Super Science
Ch 43: Prepare for the Worst.
After explaining their whole story to the man, Egon's eyes roll back, and he falls off his hammock as Izuku says calmly, "And Egon went into cardiac arrest again."
"Again!?", Chopper exclaimed in fright.
"I'm on it.", Doctor Oprinton says as she comes in on her cart with a defibrillator. Putting it on his bare chest, she says, "Clear."
A shock of electricity jolts across his body, and Egons gasps air while yelling, "I liiiiiiiiiiive!"
"Welcome back to the land of the clinically depressed, Professor.", the doctor tells him.
"Good to be back.", Egon says sarcastically while coughing. So you stole a kid?" Egon watered down their story while buttoning up his shirt.
"I didn't steal her per se. I was just…taking her away from a perceived threat.", Izuku said with an uncomfortable smile.
"That's kidnapping.", Egon shot back.
"Does it count when a kid looks like that?", Chopper shoots back.
Looking at the girls in the teen's arms, he shrugs and agrees, "Good point."
"But where did she come from?", Professor Genus asks.
"She hasn't said. We just got here as fast as we could.", Izuku informed them,
"Through the sewers.", Chopper adds with a disgusted shiver.
"That explains the smell.", Genus says while pinching his bare nose.
"It's days like this that make me glad my sense of smell is practically useless.", Doctor Orpinton says with satisfaction as Genus glares at her gloating.
Egon sighs and says, "Well, let's clean you three up, give you a check-up, and figure out what to do with Emi."
"Eri.", Izuku corrects him, making Egon look off to the side.
Just then, Megan enters the room and asks, "Sir, are you busy?"
"No, I just finished up here. What is it?", Egon tells her as she opens her mouth, only for it to fall short when she looks behind him and sees the huge spider standing behind him. She points to it in fear, and Egon sighs, saying, "Yes, I am aware of the giant spider behind me."
"Was that there the whole time!?", Chopper exclaimed while seeing the huge arachnid behind him with dozens of glowing red eyes.
Egon waved at her and Chopper off while saying, "Explanation later. What is it, Megan?"
Megan composes herself. Clearing her throat, she says, "The Prime Minister and Principal of UA are on the phone regarding Pacifica."
"Fuck me with a chainsaw.", Egon blankly curses, only to feel immediate regret as he looks over to Eri, who has wide eyes staring at him. Even everyone else was staring at the girl, which is when he carefully asked, "She didn't hear that, did she?"
"Let's pretend she didn't.", Izuku agreed.
He changes subjects and says, while rolling up his sleeves, "Genus, you help the kids clean up, change, and go to Doctrine for a physical to make sure they did discover a new disease. I gotta do an adult."
After a long while, Egon finally emerged from his office, looking pale and exhausted as he marched through the hallways with Doctrine at his side. He complained, "What. A. Drag!"
"How'd it go explaining a new sub-content in the middle of the ocean.", She asked him in a serious tone.
He blew a raspberry and explained, "Nezu understood that it had nothing to do with him directly. But the Prime Minister. Ho, that bitch can make you want to claw metal! I asked her if she wanted to keep an ever-growing dragon in Japan and find a way to feed it."
"I'm surprised she didn't take you up on it. You know, to use it as a super weapon.", She inquired.
He shook his head in aggravated amusement and told her, "Oh, she did, but only after I told Torch Wick wouldn't listen and would probably kill everything!"
"Did she-?", Doctrine tried to ask.
Only fur Egon to cut her off and list off in irritation, "Yes, she asked if Izuku or I would want to join the armed forces. I politely declined and told her we had no interest or skills in running an army over one dragon, and that he was a baby.", she then chews on her toothpick a bit while staring at him. Knowing she wasn't here to let him vent, Egon got to the point of her company and asked, "But enough of that, how's the kids?"
"Clean and disease-free, thank goodness. But that Eri girl is a different story.", She explained while telling him, "She was so scared the entire time. She has to bathe with Izuku. She wouldn't leave him, and every time one of us came in, she would start to shake, especially around Doctor Orpington. And don't even get me started on the medical devices. I thought she'd pass out when I pulled out a stethoscope!"
"There's more to her. What about her quirk.", Egon prompted further.
This was when Cluck came beside him in her chart and said, "It took us forever to get a blood sample. She was crying and clinging to Izuku, begging him to make us stop. Eventually, we drugged her."
Egon stopped as he grabbed the chicken by her neck and yelled, "You what!?"
Laughing nervously while Doctrine looked on in amusement, she said, "Perhaps I should rephrase that. We used the Drowsy Poppy to put her to sleep."
Egon thought back for a moment and remembered when Doctor Hollyhock brought that same plant to him. It looked just like a regular poppy flower, but once he took a whiff of it, he was out like a light for two hours! From what he was told after the fact, it was supposed to help people with severe insomnia.
After hearing this, he calmed down and let the bird go, saying, "You should've said that. So? What's her quirk?"
"You're never going to believe this, but she's one of those rare Singularity cases.", Cluck told him.
"She is!?", Egon and Doctrine said in unison.
The chicken nods, and taking out her Purah Pad, she explains, "It's called Rewind, and it causes any and all living matter she comes in contact with to revert to a previous state—physically, biologically, or evolutionary."
"Crap.", Egon said while biting his fingers.
"And she has no control over it.", She added.
"Double crap!", Egon exclaimed.
"But that's not all.", She adds again, getting amused by his expression.
"Please don't make me say crap anymore than I have to.", Egon practically begged while grabbing his hair.
She quickly explained, "I read her mind with the Telepathy Splinter, and for a long time, she was in the company of the Yakuza."
"Yakuza!?", Egon exclaimed, while Doctrine just looked lost.
"Her memory is a bit fuzzy due to her not understanding what she was seeing and hearing, but they need her for some kind of plan to, if my understanding is correct, erase Quirks.", She explained more in-depth.
Egon walks about while thinking aloud and says, "That makes sense. If Eri can cause a living thing to revert to a previous state, then that means she can cause a person to go back before they got their quirk or even just erase the gene from their DNA entirely."
Cluck shivered and stated, "I don't want to return to being a normal chicken."
Seeing this was already getting out of hand, Doctrine unplugged a bottle of wine and said with surprising calmness, "Well then, we have to tell the Prime Minister about this. If we have her, then it is only a matter of time before they come to get her."
Egon sighs, exhausted again, and tells her, "I'm already dancing on eggshells after she finds out about Pacifica and Torch Wick. I'll try the Hero Public Safety Commission."
A bit later, Otto and Anima waited a long time for Egon to come out of his office, but to no avail. Whatever he was saying to the HPSC had to be essential for it to be going on this long. However, curiosity overcame any sense of moral high ground, and they both placed an ear or whatever Otto had on the door and listened in. From the sound of it, it seemed like they had just come in on the tail end of it. Judging by the sound of the ever-increasing stress in their boss's voice.
"This isn't a joke! We're in real danger here, and if they come, we'll-! What? Hello? Hello!", Egon called out from the phone line before he screamed into the receiver. "Jump up your ass and die!"
The two scientists quickly moved away from the door as they heard the sound of his angry footsteps stomping towards them. Egon came out, leaned against the door, and pulled his hair back while exclaiming in terror, "We're dead in the water. They won't believe me."
"Then what do we do now?", Otto asks.
Egon slams his fist into his palm and declares, "We prep and strike back when they do!"
The two scientists nod at one another, then turn back to the man, where they nod in affirmation. But before they could start on this plan, a peppy and familiar voice called, "Aw yeah! Check it!"
"Ace Researchers Robbie and Purah have come back! He he!", called Robbie's voice as he struck a pose in the hallway. Purah was holding her signature rock in hand, signifying her winking face.
Egon dashed towards the two, grabbing them in a hug while exclaiming, "Robbie! Purah! Am I glad to see you two safe and well!"
"I didn't realize we meant so much to you, professor.", Robbie said, a bit flattered.
Egon pulled away and replied, "Well, that and we're probably going to be attacked by the Yakuza soon."
"What?", Purah asked as her glasses nearly fell off her face.
Egon waves them off and then inquires, "I'll explain later, but first, I didn't think you two would be back so soon."
Robbie smiled brightly while saying with a dance, "When you have an army of mechanical wonders to do all the nitty gritty. Things progress real fast."
"We went back to the location where you found the Singularity Soul the first time around and established a base camp. Afterward, we found a vein of the Singularity Soul. We came back here while leaving the robots to continue excavation.", Purah informed him while showing off massive crystal nodes of the Singularity Soul carried by robots.
Egon sighs and says, "It's good to know we'll have a larger supply. And a new guard dog for it."
The two ancient scientists look at one another and shrug. Just before Egon goes to take care of other businesses, Robbie exclaims, "And! One other thing." Egon turns around inquisitively as he tells him, "While mining for this stuff, we accidentally stumbled upon an ancient cave where we found something cool."
Egon waits for the rest of the story, but when both are just drawing out the tension, Egon practically yells, "Well, don't leave us in suspense! Tell us what it was!"
"We're not entirely sure what it is, whether it's a new species or alien-.", Purah started.
"We're going with aliens.", Robbie interjected.
Purah sighed while pushing him aside and saying, "But we found…this.", Then two robots brought in a huge tube tank with what looked to be the largest bluest starfish ever seen! In addition, it has one huge yellow eye in the center of its body! With mouths dropped open in shock, Purah said, "We've decided to call it Staro."
Anima was frantically taking notes and pictures while Otto fainted. Egon managed to calm down and not go into cardiac arrest again as he breathed deeply and said as calmly as he could, "Well, I'll be damned. They did bring me an alien."