Capítulo 8: Secret Mission 01: Spectre, Prepare For First Contact (1)
NOTE, PLEASE READ: {Pyjak/Tonta/Keelah/Bosh'tet/XXX} = Words or utterances spoken in another language (either real or invented) that in most cases, I don't intend to translate. This is intended to create the effect that a character doesn't fully understand what is being said by a person who speaks that language or doesn't understand it at all or that it is not their native language
But in the chapter clarifications at the end of the chapter, you will receive the translations of those words
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Narrative clarifications:
o-o-o-o= Narration written from a general point of view or the narrator's point of view.
P-o-V= Narration written from a character's point of view.
-o-o-o-o-o-o= Breaking the fourth wall.
"_Waaaaaaaaa_" = Voice with a tone that doesn't sound human at all or that resembles the tone of voice that a talking humanoid beast/demon/weird alien, etc. would have....
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DLC: Bring Down The Invasion
Secret Mission 01: Spectre, Prepare For First Contact (1)
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At approximately 19:35 hours on a certain Sunday, Izuku would arrive at an apartment located in the Osaka district, on the fifth floor of a humble building located in Musutafu city.
When the previous Friday night, Izuku told his mother through a {Telegrem} message that he would be visiting and staying with the [Bakugo] family for the whole weekend, the happiness Inko already felt for having Izuku back in her life increased by several levels after receiving such news.
Since a few years ago, Inko hadn't personally seen Izuku play or interact with Katsuki, and added to the fact that the blonde-haired boy had stopped seeing them for more than 5 years, she came to think that the friendship her son had with Katsuki for some reason was on bad terms. At the same time, on several occasions, Inko had tried to get Izuku to talk to her about the matter, but every time she had asked her son if the friendship he had with Katsuki was going through some kind of trouble, Izuku always told his mother that everything 'was fine' in a rather vague way, so a bad feeling related to that friendship had been lingering in Inko's heart for a long time.
But undoubtedly, whatever kind of trouble that friendship had been in, it had come to an end after this weekend had passed!...Or at least those thoughts would lead Inko to prepare a special version of Katsudon for dinner the night her son returned from the Bakugo house.
She prepared Miso Katsudon, as a way to quietly celebrate the rebirth of the 'flame' of friendship between her son and Katsuki.
"Mom, you outdid yourself again...It´s delicious! This is the best dish in the galaxy!"
"Oh come on sweetheart, don't exaggerate~"
"I'm not exaggerating. Your Miso Katsudon would sell for thousands of credits at the citadel! It would be a hit all over the milky way, I swear!"
"?...Citadel? Milky Way?"
"..."- Izuku coughed several times after Inko confusedly asked him the above.
"Izuku, are you choking?!". Seeing that, Inko became worried at the thought of him choking on a piece of meat, so she was about to stand up and then perform the Heimlich maneuver, but fortunately, Izuku would speak again about two seconds later, which would prevent her acting for the umpteenth time (in the last two months) like an overprotective mother.
"Relax Mom, it's okay. I just burned my tongue a little bit with the broth"
"...", Inko let out a sigh of relief before speaking like a wise mother ,"...My child, wait until it cools down a bit; don't drink the broth if it's too hot, and don't swallow the meat without chewing it"
"Yes, I know. I'm sorry...It's just that it's so delicious~"
"Hehehe. Hmmmm...", Inko took her chin thoughtfully for a moment. She promptly remembered that she had wanted to ask Izuku why he was mentioning the name of the galaxy closest to Andromeda and/or why he mentioned a 'citadel', but she didn't want to probe further into the matter since she considered that he had surely been watching one of the science fiction movies and/or series she had recommended to him after he finally became interested in that kind of literary/television genre almost as much as she had after he woke up from his coma. And then the gray turtleneck sweater plus the black leather gloves plus the denim pants her son was wearing caught her attention again , "... Did you buy those clothes over the weekend? I don't remember you having such clothes in your closet. Honey, don't tell me you didn't even plan your visit to Katsuki-san's house well; you went to visit him without keeping changes of clothes in your backpack, didn't you?"
"This...", For some reason, a bead of sweat ran down the green-haired young man's forehead at that moment ,"... K-Kats...Kacchan and I... We didn't plan our 'Campout' very well, so to speak. So you're right, I only took my uniform"
"Geez Izuku...", Inko shook her head as her eyebrows took on a tenderly annoyed expression ,"...You just had to call me. I would have taken you more changes of clothes without any problem. It's still autumn, but I could have brought you that {All-Might} coat you like to wear so much at Christmas"
"No, No. I didn't want to bother you...", The bead of sweat that ran down Izuku's forehead was now sliding down his right cheek ,"...And besides, I had been wanting to buy clothes like this for a few months now. I want to experiment a bit with...{Vintage}...Fashion. Yes...The {Vintage} Fashion attracted my attention"
"{Vintage} Fashion?...", One of Inko's eyebrows raised in confusion ,"...Is that what youngs call that style of clothing now?...", Seeing how her son nodded his head, Inko's confusion disappeared almost completely ,"...Well, maybe it's still a bit strange for me to see you dressed like that, but...I must admit that you look pretty good dressed like that. My boy looks handsome even in clothes that a mature man would wear~...", Inko smiled amusedly when she noticed the blush she managed to cause in Izuku. She then looked at her wristwatch and then slammed one of her fists into one of her palms as she remember something ," ...Ah!, it's almost time to put the black clothes in the wash! Pass me the uniform you took before it gets any later"
"This...", A new bead of sweat would be born at that moment on the forehead of the young man who had a scar on the left side of his face ,"...Kats...Kacchan's mom took it to the dry cleaners. Kacchan spilled a big amount of Ketchup...on my uniform"
"Ketchup?"
"Yes... yes, Ketchup. We were eating...Pizza and he accidentally spilled Ketchup's pizza all over my clothes. As compensation, Kacchan lent me clothes I don't usually wear and Mitsuki-Dono told me she would take my uniform to the dry cleaners; I didn't know that Ketchup stains were so hard to clean. That's why I didn't want to bother you to bring me more clothes either...", That new bead of sweat, now ran down one of the scars on Izuku's left cheek ,"...In any case, That accident wasn't all bad. It motivated me to buy myself the clothes I had wanted to get so badly"
"...", Inko didn't know why but something told her that her son wasn't being entirely truthful. Maybe he had had another kind of accident of some other kind that had ruined his clothes or maybe his clothes had been stolen or maybe he had left his clothes at a woman's house; Maybe Izuku finally had a girlfriend and the long collar of that sweater was hiding some hickeys...!...Ooook, that last thought told a blushing Inko that she was being too paranoid, again... So she decided to put a seemingly harmless matter aside to move on to a topic that interested her even more: If the friendship between her son and Katsuki-Bakugo had found a 'second' wind ,"...Well, Mitsuki-san isn't wrong, Ketchup stains sure are hard to clean, hehe. Hmmm, by the way, honey. Tell me...Katsuki-san and you, did you have fun like old times?"
"...", This time, as Izuku's lips formed sentences, two beads of sweat were born from her forehead and went down each of his cheeks ,"...I wouldn't say we had fun like old times. We didn't go out to the park or for a walk in the garden forest Nishinomaru if that's what you're imagining. But ... We had a good time. Yeah...Pretty good. ...He just got... the XLR4 cubosphere and the new remake... of Warhammer. This one can also be played in co-op...so in the beginning...we had a great time exterminating Tyranids! We spent all Saturday exterminating dangerous aliens~. And after that..."
Although this 'Warhammer' sounded like a very violent game, the rest of the conversation that would follow would make Inko's many concerns fade away almost completely when Izuku told her about the various activities he and Katsuki did over the weekend.
Hearing that Izuku had a lot of fun with Mitsuki's son after so many years had passed, Inko came to think that the conflicts they had had in the past had been resolved and/or were almost resolved.
Therefore, at least that night she went to bed calmly, sleeping very easily even though she still had in mind that the salary from her job was barely enough for her and Izuku to subsist since her family economy was in ruins due to the interest on the debts of medical expenses that most likely she couldn't finish paying for another 30 years if she didn't get a better job and/or a miracle happened.
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P-o-V
Shortly after dinner came to an end and after the guilt of lying to his mother finally left his senses, Izuku entered his room and tried to fall asleep early. However, he couldn't enter Morpheus's World even though he had slept practically nothing in the last 48 hours; he found it impossible to fall asleep because the events he had lived this weekend had touched many sensitive parts of his soul.
He was worried about Toga's safety, about her potential escape, and about not knowing what to do with her. And on top of that, for a certain reason he had begun to ponder deeply about what it meant to be a hero.
"..."- With those thoughts running through his head, he couldn't help but sigh in defeat when he realized that he wouldn't be sleeping peacefully today either.
A moment later, He got up from his bed and stood in front of the window of his room, which he opened in no time. The night wind immediately entered the room, shaking the green hair of Inko's son in the process, who at that moment had his focus directed to the big buildings that were part of the jungle of steel that could be seen in the distance.
"If I hadn't been there that day, how many people would have been killed by that psychopath?"
His monologue was interrupted by the distant sound of an ambulance.
A sound he would hear for at least two minutes.
For obvious reasons, Izuku didn't know if the person being transported to a hospital was suffering from injuries caused by a villain or if it was a person who had some kind of serious illness. But when he stopped hearing the sound of the vehicle, his eyes would focus on the silhouettes of the stars, the moon, and Eos depicted in the firmament and then he would further analyze what was bothering him:
"In 8 months, the U.A. entrance exam would take place. The start of university classes will not begin for another 2 months after the exam is taken. And a provisional license isn't granted until a heroic university student completes at least the first year of studies. So I won't be able to legally save any lives for about...2 years". A bitter expression was imprinted on his face after coming to that conclusion.
A conclusion he didn't like at all.
He then opened a drawer of the small chest of underwear cabinet placed near that window and immediately afterward he would lift from the bottom of the first drawer a small board that had the function of being a false bottom.
From the hidden slot in the drawer, he would take a high-quality photograph in which he could see an image of himself that appeared to be between 30~35 years old. A beautiful blue-skinned woman with small tentacles instead of hair was lovingly embracing him as she sat next to him on an elegant sofa, which was located in what appeared to be a luxurious apartment.
In the same photograph also appeared other people with human or alien appearances sitting on that sofa or behind it. They all seemed to be posing in their way for the shutter of a camera that someone, or something, had been holding.
Obviously, that photograph was the one that the Drone-A.I. called {Glyph} had taken of him, his beloved, and his friends at that party he had organized in his private apartment in the citadel in the milky way of Earth-2. This photograph — as well as other text and audio-visual files that were inside the memory of his omni-tool before he died in that parallel universe — had been brought to this plane of existence as a side effect of his original quirk, as well as almost all the cybernetic implants that Cerberus had placed in his body.
Or at least that was the most logical theory Izuku could come up with as to why his omni-tool had retained such data and/or why his eyes, kidneys, a lung, a heart valve, and part of his spinal cord were still incredibly advanced cybernetic implants.
But whether his original quirk was the reason for that or whether a god had been too magnanimous with his green-haired guinea pig, Izuku was indeed grateful for having been able to get his hands on the picture now in his possession.
When he realized that he still had this image within the data of his omni-tool, he didn't hesitate for a second to connect his futuristic orange device to his laptop to send it to print later to the printer at home; When the photograph became a physical material, soon the pain spread through every fiber of his being, since with this image he confirmed 100% that what he had lived on Earth-2, had been real and not just the crazy dream of a person in a coma. And therefore, by leaving that world, he had lost forever all his friends and the woman who had won his heart; a woman he had to let go of his heart little by little for the sake of his mental and emotional state.
However, although the pain inside his soul hadn't healed yet, the joy he felt for knowing that what he had lived had been real, was superior to the pain of the loss because he deduced that with the last decision he had taken, he had been able to save not only a galaxy and all the innocent beings that inhabited it, but also his loved ones; who surely after having accepted his death, were now living their lives in peace and harmony, in a universe whose future should be more than promising.
Anyway... Why am I talking to you about this, at a time like this?...
...Because by observing this image again on this day, Izuku would be able to make the following decision without a doubt, after he observed that mature version of himself in that photograph:
"2 years. The people out there need me right now, not two years from now...", The green-haired man's gaze became determined after he observed for an instant his adult version in that picture ,"...So the villains will meet the mysterious vigilante {Shepard} before Izuku-Midoriya gets his provisional license...", A wry smile was drawn the next instant across his lips ,"... Or maybe it would be better if as a vigilante I call myself {Spectre}? After all 'Zuku-Shepard' still followed most of the laws of the Alliance, hehe"
Once that decision was made, he closed the window and kept the photograph in that false bottom, but not before sliding his index finger wistfully over the image of the blue-skinned woman:
"I'm sorry I couldn't keep my promise...", A tear slipped from the corner of Izuku's left eye and fell on the photograph, sliding down the waterproof paper to the floor ,"...I couldn't return safely to raise a family by your side...", Izuku wiped the eye that had been moistened by his tears ,"...Liara, when you look at the stars, do you see the man you fell in love?. I often do it to see the woman who won my heart. I feel that way the stars connect us...but...", A melancholy sigh left the green-haired man's lips as he finally put the photograph away ," ...I also hope that you can move on without me. I wish that you can be completely happy even if I'm not there for you. I wish that my loss will not hinder the goals you had set for yourself....", Once the drawer was closed, he looked once more through his window at the stars drawn in the night firmament and then said melancholically ,"...I too will try to move on, as you would have wanted for me too", Having said that he smiled weakly as he took one last look at the stars.
A few blinks later, Izuku regained his composure after pinching his cheek. He put aside his sad thoughts and began to forge a plan as he sat down on his bed after picking up an astronaut helmet that sat on the dresser where he had a variety of hero toys he had collected during his childhood. The helmet was nothing more than a decorative item for his room that out of nostalgia he had bought a week ago after seeing it on the toy shelf of a supermarket when he helped his mother shop for groceries for the week.
As his face was reflected in the polarized visor of the white helmet he held in his hands, a brainstorm began to invade the ex- commander's head: If he was going to become a vigilante, he was going to need a secret lair and a good disguise, things that would prevent his identity from coming to light and/or the authorities from tracing his steps back home.
The laws of Japan punished vigilantes heavily, so if he wanted to keep his mother from discovering that he had decided to be a criminal temporarily, and if he wanted to keep his career as a hero from being cut short before he had even begun it, he had to make sure that his identity was kept secret.
"And besides...A professional hero's salary could pay my mother's bills"
Lying down on the bed and before falling asleep, Izuku said the above to himself in a whisper as he thought about the fact that it was also essential to avoid being discovered by the authorities as the salary of a professional hero would easily allow him to pay the bills that so distressed his mother; Inko was hiding it from him as best she could but Izuku could still tell that the money and the expenses not contemplated in her budget (such as the clothes he had just bought to hide his wounds, gauze, and bandages), made her quite uneasy, so he should not only hide his identity just to fulfill his selfish dream but also because there was a person he loved who urgently needed his support.
Inko would definitely never ask her son to risk his life to help her pay his debts and after the accident Izuku had suffered months ago, she would surely not agree with her son becoming a hero either, but unfortunately for her, some things simply cannot be changed in a person.
"(Will I be able to make this wo...? No, I know how to do it. I can make this workout. I'm no longer that weak, doubt-filled child; I now have the power necessary to save others... and I know how to hide from the authorities quite well...extremely well in fact, hehehe)"
Given his experience living as a criminal in the slums of a mega-metropolis, and the experience gained as a super-soldier of a futuristic army in a different world, Izuku smiled ironically knowing that the vigilante who would soon be popping up in the less guarded cities of Japan's southeastern coast would be a tough nut to crack for the professional heroes and police officers trying to stop and/or find him.
Shortly after he thought about how he could improve his physical training and his quirk training; about how he could modify or make a useful armor; about the most suitable characteristics that his secret lair should have; and about what he could do to help Toga, our hero finally managed to fall asleep in a more restful way compared to the previous days.
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-o-o-o-o-o-o
(It doesn't matter if it's a dimension where the Quirks seem to respect most of the laws that govern the universe or one where the Quirks have gotten out of control; the one rule that always seems to be constant in the world I've called home twice is the presence of villains.
Some of them terrorize cities indirectly. They sell their rotten wares and infect the streets with their filth.
Some are simpler. At the first opportunity, they run straight to devastate cities and exterminate civilians or those who try to stop them.
Others stumbled down the wrong path or were born into conditions that led them to hurt others to survive.
All of these villains are easy to handle. Victims of poverty, lost kids, stupid people, slackers, thieves, minor sociopaths, etc. A shot in the leg, a broken bone, a threat...or a show of support, will be enough to stop them.
On the other hand, those who voluntarily decided to live in the dark are the hardest to handle. When you bring them out into the light after you expose the machinations they have been working on for years or centuries, they will not stop even when you have screwed up all their plans or broken all their bones. Sending them to prison will never be enough to stop them; sooner or later they will find a way to escape or one of the members of the network they built up over decades will manage to free them.
Sooner or later, these villains will catch the unfortunate ones in their crossfire.
So the only answer I could find to stop this madness immersed in an endless cycle was to follow the path of self-sacrifice by eliminating a part of myself. I eliminated the naivety and purity of my soul when I decided to stain my hands with the blood of criminals. And from then on, I lived day by day with the guilt of an executioner, all to make sure that innocent people could have the peaceful life they deserved.
Many of the people I saved by following this path called me a hero...
But many others also hated me for my actions. And some others even came to fear me...
Still, as long as my heart kept beating, I was always there for them...
Even if many believed they didn't need me...
Even if many called me crazy, a renegade, or an anti-hero...
Even if many didn't like the path I had chosen...
Even if I had to deal with a society of heroes that wasn't ready to face their fragile and distorted reality...
And of course...
Even if I had to face again danger villains that came from beyond the stars)
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-o-o-o-o
[Day number 17 after a pulse of green energy was observed for the first time...]
[At night, somewhere in the troubled and economically dysfunctional Osaka district...]
"Shoji, where are we going?. These streets don't seem to be very safe". A middle-aged single mother asked a bit anxiously as she followed her Japanese boyfriend. Her sweet 5-year-old daughter was accompanying her, holding one of her hands at all times.
Gloria Flores, a strong-willed woman of Latin American origin, had been dating Shoji for about 11 months. Three years after moving from Peru to Japan for work purposes, she met Shoji-Takahashi, a man who physically didn't stand out much as he was a bit fat, a bit ugly, and about 13 years younger than her.
However, despite all the disadvantages previously mentioned, Shoji triumphed where many soldiers had fallen. He never gave up in his attempt to conquer Gloria's heart; after a few months of being quite insistent and romantic, Shoji had finally managed to melt the wall of ice in the woman's heart, so that since a few months ago, the chubby man had become the official boyfriend of a beautiful single mother.
And today, the young man whose appearance resembled that of a faun, decided that it was time to become Gloria's husband and the official father figure of little Carolina.
To complete that goal, Shoji had thought of taking his girlfriend to the most famous amusement park in the city of Takassago. In the final act of the date, he planned to propose to Gloria at the top of the Ferris wheel while watching the city lights and the figures of Andromeda's stars in the sky.
Of course, Gloria knew nothing about their plans, so she wasn't sure why they were walking between alleys and avenues that led them west of the city...
"Oh, don't worry dear, these streets are safe. I've taken this route before. We're headed to the nicest place in town. Tonight I want it to be special". Shoji said, flashing her a smile. For obvious reasons, he wasn't very specific but at least he tried to clear some of the worries that he imagined were going around in Gloria's head.
After walking for a bit, the three of them came upon a dark dead-end alley.
"What's going on?". Gloria asked apprehensively, holding her daughter close. The partial lack of light had frightened the little girl a bit.
"Ah! Sorry! Sorry!... I seem to have the wrong street. Hmmmm, I guess...Yes! We were supposed to turn onto the next avenue. Don't worry, we'll get to that nice place in about 5 minutes...", Shoji ducked his head several times, using the classic oriental position to apologize. That done, he explained as he invited them to follow him to the exit of the alley. He was trying to reassure them ,"...{Carolina} and you are going to have a lot of fun in that place. I promise you!"
With that said, the three of them walked back towards the exit/entrance of the alley, but...
"Well, well, what have we here?"...Before they walked down the last stretch of the alley, a person would say the above as he smiled viciously just as his figure ended up obstructing the exit of the alley ,"...Why does a filthy mutant think he's allowed to walk through my territory?"
As that person spoke contemptuously, 8 other People would also appear on the scene, immediately surrounding who was their criminal leader.
The leader wore a sleeveless gray T-shirt, two gold chains adorned his wrists and a plain pair of pants covered his legs. His hair was a reddish-brown color which was partially covered by the metal helmet that obscured most of his head. The helmet had two holes for the eyes, where only blue-green dots of light could be seen as if those lights represented the pupils of this person.
On the other hand, only two of the 8 people who had just arrived at the site had appearances that were far from that of a stereotypical minor gangster. And they were also the only ones who weren't carrying a baseball bat.
One of these delinquents was a man with brown, spiky hair. A yellow shirt and shorts covered his upper and lower body. His arms were encased in black cloth and he also wore a white mask with several holes engraved in it.
The other non-stereotypical villain was also wearing a helmet that completely enclosed his head except for a slit for his eyes. He was approximately 2 M. tall and his musculature was well-built with thick, muscular arms. He wore a black sleeveless t-shirt, greenish-brown pants, and brown shoes.
"{Mami}?!"
"Shoji! Who {Carajo} are they?!". The woman inquired fearfully as she hugged the little girl as the criminals slowly approached them. *3
"I don't know, but get behind me!". Shoji said as he activated the special ability of his mutant quirk. Immediately the small horns on his forehead grew up and back, taking the shape and size that the horns of an adult mountain goat would have.
Shoji didn't know if his curved horns plus a tough skull plus the legs and feet of a mountain goat would be enough to stop those criminals but he wasn't going to let those guys get their hands on his loved ones.
"I should have taken them by Taxi! Why I thought a walk through the streets at night would be romantic?!". At that moment he blamed himself countless times for not having taken them in a cab to the amusement park; he also blamed himself for having decided not to be a hero and for having neglected his physical condition. Those among other regrets ran through his head as he pounded the ground with one of his hooves as he tried to look more menacing.
"Oh, Oh, Oh. Guys, looks like we pissed off the shitty deer~". The leader of the criminals sneered as he thundered the fingers of one of his fists with his other hand.
One of the members wielding a red baseball bat shouted: "Does he thinks he has a chance?!"
"Looks like it~ So show him who owns the neighborhood~". The leader raised his hand in the air and then his fingertips each turned into what appeared to be Gun Muzzles.
"{Victor}, can I keep the woman? I want to savor every bite of those sweet legs. I love it when the skin on some legs is smooth and caramel-colored~". The tall strong-armed villain with the gray helmet on his head said pervertedly.
"Yes, Yes, whatever you want {Hard-Head}"
"Cool!"
"Hey, Boss! What about me?!. Can I keep the child? You know I like it better when the fruit hasn't ripened, hehehehehehe". Now it was the turn to speak for the long-armed gangster, dressed in the yellow shirt that exposed his abdomen.
"I don't care {Gravit}. As long as you break the fucking deer's legs, that foreign piece of shit will be yours my dear lolicon~"
"Thanks boss!"
Shoji and Gloria's bodies shuddered after those guys' disgusting words reached their ears. And seeing how the tongue of the dress in yellow clothes licked their lips and rotten teeth only further increased the disgust and fear they felt at that moment.
"Whaaaaa!". An instant later, when the first baseball bat hit Shoji's right arm hard, Carolina cried as her mother hugged her while covering her eyes.
"Leave them alone!". Shoji tried to defend himself as best he could from the swinging baseball bats.
He dodged the occasional blow and managed to kick/headbutt the criminals. However soon the number and experience of the criminals outweighed the willpower of Shoji, who in less than a minute had fallen to the ground where he would begin to receive many blows. Soon the goat-man's blood began to be spilled on the ground.
"N-No! D-Don't go near her!", Shoji tried to get up as he watched the criminal who had set his eyes on Carolina approach the child after he had lost interest in hitting him. But even though Shoji used all the willpower he had... "Aaaaah!"... He couldn't stand up as the pain spread to his every nerve as one of his legs crackled horribly when he tried to stand up while he was still being hit.
Most likely one of those blows had already caused a fracture in his right leg.
Unless a hero appeared in this neighborhood as if by magic, there was no hope; Shoji thought as he watched Gloria being tossed aside after standing up to block the criminal's path to her daughter. [Gravit] had pushed Gloria out of his way by slapping her in the face.
"Hey {Gravit}! Don't touch my sweet candy's face! If you made her ugly I'll break the fingers on that hand!"
"Calm down! Calm down! I thought you were going to complain, Yes? I just gave it a little tap. Look; there's no blood. Take care of her at once and let me enjoy myself the sweet younger skin of this child!"
"Don't order me!"
Despite the little squabble between what appeared to be the second and third in command in this group of criminals, All seemed lost...
...All seemed lost until Shoji's enhanced hearing heard the muffled sound of what appeared to be a firearm...
*Clank! Clank! Clank! Clank! Clank!*-...When Shoji directed his sight towards the source of that sound, thanks to his vision enhanced by his goat physiology, he noticed how on the corner of the rooftop of that 5-story building adjoining the alley, a man wrapped in black armor from head to toe was holding in his hands a gun with an unusual design.
"Uh?"
"Did something just sting my neck?"
"What the hell is this?!"
"Is it a dart?!"
"At what point were we attacked?!"
"Is this the act of a hero?!"
"A hero?! No way! Professionals don't usually come through this neighborhood!"
About two seconds after that silent sound was heard by Shoji's keen goat ears, 8 of the 9 villains on the scene finally realized that something strange was going on. So Victor plus seven of the gangsters who had been beating Shoji stopped their violent actions to examine themselves.
Each one of them had felt that something had penetrated the skin on their necks causing a sharp pain in the process; so some of them thought that a rather big insect had just stung them. However, when they directed their hands to the injured areas of their necks, they definitely never expected that what had pierced their skin and flesh was a strange dart-like artifact.
A dart that closely resembled the tranquilizer dart that a veterinarian or hunter would use to put lions or other wild animals of a similar size to sleep.
"Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah!...", On the other hand, none of the previous Gangsters had managed to hear their own words since their voices had been dulled by the horrible scream of the thug who had been about to touch little Carolina's head ,"...Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah! Fuuuuuuuuuck! Fuuuuuuuuuuuck!...", When [Gravit] had finally become aware of the pain spreading through his being, as he continued to scream painfully, he had turned his visual focus to his hands ,..."What the hell is going on?! What the hell is going on. Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah!",... where he would observe how some kind of darts had half pierced the skin and flesh of each of his hands, which in just a few seconds would have horrible sores and pustules resulting from third-degree burns.
Third-degree burns were inflicted by the high temperature of the metal of those darts. Metal that looked as if it had just come out of a forge because it glowed red hot.
When he realized that, the villain known by the police as [Gravitation Spring] and called by his comrades only as [Gravit], took off the darts as he could and then threw them to the ground while he continued screaming like a madman while turning his neck from one side to another, looking around for someone or something. He was trying to find an answer as to why he was the only one who had been shot with incandescent darts that had almost completely ruined his precious hands.
Shortly after he began his tantrum and before the smell of burning flesh spread throughout the scene, the thug's questions would be answered when a figure jumped from the fifth floor of a building into the alley where he was.
*Crash!*-The sound of concrete breaking reverberated across the scene as the figure's feet finally touched the ground, creating a small crater in the process of his descent.
"_Consider yourself lucky. I only slightly destroyed the hands with which you have touched countless children_", The man wrapped in the black armor whose design combined a medieval theme with a space theme said seriously in a low, semi-electronic tone of voice. His voice was probably being distorted by the use of the strange space helmet he was wearing ,"_If there were no civilians present, I would have turned you into a eunuch by now_"
Leaving aside the terrifying seriousness of his words or the fact that he had just jumped from a fifth floor without flinching or that he had just shot them all with pinpoint accuracy without them even noticing the issue; the horizontal-thin red visor of the helmet and the image located on the bib and left shoulder drawn in blood-red paint gave the gangsters on the scene a very obvious sense of danger.
The drawing of what appeared to be some kind of dragon out of a nightmare or...a demonic dragon-like creature, was a pretty clear danger signal all by itself.
"You! Dou you burned my hands?!"
"_Be thankful I used 'Incendiary Ammo' at the lowest possible level or there would have been nothing left of your hands. So don't keep complaining_"
"You son of a bitch! You're going to pay for this! I'm going to...!"
"_Sorry, my family has debts~...So I can't pay you back!_"
The pedophile couldn't even finish his sentence. After one of his arms inhumanly elongated to try to punch the guy inside the armor, This one, in one swift movement dodged a punch that Luffy would have been too embarrassed to see given the limited length to which that limb was able to elongate.
In any case, in the next blink, an armor-wrapped fist struck [Gravit]'s face with such force that it not only destroyed his helmet but also fractured his upper and lower jaw plus his nose while shattering all of his front teeth. At the same time, the villain was also thrown by the momentum of the blow to one of the walls of the alley where he would end up being unconscious shortly after his body ended up embedded in the concrete.
"_You better not escape from prison or the next time I catch you I will use the punishments that the Urdnot clan taught me to deal with pedophiles!_", The armored man spoke seriously again while being watched by some criminals puzzled by how this situation had changed so suddenly. Once the space knight enunciated his strange threat, he reached over to Gloria and helped her stand up ,"_Ma'am put your daughter on your chest and then plug her ears. The little girl has already witnessed enough violence for today. And what I will do next will still be a function inappropriate for minors. You know what I mean, don't you?_"
"Y-Yes. I-I think I understand", Still partially in shock at being in a situation like this, and bewildered by the sudden kindness and understanding she was being given by a Hero who seemed to be very cruel to villains, Gloria spoke briefly ," Oh F-For God's sake! Shoji! He's still surrounded by all those...!"
"_Don't worry Lady, your husband isn't longer in danger. In a moment I'll take care of all those villains without anyone else getting hurt_"
"He's not...Forget it, that doesn't matter. Thank you very much {Señor}!", It looked like Gloria was going to give him an explanation but for some reason, she thought it wasn't necessary. A moment later she ran up to her daughter as she asked her to come up to her as well. They both reached each other halfway; the child being the one who was shedding the most tears at that moment , "My baby! Come! Come to {mama}! Hurry, hurry!"
"{Mamiiii}!"
"Don´t Cry, Don´t cry. It's going to be all right! Don't cry anymore, my baby. Listen {Carito}, you have to be brave and do what I tell you. {Mama} will cover your ears, okay?"
"W-Why {mami}? W-W-Will more bad things happen to Shoji-Chan?!"
"No, my love. It's just that this {heroe} has to do his job..."
"Is Th-That person a {heroe}?"
"Well, he saved us, didn't he? So I guess he is a {heroe} my girl. Now you listen to {mama}..."
As the woman tried to calm her daughter with sentences spoken in a strange mix of Japanese and Spanish, the man inside the armor went about his business from the moment he turned around to focus all his attention back on the crooks.
Criminals who were going through another unexpected crisis.
Victor didn't know for sure why almost everyone in his gang had fallen asleep. The tongues of his gang members were protruding out of their mouths and releasing drool in droves as their bodies lay on the ground.
A few seconds later after the iron man started talking to the woman, all the members of his gang except him and [Hard-Head], had begun to behave like drunks, staggering back and forth erratically. That happen until they suddenly ended up becoming unconscious in a pitiful way.
That's probably why the iron man didn't bother to talk or fight with them and instead, went to talk to the woman. He knew there would be no way they could attack him from behind, because...
"T-T-T-The Dart...T-T-The f-f-fucking Dart...T-T-T-This guy...T-T-This guy d-d-d-d drugged us before he started the fight! ", Victor realized that fact after he looked at the dart in his hands after a numbing sensation began to invade his body and mind, causing his words to begin to slur and the world to begin to spin , "H-H-H-Hey {Hard-Head} we have to finish him off b-b-before whatever h-h-he drugged us with ends up h-h-h-having an effect!"
"Y-Yeah, I-I'd already figured that out! I-I'm n-not an i-idiot, you know?!". That said, [Hard-Head]'s muscles expanded, making him slightly even more muscular than he already was. The next moment he charged forward swiftly, as Victor took up a position where the bullets that would hurl his fingers at his enemy would not cross the path [Hard-Head] had chosen to bring down the man of steel.
In the next blink, Victor unleashed a volley of lead at the hero...
*Bang!**Bang!**Bang!**Bang!**Bang!*-...Leads shot whose power was insufficient to pierce and/or scratch the hero's armor. After impact, each bullet bounced pitifully to the front or the sides with a much lower velocity. When some bullets were redirected by the initial impact toward [Hard-Head]'s body, they didn't cause him any damage.
Behind the mask, the next moment the hero most likely narrowed his eyes when he observed how one of those bullets almost hit Shoji, who was still lying near his position. Definitely, if he wanted to prevent anyone else from getting hurt as a result of a crossfire, he had to finish off the remaining villains as quickly as possible.
"W-W-W-What the hell?! M-M-M-My bullets can pierce s-s-steel with ease!...", Victor didn't know what was going on, "W-What's that armo...?!", He said with halting words before staggering to the side for the effect of the drug coursing through his body. As he asked a puzzled and rhetorical question, he prepared to fire another volley of bullets from the cannons her fingertips had become...
"Guaaaagh!"...But at a super-human speed and with the sound of the wind in between, before Victor did that, the armored man ran up to stand next to him, only to then give him a powerful hook in the liver that sent Victor to the world of dreams shortly after he vomited all the food and bile he had stored in his digestive system.
Victor's question was never going to be answered...
"_Son, This isn't a mere metal_",...Or maybe it was, given that the man in armor said smugly as he easily dodged [Hard-Head]'s blows. The concrete of the walls was cracked with ease forming holes throughout its thickness and/or the air buzzed loudly whenever the villain's blows missed ,"_I built 'Blood Of Harvester' with the Tugnstene of...Geez, Control Yourself [Spectre], this isn't time to brag_", He sighed somewhat chagrined ,"_I'd better end this fight quickly_"
________________________________________________________
P-o-V
Once the adrenaline and rage coursing through the veins of the ex-commander were reduced by several levels after having used as a 'purge' of his anger the previous gangsters, he decided that the muscular villain would have fewer broken bones than his other companions. And besides, there was a mother and daughter present so he couldn't afford to be so cruel to sexual predators, even if he deeply hated this kind of villain above many other kinds of criminals.
So after breaking {Hard-Head}'s helmet with a side kick, leaving him even more confused than he already was by the Hexo-Dexmedetomidine coursing through his circulatory system, Izuku grabbed the thug's hands and then fractured his wrists in two fluid movements with one of the most painful [Krav-Maga] keys in existence. *1 *2
"_No woman will ever be touched by these filthy hands again!_"
"Wait! Wait! Wait! Wa...Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaagsh!"
*Crack!*- A pain-filled shriek accompanied the sound of broken bones that reverberated as the gangster's wrists bent into a completely anti-anatomical position. Once Izuku inflicted an injury that he hoped would leave permanent sequelae on the criminal, he would slam his metal boots into the criminal's knees, forcing him to his knees. Then a powerful headbutt wrapped in the special tungsten alloy obtained from a certain inactive nuclear plant would end up sending [Hard-Head] into the realm of unconsciousness after his nose deviated when his nasal bone split into two pieces.
That done, the ex-commander rushed to Shoji to investigate his state of health and give him first aid.
At first, like his wife and daughter, for a moment the chubby goat-man's face took on an expression full of fear as the intimidating and dangerous man of steel ran to stand beside him. Izuku couldn't blame the girl's parents for having such reactions. After all, they had just watched a stranger beat other human beings with inordinate force, and of course, he couldn't blame a little girl for being afraid of a guy wrapped in dark armor whose pattern painted with the color of blood was meant to give criminals nightmares either.
"..."- But the thoughts of the people he had saved or the lack of some immediate words of gratitude from Shoji, Izuku didn't care. He continued to do his job; he placed Shoji's back on a wall as gently as possible and took off his metal gauntlets for a moment to manually examine the goat-man's state of health. Izuku placed two fingers on Shoji's neck to examine his cardiac pulse and then examined the mutant's injured leg as silence fell over the scene.
Unlike [Mass-Effect], Izuku hadn't registered his Omni-tool with the Japanese Medical Quirks Society, so if any hero or policeman saw [Spectre] wearing the technological gauntlet, it would be unlikely that they would discover the vigilante's identity as he was not the only person in Japan with a computer-related quirk. And besides, the only people who knew he possessed an orange gauntlet were people from a godforsaken high school. People who most likely didn't even follow the local news and whose words would do little to prove anything if anyone ever investigated [Spectre]'s identity and/or if anyone from that school tried to link Izuku to [Spectre] because the omni-tool wasn't linked to his DNA.
However, despite those deductions being quite sensible, unless it was absolutely necessary, Izuku didn't plan to use the super-computer in the presence of other people while wearing the [Spectre] disguise. In the future, he planned to use his omni-tool when becoming a professional hero, and since Bakugo also planned to be a professional hero, Izuku would rather avoid having to deal with the investigations his former friend would surely set in motion if he ever found out that there was a vigilante with an orange gauntlet with scanning functions...
"Ouch, Ouch, Ouch. Aaaah!"
"Shoji-Chan!"
"Honey, what's wrong?!"
"_Sorry for that rough pull but I had to stabilize the leg. Soldier, your femur is fractured_" Izuku's thoughts were interrupted by the goat-man's painful whimpers after our hero splinted Shoji's right leg. Izuku had used a piece of cloth to attach that limb to a piece of wood obtained from a baseball bat.
"I see...These guys hit me hard, didn't they?...Ouch! Ouch! Ouch!"
"Fractured? {Mami}, what does 'fractured' mean?. Is Shoji-Chan going to die?!"
"Oh no my {cielo}! No! No! Nothing like that!"
"_Don't worry little girl, your fath_...", From how the child kept calling the goat-man, Izuku began to rather doubt that he was her father so he preferred to avoid confusing her when he tried to reassure her by ruffling her hair as he said, "_Shoji-Chan is going to be fine. She will just need some plaster and rest for a few months to be able to walk again as usual_", having said that, Izuku removed his hand from the little girl's head, who like the others, no longer seemed intimidated by his presence. Having noticed that the family was now calmer and even grateful, Izuku unconsciously smiled happily behind his helmet.
"Great! Shoji-Chan is going to be fine with some Plaster! Yippee! Yippee!...Ara? But what's a 'Plaster' {Señor Heroe}?"
"_Lady {Gloria}, You have a little girl full of energy and very curious, don't you? hehe_", Gloria smiled and nodded her head at least three times at Izuku's question, who would have liked to answer the question of the bouncing girl full of joy. However, the ambulance sirens that he could hear in the distance at that moment told him that it was time to go, so he put his gauntlets back on before getting up from the place where he had knelt to tend to Shoji's wounds ,"__I'm sorry, little girl, but that's a question your mother will have to answer later. I Should go_", Before getting up, Izuku looked over Carolina's shoulder, where his eyes fixed on the pile of criminals scattered on the floor and/or embedded in the walls. A chagrined sigh would be the next thing to leave Izukus's lips before he opened his mouth again ,"_{Carolina} Remember not to look back until after an ambulance arrives_"
"Do you have to go now {Señor Heroe}?! No! Don't leave so soon! Show me some other cool jumps before you go!"
"Do you have to go now?! what's going to happen to the {Pendejos} behind us?! I thought you'd wait for the authorities to arrive. This {Escoria} might wake up and then..."
"_Oh, don't worry about them Lady {Gloria}. Those guys are going to have a sleep that will last from one to several hours, depending on how well each one tolerates my special anesthetic~_", Izuku smiled behind his helmet ,"_So there's no danger. Besides, I called the police from the first moment I saw them. Hear that siren? It must be them_"
"Hmmmm. But isn't a {Heroe} also supposed to relate the facts to the {Policia} so that...?"
"Honey...I think...", Shoji looked for a moment at those criminals who were in a pitiful state and then grabbed one of Gloria's shoulders. An ironic expression was imprinted on his face after his head understood the situation. He would then explain to his girlfriend what was going on ,"...He's not the kind of hero who can afford to wait for the police"
"..."
"_Mr. Shoji, I couldn't have said it better. So take good care of yourselves and give that child the best education possible~. I have to go!_"
Finished with that variant of his classic escape phrase, Izuku picked up as quickly as he could from the bodies of the gangsters and/or the ground at the scene, the anesthetic ammunition of the 0.50 caliber model [Sig-Sauer-XM37] pistol. He had taken said pistol from a Yakuza some 13 days earlier and then modified it into a non-lethal weapon.
Once the empty ammunition was in his hands, Midoriya pressed a button on his belt and then a small compartment opened in the metal protecting his right thigh ...
*Beep* *Beep**Beep*...releasing electronic sounds in between. As if he were Robocob or another similar fictional character, Izuku stored the ammunition in the compartment where the modified [Sig-Sauer] was also located.
A few seconds later, the ex-commander would make use of his superhuman strength to jump to the third-floor ledge of a building from where he would gain momentum to reach the rooftop of another building.
"Goodbye {Señor heroe}!"
"Thank you so much for saving my family!"
"Thank you for everything {Señor}! Whoever you are! I will never forget what you did for my daughter and Shoji!"
Maybe the former commander saved people no matter what they thought of him or how he handled threats but hearing the thanks from the people whose lives he changed would always continue to fill the core of his being with incommensurable joy.
"Wait!...Shoji! Did you just call us family?!"
"did I?!...Yes?... Oh right! I did!"
The watchman who was running away over the buildings would smile pleasantly again after hearing the last fragment of that couple's conversation. That night he wouldn't know for sure if those two people would ever make a happy family but he was content to know they were safe.
"(One last round tonight, then home...)", Some thoughts came into our hero's head as he rushed through the buildings to the next area of the district where he knew heroes were sorely needed ,"(...Mental note: manufacture anesthetic darts with doses adjusted for tall, stockily built subjects. Hmmmm, maybe I might modify an anti-tank sniper rifle into an anesthetic rifle; probably I might need very high doses of hexo-dexmetomedine to put a whale-sized villain to sleep...Hmmmm, Naaaaah, don´t be paranoic. It's not like a Kaiju-level villain is going to show up every day)"
Eight days earlier, Izuku had looted a small distribution truck from the Japanese company [Bio-Star], which contained a shipment of hexo-dexmetomedine (HD) that was being transported to a nearby airport warehouse from where it would be taken to hospitals outside the country. HD is one of the best anesthetics available on [Earth-1] and was manufactured by [Bio-Star] about 3 years ago to bring to the world a substance that would be able to put to sleep people whose quirks made them unsuitable for surgical procedures, such as Heroes with mutant quirks that turned them into giants and who needed surgeries to correct fractures or correct cardiac injuries, among other major injuries.
This drug has practically no side effects, its lethal dose is ridiculously big and can be administered by air, oral, and parenteral routes, which has quickly catapulted this substance among the most used anesthetics by the health services of the Earth despite the fact that it is still a young drug in the international market.
Its sale outside the medical field is prohibited for multiple reasons, among which the following stand out: Dangers due to potential recreational use of the product, the scope of its side effects still under study, patent law, exclusive rights of medical distribution by pharmaceuticals [Bio-Star], etc.
But since the former commander of the Normandy has a way of thinking 'quite' different from that of an ordinary hero, when he learned of the existence of this product, he couldn't help but 'Borrow a few boxes for the army' as he found it much more efficient to use something like this to catch criminals. Guilt would invade our hero for a few days after stealing the items but after thinking that the company should have insurance against theft, he would end up shrugging it off.
"(Why handcuff criminals when you can sedate them?...)", A few last fleeting thoughts would pop into Izuku's head shortly after he arrived in another dangerous area of the Osaka district ,"(...Hmmmmm. On the other hand, 'Blood Of Harvester' doesn't sound as good as I thought it would sound. And I think the drawing came out more like a dragon than a 'Harvester'. So should I call this armor 'Blood Black Dragon' or something like that?)"
Izuku's memories related to the making of his primitive armor began to hover on the surface of his mind, along with some ideas of what he could do to improve the outdated technological functions of his costume. The joints and frame of 'Blood Of Harvester' had been constructed from the layers of graphene and nanofibrous tungsten from the support pillars of the containment room where the radioactive core of the Okawa Nuclear Power Plant used to be.
For certain special reasons, that metal wasn't contaminated with radiation, so the armor wouldn't cause cancer or other horrible diseases...
...And despite having a melting point, durability, and other 'poor' physical characteristics when compared to Earth-2's most current weapons standards, the armor's nanofibrous alloy was at least useful enough to counteract the kinetic forces of an impact that would easily pierce the armor of an obsolete Mako-Mark5.
"(Is That the sound of a Heavy Machine Gun?!)"
*Bang!**Bang!**Bang!**Bang!*- The distant sound of gunfire from what appeared to be a heavy firearm would interrupt Izuku's thoughts and memories shortly after he had evoked them, so our hero would have to go over the construction and upgrade aspects of his second steel skin another time.
________________________________________________________
-o-o-o-o
[Day number 44 since the first appearance of the Spectre...]
[Before dawn, in some coastal city in the Osaka district...]
"Come on you useless! Keep moving those Cages!". A white-haired villainess shouted as she ordered her men to approach just after she waved the whip held in her left hand.
The male criminals were dressed in the garb that a ranger would wear. And they were all in the shape of anthropomorphic land wild animals; a fox, a lemur, a tiger, a lizard, and an anthropomorphic bull made up the unusual group of criminals, who for some reason were also wearing dog (or sadomasochistic?) collars around their necks.
They were moving metal cages into shipping containers located on a small cargo ship parked at some poorly guarded dock on the Yodo River. The cages were of widely varying shapes and sizes ranging from about 30 centimeters to three or four meters high. Also, The cages were almost entirely covered with cloth.
"Grrrrrrrrr!"
"Screeeew! Screeeeeew!"
"Roooooooooaar!"
"Tzzzzzzzzzzzzzz!"
"Hiheeeeeeeeeeeeen!"
Since the angry sounds of various beasts could be heard coming from those cages, it was obvious that they were transporting animals against their will.
Near the villains were some abandoned warehouses, each comparable in size to supermarkets. Probably in the past, these warehouses stored fish or other products transported by sea but nowadays they had become a rat's nest; both metaphorically and literally speaking...
"You better hurry up or {Plantator} will use your heads to pay the customer for the delay!"
*Zazzz!*-The sound of another whiplash reverberated across the scene after the white-haired woman again demanded of her lackeys. In case you were wondering, she was dressed in a black and red buttoned-up outfit reminiscent of the attire a Zookeeper would wear, though from the colors it seemed she was trying to give the impression of being an 'Evil' Zoo guard
"{Bear-Head}, can you shut those pesky creatures up once and for all?"
*[The sounds of those animals are a melody compared to your voice! Damn Witch!"]
"What did you say?!"
*[You heard me!]
"Aghs!...Listen you damn freak! Shut those beasts up at once! Or you'll regret it!"
*[If you want me to shut them up, you know which magic word to use~]
"Son of a... Plea... No! I won't do it again! If we get caught because of you, I'll let {Plantator} know. So screw you!"
*[...Uuuuuuuuuuh?!...Would you be able to?!...]...
"You know that answer!"
*[It's not fair! You know I can't have a fair fight with Kunieda!]
"That doesn't matter to me! Just do as I say or {Plantator} is going to make you eat your fleas!"
*[...It's okay! It's okay! You don't have to be a pain in the Ass!]
* ROAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAR!*-After a small argument that the white-haired woman had with a person through the Walkie-Talkie held by her right hand, the scene heard the roar of a big animal, whose intensity had nothing to envy to the roar of a T-Rex. Although the roar tone sounded more like the roar of a lion or bear. But whatever type of beast had emitted that sound, immediately after that sound reverberated around the surrounding area, the animals trapped in the cages fell silent.
"Uuuf, finally some quiet...", The white-haired villainess sighed with relief when the beasts quieted down. However her screams didn't cease as the next moment she realized that several of her men had taken a short break for watching her with judgmental gazes ,"...What are you looking at?! Get to work! Quickly!"
"Aaaaaaaaaghs!"
"Shit! Shit!"
"She has no mercy!"
"..."
The whip was swung again by the villainess, only this time, several of those lashes struck the backs of several men on the scene, who were doing their best to transport as fast as they could the animals. Except for the criminal who remained silent, who seemed to enjoy the pain given his pleasant expression. Ironically, this anthropomorphic-looking fellow possessed the most original design in the scene as he looked like a cross between a cyclops and a minotaur; his voice also had a distorted tone more beast-like than the rest of his companions.
At a certain moment of the night, while they were still moving the packages, the wind blew strongly on at least 9 occasions, lifting the cloths that covered some of the cages and revealing the figures of several beasts sleeping inside: A peacock; A zebra; Two wolves; A tiger; Three lemurs; 4 eagles...
...Two hamsters whose bodies seemed to be composed of water and fire respectively; A lion whose skin seemed to be steel instead of fur; A goat that seemed to spit small lightning bolts after each snore; A chimpanzee with wings of a bat sprouting from its back; A owl with the horns of a deer and the tail of a scorpion...
...A huge lizard with a wide and robust body from whose back sprouted a several number of porcupine-like quills; An insect resembling a giant green and orange cockroach; An animal that resembled a dinosaur of the class 'Pachycephalosaurus' ; And finally, A creature with the body of a rhinoceros wich head had multiple red protuberances that apparently functioned as its eyes...
These were the beasts that were observed before the generic criminals covered the cages with their respective clothes. Some of those animals possessed too strange shapes.
"Help me with this damn freak. It's too heavy!"
"Wait! Wait! I can barely stand the weight of this thing!"
"_Move faster!_"
"Easy for you to say {Bull-Head}!"
This group of criminals with super-human strength quirks based on anthropomorphic animals kept trying to get the caged beasts into the ship's containers as fast as they could. Some of the criminals seemed to be stronger than others.
They worked for the villainess known as [Zookeeper], who in turn was one of the leaders of the criminal group known as the [Wild-Villians]; a group of criminals who dealt in exotic flora and fauna, obviously including animals that had awakened some kind of quirk.
They were all led by [Plantator], a super-criminal who trafficked his wares along the Pacific coasts adjacent to Japan, Korea, Taiwan, and the Yellow Sea in eastern China.
[Kunieda], meaning 'Branch', it was just one of the titles this person had earned in the land of the rising sun. A country that hadn't yet managed to discover the methods this criminal used to circumvent its national and international surveillance mechanisms.
This person was not as recognized as a criminal as a certain archenemy of the symbol of peace once was. And his name was still unknown to many of Japan's Yakuza; however, the professional Heroes who had so far had the misfortune to cross his path had died from plant-based poisons and/or had been left in a very bad state after confronting him. Because of the above, the Japanese authorities classified this person as a Class A Danger Criminal with a likelihood of being a Class S Danger.
"How the hell does {Plantator} get so many animals with quirks? Aren't they supposed to be very rare?"
"_Hmmmm, yes and no. From what I've heard from the {Zookeeper}, there are species of animals that will develop quirks more easily than other species. In most species, the chance of an animal developing a quirk is one in a billion, but in a certain group of species it's only one in a thousand, one in a hundred, or even one in ten_"
"Oh, I see. That explains how it's that the Chief of Chiefs has managed to get so much premium merchandise."
"By the way {Bull-Head}, when did the lady boss tell you about this ?"
"_While she was stomping my left testic...I don't want to talk about it!_". The strongest criminal of the group said as a blush spread up to his neck.
Thereupon, the minotaur along with two of his other companions dropped the cages into one of the containers of the small cargo ship whose length was comparable to that of 5 Trawler class ships. On several areas of the ship's deck, there was a drawing of a shrimp next to the message [Shrimp Bubba. The fastest crustacean in the Pacific]; it's unknown if the ship's facade was to be a shrimp vessel and/or a cargo ship of a fake company whose logo simply made use of the figure of a shrimp.
"Damn! Wasn't this the thing that ate {Dragon} the other day?!". A criminal said as he took a breath. He pointed to one of the cages where the thing resembling a giant green/orange cockroach was sleeping.
"I wouldn't say it ate him. More like...dissolved him."
"_According to the lady boss that's a {Shemrys}. And you'd better not wake it up. When it gets really nervous, it's capable of producing acid saliva_"
"Shem-what? Wait...did you say acid saliva?! Why on earth would a cockroach have an acid saliva quirk?!"
"_I don't know_", The minotaur-cyclops shrugged ,"_And frankly I don't care. Now put him back there with the other vermin. We have to finish the job before the sun comes up. These docks are unguarded at night but in the daytime, it's another matter. And besides...We'd better get out of this area as fast as possible_"
"Get out as fast as possible? Is it my imagination or are you nervous?"
"Haven't you heard yet? Last week a vigilante kicked his ass in Takassago's hideout. Rumor has it that the {Dark Knight} tends to frequent this area. Surely {Bull-Head} doesn't want to meet him again, Hehehe."
"_Silence! He didn't kick my ass, I was the one who kicked {Black Dragon}'s ass! Now shut up and get to work or besides the lady boss, I also will beat your backs!_"
"Wait a minute, what's with those names?. {Black Dragon}?, {Black Knight}?; Wasn't that guy's name {cyber-cyclops}?
"{Cyber-Cyclops}?. Man, that's too ridiculous a name for a vigilante. Even if he's a failed hero, no one would be stupid enough to call himself {Cyber-Cyclops}"
"That's what I heard bro!"
"Well, you heard wrong! {Dark Knight} must be his vigilante name!. Black medieval armor and a drawing of a red dragon...Doesn't it sound more logical to you that his name is {Dark Knight}?"
"Hmmmm, I don't know. I don't like it. It sounds too generic. Aren't there already a lot of heroes calling themselves that?"
"_Stop arguing stupid things! You're not comic book nerds!_"
The vigilante they were talking about wasn't Batman, but he had already managed to take down several major 'whale' outposts located throughout this district in a very short time. In addition to several smaller Osaka crime lords, the Yakuza group known as the [Volcanos] had been almost entirely dismantled since this unlicensed hero had appeared just over a month ago. Only their leaders were still in operation and that was only because they had luckily not found themselves in their lair the day that guy found and attacked their base of operations.
No one knew who the guy was, but they heard a lot of myths related to his looks, his name and about how wherever he went, criminals ended up drugged and with several injuries and/or broken bones that would vary in proportion to the 'quality' of the criminal acts they had performed...or were performing at the time he caught them. Of course, no one knew for sure if the myths were true, as so far there were only less than five criminals who had managed to 'escape' from the clutches of Osaka's [Dark knight].
But fortunately for the criminal group present at this moment, one of his members had been lucky enough to have escaped from the hands of that guy. Or so he thought...
"..._And his name is {Black Dragon}!. That watchman told me in person! That's settled! Now get back to the_...!"
"_Hmmmp! Beast anthropomorphic criminals trafficking wild beasts? You guys are definitely the very pinnacle of the concept of irony~_"
"..."
"..."
"..."
"_By the way {Ribeye} with legs, I never told you that. I told you that my armor was called 'Blood Black Dragon', not that my vigilante name was {Black Dragon}, Idiot~_"
When the semi-electronic voice sounded from behind [Bull-Head]'s back after his sentence was interrupted, this villain plus his companions jumped in a way that was anything but masculine.
"_I guess this confusion is also my fault for not having a gang of criminals escaping me on a regular basis_", The man inside the armor sighed ,"_Anyway. In prison please tell everyone that the one who defeated you, was {Spectre} and not a 'dark knight' or 'Cyber-Cyclops'!_"
That was the last thing the armor-clad man said before his fist slammed into the first mutant who tried to take him down. Multiple fights would break out on top of that ship, but that's a 'chapter' of this 'DLC' that will come at another time.
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-o-o-o-o-o-o
(Izuku would never admit it but he shares many traits in common with a certain hero from a certain comic book who wears a bat-themed costume.
Among some of the things that make them similar are: Both suffer from the Savior Syndrome; Both have trained their bodies and minds to the maximum of their capabilities; Both can pick up clues from incredibly elusive villains; Both are able to train/find elite soldiers to form teams made up of the best of the best; Both possess a well above average IQ; They use their resources and ingenuity to create strategies that almost always lead to victory; They are a source of inspiration for many other people; They use technological gadgets in their disguises and possess decent engineering and hacking skills. ...despite belonging to such a primitive Andromeda species~
Hmmm, and what else? What else?... Ah, that's right!...
...These are all characteristics that make Bruce-Wayne similar in some respects to the former commander of the Normandy. However, the most important similarity lies in the following fact; Just like that fictional billionaire, my young alien boyfriend is also crazy~.
How am I sure of that? Well because Izuku also possesses an Alter-Ego that originated from feelings/ideas/beliefs that were repressed for a long time inside him. So when the green-haired man puts on his 'bat mask' (Helmet), at certain times the parts that makeup Izuku-Midoriya are partially or totally eclipsed by the parts that makeup his alter-ego...
...Parts like the repressed anger that was accumulated after years of being abused and/or seeing how innocent people were abused in front of him without him being able to do anything about it...
... Anger that like the anger of Bruce-Wayne's alter-ego, causes [Shepard's] enemies to be filled with terrible fear when they get to know him and/or learn what he is capable of doing to vicious villains devoid of humanity.
To this day, Sam and I still feel very sorry for the poor unscrupulous devils who cross [Shepard's] path.
Ara? Who am I? Young man or Young woman, you're asking me that question so soon.
Well, it's obvious that I don't belong to the human race. And if I'm calling you and Izuku young, it means that my age exceeds 40s at least.
Hmmmm, I could reveal my identity to you at once.
But don't you find that rather boring?
Patience young {Pyjak}, patience.
I will appear soon. And I promise that when I do, you could never have imagined my origins or my true identity.
See you next time!)
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OMAKE AHEAD but before PLEASE READ this note: The chapter ended with that last line, BUT I have left you a little OMAKE down here.
However, I want you to know the following; This omake contains some SPOILERS. The spoilers aren't so serious that you then won't enjoy the plot of the story later and in fact, it could be considered "small". Also, this Omake is going to reveal a little more about how I plan to merge the lore of ME Andromeda and MHA
But if you are one of those people who don't like spoilers at all, then don't read this omake, blink fast and go to the library section below.
Best regards!
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Secret Mission 01.
Hidden epilogue: They are already among us.
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-o-o-o-o
[Day number 128 after the first appearance of the Spectre]
[Shinsekai City]
Near a neighborhood filled with old buildings and remnants of complex roads that are barely used, a man wearing ragged clothes like a homeless man would wear was running at full speed towards some kind of park or forest filled with trees. The most notable physical characteristics of this person were as follows: For some unknown reason he had his head tucked into a brown paper bag, which possessed two holes in the area where his eyes were supposed to go; the last three fingers of each of his hands were densely webbed in single digits; and his legs were arched back significantly, compared to a normal human being.
Not far from the man wearing a paper bag like a mask, a person wearing beautiful purple armor without a helmet was in close pursuit of the elusive homeless.
The person following the strange homeless had a head devoid of all hair, his height was about 2 meters, and he was apparently a human being with a mutant quirk, as the skin on his head was bluish and he had four eyes instead of just two.
Finally, the other thing that was also very striking about this person was that he was holding a huge knife of approximately fifty centimeters in the gauntlet that covered his left hand, so the few people who managed to observe him immediately thought that he was an assassin chasing his next victim:
"Bring a Knife! Bring a Knife!"
"Is he a villain?!"
"Let's get the hell out of here!"
"This town's a shithole!"
"Old lady hurry up! Let me through! Or that guy will stab me!"
"Call the police or the heroes! Don't just run and scream like idiots!"
All the bystanders who observed the villain from near or relatively far, tried by all means possible to move out of his way as they emitted fear-filled screams or...insults.
"Get away! Get away from me!". None of the passers-by seemed the least bit interested in helping the homeless, who exclaimed words full of anguish just after a sort of purple laser beam hit the asphalt he had stepped on a second before.
*Boom!*-The sound of splitting concrete reverberated in the scene when the homeless managed to dodge a second time the second laser beam thrown by the villain, which just as in the previous moment, would cause another crater in the asphalt and then melt it as if it were plastic. At that moment, the villain's upper eyes glowed with an unearthly violet light and radiated small flashes of the same color, making him look like the mutant cousin of GOW's Zeus or something like that.
Unfortunately for the homeless, this time in addition to a laser beam shot from his eyes, the villain would also throw the knife he carried in his left hand. In the next instant, the sharp blade of that knife would pierce the homeless head without mercy in just a blink of an eye...
...But unfortunately for the villain, after that homeless was killed, his body would take the shape of a figure composed of yellow light. When the villain held the corpse in his hands, his four eyes would narrow as he noticed that the skull he had just impaled with the knife transformed into a kind of humanoid figure composed of some kind of yellow plasma-like substance with small flashes of lightning.
*Zigagaga!*- The sound of electricity was the next thing heard in the scene, accompanied by the image of small yellow lightning bolts that were directed at the villain's body and the knife on the pavement, which for some strange reason was attracting most of those electric currents as if that weapon was some kind of mini-lightning rod.
"_What an annoying creature_...", Shortly after receiving the 'weak' electric shock, the villain sunk the eyebrow- membranes of his four eyes in an annoyed expression. Then he shook his body to shake off the paralyzing sensation that ran through his body and then whispered some words that carried a deep and guttural tone , "__Well, at least that knife didn't turn out to be a piece of junk. It will be useful for catching that slippery creature after all__", the villain said with contempt as he took a step forward to grab the hilt of that knife again.
At that moment, a passerby who had stood transfixed with fear at the scene was able to take a close look at the characteristics of the weaponry the villain was holding. The knife had a short blue-marine hilt and its sharp blade had a white-platinum color. On the surface of the blade, there were also what appeared to be bluish lines drawn (or forged?) on its surface, which gave the knife a unique appearance as they seemed to form a sort of tribal pattern
"_Run all you want but sooner or later I'm going to capture the original rat!_". Said that out loud and cruelly, somehow the hilt of the knife elongated the next moment, giving the weapon the appearance of a spear approximately two meters long.
The next moment the villain would throw the spear far away in a certain direction after the villain had located his target.
"No please!...", With an anguished tone in between, the homeless spoke just as that spear was thrown at him ,"...No more division!", As he spoke, from his hands a liquid resembling a kind of plasma that emitted a yellow neon light would be secreted. In a jiffy, this fluid would take the form of that Homeless.
And two seconds later, the duplicate that had just been brought into existence would push the original homeless away from the trajectory of the spear, which would pierce the clone's chest and then cut with its blade as if it were a simple piece of paper a light pole positioned behind the duplicate.
Then the clone that had been pierced by the weapon would end up becoming a mass of light and lightning, which would travel to the tip of the spear that had just killed him.
"Don't more división! Don't force me to divide myself please!". The original homeless exclaimed in deep panic after having watched as another of his clones was eliminated cruelly and pitifully.
Next, the homeless would run down an avenue through which several cargo trucks were passing on their way to/from a port area.
*¡Piiii! ¡Piiii!*-The trucks would soon sound their horns as the drivers tried to warn the homeless man that he could end up crushed. But that didn't matter to him as he kept running like a madman through the streets, dodging as best he could the trucks whose front fenders were about to send him flying.
After that, in a short time, the man with the paper bag on his head would enter a place full of trees. It was a park consisting of a small forest surrounding a big Shinto-style temple located in the middle of a territory comparable in size to Central Park in New York.
Not long after, with steps that were neither fast nor slow, the villain would take that spear and then enter the forest, with an expression full of smugness in between. An expression that was drawn more strongly on his face after the spear in his hands, somehow, it began to emit from its blade an electric current that traveled from one moment to another to the open mouth of the villain.
The next instant, somehow all that electric current was engulfed by the criminal's mouth while the two upper eyes of his head released an electrifying purple light.
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To be continued...
Next Chapter: Act 1: Origins/ Mission 02: Spectre, Guide The Empusa.
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Chapter clarifications
1*-Dexmedetomidine is a class of anesthetic/sedative, used for various medical procedures. Hexo-Dexmedetomidine doesn't exist, it is an invention of mine for the story. I only used this anesthetic as a reference to create the ammunition for the gun that Izuku modified (which is obviously based on the MK-22 from Metal-Gear-Solid, hehe). Oh, and I also created this anesthetic for the fic to give an official name to the anesthetic that Momo used against Gigantomaquia (Read below).
*2 -[Krav-Maga] is a 'cruel' and highly effective martial art that was invented by the defense and security forces of Israel, which would later be adopted by the US military, among other militaries in the world. I have no idea what martial arts the alliance army would teach their 'N7' but I reckon that [Krav-Maga] or an improved version of it, would certainly be one of the martial arts that a super-soldier from a futuristic earth would learn.
*3 -{Pendejo} Means: "Stupid/Idiot/Moron". {Heroe} Means "Hero". {Señor} Means "Sir". {Escoria} Means "Scum". {Carajo} Means "Fuck/Shit". {Mami} Means "Mommy". {Mama} Means "Mother". {Cielo} means "Sweetheart/sky".
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Library:
Hexo-Dexmetomedine!: One of the best anesthetics available in the 24th-century quirk world. It was manufactured by the company [Bio-Star] to perform surgeries on heroes or villains whose body sizes prevented adequate anesthesia and therefore safe surgeries.
It can be administered orally, parenterally and in gas form. It lacks the most problematic side effects that the general anesthetics of the 21st century had, such as addiction, dependence, damage to blood vessels, risk of respiratory paralysis, and risk of cardiac, renal or hepatic failure. It is metabolized by the liver and is capable of anesthetizing a human being in seconds...or minutes, depending on the dose and the individual tolerance/resistance a person has to anesthetics/sedatives. Once anesthetized, a person can remain asleep from one hour to 8 hours; a little more, a little less, depending on susceptibility.
People who possess powerful cell regeneration quirks or liver enhancement quirks or biological attributes that improve liver metabolism will be immune or very resistant to the effects of this anesthetic.
Its sale outside of the medical field is prohibited for multiple reasons, among them: Dangers for potential recreational use of the product, the extent of its side effects still under study, patent law, exclusive rights of medical distribution by pharmaceuticals [Bio-Star], etc...
Finally... In case you were wondering (or not), this was the drug that in an alternate universe, Momo-Yaorozu would use against a gigantic villain.
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