Super Science
Ch. 117: An Assassin's Tale
"Hankoyo, please tell me you can find him!" Egon begged the man as he gripped his shoulders with ever-increasing pressure.
Hankoyo shook his head to clear it and half-sobbed, "I don't know! I brought that warp pad in for recalibration after it started to malfunction!"
"Why did you test it with Izuku in the room?!", Egon exclaimed.
"I didn't know he was there!", Hankoyo replied.
"How?!", Egon yelled.
"I need absolute silence to hear the harmonic frequency and calibrate the warp pad to its destination properly! It's why I wear noise-canceling headphones!", Hankoyo yelled back, feeling the guilt weigh him down.
"Well, where did it send him!?", Egon screamed while shaking him, tears welling up in his eyes.
"I don't know! That's what I'm trying to figure out, and freaking out! They could be anywhere!" Hankoyo screamed back, explaining.
"Anywhere?", Egon said in a small voice of dread.
"Yes, anywhere. Without two warp pads being synchronized, there's no telling where they could end up! They could be on the other side of the world, or another planet, or somewhere in the universe, another dimension, another plane of existence, the space between dimensions, the edge of reality; they could be dead!?", Hankoyo began to panic while grabbing his head tubes.
Egon let the man go, and the moment he did, Hankoyo ran to his testing room, where he tried to figure out where the warp pad had sent the boys. As he did this, Egon grabbed his hair and began to pace back and forth, trying to calm himself down! But nothing worked, and he was only getting more worked up!
Breathing a bit, he finally said to himself, "Okay, okay! Don't freak out, Egon! You can handle this. Panic and fear are the enemy. You just have to keep a cool head and figure this out." He said this with full assurance, only for it to falter and for him to drop to his knees while yelling, "I can't handle this!"
"Professors?", said a voice next to him.
Turning fast, Egon saw Otto and yelled at him, "What!? Can't you see I'm having a breakdown!?"
The octopus told him, "Well, could you hold off on it? U.A. is still here looking for Bakugou."
"Dammit, I forgot. I'll take care of it.", Egon exclaimed while slapping himself.
Calming himself down as he made his way to the only hero present to find the boy, Egon readies himself for what he has to say at the moment. Luckily, he catches sight of Eraserhead, who Cluck was stalling. Egon tries to fix himself a bit so no panic rises from his looks, and he approaches.
"Professor!", Eraserhead turns and sees him only to speak first.
"Eraserhead.", Egon greeted back, trying to remain calm.
"Did you stop Bakugou?", Eraserhead asks in worry.
"Um, yes and no," Egon states vaguely, still unable to find an excuse.
"Yes and no?", Eraserhead repeated, knowing and seeing that the man was unwell.
Seeing no way out of it, Egon admits, "Okay, I'm just gonna level with you. Bakugou and Izuku got transported on a malfunctioning Warp Pad, and I have no idea where they are!"
"Warp, what now?", Eraserhead questions.
Egon sighs and tells him, "A teleporter. And right now, we have no idea where they could be."
"Are they alive?!", he asked in shock.
Egon quickly regained his composure as he spoke and told Eraserhead in an unconvincing tone that got more convincing, "Yeeeeeees. Just go back to the school and try to buy time with the kids' parents until we track them down."
"But-.", Eraserhead tried to argue.
Only for Egon to sneakily push him through the hallway and put the door where he told him, "Not to worry, N.I.P will do everything in its power to bring them home safe and sound. We'll keep you posted and updated on any discoveries.", with that he shoved Eraserhead out the door and trudged back inside to cool his nerves. After calming down, he said to himself, "That was a close one." However, he wasn't able to rest for long as he saw Otto standing beside him and waiting to be seen so he could speak. Seeing him wait, Egon asked, "What do you want? Don't tell me there's something else?" Otto somberly nods, and Egon groans in aggravation while pulling on his face and saying, "Oh please, what could you possibly say that could make this situation worse!"
"Well, something came from Pacifica.", Otto vaguely told him.
Pulling his hands from his face, Egon asked in anger, "What!? A new type of dragon!? I have no time for this!"
"Just come and see for yourself." Otto waved him on as he scuttled down the hallway, where the professor eventually followed.
Darkness. That was the first thing she said and felt, and it was nice. It was nice to be in the dark, calm, and quiet. Unfortunately, as most things go in her life, she was uprooted from it long before she could enjoy it.
A voice called to her from the darkness. First in a low rumble, then in louder increments. She tried to ignore it but to no avail as it grew louder and louder. And then, water was poured onto her. She woke up with a fright, gasping for air as she looked around in a panic.
Once she calmed down a bit and her mind settled, she saw the perpetrate of her rude awakening. It was a set of robotic arms holding a bucket that was once full of cold water. The arms were attached to a cart, and a white chicken with an abnormally large brain rode upon the cart. Around the brain was a device with lights that made lines like a heart monitor.
"Wakey wakey, eggs and bakey!", Doctor Cluck chided the woman as she made the arms pull the bucket away. "Good morning, sunshine! You sure slept well.", she said in a tone full of fake compassion.
"Taking Chicken?", the woman observed aloud, wondering if she was still asleep.
"How observant of you.", Cluck sarcastically shot back.
Suddenly, a set of doors on the opposite side of the room opened, and in walked Professor Egon and Cephalopod. Egon looked irritated and stressed out as they unknowingly approached the woman, and he said to the octopus, "Okay, what is this thing that you have to show the woman? " The man stated after finally seeing the woman bound to a metal chair in metal restraints.
Otto nods and tells him, "Yep, she came from Pacifica no more than an hour ago."
"Hang on a second, I know you.", Egon said out of the blue while studying the woman's face. Getting closer, he connected, "Yeah, you're one of the heroes that Izuku gushes about from time to time. Tsutsumi Kaina or Lady Nagat. What were you doing in Pacifica? Wait, don't tell me your a-?" Egon's mind immediately went to the worst conclusion.
Only for Nagat to shake her head and exclaim, "I'm not a villain! Now take me to Doctor Egon!"
"It's actually Professor and speaking," Egon told her, standing up and raising an eyebrow in suspicion.
Nagat gave a big sigh of relief and relaxed into the chair while saying, "Oh, thank the gods. You have to listen to me; you and everyone here are in grave danger!", she said the last part with great importance.
"Danger?", Egon questions.
She panics and tells him, "Yes! The Heroes Association of Japan is going to sack you!"
Looking even more confused and a bit hurt, Egon asks her, "Why would the Heroes Association of Japan want to sack me? I mean, I kinda got the feeling they had it out for me when they didn't take the whole Yakuza incident seriously, and nothing followed up on that, but why attack us? We haven't done anything illegal!", he then feels eyes upon him, and looking back to see Otto and Cluck giving him suspicious glances, he corrected himself, saying, "Maybe not moral, but nothing illegal. And we've done far more good than harm. Unlike every political body on earth."
"They don't care about that; they want what you have! The super technology you guys have to make and all the things you do, they want!", Nagat explained in more detail.
"Another case of "I want what you have. "Perfect. What else could you tell me?" Egon said with an exasperated sigh.
Nagat nods her head and explains further, "Exactly! I got word from the association that you guys were evil and that a raid would go down, and they needed my help. They are going to use every hero they have or brainwashed through their Young Heroes initiative program. Former and current. A regular army is about to knock on your doors to kill you all and take your stuff!
"The Young Heroes Initiative program? Wasn't that outlawed after it was discovered that they were grooming orphans and the poor to become front-line heroes?", Cluck questions while looking through her pad.
"They lied, "Nagat said in a firm tone. They told me about this and said I owed them, but they didn't listen. I tried to get you to expose their deeds, but they caught wind of what I was doing and shipped me off to that death island you have." She said the last part in a more reserved tone of fear.
Egon thinks on all this for a while before asking her, "There's just one thing I don't understand. If you were brainwashed like everyone else who went through the program, how come you're helping us?"
Nagat gives a shaky sigh and tells the man, "Because I found out that the society we live in is hanging by a thread, and people like me are used to keeping it hanging. I've been used to killing villains and heroes less than legally.", she paused as she took a deep breath as if remembering all the horrors of her past before she continued. "I have so much blood on my hands, and it's all thanks to the heroes' association! They were going to use me like they did so many others until I met my use and was thrown to the side! That's why I wanted to help! Just once, I wanted to do something that was my decision and mine alone!", she exclaimed with tears in her eyes and a desperate expression on her face.
Egon then takes a chair, places it across from her, and sits down, asking her, "Okay. Explained everything to me from the beginning, especially the part where you escaped Pacifica of all places."
Tsutsumi ran out through the streets and back alleys of Japan in a full sprint. She knew that what she was doing was crazy, but she had to try! Taking public transportation was a no-go. It would put civilians in danger! She knew the association would do anything in its power, even if it meant making something look like an accident. So running was her only option.
She had to make it to N.I.P. before time was up. She knew she had about a week and a half, but those people needed every spare second, so she had to push herself! It was only a few more miles away, not much longer. She turned a corner into an abandoned part of the city and stopped short when she came face to face with someone familiar.
It was a Japanese man, older than her, with faded hair and full eyes but a smirk on his face that held sinister and pompous motifs. He wore a business suit and blue tie but walked like some kind of teenage street thug. This man was a higher-ranking official in the heroes' association, Haruto Hasusu.
"And just where do you think you're going, Nagat.", he asked the breathless woman.
Nagat knew she had. There was no way this guy would just happen to show up in the area she was running in. They knew, and she had no other option or lie to fall back on. She took out her quirk, a Rifle, and pointed it threateningly at the man.
"To expose you monsters for what you are!", she yelled while loading a bullet into the chamber.
"The media and government are already wrapped around our fingers; they'll never do anything.", Haruto told her with a smug disposition.
"I wasn't talking about them.", Nagat growled while pointing it at his head.
"Come on, Nagat. Think about all that the association has done for you. If it wasn't for them, you'd still be a street rat with nothing to your name.", Haruto tried to persuade her.
"Nothing but my free will and sense of self.", she growled back. Hearing this, Haruto's smile grew wider and more unsettling as he approached her slowly. Nagat put her finger on the trigger and yelled, "Stay back! I have so much blood on me that I have no problem with putting you and anyone else down for good!"
However, she never got the chance to fire. Someone had managed to sneak up behind the woman, who was distracted and hit her with enough force to knock her clean out. Nagat fell to the floor, her mind fading as her vision went dark and her quirk deactivated. The last thing she heard before everything went out was Haruto boastfully saying to her, "You should've listened, Nagat."
Sometime later, on an unspecified rooftop in the heart of Japan, several people stood around a very unusual aircraft as a large metal box was loaded onto it. These people were the two pilots: one was loading the cargo, and the other was readying the plane. Both were acting very strange and almost zombie-like. The other two were the president of the Heroes Association of Japan and her personal assistant.
The president was an aged woman, like the Primister, with very similar mannerisms and dress, but she almost seemed to be even more wrinkled and downtrend. She seemed tired from holding up a fake facade all the time, and the stress of it showed. Her assistant was just a dark-skinned woman in regular businesswoman attire with thick glasses and a clipboard in hand.
"Is everything set?", the president asked.
"Yes. Lady Nagat is safely secured, and the two pilots are perfectly under my mind's control. They'll have no problem Kamikazing themselves into the fray. And even if the storm or island security doesn't shoot them down, then the island will. The stealth bomber we purchased from the Americans is set," the assistant told her while motioning to the plane.
"Excellent, send them off.", she instructed them.
But the assistant did not obey her command and instead asked the woman with concern, "Maam, are you sure this is a good idea? This plane was not cheap."
The president assured her, "It's a high risk but an even higher reward. It will all pay off in the end, especially if there are no loose ends."
The assistant nods and uses her mind-control quirk to make the pilots move faster. Once Nagat's box is safely scurried, they ready the plane, and in several minutes, the high-tech plane flies off silently and unseen into the sky! Leaving the president to stand and look on with a smile on her face, knowing nothing could stop her now.