Discord: https://discord.gg/t7bHrdRY7Y
pat.reon: Keanu_Eugene (30+ chapters ahead)
CHAPTER START---
"How is this so much better than my hot tub..." Law mutters as he relaxes in the Hot Spring.
At the edge of the water with his back to the war stone wall, both muscled and tattooed arms were resting up at the edge of the pool.
His body was entirely exposed, with his body glove and visor nearby. His phone was playing soft music nearby, with a Room open for 25 meters in every direction, enough so he doesn't feel the strain while making sure nobody sneaks up to take a peek at him.
After a few more minutes Law checks his phone, seeing it's been almost a half hour since he got into the Hot Springs.
"This was a lot more fun with Pix---" Law stops scrolling as he notices something strange. His phone had no service.
"Huh, I thought it was impossible for Nezu's tech to lose signals..." Law says as he checks the setting.
ZZZZT!
Suddenly a bright and sparkling Lazer beam cuts through the Hot Spring, barely missing the main resort building.
"So much for relaxing," Law mutters as he warps out of the water.
Then swaps all the water on his body for his body glove and visor, and suddenly appears in full Hero Costume as he expands his room to 1000 meters wide.
SCAN!
He feels everyone still completing the Test Of Courage, but two people were elsewhere.
Ragdoll and Aoyama were far off course and separated from everyone else, in a dire situation.
"Shambles," Horizon suddenly appears beside Aoyama, staring down a green-skinned lanky Nomu, and a young boy in a black middle school uniform, wearing a gas mask and carrying two gas canisters on his back.
In his hand is an old-fashioned revolver, at ease pointing toward the floor, and a thick pink fog swirls around him, only a few inches from his body.
Behind Aoyama is Ragdoll, down on the floor and bleeding from her head, while Aoyama was stuck in a standoff with the villain and Nomu.
But everyone froze when Horizon arrived on the scene.
Unlike his previous encounters, this Nomu seemed completely unresponsive to anything around it.
'So I'm guessing this loser can't give it commands, so it's in standby mode...plus his Quirk is some toxic gas, not lethal since he has a gun. And he isn't immune to it because he has a gas mask...but I am. I guess he's just weak.'
"What's going on here?" Horizon asks, noticing the villain frozen in fear.
"I got lost and she came looking for me, but this villain attacked us!" Aoyama yells, voice cracking with almost every word.
"Twinkler, tell the others the League of Villains is here," Horizon says, seeing the villain's gun trembling, unable to even raise it toward him. "I'll deal with this..."
Both Aoyama and Ragdoll immediately disappear, swapped with rocks from the dining area.
SHAMBLES! SHAMBLES! SHAMBLES! SHAMBLES! SHAMBLES!------
Horizon swaps everyone but himself back into the dining area, leaving him and the villains staring each other down.
"So, how'd you find us?" Horizon asks.
The boy doesn't respond, only raising his pistol and opening fire.
One round is fired, yet it stops a foot in front of Horizon, held in the air by nothing.
A precise and wasteful use of Takt, but it always got the message across.
Horizon carefully and gently plucks the bullet from the air, holding it between his fingers as he walks up to the villain.
BANG!
Another bullet stops just inches ahead of him, echoing through the forest and helping Aoyama get his warning across.
And again Horizon plucks it out of the air.
By the time he gets to the villain, the boy is shaking, absolutely stuck with fear, revolver dropped to the dirt, staring up at Horizon as he towers over the villain. Over a foot taller than him and much larger.
"You have a name?" Horizon asks, his voice surprisingly calm all things considered.
"M...Mustard..." the villain stutters out.
"Mustard...gas, catchy," Horizon raises his hand with all the bullets and holds it out. "These are yours."
Mustard raises a shaky hand and collects the bullets. He doesn't dare take his eyes off Horizon.
Horizon, however, takes his eyes off the villain, looking across at the tall and lanky Nomu, "well, clearly you don't have the authority to command this thing...so let's make this quick."
"Argh!" Mustard chokes as Horizon grabs his neck, immediately and painfully strangling him, easily lifting him off the floor so they were at eye level with each other.
"Do you know anything about how this attack was planned?" Horizon asks.
He only gets the sound of choking from Mustard.
"Right," he reaches up and rips off the gas mask, loosening up his grip so the boy could speak. "I'll try that again, what information do you have? How many villains are here?"
"Just six of us, and some Nomu," Mustard barely gets out, feeling the grip beginning to tighten again.
"How did you find us?"
"I swear I don't know anything about that, please, I only joined the league to---" Horizon immediately begins strangling him again, not interested in any silly motivations.
"Counter Shock," Mustard's convulsing body is burnt by the strong current that completely knocks him out for at least a day. "Shambles," he swaps Mustard for Eraser.
"Horizon?"
"Six villains plus some Nomu, keep everyone at the main resort and I'll try to pick them off."
"Got it," Eraser says, and is swapped with a lone rock, sending him back to the others.
As Eraser disappears Horizon scans everything within his Room again, but doesn't detect anything aside from Mustard and the Nomu in front of him.
Because the others simply haven't received the signal to arrive just yet.
So he keeps his attention on his Room while turning to the Nomu standing beside him.
'Why would Shigaraki give a Nomu to someone, without allowing them to command it? Or without giving it a preset command, doesn't really make sense...'
He reaches forward and touches it, and it doesn't even react.
'Hmm, what is that? An antenna Quirk? Radio? Signal? I guess this is what's causing the signal drop in the area, and a Telepathy Link Quirk, weird combo...but useful.'
Horizon takes a step back and reaches for his sword, and the moment his hand touches the hilt.
"A-arsenal," the Nomu says in a broken raspy voice, and Horizon freezes, just for a moment.
INCISION!
He slashes it in two, pretending as if that word meant nothing to him.
Looking at the bisected corpse on the floor Horizon just sighs and focuses on everything around him, not sensing any newcomers.
And the moment he puts his sword away.
"Arsenal's son?" A voice echoes out from the Nomu, deep and haunting, but not the voice of the monster itself, this time using it as a puppet.
'No, that's impossible. I'm insulated. Nezu made sure nobody could know. Nobody can know! This is a bluff, a hard bluff. This can't be happening.'
"It seems we have much to discuss, doctor," the voice says again, and a small purple Warp gate begins forming a few feet away. "I find myself in need of a miracle. And as far as I know, only you specialize in such a procedure."
Horizon leaps backward and readies his blade, prepared to slash the Warp Gate the moment Shigaraki showed his crusty face.
But he never did.
Instead, the Warp Gate expanded to 8ft wide, and out stepped a tall man in a simple black suit with a white undershirt.
Standing at 225cm -7ft5-, even taller than All Might. And seemingly having an almost identical build, simply better hidden beneath the formal suit.
Horizon felt his blood crawl as the eerie presence made itself known. Nothing that he was paralyzed by, but the sense of danger he felt was new.
Real.
'This guy is making me nervous? What? Me? Why?' he questions, not understanding what was going on.
And looking into the black industrial mask with tubes connecting it together, he only got more confused.
But the moment the full body got revealed.
All For One, the incarnation of Evil. The would-be Demon Lord of Japan.
Horizon relaxed slightly, still on guard but now more confident against his foe.
'Oh... it's just him,' Horizon thinks, having been aware of this person for years.
"Finally a hero with a sense of class," All For One says jokingly, adjusting his tie to make his point clear.
Side by side they looked very similar, in three-piece suits, full face masks, tall and muscular.
Two sides of the same coin.
No, two sides of the same coin...
"I had no idea Arsenal had a child, how extraordinary," All For One says, standing only ten meters away with his hands at his side.
"..." Horizon doesn't answer at first,he shrinks his room down to only 50m wide, giving all of his focus to the newcomer, then simply raises his blade to point at All For One, "are you leading the League of Villains?"
"Oh, is that the game you'd like to play?" All For One asks, playfully, amused by Horizon attempting to avoid the question. "Alright, I'll play along, hero..."
END CHAPTER---
Discord: https://discord.gg/t7bHrdRY7Y
pat.reon: Keanu_Eugene (30+ chapters ahead)
CHAPTER START---
"Are you curious about how I know such things?" All For One asks, Horizon had taken an offensive stance with his blade facing forward, but has not bothered to strike as of yet.
"..."
"Ahh, so you don't feel like speaking, well luckily I quite enjoy the sound of my own voice," All For One releases a deep chuckle, receiving communications from the other villains directly into his head.
He focuses everything he has on Horizon, not taking any chances with this Mystery Class anomaly, just as Horizon is focusing everything on him.
Both completely ignored the fights that were about to break out, not particularly caring enough to look away to save anyone here.
Noticing this standoff wouldn't break All For One got to the point of why he's here.
"For the past twenty years, Arsenal has been doing quite a lot of contract work with me, but naturally not under this name. You may know me as, 'Mister Collector', yes?"
Horizon doesn't respond, but this matches exactly what he knew. There were no secrets between him and his parents, including who they do business with. While he doesn't know all of his mom's past contracts, he knows the most high-paying clients.
And this man is at the very top of that list, but he'd always ask for the corpses to be dropped off at certain places.
Heroes, civilians, and villains, all with unique Quirks.
"But I hadn't known she had a family, I've only met her in person once in fact, she was strictly professional and covert, but so efficient... it's a real shame she's locked away in Tartarus..."
Horizon's grip on his sword tightens, and All For One doesn't miss it.
"That's actually how I put the pieces together. After your grand reveal at the Sports Festival, I assumed your parents were dead and gone, but only a few days later...the lines within the Hero Commission were going mad, quiet calls pulling all the files they had on three particular people.
Horizon, Arsenal, and The Heart Thief...a heinous duo, and an up-and-coming hero, how strange."
"That doesn't prove anything," Horizon says.
"True, but I have friends everywhere, and they gave me everything they could find...including some very hidden reports about a certain swordsman doctor with a warping Quirk being arrested along with that duo.
How strange, but I must admit, Nezu did his job exceptionally well. I couldn't find a real name or face for any of you, and I couldn't even call you because he's so intertwined with you. That's why I'm here in person."
"We live in a superhuman world, coincidences can happen, and anyone can use a sword," Horizon says, still unknowingly avoiding All For One's lie detector Quirk.
"Very true, but we both know it was you, in fact, you've already confessed as much."
"Excuse me?"
"Oh come now," All For One gestures to the forest around them, and the dead Nomu on the floor. "As if the great and powerful Horizon would have allowed any villain to warp here, or not simply cut me down already, you're obviously smart enough to listen to what I have to say, and that means it must be true. Because if I didn't have leverage, you'd be trying to cut me into little pieces right now..."
The air between them becomes tense for a moment, then Horizon sighs, "what do you want Collector?"
"Well firstly, that isn't my true name, I am, All For One."
Horizon chuckles at that, "All For One? You're a fanboy? That's a myth, you named yourself after a myth?"
"No, it is my true self, but there are so many more benefits to hiding from the world," All For One raises his hand to the side and creates a small flowing tendril of water, then one of fire, then iron spikes from his fingers. "Enough proof for you?"
"Mmm, if you're really the 'Demon Lord', why hide from the world?"
"Oh, that's half the fun, I'm not ready to take over yet. When I do that humanity will unite against me, so I have to make sure I can fight them all. And besides, the greatest trick the devil has ever played on humanity---"
"Is convincing them he doesn't exist," Horizon finishes the quote. "Ok, so assuming you're real, what do you want?"
All For One cancels the Quirks and drops his hand, "a doctor."
"A doctor? Really?"
"Oh come now Horizon, you've obviously put the pieces together by now, All Might must have told you about our fight five years ago, that's why he was in such a rush to pass it down to you."
"So you're the villain that hurt him," Horizon mutters quietly. He sees a plume of smoke rising out of the forest far to their left but ignores it. "And pass what down to me?"
"Hmm," All For One is completely thrown off by this. "Ohhh, it seems I got some things wrong. But if you aren't it, then this is how powerful you are naturally...you Mystery Class people really are a different breed."
Horizon just keeps the sword ready, now even more on guard, giving the benefit of the doubt that this really was Japan's mythic Demon Lord.
"That disastrous fight didn't only injure him, but also myself," All For One says. "Now I need this mask to help me breathe, and I can't even hold anywhere near as many Quirks as I did before. My body is simply failing. It would take a miracle to fix me, from a genetic level upward."
"And I specialize in miracles, so you came to me."
"Precisely. I am the living embodiment of your correction on the Quirk Singularity theory, and I need you to help prevent it."
"So you're why they need to build the Nomu creatures, their test runs for making you a new body."
"And you can complete it, can't you?"
"I can do anything, and I assumed you'd want to have eyes and a nose again," Horizon says as he relaxes slightly.
All For One reaches up to his mask, "X-Ray Vision?" he asks Horizon.
"So what's the deal?" Horizon asks, ignoring All For One's curiosity about how he saw past the mask, not wanting to reveal Scan to him. "Blackmailing me?"
"You really think so little of me," All For One sounds genuinely offended as he takes an even more relaxed posture. "Arsenal was one of what society would call, 'a horrific and dangerous mass murderer', someone raised by her won't truly care about heroic nonsense.
The only reason you seem to care is because of whatever deal you've made with Nezu, I assume if you save a million people they get released, yes?"
"That's none of your business."
"True, and it simply does not matter," All For One says. "Because I need you to be willing to help me, because it won't do any good if my surgeon wants to kill me. And if the truth is revealed the government will likely execute your parents to prove that they don't play favorites.
And if that happens you won't be helping anyone. So I'll simply give you what you want. I will free them for you."
"How?" Horizon asks, he'd spent weeks thinking about this. But Tartarus's defenses would detect any changes within the prison the moment he does it. And with them molecularly bonded to the prison he can't warp them out.
They'd be executed the moment he tries anything, that's the standard procedure for all the cells in Tartarus, everyone would be killed rather than having anyone escape.
"I have friends everywhere," All For One says. "Shutting down the execution procedure would allow Gigantomachi and myself to invade the prison, free them, and recruit some new blood. But it would also reveal me to the world...and I'd rather remain dead for now."
"So it can't be done?"
"It can be, but you'd simply have to prove to me that my sacrifice is worth your favor."
"As if I'd operate before getting paid," Horizon says. "You bring them to me, safely, then I fix you. The operation itself should only take a week or two, depending on how many Quirks are in there."
"Really?"
"I can't transfer Quirks between people, but if someone is force-fed a few Quirks I can make it act as one."
"You've considered this before?" All For One asks.
"You keep sending Nomu after me, of course I studied them, but I'm guessing your Quirk isn't a Frankenstein's Monster situation," Horizon tilts his head a bit to show he's studying him.
"Oh, and how do you think it works?"
"Hmm," Horizon looks him up and down, then pauses for a moment to think about it. "Your Quirk works like a server and the other Quirks are just files on it for you to access. I assume you have mutation Quirks that give things like horns and claws, but even those aren't active since you haven't used All For One to trigger them.
And All For One lets you cut and paste genetic code from person to person, but you can't make a copy of the Quirks, it's the basis of everything.
But the Nomu don't have All For One, so they have all the Quirks active all the time, and that's why they can't really think, right?"
All For One is genuinely stunned, including himself, only two people have ever understood his Quirk so well.
"Mmm," All For One gives an annoyed growl, "a perfect and intuitive understanding of my Quirk, you're much more dangerous than expected."
"I get that a lot," Horizon says. "So if we're done here, can you go collect my payment, I'd like this all to be over as quickly as possible."
"I'm afraid I still need proof before I reveal myself to the world," All For One says.
"And I never break a contract, so I'll at least need payment before I break this one..."
"Well that is unfortunate, we seem to be at an impasse, but there is one solution," All For One says.
"And what might that be?"
"I know you are proud, as am I, but I mean no insult by this."
"Hmm?"
All For One raises his hands, palms up to reveal the holes in his palms, "allow me to grant you power, to give you more power than you can naturally handle. If you solve the mystery of your own body, of your own mind, and should you survive I will gladly break the barriers of Tartarus and deliver your parents to you."
Horizon considers it for a long moment, this was an easy way out...assuming All For One could be trusted.
But that was the problem, if this person was the real All For One, then he definitely couldn't trust them.
Allowing him to make contact with those hands and mess with his body, and if they can't overcome or steal his Quirk he could simply be killed by one of the other dozen Quirks.
It wasn't worth the risk.
Hand Of God is far too valuable for either side to risk losing.
"Sorry," Horizon raises his sword, "but I'm never letting you mess with my body, when you get them then we can talk, and I'll do you the courtesy of not telling anyone about this..."
"Well that is unfortunate," All For One sighs, "but at least I don't have to be too careful, you can heal anything I'm about to do to you..."
All For One immediately raises his hands.
AIR CANON!
END CHAPTER---
Paragraph comment
Paragraph comment feature is now on the Web! Move mouse over any paragraph and click the icon to add your comment.
Also, you can always turn it off/on in Settings.
GOT IT