Chapter 105
.::Bugging Out::.
So, things were still totally fucked up at the Alliance base, but what else was new? At this point, Katsuki considered that par for the course in this shithole. It was a den for villains after all. He would be surprised if things weren't some sort of screwed up because of some bastards deciding to screw around.
Still, the current situation was a different sort of fucked up, and it pissed him off.
"Why the hell can't we go see him yet!" he roared, scowling at Deku who waved his hands in a placating gesture.
"B-because he's still sore and needs to rest!" he protested frantically. "Kacchan, he's been through too much! He needs time to rest and just recover in peace! I think he went right back to sleep after I left!"
"He can still sleep with us in the freaking room!" Katsuki countered. He did not want to leave Eraserhead alone right now. Hearing about the torture the man endured had made Katsuki's blood boil. Hearing he'd been then been strapped down to a bed just made him even more furious. "The guy can't even move from the freaking bed! He's totally defenseless!"
"Anyone who would try to break in would have to know the code for the door! The only ones who would know it besides me are Kurogiri and maybe Tomura, and they're not telling anyone!"
"Not even that Aiko chick?"
Deku sagged a bit at the counter, looking a bit conflicted and scared. "...I don't know," he admitted reluctantly. "I want to think she wouldn't, but..." He trailed off, because they all knew Shigaraki wouldn't refuse her. She broke the bastard's wrist and he still hadn't dusted her, and she had a whole lab here. It was pretty clear she had some pretty strong sway compared to all the usual mooks.
"There's a perfect reason right there," Katsuki said. "If we're in there, we can chase her off before she causes another breakdown!"
Despite his sound logic, that just had the nerd frowning and seeming to renew his resolve. "I get what you mean, but no. If we go there today I think we'd just make him even more stressed, even if we're quiet the whole time."
"I'm with Midoriya on this," Hijack piped up, and it was still a bit weird to hear him actually talk. "If I go there, he won't be able to rest."
Katsuki opened his mouth to argue, but then stopped short as he realized what the vigilante meant. From what Deku said, Eraserhead had taken the whole thing with erasing Hijack's Quirk pretty hard, not that the nerd had realized it at first. But once Eyebags Junior had told them about the incident, it became pretty obvious that Eraserhead had been even more withdrawn than usual.
What sucked was that Katsuki couldn't blame him for the reaction. As a hero, Eraserhead's job was to protect people; it was the literal job description, right next to beating bad guys. But instead, he'd been coerced into taking away Hijack's Quirk in the middle of enemy territory. Katsuki would feel pretty shitty in his shoes too. Probably more angry at the villains, but he at least understood that anger wasn't the default reaction for everyone. People dealt with trauma and guilt in different ways and all that.
Either way, seeing Hijack now? After nearly dying himself just yesterday? That would probably just push him over the edge. Hell, even just having Hijack hang back while Katsuki visited alone would probably lead to panic, make him think either Hijack was avoiding him or something happened to him. Or both. The only one who could safely visit without stressing him out further was Deku.
He clamped his mouth shut with an annoyed click of his tongue, turning away with a scoff. "Fine," he said in a clipped tone. "We'll give him space today. But if he's still not ready to see you tomorrow, I'm going to stand guard outside the door," he added bluntly. That had Deku blinking and giving a small huff of a laugh.
"I think that'll work," he said with a weak, feeble smile, which soon faded as he sighed. "But also... Seiko?" They all held their breaths, waiting for her to appear. When she didn't, Deku pushed on in a hushed tone. "Since you brought it up, Aiko's supposed to visit tonight. And she's bringing... well, some stuff." He pulled out a piece of folded paper from his pocket for them to read. A quick note that had Katsuki's mind briefly going blank:
'Inventor found a copy of the key for the anklets. We're tricking Aiko into smuggling it in tonight. I need to find the original to tune the copy to the right frequency though.'
This? This was the best news Katsuki had heard in weeks. He felt a vicious grin spread as he thought over the implications. With this, the escape didn't just seem like a pipe dream they kept talking about, it felt like a surefire reality. Once they got the key, they'd just need an opportunity and escape route, and those people Deku knew seemed to be working on the second one at least.
His main concern right now was the whole tricking Aiko into smuggling it part. Hijack seemed to pick up on it too, pointing to the sentence as he asked, "Some stuff?"
Deku rubbed the back of his neck, eyes darting to the door. "The replacement controller," he whispered, and... huh. That was pretty ingenious. Shove the key in the box (assuming it was small enough to fit there), and she might not notice.
"Why's she coming tonight, anyway?" Katsuki asked, wary of the timing with what happened to Eraserhead. The nerd just shrugged though.
"I don't know. Um, I heard about it from that one person I've told you about, not Aiko herself, and she can't really say much for... reasons." He grimaced, and Katsuki quickly pieced together he probably meant that Ura-something chick. The nerd mentioned through a note a while back that she couldn't talk about the Alliance thanks to Aiko's Quirk, probably applied to Aiko herself too. "I don't think she knows why Aiko's coming either, or she would've tried to mention it. But she does apparently know about what happened yesterday, so..."
"So she might still try to visit him," Hijack said with a frown. Katsuki growled in irritation as he stalked to the door.
"Fuck it, I'm sleeping outside his room tonight."
"Kacchan, no!"
Needless to say, it took a while to talk him down, and he only relented because the rest of the bastards probably wouldn't let him sleep out there. But while he gave in on that, Katsuki still silently resolved to track down that Aiko chick and give her a warning about leaving Eraserhead alone at some point. He may not have known the guy long, but he would be damned if he let anything else happen to him.
Shouto was having a quiet day at the warehouse. Emphasis on was.
With Uraraka gone, Shouto had decided to take a brief walk and get some lunch that wasn't konbini food for once. That had been his first mistake. As it turned out, there weren't many restaurants in walking distance from the warehouse, or at least none that didn't look like giant health hazards. Restaurants apparently didn't get much business in largely abandoned areas, who knew?
The first one he finally found that didn't look like a health inspector's nightmare had been pretty full, so he ended up having to share a table with someone. Shouto should have turned back then, but he was hungry so he agreed to sit down. Hence how he spent half an hour listening to a weird man ramble about the Earth being flat and that Quirks emerged from the underside of said flat Earth.
While Shouto might be more open-minded than some people, he wasn't too keen on hanging around the guy. Even after he left the guy tried to follow him, so it took about fifteen minutes to shake him. That was when he finally got a chance to check his phone again, finding that Uraraka had made no progress in her search, and the others had worked out a new plan. It ended with Uraraka resolving to finish searching the last floor, and Ashido planning to bring the key from Kaminari and Jirou's apartment.
So he was surprised to return to the warehouse to find Uraraka already back and on the couch, looking a bit pale. As it turned out, someone had shown up out of no where after her last message, putting an end to her search. Who, Shouto didn't know; she couldn't say much about what happened thanks to Aiko's Quirk. Apparently she used her Quirk for whatever reason and it had upset her stomach though, which led to her curled up on the couch. So they just sat in silence for a while as she recovered.
Around an hour later Ashido burst in like a whirlwind, looking nearly unrecognizable in her disguise. Shouto actually didn't recognize her at first, the pink-skinned girl shrieking as she narrowly dodged a blast of ice. In his defense, he hadn't taken a close look at the photo when he skimmed the group chat the first time. And she also shouted when she entered which surprised him, so he'd just reacted instinctively.
Needless to say, it took a few minutes to regain some semblance of order.
"Okay, I'll go to the later to take the Switch controller," Uraraka said as she checked her phone. "Still no all clear text. Still be there." As had become normal, her words were stilted and not too clear. Shouto could only assume she was talking about whoever showed up at Aiko's apartment building.
Ashido picked up on the same meaning. "Who is there, anyway?" she asked curiously. "I know you can't say the name, but can't you give us some kind of hint? Because I really don't want to think Shigaraki showed up," she added with a grimace.
"I don't think it was him," Shouto offered with a shrug. "Mainly because I don't think he'd let Uraraka leave, and she'd probably be more upset when she came back."
"Yeah, that's true," Ashido agreed with a nod. "Especially if he recognized her from when she met Mido-chan." Uraraka's face screwed up in thought as they talked, clearly trying to think of some sort of workaround.
"Off day," she finally said, making Shouto stare at her blankly. Ashido however jolted with recognition.
"Kurogiri?" she blurted. To Shouto's surprise Uraraka flopped onto the couch with a noise of relief, which seemed to confirm it.
"How did you figure it out?" he asked Ashido, genuinely surprised.
"Mido mentioned he had an off-day last week, remember? It was the whole reason you guys went to Numazu first!" Oh, right, he forgot about that.
"Still off," Uraraka managed to say. "Super quiet, and just?" She frowned as she skipped over some word, and let out a groan of frustration as she threw up her arms. "I give up. I'm not even gonna bother trying anymore. I'll go back after I get an all clear text. Did you put the key in the controller box yet?"
"No, I needed to come here first," Ashido said, pulling the box with the new Switch controller out of the bag. "I thought we should tape it back up so it looks new and unopened! I thought that Aiko lady might get kinda suspicious if it looks opened."
"That's a good idea," Shouto said, and she beamed at the praise.
They spent about fifteen minutes after that opening the box to insert the key. Honestly, the main difficulty was carefully peeling off the tape so it wouldn't take any the box's paint with it. The key itself was small enough to slip inside without removing the controller, so that part was easy at least.
"I never really thought about how villain tech is made," Uraraka mused while they resealed the box. "It's so weird to think that they use stuff you can buy commercially like this. And the key is just so... normal looking."
"I know, right?" Ashido agreed. "I did a serious double-take when I first saw it at Kami's place. I actually thought, 'Wait, does he have a car now?' It looks just like the key to my dad's!" Uraraka nodded in agreement. Shouto had never actually seen a car key since his family used a chauffeur, so he'd just take their word for it.
"Did anyone else from the League have support gear back home?" he asked curiously, and Uraraka's face twisted with disdain.
"Did. It looked so creepy!" Well, that wasn't helpful. She seemed to recognize that, her face twisting even further, this time with frustration. "The one with. Asked for." She frowned, turning to Ashido. "Tsuyu and I met at the forest!"
"Oh, that Toga chick," Ashido remembered with a sage nod. "You guys mentioned that a couple times at the dorms. She sounded so weird and creepy! Didn't she take some of your blood?" Uraraka stuck out her tongue in disgust in response, which was probably answer enough.
"Do you just gossip about villains at the dorms?" Shouto asked, and they both shrugged.
"Not really. We just got to talking one night about how things at the forest went. Since, you know, Ocha-chan and Tsu-chan were the only ones who were there and conscious by the end."
"It's so weird is helping us here," Uraraka muttered. "I don't know I want to see? Was just so creepy back home." Shouto nodded in understanding, mind filling in the missing words. He'd never met her himself, but the fact Toga was the one to get them the anklet in the first place still felt pretty odd to him, too.
"Anyways, enough of that!" Ashido said with a clap, deliberately changing the subject. "I'm hungry, I totally forgot to grab lunch."
"I have some snacks in my bag," Uraraka offered. "You can get whatever you want from there." Ashido nodded and went to do just that, while Shouto inspected the controller box. He hadn't really played many video games, so he was admittedly curious.
"Switch Neo?" he read from the label. "I thought it was just called a Switch...?"
"Oh, I heard it's a re-release of some old Nintendo console that was super-popular back in the pre-Quirk days," Uraraka said. "They wanted to do some retro nostalgia thing, I guess?"
"Would anyone even be nostalgic for that?" Shouto wondered. "Most people don't live that long."
"Yeah, I—wait, most? Does anyone live that long?"
"They do with longevity Quirks. My brother showed me an article about a guy who was two hundred years old." Natsuo had found it pretty fascinating and spent a few hours talking about it when he came home from college during summer break. It was one of their first real conversations since Shouto started trying to bond with his siblings, so it had a left a strong impression on him.
Uraraka looked almost as fascinated as Natsuo had. "Two hundred years old? Wouldn't that mean he was around when Quirks first came out?"
"Yeah. He grew up in a mountain village, I think? So he didn't see a lot of it firsthand. But there was also some kind of massacre there when he was a kid...?"
"Woah, that's freaky," Uraraka said, eyes going wide, and he could only nod in agreement.
"Hey, guys?" Ashido's voice cut into the conversation, and they turned to see her holding something with a puzzled look. "What's this thing?" Shouto stared at the object blankly. It looked kind of like a robot beetle, made of silver metal with red glass eyes.
"Huh, I don't remember buying anything like that," Uraraka said.
"Me neither," Shouto agreed as they walked over for a closer look, Ashido handing it over. Up close, it looked even more like a toy beetle. It was round and puck-shaped, fitting easily easily in his palm, with six legs folded underneath it and two "wings" on its back. Out of curiosity he tried to lift one, and was surprised when the panel moved to expose circuitry and wires.
"Huh, that looks pretty rough," Uraraka commented. "I don't think most toys would have that stuff so visible?"
"Probably not," Shouto agreed, but paused when he glanced at Ashido. The pink girl was staring at the beetle wide-eyed, face paling and looking dumbstruck. Her expression sent a sense of alarm through him, and he asked, "Ashido?"
"This thing has a GPS tracker in it!" she blurted, and they froze, blood going cold.
"What?" Uraraka breathed, barely audible. Ashido quickly snatched the beetle from Shouto's hand, shoving it in their faces frantically.
"See this thingy?" she asked, pointing to a tiny black box-like object. It rested in a little indent clearly designed to hold it, a wire connecting it to the rest of the circuitry, and had a small orange light in the corner. "That's a GPS tracker used by heroes! And that light means it's on!"
"How do you know that?" Uraraka blurted in shock, echoing Shouto's own thoughts. This definitely wasn't Ashido's usual area of expertise.
"I learned about them at my internship after the Sports Festival!" the pink girl frantically explained. "I had to put together a bunch of flower arrangements with these hidden inside to send to some suspected villain group! It was so boring and mind-numbing," she added in a groan, "seriously, they were testing me on flower arranging—but anyways, trust me, this is definitely the same GPS tracker!"
This... was not good. This was very not good. "When did that even end up in the bag?" Shouto asked sharply. "Do they know where we are now?"
"I don't know!" Ashido groaned, before frowning and adding, "Or well, I kinda don't? I mean, I know that the light turns green when someone's actively tracing the location, so it's not being traced right now. And it's orange, so..." Her face screwed up in thought. "Okay, so looking back, I think orange means it actually can't connect to whatever gets the GPS signal or whatever? I don't remember the full details, just that orange meant it wasn't working right, but it was a temporary not-working."
That had some of their initial panic fading, but the situation was still serious. "Does it have a microphone or camera?" he asked, and the two girls went still, staring at the beetle in horror.
"Put it back in the bag!" Uraraka blurted, and Ashido scrambled to do just that.
"It wasn't Aiko, was it?" Shouto asked Uraraka while she did.
"I don't think so," she said with a frown. "It doesn't seem like something would use. I really don't think would need a robot or GPS," she added with a grimace. "And besides, I didn't even take my bag over there. And I know it wasn't in my bag when we left Odawara, I had to repack all kinds of stuff."
"So it must've come from Numazu," Shouto summarized, and then paused as he suddenly recalled the final morning. "Back then, Phoenix's brother showed up the last day, remember?" Uraraka's eyes went wide as her gaze snapped back to her bag where Ashido had just stashed the beetle. She hadn't had it on her back then, but it was the best opportunity Shouto could think of. They'd been in a rush to get away from that man, so it would be easy to not notice the beetle get slipped to them somehow.
Also, the beetle had legs. It could probably move. So it wouldn't be too weird for it to be able to crawl from a pocket and into the bag or something like that.
It was unfortunate that Hatsume and Yaoyorozu were taking the exams right now, or they could text them a photo to see if they knew anything about it. For now, it was safer to assume all suspicions about its capabilities were correct. "Do you think it has a camera?" he asked, wondering how much could have been seen or heard.
Uraraka's lips pursed as she thought over it. "I don't think there'd be a point in having one," she said. "It didn't look like there was any place for one except the eyes. And it was inside the backpack, so not like it could record anything."
"A microphone would be all muffled too!" Ashido exclaimed. "It was way at the bottom of the bag, under a bunch of clothes! So like, even if it did have one, it probably wouldn't pick up anything?" Okay, that was a bit better, lowering Shouto's initial panic some more. At least it wouldn't have picked up on any sensitive conversation if it did have one. And maybe the fact the GPS had signal issues meant their latest conversation wouldn't be picked up yet, either?
Still, the GPS itself posed a major problem, and only one solution came to mind. "We need to take it somewhere unconnected to everywhere else," he declared bluntly. "If we move it tonight, they might not look into Nabu." It was too risky for heroes to investigate Nabu or Odawara, not with the escape so close.
"What if they heard us talking about the beetle just now though and figure out it's a trap?" Ashido asked worriedly.
"We just have to assume they didn't," Uraraka said with a grimace. "There's not much else we can really do. Maybe if we're lucky, there isn't a microphone, and it just has the GPS? But I agree with Todoroki, we should move it."
Shouto nodded, glad she agreed. "Who should it be then? Someone should stay behind here to stay in touch with Midoriya—"
"You take it," Ashido said, and he blinked in surprise.
"Me?" he asked, and she huffed and put her hands on her hips.
"Well, yeah! Ocha-chan needs to talk to that Aiko lady tonight, remember? And I can't take it! That Phoenix you mentioned is one of the heroes from Team Storm Chaser, right?" When they nodded she hissed, "Guys, Oracle's part of it too!"
Oh. Shouto forgot about that since Oracle didn't seem to exist in their world. "And we don't know for sure if that guy recognized us or not," Uraraka added with a frown. "I don't think he did because we were in disguise, but he said they could see us on the security camera. And they also know me and Ashido were talking before I ran away."
"Yeah, Oracle was there when that detective guy came to ask me questions!" Ashido interjected with a head bob, picking up on her line of thought. "He must've definitely seen your picture at some point!"
"Exactly! I was wearing the wig and fake glasses, but if the camera got a really good shot of my face, he might be able to recognize me if he looks close enough. But I don't think he'd be able to recognize me if he wasn't, you know, actually thinking about me. But if they do track down the GPS signal, and see Ashido—"
"They'd totally realize I'm working with whoever was at Numazu!" Ashido cut in excitedly. "And then they'd look extra close at the footage of me, and Oracle might recognize Ocha-chan!"
Uraraka nodded. "They don't know for a fact that I'm in contact with Ashido, but once they make the connection, who knows what other connections they'd start to make? It's too risky." She turned to Shouto to firmly declare, "Todoroki-kun, you really are the best choice."
He nodded slowly, a bit taken aback by the discussion. Initially he thought his position as Endeavor's missing son would cause the most problems if one of them got caught, but given the points they just made... It would still be problematic if he got identified, but it would cause the least amount of harm to the others.
"When should I leave?" he asked.
"As soon as possible," Uraraka said, hurrying over to the bag to start pulling out some of the food and clothes. Luckily her sleeping bag and camping stove were still unpacked, so she just rolled up Shouto's sleeping bag and shoved it inside before zipping it back up. "Ashido, go to a camping store and buy a bag just like this one."
"Right!" Ashido nodded as she started for the exit.
"And get clothes, too," Shouto added, which stopped the pink girl in her tracks to look at him in confusion.
"Huh? Why?"
"Because someone needs to stay with Uraraka tonight since she still can't talk about the League."
"Oh," she said lamely. Clearly that part hadn't occurred to her. Still, she quickly gathered herself and nodded briskly. "Okay, got it! I'll be back as fast as I can, text me if anything comes up!" With that she turned and raced off, while Shouto pulled on his coat and grabbed the backpack.
"Keep us updated on where you go," Uraraka said, and he nodded.
"I will. Be careful."
"I will, promise! You be careful too!" After exchanging a final farewell Shouto took his leave, heading for the bus station. Time was of the essence, and he needed to get away from Nabu and Odawara ASAP, no matter where that took him.
1-A_SpaceRescueHero: So something came up, and uh. Please don't freak out
1-A_SpaceRescueHero: We found a robot beetle thing with a GPS tracker on it in my bag, and we think it's been there since Numazu
deku_breaks_bones: WHAT?
halfnhalfpeppermint: I just got on a bus to Nagoya to try to lure them away
halfnhalfpeppermint: Dancing is staying with Space tonight
1-A_SpaceRescueHero: Yeah. She's getting more clothes right now
1-A_SpaceRescueHero: But yeah. The only place the backpack's been is the warehouse, so they won't know about any other places at least?
1-A_SpaceRescueHero: We're gonna stay at a hotel just to be safe
1-A_SpaceRescueHero: But we should probably try to move up the escape
deku_breaks_bones: I was already planning on that anyway
halfnhalfpeppermint: I'll send updates unless I get caught.
deku_breaks_bones: ...we should probably come up with a better system to keep track of that
Meanwhile in Numazu, a preteen boy perked up as a computer suddenly gave a small ding, head snapping up from his book to look over. A map had opened on the monitor, a green dot flashing and moving along one of the roads.
"Signal's back!" he cheered, tossing the book to the floor as he jumped from his bed. A small robot shaped like a box rolled over to the fallen book and opened its back so two arms could emerge, closing the book before using the claw-like grips to pick it up. It wheeled past the boy to return the book to its proper shelf, going ignored as he plopped in front of the computer with a grin to watch the dot's movement. "Oh, another bus ride! Wonder where they're going now..."
As he studied the monitor he absently twirled his fingers and more robots sparked to life around the room, formant black eyes lighting up as they began rolling around. One brought over a juice box from his bed which he idly sipped from while opening his browser to search for bus departure schedules from Nabu. He had no idea what to do with the information, but boredom was a dangerous thing, especially when mixed with paranoia.
(In a minimized window on his taskbar, a clear photo from a security camera showed two teenagers standing in front of the agency and pointing at it.
In another minimized window, a facial recognition program was combing various databases to search for any matches, whole and partial alike.
Never underestimate a ten-year-old genius hacker with too much time on his hands.)
So remember in Chapter 88 when Uraraka and Todoroki got confronted by a French man outside the Storm Chaser agency? And Oracle's reference to an "anime-level child hacker"? You didn't think that was all just filler, did you?
The fact that the robot is a beetle and thus a literal "bug" is an unintentional pun I only realized when trying to come up with a chapter title. I just went for a small and convenient shape to hide xD Also, we have no information on Ashido's internship after the Sports Festival. I think helping put together bugged bouquets of flowers is exactly the kind of thing heroes would have interns do though.
Also, on the note of the Switch Neo: since MHA is set in the future, I try not to use modern references. I've joked about this before, and I'm now making it canon in Ignite: Nintendo released a new version of the Switch for the 200 year anniversary as a nostalgia thing. If any company could survive 200 years, I feel like Nintendo is one of them. (And "Switch Neo" sounds way better than "New Nintendo Switch" XD)
Question for next time: What would be some unconventional robot designs and uses to have roaming around a hero agency or school? (By which I mean anything ranging from plain old security, to carrying paperwork, to a monkey with cymbals on wheels that roams the building searching for people who fell asleep in the office)