Chapter 232: CHAPTER 228(Trails)
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CHAPTER START---
"What happened to Melissa?" Deku yells out as everyone else is frozen in shock.
Sero just shakes Yui awake as he sits back awaiting an explanation, while Juzo and Shinso make their way over to the commotion.
"She's a robot, obviously," Horizon says as he casually pulls Scalpel to the side, tearing off the robots arm with it.
They all look at the robot in surprise, then to him for an explanation.
But instead he just takes a knee beside the robot and inspects it.
'They used some kind of strange almost living organic membrane,' he thinks while touching the skin, using Scan on the robot. 'They couldn't have know that I can't Scan within people from range...they got lucky with this part of the disguise.'
"Should we be looking out for other imposters?" Juzo asks.
"My Quirk would be a easy way to tell," Shinso says. "If it doesn't work then the person is a robot."
"Maybe this was just her testing out some new project!" Kirishima suggests, hopeful that this wasn't a sign of something bad.
"This is the only one," Horizon says as he gets back up. "Making any more would raise the chances of being found out, this one tried to act exhausted from the festival to avoid human interaction, luckily I expected that when sending Sero to drag her over here."
Hearing this Sero gets up, leaving the confused Yui on the couch and walks over, "makes sense, but uh, what the hell?"
"Keep this quiet," Horizon looks around at everyone, seeing them nod and wait for his explanation. "Don't need the public finding out UA got breached..."
"Is Melissa alright?" Deku asks, voicing what everyone was thinking.
"She's fine, if they hurt her then its less likely David will play along with their demands. She got kidnapped during the festival, toward the end of it."
Some of them look horrified at the thought of that, and the fact that somehow nobody noticed.
"Hound Dog is already tracking the scent, I sent him to do that before I even came over here to deal with the imposter...honestly was hoping it was a shapeshifter so I could interrogate her...but this sucks."
"You intended to do that to a person?" Momo asks, giving the dismembered robot a worried look.
"Well, the stab yeah, would have left the arm on though," Horizon sighs. "Anyway, stay on alert until I get her back."
"But why the weird anniversary lie?" Sero asks.
"Such a ballsy move means the shapeshifter probably studied her somehow, or was able to take some of her memories, surface thoughts or otherwise. Throwing a curveball like that would confuse her, but since it didn't and she just went along with the lie---"
"She overplayed her part," Jiro says. "Which is why you were confident that the real Melissa wasn't here."
"Essentially yes, now I just need to wait for Hound Dog to track them down. In the meantime, stay on alert and don't leave the dorms. All the teachers are on alert but we doubt there will be anything else at UA.
The entire point of this was doing it quietly because they weren't confident in winning a direct fight, we'll be fine."
"I see, and is there anything you'd like us to do?"
Horizon looks around at all their worried faces, then at the robot at his feet. "Just stay safe, and don't let anyone know about this. But Shinso, use your Quirk on people just to double check."
"Got it," Shinso says.
SHAMBLES!
Horizon appears in Nezu's office, and the robot he was gently touching with his feet is warped with him.
Nezu and Eraser Head were already there, and Eraser Head immediately jumps to his feet ready to fight, his mind sent into overdrive since Horizon's call earlier.
"What's that?" Eraser Head asks as Horizon puts the robot on the coffee table.
"Robot copy, we weren't lucky enough to get a shapeshifter to interrogate."
"On the contrary, this could be even better," Nezu says. "Did you check if it had a bomb?"
"I'm a doctor, not a mechanic, that's why I brought it here."
Nezu immediately hops out of his seat and fishes around in his desk for a tablet device.
Rushing over as fast as his little legs can take him he begins scanning the robot, not at all phased by how lifelike it appears.
Eraser Head and Horizon just take a seat and patiently wait.
"So, how's David?" Horizon asks.
"Asleep," Eraser says.
"Seriously?"
"He's not exactly the mentally toughest person so we left him sleeping," Eraser says. "The instant they make a call requesting whatever ransom they want, he'll fold."
"Yeah but since its his daughter that's his choice to make," Horizon says. "We just have to solve this before that call happens."
"They won't do that until they're out of Japan," Nezu says as he's still scanning the robot. "They know remaining in Japan is a terrible idea with her in their clutches."
"Especially since you can track any call they make," Horizon says.
"Speaking of call," Nezu says. "Melissa's phone is in her room, and her student ID is still on this robot, but there is no bomb."
"Hound Dog would have noticed the scent of any explosives," Eraser says. "Putting a bomb in it would be risky."
"Leaving it in my possession is also risky," Nezu says as he connects a cable between the tablet and the robot.
"The sooner you can find them the sooner I can---" Horizon cuts himself off, remembering Eraser is present. "Have them arrested so the police can get some answers out of them."
Eraser rolls his eyes, "no need to lie for my sake, I know you can be a bit heavy handed when it comes to villains. After all, I've seen how you interact with your classmates, I'd hate to be a villain fighting you."
"Is that why you never let me fight Deku during Hero Training?" Horizon asks playfully. "It could be fun, and if he wants to be the #1 Pro Hero, what better practice is there?"
"Well considering the relationship you two have...that's never going to happen."
"W---"
"No, you being able to heal him doesn't put my mind at ease, " Eraser cuts him off. "In fact, it makes me even more concerned that you'll go overboard because of that."
"Tch, whatever."
"If you two are done," Nezu says. "I've learned some things from this robot."
"Mhm, well don't keep us waiting."
"Well, actually I couldn't learn much," Nezu admits.
"Seriously?"
"This is sophisticated machine, but it didn't have any wireless communication signals being sent or received from it. They expected us to eventually find it of course so this was meant to be disposable and leave no trail."
"How was it able to copy her so well?" Eraser Head asks.
"Somehow it hacked into UA and used camera footage and audio recordings, not to mention when it got ahold of her phone. It was then able to put it all together with the many videos of her receiving awards or being interviewed over the years."
"Plus it acted all tired to excuse any odd behavior," Horizon says. "But her phone and UA are run on your system, how he hell did they get into it?"
Nezu disconnects the tablet from the robot and goes back to his desk, connecting it to the computer there, "I'm not sure yet but I believe the villain has some kind of organic virtual interface Quirk."
"A technopath," Aizawa says. "Those are rare, super rare, and they all work for various governments."
"This wasn't a attack by another government," Horizon says. "Between my own value and reputation, plus my connection to America's president, nobody would be dumb enough to do that. Making your nation an enemy of me is putting a target on your back for other nations to pressure in order to win my favor."
"So its an independent body, that's better at least," Eraser says.
"And with this I can counter him," Nezu says. "Luckily he only cared for the things regarding Melissa, but the code in this robot and the relevant signals they used earlier have a brain wave pattern. I can make a program to detect and actively counter it, so event his technopath won't be able to break into my systems again."
"How is that even possible?" Horizon asks.
"Because human imagination to solve virtual coding problems such as this is limited by the methods available, but I am beyond human intelligence," Nezu does an adorable supervillain laugh which just has Horizon shaking his head.
As they're waiting Horizon gets a message from Hound Dog.
"The scent got much stronger heading to the southeast, he's almost at Kyushu," he says. "Which only leaves one of Japan's islands as the potential escape route."
"Well we already have airports on high alert," Eraser says. "Even if it was meant to be a quiet alert, apparently this guy controls technology to some extent right? That means they know, so they can't use the airports."
"True, which means they'll need a boat, and if their main goal is just to get out of Japan, its a safe bet they'll head to South Korea since that place is super close."
"Yes but they can't use legal means since we've got those on alert too."
"Yeah well, from the direction Hound Dog gave me, I've got a pretty solid idea of the ports they'll use."
"Really, how?" Eraser asks.
"When I was researching for that black market operation I did, I compiled a list of ports with the most black market naval smuggling to South Korea," he lied.
"I see, well you should get your hoverboard and fly ahead of Hound Dog, good luck."
"Yeah, and if they call here, just buy me some time. Even if they enter South Korea, I doubt the politicians over there will mind me paying a visit to get them back."
With that Horizon warps away, on the hunt for his targets...
END CHAPTER---
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