Super Science
Ch 99: Meet an Old Friend
Deep within the layers of the N.I.P facility, an unusual occurrence was about to unfold. But before that happens, a common event takes place. League of Villains member Kurogiri was strapped to a full-body gurney, with the quirk extraction machine pointed at him as he attempted to break his restraints. Melissa and Professor Hatsume were used for quirk extraction in this room.
"Let me go! Let me go!", Kurogiri demanded.
"Oh, calm down, Mr. Warp man. If you keep this up, you'll hurt yourself.", Hatsume told him while blowing a raspberry between his lips. Only for Kurogiri to try even harder to break his restraints! Hatsume rolled his eyes as he warmed up the machine and told him, "And I suggest you stop trying to warp out of here; you'll just give yourself a migraine. So long as you're within range of our anti-warp generator, you're stuck. And even if you did break your restraints, you won't get far."
Saying this, he touched a button on his wrist, and a whole host of weaponry shot up from every corner of the room!
Seeing this, he calmed down and demanded, "What are you gonna do with me!?"
"We're just going to remove your quirk. It's no biggie," Hatsume casually told him.
"You can do that?", Kurogiri exclaimed in shock.
"Do you not see the influx of people we get every day to have problematic quirks taken away?", Melissa inquired earnestly.
"Anyhow, it's nothing to worry about. We have the whole process done to a science. It'll be quick and painless.", Hatsume assured him while petting his head before walking off and yelling, "Fire her up!"
Melissa nods and turns on the machine. It reves, glows, and spins before shooting a beam of pure white energy at the misty man. Kurogiri lurches and strains as he grunts and wriggles around. This goes on for a few seconds before Melissa starts to worry.
"Wait. Something wrong.", the girl says while noticing something strange.
"Don't worry, Melissa. They all have a bit of discomfort at first. It fades fast.", Hatsume assured her, only for the mist man to begin grunting and groaning in pain. This catches Hatsume's eye, and he says, "Wait, you're right. Something is wrong."
"With him?", Melissa asks.
"With his quirk. It should've been pulled out by now.", he says while looking at the splinter, which hadn't even charged colors.
"Should we stop it?!", Melissa asks with concern as Kurogiri is about to scream.
Looking back at the splinter, he sees that it has begun to change color, and the light shot at Kurogiri has also started to change, so he tells her, "No! It's already started the process. There's no telling what could happen if we cut it off midway. Full blast!"
Melissa freezes up at first, but seeing the man start to writhe in pain, she thinks it is a mercy to make it end fast. So she goes to the machine and turns it on full power! The machine hums louder and brighter and pulls the quirk faster, causing Kurogiri to scream in bloody murder! After a few seconds, the quirk is pulled out entirely, shown when the light beam entering the man turns white again.
"Kill it!", Hatsume shouts as Melissa hits the emergency kill switch.
The machine dies, and quirkless Kurogiri slumps over unconscious. The two scientists rush over to the man, turn his gurney flat, and Hatsume checks his vitals.
In the moment's rush, Melissa quickly asks, "Is he-?"
Only for Hatsume to cut her off and affirm, "Alive, yes."
After sighing in relief, Melissa decided to take a look at the man to see what he really looked like and was surprised to see an ordinary man in his late 20s to early 30s lying there with white hair that looked like an Afro and a set of scares going across one of his eyes.
"He sure is different without his quirk. And kind…familiar.", Melissa said aloud.
After ensuring Kurogiri was alive and well, Hatsume sighed and said, "Man, I never expected that to happen. I wonder why it took so long?"
As he thought about this, Melissa decided to check on the new splinter, and when she did, she called out, "Um, sir. You may want to see this."
Several hours later, the pro heroes Present Mic and Eraserhead were asked to come down to the facility for a quasi-emergency meeting. Waiting in the medical wing of the facility, they were met by doctor Midoryia, who Barkan accompanied.
Ignoring the unsightly man, Eraserhead started off by asking, "So what did you call us for?"
Izuku told them, "It's about that person you caught after the training camp incident, Kurogiri."
"What about him?", Present Mic asked.
"Well, it seems that he's not who he appeared to be.", Izuku vaguely told them, confusing both men as Izuku asked, "Do you two know about a young hero by the name of Loud Cloud?"
Hearing this, Eraser looked down and away from the boy while Mic looked down and said, shaky on the verge of tears, "Don't…Don't mention that name."
"Why are you even bringing him up?", Eraser asked in his shaken voice.
After seeing their reactions, Izuku had no idea how to proceed. He motioned to a door behind him and said, "You may want to see for yourself."
Both men were confused but ultimately decided to follow the boy. After entering the hospital room, they saw a person lying in the only bed present. Izuku motioned to the bed, and the two men cautiously walked to it. They both froze in shock and horror at what they saw! A young man around their age with long white hair, tan skin, and three scars going across his right eyebrow and eye was peacefully sleeping in the bed with an IV drip and machines watching his vitals.
Mic was too stunned to speak at first, so Eraser asked with a stutter, "Is-Is that?"
"Oboro?", Mic asked with tears threatening to spill out.
Just to be sure, Eraser carefully reached out his hand to the man and touched the tip of his nose. Feeling it was real and not a hologram, he caressed and stroked his cheek while saying shaky, "This-this can't be. I-I saw him die."
"Apparently, that was all a lie. A well-placed illusion by…whoever kidnaped and experimented on your friend.", Izuku explained.
"Experiment!?", Mic exclaimed in fright.
Izuku nods in confirmation and informs them, "I know he may not look it, but…he's a Nomu."
"Is he-?", Eraser began to ask until Izuku quickly assured him.
"Yes, very much alive. His body just had a hard time with the quirk extraction.", said Izuku.
"Quirk extraction!", Mic exclaimed, sounding angry; even Eraser looked perturbed by this news.
Seeing their expressions, Izuku informed them, "If we wanted his information, we had to ensure he couldn't escape. We didn't know who he was until we took this out.", saying this, Izuku went to a nearby table and showed the two men something on it.
Briefly stepping away from their long-gone friend, they saw a very unusual Splinter sitting on a special holder. It was pure black mixed with a sheen of purple and swirled like a thick fog. In addition, it held an extremely unsettling aura and was shaped with many small spikes growing from all around it.
"What…what is it?", Eraser was the one to ask,
"It's his quirk after it got mutated into Warp Gate.", Izuku simply explained.
Hearing this, Mic got defensive and exclaimed, "Well, put it back!"
"What?", Izuku asked back.
"Put it back, I said!", Mic said louder before becoming more threatening as he approached the teen.
"Mr. Yamada, I'm sorry, but we can't-.", Izuku tried to calm the man down to explain the reasons.
Only for him to grab the young teen by his collar, hold him up while shaking him, and cry as he yelled in anguish, "Give it back to him! Do you know how hard he worked to be a hero? And you take it away from him! We were going to be a team! We were going to be great heroes! So why do you get to take that away?"
But before the man could get any more violent, he quickly dropped the boy as a pair of sharp arm blades nearly took his arms off in one fell motion! Barkan stood in defense of the teen, arm blades fully extended and teeth slathered with saliva as he was nearly about to pounce on the two men! Luckily, Izuku recovered fast and grabbed the vicious man's arm, holding him back from attacking.
"Easy, Barkan! He's just being emotional.", Izuku eased the savage-looking flesh eater.
Barken calmed down at his words, retracted his arm blades, and glared at the men, threatening, "Do that again, and I'll chew off your arms."
As Barkan stood off to the side to keep an eye on them, Izuku approached the DJ hero and told him, "Mr Yamada, we had no choice but to remove his quirk."
"Why!?", Mic exclaimed, being held back by Eraser.
Izuku sighed briefly and explained, "Like I said, in case he tried to escape. Also, because it may be tied to whoever brainwashed him in the first place, if we put it back, we may jeopardize his free will. Plus, the quirk is highly volatile and unsafe.", Mic and Eraser still didn't look totally convinced, so Izuku hit them with a zinger and inquired, "You don't want to make him a Nomu again, do you?"
This finally changed their minds, and Izuku could see in their faces that they finally relented. Returning to the side of their friend, they looked at him, tons of questions filling their heads, and yet no one conclusion could be reached.
So Eraser asked Izuku, "He…was a Nomu?", noting his choice of words.
"A surprisingly human one, but yes.", Izuku affirmed.
"But…he loved his quirk. He was going to do great things. He wanted to be a hero. How can he do that without a quirk?", Mic said, trying to make sense of things, to which Izuku said nothing.
So Eraser asked, "Can't you fix his quirk?"
Izuku shook his head, and with an unsure tone, he explained, "Without knowing what went into making it, it'll be hard. We might end up destroying it if we're not careful."
Taking off his glasses and wiping his eyes, Mic scaredly said, "What will society think?"
This time, Izuku lost his cool and yelled at the heroes, "Society needs to grow the hell up! There is no such thing as a norm. And he'll have to get used to his new life if he wants to live a normal one!", After expressing his frustration before the two shocked adults, he quickly calmed himself down and with a more regressed tone, he followed up, "I know you may see it as him losing everything, but he still has his humanity, mind, free will, and you two."
Hearing this, the two heroes put on faces of self-reflection, and Izuku began to leave the room for the three of them to enjoy their reunion, Barken at his heel like a dog. Just before leaving, he told the men, "If you think a quirk makes or breaks someone, then why did you become heroes in the world?"
Bark exited first and then Izuku, but he stopped when he heard Eraser call out, "Problem child.", Stopping in the doorway, he looked over his shoulder as the gruff man told him in a painstaking tone, "Thank you for bringing back our friend."
Izuku gave a small smile and informed them, "He'll need some time to recover. So be patient.", Then he left, allowing the three men to get reacquainted and wait for him to hopefully awaken.
As Izuku walked into the hallway, he met Egon, who walked alongside him. There, the two conversed about what had happened and what was to follow.
"So, how'd it go?", Egon asked.
"They reacted as well as I thought, though they're happy to see him again," Izuku answered.
"Did they ask about his quirk?", the man inquired with some suspicion.
Izuku nods and explains while holding up the Warp Gate Splinter, "They did, and I told them it was nearly impossible since we don't know how it was made."
"Good. Then we have time.", Egon said as he took the Splinter from him.
"Do you want me to start researching Warp Gate?", Izuku asks.
Egon nods and confirms, "Yes. Despite who it came from and what went into making it, that quirk is highly useful, and we can't let it go to waste."
"I actually did some small testing and found it could be used as a key component to making the Mother Box.", the boy told him excitedly.
"Good to hear.", Egon stated back with some excitement of his own.
Glancing at the Splinter and thinking of the man it used to belong to, he inquired, "Are we still going to fix Warp Gate? After we use it for what we need?"
Egon nods as he assures him, "Yes, but first we have to know the process; otherwise, we can kiss that special quirk bye-bye.", He thinks it over for a moment and tells the boy, "But in case we can't, give him another weather class quirk." Izuku nods in understanding.
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