't look as red anymore.

The already working telescopes quickly pointed at the planet and everyone got a surprise at the recognizable cloud formations covering most of the planet. Given the high content of iron in the planet, the clouds carried enough to gain a red tinge.

Once again, conspiracies ran wild, but given the grand ritual, most people blamed the change on the planet on the previous unexplained event. Junko simply shrugged when asked and continued with her work.

On another paw, Mila and Nezu conspired to feed the crazies, not actually disproving any of the theories, but instead proving why some of them weren't actually impossible. Junko was glad the series were a bit much too busy to learn of it till much later.

On other type of news, her mother had finally convinced Junko to have Eri attend school, while she was still a bit young, she had turned six a bit before Christmas, meaning the child had elementary school.

To say the young girl's birthday party was a world-wide celebration was falling short… It was a two world-wide celebration as it went to Mars and Venus. Twenty first of December was the day that little Eri was finally, and legally, adopted by Junko, adopting the name of Eri Tetsu and the first time the girl called her mother.

She was practically glowing, to the point Mila got sunglasses as a joke. The rest of the party was quite memorable too. Junko had also checked and rechecked the school they had chosen multiple times, setting up a few, very eager, series E to look over her child.

She didn't feel interested in giving any two-bit villain who thought of using Eri against her a chance. She happily paid a fine after the series E made a show on the poor bastard who tried.

Carinho had also gotten quite a bit of an upgrade. With all the gained knowledge and new perspective as a god, Junko had improved his soul, refining it in many ways, releasing some of the blocks of growth it had due to her poorer skills when she made it. The body also got a few upgrades, mostly in the material department, the little bear could easily serve as training partner for All Might once she was done with him.

And once again time passed, soon it was March and then April. And the entrance exam for UA came and went. She was glad to learn that Midoriya had passed. There apparently had been a bit of a problem when the media had learned that All Might was teaching at the school, but the school security had impeded them to do more than bother students coming in for a few minutes till one of the pro heroes working there had come out and forced them to disperse.

A couple months later, Nezu invited her to watch the Sports Festival. Junko happily accepted, enjoying the show put on by the aspiring heroes. Especially as a couple of young heroines caught her eye. She decided to send them offers for internships and hoped they accepted.

Her experience mentoring the two of them, the week after, was quite fun in her opinion, she hoped she changed things for the better for both of them. At least Power Loader thanked her for stopping his student from blowing things… so much.

It was about August when a certain fact was noticed and made it to the news. She was impressed it had taken it this far, but apparently people could be quite blind. Some scientists had discovered, not only, there was a lack of general trash and other objects on orbit that weren't artificial satellites, but also the fact that Earth was cleaner than never before.

Of course no one could find out why, Junko had already moved her drones by then, she had water, earth and air off pollutants. She had forcefully lowered the planet's general temperature a bit. Controlled rain patterns, reseeded large parts of Africa and the Amazons, restored oxygen producing algae colonies on the oceans, and a few others.

She wasn't sure if to feel offended that people hadn't noticed it, or gratitude she hadn't had to react to someone finding out.

A month after she watched the first manned mission to space in more than a century. She wanted to say she had done it before, but she had technically skipped the mission to space and jumped directly to teleporting to orbit. Just in case she had removed the space station on Earth's orbit, At least she didn't need to hide the moon station yet .

Just in case, she modified the moon station to hide underground, it would hopefully hide things long enough for future Junko to deal.

And so time once again passed. The year coming to an end and another starting. New plans formed as others completed.

By now she was pretty sure the Solar System would be safe against any kind of intrusion. That's because she had started to construct an Ark ship on one of the stations on the system's outer ring.

Based on the Protoss' ship of the same category, her version was about twenty kilometers long, a downgrade from the nearly eighty of the original, shaped more like an egg rather than the cone shape of the original ship. Made with shiny gold metal, warm red light and black lines. Trying to put an image of exploration rather than war.

Not like there was much that could actually damage it, it was tough enough to fly through most stars with no problem. Any point of the surface was designed to channel and launch magical attacks up to moon crackers, plus a set of twin planet bursters she hoped she would never need to use.

The inside held a small city with artificial gravity, and a similarly artificial sun that doubled as the ship's core. Plus multiple construction, and de-construction, bays for smaller ships. Scan systems capable of scanning whole systems in-depth. And a few other things.

Basically a one-ship civilization, and thanks to the network, distance didn't mean much once she had a step on each side. The ship would be leaving soon for Alpha Centauri, a month after a second ship would be leaving for Barnard's star and so on, once a month a new ship with about fifty series E would depart to the closest star systems.

She wasn't expecting to find much, truly, but it was a good idea to check out the neighbors. It would also keep the series busy, as she was pretty sure they had kept growing in number even when she didn't create more clones. It was just hard to witness creation ex nihilio when she had no idea where to look for it.

She still had two whole planets to fill with annoying, yet very useful, offshoots of her. But she would prefer to have more control over that.

And another year ended, and another started. Life went on, her reach on the world kept spreading, pushing very silently into other countries, helping heroes and leading the disarming of some of the largest villain groups. Improving the life quality for the people. Slowly starting to build a workforce of people to improve society in fields she wasn't that useful with.

Helping some people fix their problems or escape bad situations, be it to other countries or other planets. By now Mars and Venus were both completely habitable, not that she had removed the shield domes over the cities she had constructed before, or forgot to add to those she constructed later.

And time passed, and things developed, her moon station had buried deep into the natural satellite by the time humanity reached the silver sphere once more. They didn't find much, and it would take some time before they pushed for a more permanent station.

And another year, and another year, soon Eri was a preteen and she insisted that she wanted to be a hero, but a hero like her mama. Once more Junko fell into the dichotomy between having her heart melt or go out and reduce all villains to atoms so they wouldn't hurt her daughter.

She still helped her daughter train. She ignited her Aura on her fourteen birthday and helped her design her variable weapons. Minutes and Hours were a pair of rapier and parrying dagger respectively. Minutes could change into a revolver and a lance, while Hours could change into a buckle shield and a boomerang. They could also channel her daughter's time energy without a problem.

Junko had to make sure her daughter only trained with an adult in the room and didn't convince the series to play said adult. Thankfully, most series had the same opinion as her and only let her train under their watch as long as she didn't overdid it.

And time passed, things happened, people grew, developed, changed. Some, like Oboro, took a minor career as hero, but others, like Tomura Shigaraki never rejoined society, even after multiple years of therapy. The young man decided to simply stay away from the planet, finally taking a small house on Venus.

He later told Junko that he had made peace with his past and decided that Earth had nothing for him anymore. She had no problem granting the wish, neither did those who knew of the young man on Earth.

In all that time, All for One also died, his passing not even being a note on the margin, it took a few months for Junko to find out that, but at the end, it changed nothing for her, yes the man had been one of humanity's greatest modern evils. But she had never really developed an opinion on him.

Soon it became time for Eri to start at UA and Junko felt the need to update her knowledge on heroes. Much had changed in the decade past.

All Might, the number one hero, had taken about four more years before deciding to retire. Thanks to Aura and having his injury healed, passing his quirk wasn't an extreme change, instead slowly moving to a full time teacher in his alma mater.

The number two, Endeavor, never surpassed him, finding his estranged son turned to villainy, while never truly public knowledge, slowly marked the start of his fall on the rankings, and while never going past the ninth spot, he never truly recovered, retiring close to a decade after finding Toya Todoroki, aka Dabi.

Soon even UA's principal decided to announce his retirement, the small chimera deciding he wasn't sure how long his life expectancy actually was. He finally took a young quirkless student that had graduated from his school. When the young man had been asked what led him to try and be a hero he only replied that once he had been told by someone they believed he could, and for him that was enough to try.

Other heroes from the ranking slowly moved around before some retiring and new heroes replaced them. A decade where the world slowly changed. Mostly for the better.

The world slowly turned safer, technology started to advance again, dreams of heroes and nightmares of villains slowly changed. Space was interesting once more. Mars was quite green, people had noticed a change on Venus. The mystery called to people.

And the world turned, and time passed, and things changed. And Junko noticed her charges had started to come slower, there were no low cost perks, just longer times between new abilities. Some options even disappeared after she denied them long enough.

It was during an experiment with portals when she got her last two charge perk. A perk that improved her ability to make technology work with magic, especially in magic-rich environments.

She also got a lovely magic wand that connected to her. And because life had been quite boring in the last time, the event also reacted with the portal, breaking through reality and swallowing her. Throwing her somewhere, somewhen.

Beware multiverse, here comes Junk.