Chapter 157: CHAPTER 153(Cellophane!)
Discord: https://discord.gg/t7bHrdRY7Y
pat.reon: Keanu_Eugene (Unlimited chapters ahead)
CHAPTER START---
"C'mon, faster!" Cellophane berates himself as he swings through downtown Tokyo. Hundreds of meters above the street, swinging between the brightly lit skyscrapers of Japan's night-time skyline.
"Call Horizon!" Cellophane commands, and his visor obeys.
His visor is connected to his phone just as Horizon's is connected to his own, but the call doesn't connect.
"Damn it, the guy with the hoverboard doesn't pick up, just great," Cellophane grumbles.
He was half sure Horizon was occupied with his blonde 'friend' back at Horizon Tower.
Rushing between the buildings his eyes are laser-focused on the holographic map displayed in his visor, showing the current moving location of a helicopter moving through the city.
A hostage situation that all the nearby heroes were immediately alerted of.
'Great, just as I was on the way back to get some sleep, and then some right jerk get kidnapped from his own party. I just hope I get there before he gets hurt or disappears,' Cellophane swings around a building and sticks to the side of it.
He uses his feet and one hand to hold on while he looks around, then looks up at where the helicopter is, still dozens of meters above his current altitude.
Looking down at the streets below he shakes his head, "ok, maybe ask Mei for a parachute, just in case..." he mutters before swinging toward the Matani National Hotel.
As he notices the helicopter hovering within the city to prevent police choppers from being sent to follow it, as flying between buildings is highly illegal, Cellophane grits his teeth.
"Time to see what these upgrades can really do," he takes a deep breath and presses down fully on the button on his right palm.
The line of tape that was shot from his right hand suddenly retracts, hard enough to almost give him whiplash as it yanks him forward.
Even with all his training for this exact feeling, the real thing was somehow a bit different.
As the line retracts fully back into his costume he steps on the building and sticks to it will all four limbs. Looking up at the helicopter currently taking off.
Rushing up the building in a full-standing sprint, he uses lines of tape to constantly pull himself forward so he doesn't fall back.
And to the people below, they see this madman running up the side of the building as if his life depended on it.
With every other step he shoots a line forward and pulls himself toward where it connects, effectively rappelling up the side of a building.
"Oh c'mon," Cellophane groans as the chopper begins pulling away from the building and heading downtown again.
With no hesitation he pushes off the building, leaving a small crack in the reinforced glass pane he pressed against, and launches toward the adjacent building.
And as the crowd below gasps in horror, he fires a line of tape and continues swinging through the city, chasing after the helicopter.
As he's swinging he analyzes the chopper.
'Modern, but open doors on both sides. A buff dude sitting on one side with his foot hanging off the edge.
They left the doors open to shoot at any police choppers or Pro Heroes that would chase. Good, I can use that to get in and grab the hostage, then just jump out the other side.
But how do I approach, ahh. Approach from below, avoid the blades obviously, but I should be careful that something doesn't go wrong...'
As he was making a plan and analyzing the situation, Cellophane was trying his best and slowly catching up.
Getting closer every time the chopper would have to corner around a building, with his superior maneuverability he'd get closer as he's unable to match its speed on a straight line.
Until finally, he manages to attach a line to the underside of the chopper.
'Quiet now, not that they could hear anything...' he thinks as he retracts the line, pulling himself up toward the chopper.
He carefully places his palm on the underside as well as his boots, sticking to it, trying not to think about the street far below him.
"Ok, be quick about it," he mutters, then looks to his right, seeing the man's foot hanging out the side of the cabin.
Then he waits...until they finally get close enough to a nearby building.
'Binding Shot!' he fires some tape at the man's leg and wraps around it, then fires the other end to the building they were passing by.
"AHHHHH!!" the man screams in horror as he's ripped out of the chopper and left hanging off the side of the building.
'Weighted shot!' Cellophane fires a shorter line of tape with weights at either end, attached by his suit, that hit the building and runs across the man. A little more insurance to make sure he doesn't fall to his death.
The moment he does that, he crawls into the opposite door of the chopper. And as expected, he sees two men looking out the door their friend just got torn out of, confused by what happened.
He sees a pilot checking the radar in case there was anyone flying around.
And he sees the hostage, Law Matani, a seemingly young man tied down with a chain to the seat in the cabin.
Law's eyes flicker over to Cellophane but thankfully the man remains quiet, just watching with an oddly calm expression.
He appeared more annoyed than afraid.
Cellophane nods at Law, realizing he can't just grab him and run because of the chains.
Then he quickly prepares piece of tape and steps forward in the cabin.
Delivering a spartan kick to one man, pushing his back, and launching him out of the moving helicopter.
While he's flying forward Cellophane shoots a line of tape that wraps around the man, then sticks the other end to the floor of the cabin.
He then moves to do the same with the second standing man, but before the kick could connect the man spins around and catches it, pulling him in for a headbutt and tossing him out of the cabin.
Cellophane's world goes black for a moment before he snaps awake.
"Shit!" he cries as he fires a line and catches himself, immediately swinging after the chopper. He still sees the man dangling off the line at the underside of it.
"Oh I'm gonna get payback for that," Cellophane grumbles as he quickly catches up.
But as he's closing in to enter the chopper again.
BANG!
The man in the chopper opens fire at him with his rifle.
"Ngh!" he screams and loses his momentum as a bullet hit his side, barely grazing him but still drawing blood.
"Ok, new plan," he realizes the same approach won't work as the man was looking at him from the door of the cabin.
Another volley of shots is fired.
"AGHHHH!" Cellophane gets shot in the shoulder and releases his tape for just a moment, falling a dozen meters before he shoots another.
And the helicopter just pulls that much further away from him.
"No time for first aid," he reminds himself. Recalling the image of the person he had to save, the hostage that was trying to keep a brave face even in this situation.
Seeing the helicopter cornering around an office building he spots his opportunity.
Instead of giving chase, he checks his map, seeing the chopper was going around the building to the other side, so he decides to take the direct approach.
Swinging the the building he fires two line of tape, tightens his grip, then retracts them at full power.
Rocketing toward the glass side of the building at full speed.
He tumbles during this, aiming his feet at the glass and straightening his body.
The new upgrades to his suit are meant to take this kind of force when aligned in such a way, allowing him to reel himself in to deliver finishing blows to powerful villains.
Or traverse situations like these.
CRASH!
He slams through the glass and winds up in a maze of empty cubicles, and luckily he can see the chopper as all around him the building was glass on the far walls. Allowing him to track his target through the tinted windows.
Breaking into a full spring while holding his shoulder, Cellophane slams through the cheap and depressing cubicles.
Breaking apart splintered wood and cardboard, never taking his eyes off the prize.
As he makes it to the other side he's just barely ahead of the helicopter, so when he runs up to the window he fires one line at the floor and another at the ceiling.
Reeling himself toward the glass at full power he straightens his body and rockets through it, this time flying past the nose of the helicopter and winding up on the opposite side of it.
He tumbles in mid-air and launches two lines at the helicopter, and before the last man can make sense of what madness he was seeing.
Cellophane kicks him in the chest, hard enough that he's sent out of the helicopter and into the building he just jumped out of.
Seeing the man launched into the building he places a hand over his bullet wound and walks up to the pilot, squeezing the man's shoulder to get his attention.
The man turns around, scowling at the hero, glaring bitterly at him.
"LAND THIS THING! NOW!" Cellophane yells so the man can head him over the engine.
The man pauses for a moment, seemingly considering his options. The opens his mouth...
A vomits a small stream of molten lava directly at Cellophane.
The hero barely dodges as the man is desperately trying to spit the excess drops onto the floor so he doesn't burn himself.
Cellophane is stunned but this, then looks to where the lava hit. Seeing a hole in the roof, exactly where the blades were previously connected...
He, the hostage, and the kidnapper look at each other. And the man atleast has the decency to realize how badly he just messed up.
Cellophane quickly spins and delivers a strong right to the man's jaw, cracking it and knocking him out as they begin to fall.
"Shit!" he screams out, glancing at the hostage for a moment. The man just had his eyes closed, seemingly praying for someone to save him.
'No time to search for a key, and one of the others could have had it, and if I let this thing fall it could hurt someone on the street below...the other Pros should be down there clearing people out, but I can't take any chances, I need to stop this thing...'
He sticks his feet to the floor of the cabin, and as they're falling launches two lines at the building only 20 meters away from them, attaching it to the floor of the cabin.
The lines immediately snap under the strain, but he does it again, and again, and again.
Dozens of times as they fall two hundred meters.
And eventually, the constant lines of tape forces the helicopter to swing into the nearby building, slamming into it just barely and slowing the fall.
The impact knocks Cellophane off his feet but he grabs on with his adhesive glove to the roof and steadies himself.
"Rapid Fire Shots," he screams, pushing his equipment and his quirk to the limit as he makes multiple lines by the second, attaching them to the building they were grating against and to the roof of the falling helicopter cabin they were currently in.
But eventually, the constant friction and grating slows their descent.
And as Cellophane's body becomes weaker. As his lips crack and his skin dries out. The side effect of him overusing his Quirk.
As the lines already rolled into his equipment run out.
They come to a crawl, and both men hold their breaths.
They were in a helicopter cabin, two stories away from the street. A trail of destruction down the side of a building.
And only thirty lines of tape were holding up what was left of the cabin.
They dare not move, or breathe.
"You ok?" Cellophane asks Law, still not moving more than his head to look at the man, who just stiffly nods in response.
"Good," Cellophane says. "But maybe we don't move until some backup gets here, yeah?"
Law once again just nods, ready for this to all be over.
---10 Minutes Later...
As Law Matani is rushed away by his people, Cellophane is left in front of a news team.
With the helicopter currently being removed from the building behind him by the fire department and a few Pro Heroes.
But after all the questions, only one would really be remembered.
Only one would be written down in the history books of this nation.
The reporter leans the mic toward his and asks, finally, "so, what's the name of the man who saved the day here?"
He puffs up his chest a bit, finally getting his moment, and proudly says. "Provisional Hero, Cellophane, the taping hero!"
And the nearby crowd gives him the first of hundreds of choruses of applause and praise he'd receive.
And with this, Cellophane, Japan's future #4 Pro Hero, makes his debut to the world...
END CHAPTER---
Chapter 158: CHAPTER 154(It's Just Money)
Discord: https://discord.gg/t7bHrdRY7Y
pat.reon: Keanu_Eugene (Unlimited chapters ahead)
CHAPTER START---
---7:33 AM...
Walking around the living room in his penthouse, Horizon is constantly looking at the hologram being projected up from his coffee table.
It was a 3D map of this very building, the top two floors where the penthouse was had been colored green.
The remainder was the standard blue with small patches of red in certain areas.
He had returned from the party at almost 4 am, got an hour of sleep then got right back to work.
After doing some research and putting out some of his contacts underground to look into the would-be kidnappers, he set that matter aside and came out here to focus.
Leaving Ryuko in his bed, and luckily Sero was already asleep in his own room by the time he got back.
After giving the plans another look he takes out his phone and calls the contractor, not connecting it to his visor, wanting the man to hear his slightly mechanical voice.
"Good morning sir!" the man answers excitedly. "Is everything alright?"
"Perfectly fine," Horizon says. "I just got done looking at the revised plans you sent. This is exactly what I wanted, start immediately."
"That's perfect, I already have the machinery and men on standby. I'll send people over to get the job site ready later today."
"Right, and about the two-month project completion time?"
"Well, we'll be gutting most of the floors, breaking down walls and building new ones. Its much faster than making a whole new building but it'll still take time. Not to mention the time also includes setting up the equipment you requested and furnishing. You won't get this done faster with anyone else, we've got more licensed Quirk users working for us than any other construction firm in Tokyo..."
"I remember," Horizon says. "And you're already faster than the second-best option. But I'm raising the completion time bonus. As I'm sure you can imagine, the faster I have a building with everything I need in it the faster I can improve my efficiency. And improved efficiency means ---"
"More lives saved, yes sir," the man says. "Well depending on the bonus I can leverage some men or equipment from some of our smaller jobs."
"I'm tripling the bonus, and I'll have food trucks at the site for lunch every day, on me."
"Well, that, I mean," the man stutters for a moment.
"I trust you to get this done as quickly and efficiently as possible, while doing quality work. I can do that, right?"
"Of course! We won't let you down."
"Good, now I need to get to work, have a good day."
"You too sir."
Horizon hangs up, taking one last look at the building plans. And a few minutes later he was sitting on the couch, in the middle with his arms spread across the backrest on either side of him.
He was honestly amazed by the scope of what he was doing, he was already sitting in 'Horizon Tower', a monument reaching the sky with his logo on the front of it. The slightly creepy smiling face looked down at the city below.
And now here he was, improving it to further suit his needs. A not-so-small fortune was thrown at various companies to make the most efficient all-in-one Hero Agency in the world.
"Do you ever stop working?" Ryuko walks in, seeing him sitting on the couch now.
"Says the sexy blonde that's with me because of how hard I work..." he says jokingly as she drops onto the couch beside him, leaning into him and resting her head against his side.
Looking down at her he finally gets a proper view of what she slept in. One of his t-shirts hung off her, white with his logo on the front. A pair of blue pajama pants, and some fuzzy slippers.
Her hair was currently a mess, but he's seen her in much more disheveled states.
She points at the hologram, "is this where we are?"
"Mhm, Horizon Tower."
"Well, you never claimed to be humble."
"For the record, I didn't pick the name, the news reporters that learned about me buying it started calling it that, then the name stuck."
"But I know you, and you would have named it that either way, right?"
"Mmm, maybe. It is the largest Hero Agency in the world, atleast when it's completed."
"Mhm," Ryuko nods. "Ours was just a small house in the mountains. Even Jeanist and Hawks only have 5-story buildings. I guess you, All Might, and Endeavor are the only people with big buildings huh? But this is like twice the size of Endeavors, and All Might's was half that size..."
"Size matters...but you also have to know how to use it."
"Ugh, no dick jokes please, you're better than that."
"Whatever, but technically this isn't a Hero Agency until I have my full Pro Hero license. I can't even sell merch while I have a Provisional License."
Ryuko thinks about it for a moment, then looks down at her shirt. "But you do sell merch..."
"Yeah, but Horizon isn't a hero identity, it's just who I am."
"Ohh, so you aren't selling it as a hero, it's just some guying selling merch of himself and people are buying it."
"Mhm, plus all the profits go to charities," he shrugs. "Buying my way into heaven."
Ryuko shakes her head, not even bothering to correct his heathenistic statements anymore, "so what's this agency got? And why is the top of the building green?"
Horizon begins gesturing to certain parts of the hologram.
"Renovations start tomorrow, but don't worry you don't have to move out or anything. Just use the same back exit you already use so nobody knows that you live with me."
"Yeah, can't have them kidnapping me like some damsel in distress, but I'm sure my knight would come rushing in to save me, right?"
"What, no."
She leans away from him, frowning at that response, "and why not?"
"Because you're a former Pro Hero, if you get kidnapped then they can keep you, because you deserve it."
"Jerk," she pouts cutely, and he just pulls her back to his side.
"Anyway, the top is green because that's the penthouse, that won't be affected by the work because I had it altered when I first bought this place."
"Yeah but most of it is red, I mean do you really need to change...what like 120 floors?"
"135, the other 15 are fine as they are. But this building was a mess of cubicles and a few law firms before. I need to break down a lot of walls to make bigger rooms."
"For?"
"Hero stuff. Training rooms, equipment storage, indoor Quirk training."
"A pool?" she gives him a hopeful look.
Horizon sighs, "yes, a pool. And a wind tunnel to train the fliers."
"Smart, and what about these," she gestures to ten purple floors in the middle of the building.
"That's the design and testing lab, purple requires extra extra reinforcement. Those places tend to have explosions from what I know."
"An in-house design studio and manufacturing floor...whew, spare no expense..."
"Mhm, the only agency in the country that can afford it, and I've got the perfect person in mind to run it."
"The girl who made your new gear?"
"Mhm, Mei is a genius, a good person to keep close."
"Mhm," she gives him a look out of the corner of her eye.
"What?"
"Just, are you and her...like---"
"Friends, in the same way you and I are..."
"Oh," Ryuko didn't like that she wasn't as ok with that as she agreed to be. As she should be since summer is just about to end. "Well that's good, that you have other people somewhat close to you."
"Oh we aren't really close, just two workaholics that need a simple way to relax," Horizon shrugs. "She's convenient, but you're special..."
And suddenly all was well in Ryuko mind once more...
"That reminds me, I need to get her opinion on some upgrade ideas for my costume, but I don't think my control is good enough to support it yet. Maybe when up my game a bit more."
"Oh, anything fun?"
"Very fun, but I'll save that surprise for later."
After a few more minutes of talking about his future Hero Agency, Ryuko finally arrives at an unavoidable question.
"Can I ask you something?"
"Ask me anything, but I don't have to answer..."
"Right," she bites her lips. "How much is this whole building gonna cost?"
"Mmm, I try not to think about prices."
"A luxury most don't have," she says.
"Well, I'm lucky enough to have it. So the building is around 2.8 billion, I had to buy out every lease and the property rights etc from the deed holder. Then I had to buy the land itself. Then I had to pay for the legal fees and renovations of this place," he gestures around the penthouse they were in.
"Wow, I'm definitely never going to live in a place like this again after this..."
"Then the real Hero Agency renovations and upgrades, plus the cost of expediting the legal fees and permits for some of the equipment... so all in all, around 3 billion dollars. I did get some discounts in certain areas because companies want to be able to say they contributed to Horizon Tower, but it's still a lot of money."
Ryuko just sits back, barely able to process all the big numbers he so casually mentioned.
"Do you think it's worth it?" she mindlessly asks. "I mean...is anything really worth 3 billion."
Horizon thinks about it for a moment, until he thinks about his parents.
Then the answer was obvious.
All of this, and after graduation he's only expecting to use it for 2 years at most before the Commission hands them over to him and he goes to America, to live a quiet life.
Leaving all this Pro Hero business behind him.
"Yeah," he says in a gentle, almost sad voice. "It's just money, and all the money in the world can't buy a person back once they're gone. So I'd gladly give up everything I have to protect them..."
And with those few words he sends Ryuko's thoughts spiraling and her heart fluttering.
Taking in her surroundings, and the man beside her who spent so much on more efficiently protecting others.
Realizing he really was one in ten billion, exactly how lucky she was, and that she only had one more day before he returned to UA to start the semester.
The realization that she never wanted this summer fling to end finally settles in...
"So what do you want for breakfast? My eggs are great, I'm sure you'd like them," she asks, trying not to think about the heavy conversation they just had.
"Hmm, and pancakes..."
Ryuko hops off the couch and gives him a dazzling smile, "anything you want, I'm on it..."
END CHAPTER---
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