Super Science

Ch 68: Find a Way

"So Miss, um, Anna Marie? What brings you here and more importantly, how?", Izuku asked a young woman who sat across from him in his office.

The woman had mysteriously appeared out of nowhere at their front door. No one, not even the guards, saw her come from anywhere. From there it was all a matter of bringing her to Izuku's office. She was taller than him and wore a one-piece green and yellow full-body suit with only her face and hair uncovered. Pouty lips, green eyes, large curly brown hair with a single white streak, a nervous disposition as she tried to keep her hands as far away as possible, and spoke with a southern accent.

"I flew.", she told him.

Izuku looked at her strangely and prompted her, "Flew what?"

"Just flew, ya know, flying.", she replied with a shrug.

Izuku blinked at her then stated, "But you don't have wings or anything that could allow you flight."

"I just can.", she answered nonchalantly.

Izuku rubs the bridge of his nose and drops the topic while asking, "Okay…so as I was saying, what brings you here?"

Anna rubs her hands together as she explains, "Well, I heard that y'all can…remove quirks and I was hoping you could remove mine."

Izuku's eyes go wide at this and as carefully as he can, lies to her, "W-What gave you that idea? You know that's impossible. It's like when the nazi tried to change eye color and a bunch of other inhuman things."

Anna slammed her hands on the desk and yelled, "Oh stop it! I have sources! I know one night y'all removed a powerful quirk from some Russian guy!"

Izuku pushes a button under his desk and several different kinds of weapons spring out a point right at her! Anna freezes up and doesn't dare move an inch! Even with her powers, she heard enough about this place to realize that it wouldn't do very much to help.

Izuku was panicking and breathing hard but calmed down with a gulp of air as he asked in a serious tone, "Miss Anna, I'm going to ask you this once. How did you know!?"

Anna gulps and carefully admits to him, "I-I-I used to work for a villain organization. We got an informate who heard about y'all. I wiped his memory before he could spill to my leader and came here."

Izuku then takes out a device that appears as a temperature reader, places it on her head and when it glows green, Izuku relaxes and says to himself, "She's telling the truth.", with that he turns off the security measures and sits in his chair while taking out his phone and telling the woman, "Okay, I believe you. Let me call the CEO."

Izuku then sends a quick text and waits in awkward silence in his office with the woman trying not to make eye contact and vice versa.

However, very quickly, Egon bursts into the room and yells while holding a mind-wiping device, "Who heard about the Fragments!?"

Izuku jumps up and holds the man back as he exclaims, "Egon calm down! Only she knows and she means no harm."

Egon looks at the woman, who awkwardly smiles and waves, then back to him where he asks in a low tone, "You sure? She's got big hair. You know what big hair means?", Izuku raises an eyebrow as Egon whispers, "Big secrets."

"Oh, gods.", Izuku pushes him away while rolling his eyes.

Egon tries to stay in front of the boy trying to keep away, as he states, "I'm serious! Kano Sakji in middle school had hair just like hers and had the biggest secrets you could think of! For a child."

"Egon.", Izuku exclaimed, motioning with his eyes to the woman still present.

"Right, right, okay.", he says in a more professional tone while walking behind Izuku's desk and asking her, "So uh…what do you want?"

"I want y'all to take away my quirk! Use whatever do-hickies you have and free me!", she tells him, practically begging him.

The two of them look at one another before looking back at her and Izuku informs her, "Miss Anna, we really can't do that."

"Why not!?", she exclaimed, gripping the desk edge and bending it.

"Because the first time we tested it was just that, the first time. We had never done something like that before and it ended up killing the man! Right now I have a small part of our resources going into the development of that machine and right now we're in the testing stages. Taking a quirk is not as easy as removing a wart. This is something far greater and with more consequences! If we're not careful we could end up ending more lives than helping them.", Egon explains to her, making the woman's expression and body fall.

Izuku walks over to her side, places a hand on her shoulder which quivers, and tells her as gently as he can, "I get your quirk might be giving you great trouble, but we can't just strap you to it just cause you to say so. You don't want to die, do you?"

Anna wipes a tear from her face and says with a shaky tone, "I just want a life where I don't hurt anyone."

"If you don't mind, what is your quirk?", Izuku inquired.

Anna sniffles back and explains, "It doesn't have an official name, but I've been calling it Rouge. If I touch someone's bare skin to mine I can absorb their memories, physiology, personality, and even quirks. 1 second of contract equals 1 minute of use. And if I touch someone for too long, they…"

"You don't have to finish that.", Egon told her.

She took a shaky breath and continued, "I kissed a boy once, and only once. Cause of that, he fell into a coma for three days."

"That's gotta be rough.", Izuku tried to comfort her. "Look, Anna, we may not be able to take away your quirk now, but if you give us time and your help, maybe we can at least alter it.", he offered.

"Alter?", she asked back.

"Get rid of that nasty side effect so you don't have to cover every inch of your body.", Egon explained.

She gives a sad smile and says, "That would be nice."

"But you said you were part of a villain organization, right?", Izuku puts forth.

"Wait what!?", Egon yells, making Izuku make a slashing motion with his finger.

"I was.", She admitted.

"Then what are you going to do now?", Izuku asks in worry.

Anna thinks about it for a moment before saying, "I thought about becoming a hero, but I have no idea where to even begin."

"Then how about becoming one of our bodyguards?", Izuku offered her.

"Wait really?", she and Egon say in surprise, making both look at one another.

Izuku nods and tells her, "We could use your skills as a trained fighter and your quirk can make apprehending people or out-of-control experiments much easier."

Anna smiles at the offer then contemplates something before faltering for a moment and adding, "Did I forget to mention I have super strength, durability, healing, and flight?"

Izuku and Egon looked back and forth between one another before they both just shook their heads and Izuku huffed, "I'm not even gonna ask how."

"Well start with figuring out the ins and outs of your quirk before putting anything into practice regarding its altercation. Hope you got a place to sleep.", Egon told her.

"Afraid not.", she admits while looking at the ground.

"Then why not come stay with me till you get your place.", Egon offers her.

Looking up at him with a confused and grateful expression, "Really?"

"Yeah. So long as you don't mind me, my cat, my dodo bird, my foster kid, and the ex-gangster I have living on and off with me.", Egon listed nonchalantly.

Anna placed her hands together before jumping from her seat and grabbing both men in a hug where she exclaimed in zeal, "Oh thank y'all! Thank y'all so much!"

The squeeze was well-meaning, but the strength behind it wasn't! Both men almost started to turn blue from lack of oxygen, but Anna realized this quickly and let them go to breathe. Then the office door slid open and walked Doctrine.

"Professor, Doctor, are you two busy?", the old woman inquired of the two men, ignoring the new face in the room.

"No Doctrine, we're just wrapping up here.", Egon told her.

At that moment, Peet, who was sleeping under Izuku's desk, got up from his nap, took one look at Doctrine, and began to wildly honk and squeak at the woman, attempting to attack her if not for Izuku holding the bird back.

She nods, ignoring the bird, and takes out a clipboard while beginning to say, "Superb, I was hoping that-."

But before she could finish that thought, the door slammed open again and Otto stood in the doorway while yelling, "Stop right there!"

"Professor Cephalopod?", Izuku and Egon said in unison.

"A talk'n Octopus?", Anna questioned.

"What's wrong?", Izuku inquired.

Stepping into the room with the door closing behind him he announced, "We have an imposter amongst us!"

Cue Among Us theme music through the speakers.

"Who the hell is playing that?", Egon comments.

"Anyway, how can you be so sure, and who is it?", Izuku questions the invertebrate.

"It's someone in this very room!", Otto tells them while putting the lockdown code on the keypad and slamming a tentacle on the floor.

"By that logic, it could be you, me, Peet, or this office plant.", Egon proclaimed while looking at the potted plant on Izuku's desk, narrowing his eyes while hissing at it, "I always knew I could never trust you Petalbert!"

"You called my office plant Petalbert?", Izuku questions him with a concerned expression, still holding onto the angry Peet in his arms.

"Stay focused!", Otto yelled as he came up to the desk and slammed down onto it. "And I think I have an idea of who it is.", he followed up calmly while walking around the room before walking behind a cabinet and appearing to disappear after he didn't come out on the other side.

All the people looked around the room nervously for the vanishing cephalopod, until he suddenly reappeared from his camouflage, on the back of the shocked Doctrine with his tentacles draped around her limbs.

"Hey, little mama let me whisper in your ear.", he said in a joking tone before binding her limbs up, wrapping around her neck, and even closing off her breathing ways.

In one of his tentacles, he grasped the Limb Extensions Splinter, adding in the strangling as Doctrine tried and failed to grab a tentacle or wiggle free. A few moments after beginning his restraint and suffocation of the older woman, her eyes went from their normal color to a bright yellow, and immediately after her entire form changed until she was a blue-skinned woman in a white bodysuit with red hair and scales across her face and body.

Everyone in the room gasped at the shapeshifter, but none more so than Anna who proclaimed, "Mama!?"

"Mama?", the two scientists exclaimed back in surprise.

"Ha! You can fool everyone else in this facility but you can't fool me! And there's more coming here!", Otto exclaimed.

Turning their attention back to the octopus, both scientists exclaimed, "We've been breached!"

Izuku shifted his attention back to the shapeshifter and took a closer look at her. He cross-referenced his knowledge and then told everyone, "I know her! She's one of the leaders of The Brotherhood of Mutants! Mystique!"

"Wait did you call her mama?", Egon asked Anna, remembering his previous shock, all while Peet, now free, began to attack her shoes.

Anna nods as she backs away from the blue woman and explains, "I did. She raised me since I was a girl and brought me up to hate and commit crimes. But it was only recently I realized she had been using me!"

Egon swiveled his head to the bound woman and exclaimed, "Damn, you're a bitch!"

Mystique, who had gotten her panic under control, carefully began to shift around as if trying to find some sort of flaw in the creature's hold on her. Seeing this, Anna warned him, "Be careful octopus! She can shapeshift!"

Seeing no way out, Mystique suddenly transformed into a huge masculine form with red skin and four arms. Using the secondary and unrestrained arms, she unbound her throat and breathing holes, allowing her to gasp for air. Once she could breathe again, she began to pull the octopus off of her suction cup after suction cup. Peet got frightened by the change and rushed back under the desk!

"I could tell!", Otto exclaimed as he desperately tried to hold on against the woman's massive strength increase. Once free from his grip, Mystique roared into his face before Cephalopod jokingly vexed her, "Ya know, just because you can shapeshift, doesn't mean you have to change your breath. Is what I'd say if I could smell."

With one small burst of anger, she growled and glared at the octopus before throwing him hard enough against a wall to knock him unconscious where he was quickly scooped up by Egon. From there, Mystique transformed back into her base form and turned her attention to Anna.

Seemingly cowering from the unsuspecting woman, Anna asked, "How did ya find me, mama!?"

Mystique smiles a sickly sweet grin at her and then explains, "Oh sweetie, a mother knows best where her child is."

"You put a tracking device on her, didn't you?", Egon says in an exasperated tone, having no time or patience for vague explanations.

Mystique shoots a glare at the tall man. Having her play-on-words killed off quickly she shot back in an exasperated tone, " If you're going to kill my fun why don't ya just shoot me."

"Great idea.", Izuku says as he pulls a gun from his dare and points it at her, only to have the weapon quickly kicked out of his hand by the woman, to which he grabs his sore wrist while hissing, "Crap."

Ignoring the two helpless scientists. Once again Mystique turned to the woman and cooed in a sweet voice, "Come back, darling. You know we miss you."

Anna feverishly shook her head as she denied, "No! I won't! And I never will! You only brought me in because of my powers. You used me at every turn. And when I permanently acquired these new powers you used me even more! You festered my hate until I thought it was right to hurt others who disagreed. No mother would do that, you're just a monster!"

Mystique's sweet and motherly demeanor quickly vanished and was replaced by a haunting foreboding sense of dread as she glared daggers at the young woman and yelled, "You ungrateful little brat!"

She looked ready to backhand Anna until Izuku, who had sneakily put his sore hand back into the same draw he had gotten the gun, took out the Spider Web Splinter and shot out a stream of it at the blue woman and anchored her right to the wall! Peet ran out again and jumped up onto the woman and began to peck wildly at her face!

Only for Izuku to grab the bird, shoot off several more web attacks, and then yell, "Run!"

They all ran towards the door where Egon punched in the emergency override and ran out of the now open door. As they ran out they heard the door close and then shut tightly down behind them. They ran through the hallways for a good minute until they were far enough away to seem safe. During this run, Izuku noticed how Anna did run, but instead flew like a superhero in an old comic book. No wings or jet proportion or wind manipulation or anything. Just jump into the air and soar, so Izuku made a mental note to find out about it later.

"That won't hold her for long.", Izuku stated breathlessly as they took a moment to catch their breath, dropping Peet as he ran off elsewhere.

"I'm sure. But we're gonna have more problems real soon.", Anna told them.

"I'm guessing she didn't come alone.", Egon sarcastically guested only to hear an explosion from outside to which he followed up by saying, "And from the sounds of it, that's exactly the case."

Izuku took out his Purah Pad and connected to the outside security cams where they saw all the guards and government soldiers in a losing battle with five vastly different people. An obscenely obese man in a wrestler onesie, a short hunched ugly man who looked like a frog, a blond man in red and orange spandex with a huge gas canister and twin gauntlets connected to it, a large muscular man in an armored suit with helmet and black tights, and finally a silver-haired man in a gray streamline body suit.

"Who are they?", Egon questions.

"Blob, Toad, Pyro, Avalanche, and QuickSilver. High Ranking members of the Brotherhood of Mutants. Your guards won't do much but slow them down.", Anna explained to them.

"And the defense droids are being revamped from the ground up. Just freaking great!", Egon griped as he forgot about the unconscious octopus in his arms, only to quickly remember and loosen his grip.

"Then I guess we'll have to take them on ourselves!", Izuku proclaimed as he punched his fist into his hand. "Will you help us, Anna?", he asks the woman.

She smiled and adjusting her glove she replied, "Course. But you can call me The Rouge!"


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