Chương 263: CHAPTER 258(Building Confidence)

Discord: https://discord.gg/t7bHrdRY7Y

pat.reon: Keanu_Eugene

CHAPTER START---

Within the mountains of Gero Japan hides a Nomu manufacturing lab, hidden underground in the forest.

Within this lab stands a slim man, tall with a head of curly brown hair. Wearing a lab coat over standard office attire, the only feature that made his Quirk apparent were the walrus-like tusks in his mouth.

All around him are large tubes containing gestating Nomu, more forces for Shigaraki to deploy when they're ready.

And his job, maintaining the genetic integrity of these Nomu, overseeing the transformation process, recording it all for Shigaraki.

The man is sitting at his desk typing away on the computer, on the screen is a constantly updating report of each and every Nomu in this building, alongside precious data that his mysterious boss has allowed him to record.

"After this maybe the boss will finally let me help make a Nomu instead of just babysitting corpses," he grumbles. "I'm an accomplished geneticist, yet they only have me here watching corpses. But atleast I can learn from watching them evolve."

He continues typing away for a few moments.

"They are superior!" He screams angrily, leering to his right, to the empty room. "Tch, the damn hospital board called me crazy for wanting to reverse engineer Nomu, but I'll show them."

He sits back and reads the reports for a few moments, before getting up angrily, throwing his chair at the wall.

"I'm not crazy!" he points at where the chair landed. "And you people won't be laughing when I evolve myself and---"

CLANG!

The metal door to the room slams open and in walks a young boy, seemingly plain and Japanese, no older than 15. He was wearing a traditional Japanese high school uniform of all things with a revolver in his hand.

"Doctor, the Heroes are coming!"

"Agh!" he slams his palms on the desk, and growls at where he threw the chair, "this will work!"

The young boy gives the man a strange look before remembering why he came here, "what do we do sir?!"

The man sighs and takes a few deep breaths, "we stick to the plan."

"But---"

"It'll work," the man says. "You're here because your Quirk can get us both out of this situation, so just play your role and Shigaraki will reward us, you get to meet that silly girl you like and I get my reward."

"She's not just some girl, she's Himiko Toga!"

"Tch," the man turns back to the computer as the boy walks up to him. "They're all some silly girl, and no matter how hard you love them, when the world starts laughing at you, she'll join them too, isn't that right..." he looks at the same spot he threw the chair in disgust.

The boy shakes his head and is just thankful this mission is over, he no longer had to be stuck here with this crazy man.

BANG!

The sound of steel twisting and concrete breaking echoes through the base as the entire structure shakes.

The man and boy share a glace, both equally afraid of what happens next, but already resolved themselves to see it through to the end.

"Too late to go back now," the man says. "Those eyes of yours can work on a crowd right?"

"Too many uses can mess up my eyes and brain, but yeah, hopefully they didn't bring too many."

"Just remember not to use it on the big guy, that Quirk of his would probably feel it."

The boy swallows harshly, "right."

The sound of yelling and boots stomping down the hallway soon follows as the officers clear the base floor by floor, quickly approaching this room.

As the sound of footsteps gets closer, it immediately goes silent.

The boy raises the gun, aiming at the door, his entire body shaking.

CRANG!

The entire metal door suddenly implodes, crumpling itself into a metal ball and floating in the air.

The man begins sweating alongside the boy, staring in horror as Horizon casually steps into the room and hovers the ball of metal in place above his head, slowly walking toward them.

Scalpel hovers at his other side, not even drawn, even as the boy points a revolver at his visor.

"No threat!" Horizon yells back at the hallway. "Secure to other rooms, and have some men escort this kid out of here!"

"Copy!" he hears from the hallway as the armored officers continue searching the building.

Horizon then drops the metal ball onto the floor and approaches the computer, looking at both enemies.

He looks the doctor up and down, then turns to the boy who had the revolver barely a meter from his visor, still pointing directly at him.

But the boy was trembling more than ever.

"Put that thing down before you hurt yourself," Horizon says.

The boy immediately drops the gun and raises his hands, "I'm sorry I'm sorry!"

The gun hovers in place where he dropped it and Horizon sighs, "don't drop loaded weapons," he says as some officers enter the room.

"We aren't fighters," the man says, his hands also raised in surrender, "please don't hurt us."

Without another word the officers pin the boy to the ground and place special cuffs on him that lock up both his forearms behind his back.

As they get him up to take him away more of them move to apprehend the doctor only for Horizon to raise his arm, "I need a few minutes with this one."

"Yes sir," one of the officers responds as they escort the boy out of the room.

"Wait, no," the boy says, but still not struggling as the two men carry him away. He looks up at one of them and says, "I just wanted to meet Toga!"

The man looks down at him with disgust, and the moment their eyes bet the boy's eyes shimmered like a kaleidoscope.

The man blinks a few times, as if he'd just imagined it all.

"Haven't you ever been in love?" he asks the other man, and as the man glances down at him the exact same thing occurs.

Each and every time they pass by an officer on the way to the surface, if the boy makes eye contact the exact same thing occurs.

Even when they got to the surface and he was greeted by a dozen officers and three armored trucks to transport prisoners, he saw everyone glaring at him, and took his chance.

'Too many people,' he thinks, but steels his will and activates his Quirk anyway.

Pushing his limits his eyes shine much more visibly for a moment, pain wracks his mind and body.

His vision now becomes permanently blurred as the result of forcing his Quick beyond his limits, and his brain struggles with maintaining control of the commands.

He stumbles and falls over, only held up by the men escorting him.

As they get him back on his feet they look at him, seeing blood flowing from his eyes, nose, ears and mouth. His eyes are bloodshot and slightly gray now, all the veins on his head raised and bulging.

"What the hell, what's wrong with him?!" One of the men yells as they continue dragging him to the transport.

"Should we go get Horizon to take a look at him?" his partner asks.

"Who gives a fuck?" one of the men standing beside the truck asks, glaring at the boy. "He's a villain, just throw him in the back, scum like that isn't worth the hospital trip," he says while opening the door to the back of the truck.

"This one is still a kid you know," one of the men says even while laying him on the floor in the back of the truck.

"So where a lot of the people the league of psychos killed, and he joined them...he ain't a kid anymore," the man shuts the back of the truck and locks it. "Anyone else down there?"

"Just one other man, we'll load him in the back when Horizon's done and take them to an outpost, everything else is just those Nomu things..."

----In the lab...

Horizon was holding the doctor in the air by his head, hands wrapped tightly around the man's skull as he slowly crushes it.

"I read about you," Horizon says as the man struggles in his grasp. "Wife kicked you off of the board of directors for the hospital you founded together because you went crazy right? Obsessed with researching Nomu."

The man continues struggling, eyes going red and his jaw and teeth begin breaking, blood flowing down his face and onto the floor.

But Horizon's hands were glowing blue, constantly healing him, keeping him awake to experience the pain.

"You were a top suspect for people we thought would join Shigaraki, guess we were right, but you disappeared before the cops could get to you huh," Horizon loosened his grip slightly. "How did you contact Shigaraki?"

"He...found...me..." the man struggles to say, some loose teeth falling from his mouth.

Horizon drops him to the floor before reaching down and grabbing his shoulder, lifting him up with one arm, keeping contact to find any lies.

"What are you here to do?"

The man struggles to catch his breath, clearly taking too long as he suddenly feels the bones in his shoulder cracking ,"argh! Observing these Nomu! I swear that's all, he said I could do real work on them after proving myself! They're the cure to humanity, and I want to study them, to perfect them!"

"Are any of these Nomu operational?" Horizon slightly releases the hold he had on the man.

"No, they're not developed enough, their nerves don't fire properly right now, and their brains can't function to do more than breathe."

Horizon glances past the man at the computer, "is everything you recorded on that computer?"

"Yes, it's all there I swear!"

"And the people who became these Nomu, do you know the names?"

"What?"

Horizon continues crushing his shoulder even harder, shattering some bones but still holding him up.

"ARGH!" The man writhes in pain but Horizon is like an iron vice.

BOOSTER SHOT!

The man suddenly feels a soothing sensation flow across his body as he calms down.

"Now, the names?"

"That's not recorded here, I doubt Shigaraki even cares, these people are just meat to him."

Horizon drops him to the floor, and as the man is on his hands and knees he kicks him in the face, breaking his jaw and shattering his teeth.

But this time he doesn't heal him, he simply steps over the man, "just like you, useless meat..." he says as the two officers who were standing in the room haul the man away.

Horizon quickly gets to the computer and connects it to the device on his forearm, with a few commands Nezu's program is instantly ripping all the data out of this computer and all the networks it's connected to.

Horizon skims some of the folder names and nods, "finally something useful."

As it downloads he finds the command to cut all power to the Nomu pods, and does exactly that.

The vitals of every Nomu immediately drops to zero, returning them to being lifeless corpses.

He looks back at some more officers entering the room, and before they can speak he taps the side of his visor.

The man nods, understanding Horizon was speaking to someone, and does a hand signal asking if they were done and should move everything out.

Horizon responds with a thumbs up and everyone gets back to work.

As the men are working, Horizon's call connects.

---Hawks Hero Agency...

Laying flat on the couch with his feet up Hawks enjoys his pack of potato chips.

Standing nearby leaning against his desk is Dabi, glaring at the nonchalant Pro Hero, clearly annoyed.

It was late at night so the Agency was mostly empty, all the Sidekicks are out on patrol while only a few remain in the building to act as communications and logistics. This allowed the villain to warp into Hawks's office for a private meeting.

BEEP! BEEP! BEEP!

Hawks sits up and answers the phone on loudspeaker, "Horizon, how'd it go?" has asks.

"Your intel was good," Horizon says, and Dabi glances at Hawks wearily.

"How good?"

"Well, you were right about this place being a Nomu research lab, looks like it was to observe the Nomu so there wasn't any fighting like you said there'd be, but that's good. Also you were right about who would be here, two non-combatants sent here just to keep an eye on the place."

"What about the intel, anything good?" Hawks asks.

"Better than the last two raids, this time they had a local mainframe with over a dozen terabytes of data, it'll take me a while to sort it, but there is a lot of good intel about the Nomu here."

"Good, but this is gonna make Shigaraki suspicious of me so I'll have to keep my head down for a while," Hawks says. "Not many people knew about that particular facility."

"Yeah it was very well hidden, I'll need time to sort the data anyway so it's fine, villains are captured and gone, now I need to get back to work, tell Pantu what I told you, I don't like repeating myself."

"Sure thi---" Horizon hangs up on him.

"He really really doesn't like you huh," Dabi chuckles.

"What gave it away?" Hawks relaxes on the couch.

"I've met you, can't imagine anyone wanting to be around you," Dabi shrugs.

"You and your bad jokes, everyone loves me," Hawks says. "But seriously, looks like it worked. Shigaraki offering up that data and facility should make Horizon question my intel a lot less, especially since this is the 3rd time in a row we've done this."

"Yeah, but this time we get something back from it," Dabi says. "The public is getting a bit too relaxed, gotta remind them that we're still on the loose. After tonight Pantu won't be able to keep us out of the news since she'll have to explain why a bunch of cops are dead..."

"Yeah, and next time we do this, Machia' deals with Horizon for us," Hawks says.

"Hmm," Dabi narrows his eyes at Hawks.

"What, admiring my handsome face?" Hawks grins.

Dabi rolls his eyes, "I was thinking maybe you would have been a good villain after all, but you just had to ruin the moment."

"Awe, you're softening up to me."

"Tch, go fuck yourself bird boy," Dabi takes a step away from the desk. "Kurogiri..."

A shroud of purple mist immediately forms around him and warps him away.

Hawks sighs and picks up his phone, making a call that instantly connects, "hey President Pantu, everything worked perfectly, raid complete..."

---Elsewhere...

In the back of the armored prisoner transport vehicle, the doctor sits with his arms cuffed behind his back, opposite the young boy who was still bleeding and had all his veins nearly bursting out of his skin.

The boy was also sweating, struggling to remain conscious.

The doctor looks around the otherwise empty prisoner area of the truck, then at the small holes that allowed the driver to hear what was going on back here.

Moving his food forward he nudged the boy's foot, getting his attention.

The boy looks up at him, clearly struggling to stay awake.

"Hey, think about Toga," the doctor says. "You love her, you want to meet her, right?"

The boy nods tiredly.

"Then you need to do this, do it for her, we should be far enough away now..."

Hearing that the boy musters all his strength and activates the second stage of his Quirk.

His eyes glow bright white for a moment as he feels it work, and with his job done, he then immediately begins having a seizure on the floor...

END CHAPTER---

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Chương 264: CHAPTER 259(Team Players)

Discord: https://discord.gg/t7bHrdRY7Y

pat.reon: Keanu_Eugene

CHAPTER START---

His eyes glow bright white for a moment as he feels it work, and with his job done, he then immediately begins having a seizure on the floor.

Seeing this, the man doesn't react, he simply leans back against the cold steel of the armored truck and waits.

SCREEE!

The trucks' tyres grind against the road as its driver slams on the brakes.

"Hng!" The man is thrown out of his seat and onto the floor, but smiles. "The kid really pulled it off."

Getting off the floor he moves toward the door, hearing some chatter outside.

He presses his ear to the door and listens carefully.

"Hey what's going on, why'd you stop?" One man asks, likely the driver of the vehicle behind them.

He doesn't hear anyone respond.

The man then hears the locks on the door moving as someone opens it.

He quickly steps back as the doors open to see four men looking at him, all armed and armored officers.

One of which looked confused at what was going on.

They were stopped on a desolate mountain path, late and night, perfectly isolated.

"What the, why'd you---"

BANG!

One of his friends quickdraws their pistol and shoots him in the head, and nobody even reacts.

The doctor looks around, seeing all the men unresponsive, so he takes a moment to look around, skeptical that things would work this easily.

Walking to the side of the truck on this desolate mountain path, he sees the officers in the vehicle ahead of them also standing idle and unresponsive.

"Hmm," the man says to himself while fumbling through one of the officers pockets, "thought he was supposed to command them to do a dramatic finish..."

BANG!

He drops the phone as a gunshot goes off just beside him, falling to the floor he holds his chest, not expecting that.

Only calming down when he looks to the side, seeing one of the men had killed himself.

All around him the remaining officers did the same, until he was standing among a crowd of corpses.

Taking out the phone he dials a number, and after it rings once he hangs up.

"Ok that'll do it," he pockets the phone and gets back into the back of the truck, kneeling beside the dying boy.

He feels for a pulse, getting a faint response, then lowers his head to hear the boy still breathing.

"Are you done in there?" Shigaraki's tired voice asks the doctor, causing the man's head to snap to the left, seeing Shigaraki, Dabi, and Mr. Compress all looking at him.

"The boy, he's barely alive, but he can be saved," the man says as he eagerly approaches the villains, hopping out of the truck.

"Would be a waste to let him die like this, that Quick sure was useful," Dabi looks around at all the bodies.

"His body wasn't functional with his Quirk," Mr. Compress says. "The more he used it the more it destroyed him, at best he could be a Nomu now."

"Engineering that would take too much of our resources, assuming it's even possible," Shigaraki says. "Our mysterious benefactor says its not worth the hassle, so we'll be leaving him to die here, the news like to report on dead kids after all..."

Hearing this the man nervously glances between the villains, "and what about me?"

"You did well, so we'll be sending you to a remote lab where bodies are prepared to become Nomu," Shigaraki says with a sigh. "Honestly we're a bit understaffed when it comes to competent minds in that department, and out mysterious benefactor doesn't want to reveal himself so Twice can just make doubles of him to work more efficiently."

"A competent geneticist like yourself with a desire to study and create Nomu is invaluable," Mr. Compress says.

As they're speaking Dabi checks his phone, "the cops notice this convoy's GPS stopped, they're on the way here."

"Oh well," Shigaraki sighs. "We'll finish this talk back at base, let's get out of here."

As he says that a large Warp Gate manifests behind them, allowing the villains to enter, escaping with no issue.

But before the doctor enters Shigaraki stops him, "the phone you used to signal us..."

"Oh, right," the man takes the phone out of his pocket and hands it to Shigaraki, who immediately disintegrates it.

"Now we can---" Shigaraki stops, looking past the man at Dabi, who was inspecting one of the bodies. "What are you doing?"

Dabi takes the badge and gun before getting up and walking over to them, "what? You never wanted one?"

Shigaraki just shakes his head, "whatever, let's get out of here before miracle boy shows up..."

And with that they all enter the Warp Gate, disappearing once again.

---1 Hour Later...

As the other police officers set up a perimeter to keep the press away while recording and cleaning the crime scene, nearby stands Tsukauchi and Horizon at the back of the detective's car.

His police laptop was open on the trunk for both of them to look at the footage recovered from the scene.

As the videos download from the camera's Horizon looks over the car out at the press, seeing many cameras aimed at him, then looks back down at Tsukauchi.

"So much for this being a quiet hunt for the League of Villains huh."

"Yeah, now that the word is out all their spies will be on even higher alert, making our job a lot harder," Tsukauchi says.

"Why were you even nearby? Didn't expect you to be here so soon..."

"I was waiting at the holding facility to question our newest mad scientist, but he had other plans," he nods toward the crime scene. "Why didn't you escort them yourself? The press will definitely want to know that..."

"I couldn't leave the base, there was too much data that the league couldn't afford to give me there. A lot more than we expected, honestly, if I leave they could destroy it all, I couldn't even come here till I copied everything."

"And the other Pro Heroes that were with you?"

"Only three, and there were so many Nomu that they had to go with that convoy, some of those things were the High End Nomu, the kind that Endeavor fought last year."

"Damn," Tsukauchi sighs. "Yeah good call then, compared to those things these prisoners were worthless, and still Shigaraki only sent people to attack this convoy, and didn't even bother to save the kid."

"Likely to make a statement to the public, reminding people that he's out there lurking like the creep he is," Horizon shrugs. "But honestly all this shows is that he's scared of me, didn't even risk coming to demolish the data at the base while I was there."

"True, but people still died, including a kid."

"A villain."

"True, but something tells me the news will focus on him being a kid more, what was wrong with him anyway?"

"His Quirk acted like a degenerate disease, the more he used it the more it destroyed his body and mind. He was blind and his brain was torn apart, which wasn't like that when I saw him at the lab."

"Must be one hell of a Quirk if it caused all of this."

"Yeah, but a Quirk that degenerates the user at a DNA level, not useful to them since---"

"They can't clone it into a Nomu without a lot of resources."

"Assuming they can clone it at all."

"What did it do anyway?"

"Something telepathic, and with his eyes, but he also had Trigger in his system, a very powerful variant, so this wasn't natural."

"That explains how he was able to kill himself with it," as Tsukauchi says that the videos begin to appear on screen. "Now let's find out exactly what it does..."

A few minutes later they piece together enough footage from all the videos to figure out exactly what happened.

"So he made them into some kind of sleeper agents via eye contact," Tsukauchi says. "That's messed up on so many levels."

"And it explains all the mental strain," Horizon says while typing away on a projected keyboard via the wristband Mei made him.

"Anything from your search?"

"Just one, looks like one of the components of that new Trigger formula comes from Otheon, a flower that only grows there."

"Otheon? That far away?" Tsukauchi rubs his chin. "Guess I'll send this up the chain of command, get them informed of what's going on, but it's likely just someone exporting it or growing it somewhere else anyway."

"I wouldn't be so sure. Ryukyu and I questioned a chemist last year about Trigger, he said there was some kind of contest held by someone, they paid a lot, and the goal was to create the strongest variation of Trigger possible. A lab in Europe won."

"A lab in Otheon maybe...then I definitely need to get this up the chain of command, I'll make a few calls tonight."

"Good, now I need to get back to the tower, I'd rather not be seen outside of Minato Tokyo for too long."

"Working on sorting all the Nomu data tonight?"

"Yeah, what better way to spend Friday night, right?"

"The work never ends," Tsukauchi sighs. "Well I'll be done as soon as I close off this crime scene, good luck."

"Yeah, you too..." Horizon says as he warps away, swapped with a leaf.

---Horizon Tower, 11 PM...

Sitting on the couches, Horizon, Sero, Juzo, and Shinso are watching the late night news.

To the surprise of no one the story of Shigaraki's latest movements have already made headlines.

"So his Quirk just made them kill themselves?" Shinso asks. "That's messed up."

"Says the guy with Brainwashing," Sero says.

"Yeah but I can't make people do anything that they know would get them hurt, can't even make them walk off a roof much less shoot themselves in the head."

"Not yet," Horizon says. "But with enough training you'll get there eventually, hopefully. But his Quick was more like he'd give a hypnotic command that can be activated later, making people into sleeper agents. The Trigger just amped it a lot, but that Quirk also killed him so you know...more power, more drawbacks."

"Unless you're you," Juzo says. "All the power, no drawbacks, right?"

"That's one way to look at it, but with me the power is the drawback."

"I thought the fishbowl on your head was the drawback?" Sero asks, and both the other boys start laughing as Horizon just sighs.

"I need a snack," Horizon gets up and walks over to the kitchen, still in view of everyone on the couches.

"Can you get me some chips! Thanks!" Juzo says.

As the news finishes Sero checks his phone, and a wide grin appears on his face. "Good news, Yui is in Tokyo tomorrow...well, in Chiba."

"Why the hell is she in Chiba?" Shinso asks.

"Something about a villain they're looking for being part of a group in Chiba, honestly I wasn't really listening."

"What a great boyfriend you are," Juzo says.

"What does she even sound like?" Horizon asks as he returns with a back of peanuts, and hands Juzo a bag of potato chips.

"Like a gentle maiden, what else would she sound like?"

"Huh, figured her voice would be annoying and squeaky," Horizon says.

"I assumed the same thing," Juzo adds.

"I thought she was a mute," Shinso confesses.

"She can talk, she's just really shy, that's all."

"It's a bit weird," Horizon says, earning nods from the other two boys.

"Whatever," Sero grumbles.

"So what, you gonna see her in Chiba tomorrow?" Shinso asks.

"Actually, this group they're going after sounds pretty tough, so I figured we could go over and lend them some muscle."

Shinso, Juzo, and Horizon look at each other for a moment, then speak in unison.

"Pass."

"C'mon guys, if it's just me the Pros running it will probably turn me down, but if Team Horizon shows up to help..."

"I have a lot of work to do," Horizon says.

"I'm resting after dealing with that giant robot," Juzo says.

"I um... I'll be busy thinking of an excuse," Shinso says.

"C'mon!" Sero pleas, "it won't even take long with all of us there, then we'll have a day in Tokyo with the girls."

This gets their attention, "what girls?" Juzo asks.

"Well you'll be happy to know that Majestic is part of this little team up, which means Setsuna will be there," Sero looks at Horizon. "And Momo, perfect timing too since Ryuko is visiting her team this weekend..."

"I have enough time with her at UA," Horizon says.

"Yeah and I just think Setsuna's hot, it's not that serious to have a day in Tokyo with her."

"All the Hero Course girls are attractive," Shinso shrugs. "It's not that special."

"And it doesn't mean we need to get dragged into a team up with some annoying Pro Heroes just because you want to show off for your girlfriend," Horizon says.

"C'mon guys, their mentors already promised that when the raid is over they'd get some time in Tokyo, this is a golden opportunity, please help me out here!"

They all look at each other for a moment, then Horizon speaks.

"Sigh, fine, but I'm gonna complain the entire time, and I'm obviously not running around Tokyo shopping with you people."

"YES!" Sero cheers. "Thanks, you guys are the best."

"Hey quick question," Shiso says. "Since I'm the only one here without a desire to be around these girls...can I just sleep in tomorrow while you guys---"

"No, it's a team exercise," Horizon says. "And if I have to suffer through this, so do you.."

END CHAPTER---

259 chapters deep, really struggling with these titles...

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