Right Under Their Nose
- Location
- Philippines
Hisashi Midoriya
Hisashi began to understand why his mother sometimes looked through the make up catalogue despite not having the money to buy them.
The urge to acquire some more gnawed in both mother and son, it seemed.
Unlike his late mother's vanity collection, Hisashi looked through the research papers and quirk profiles gathered by the doctor for his first and oldest collection.
He promised his wife to at least pause in his villainy but he could feel his draconic quirk wanting more for his quirk hoard.
Maybe someday. Best keep the ones he found interesting under watch. Perhaps set up some charities to help any family in trouble. Gratitude made for loyal employees and subordinates after all.
Hisashi flipped to the next page as he passed his time in his home office.
Until his wife entered the home office a few hours later.
Tenko Midoriya
Tenko was in his room by his computer, playing with the code as he connected to the group network. He adjusted his earphones and microphone.
"Hey there Red." Tenko said in accented English as he watched his program did its job.
"Good to hear from ya Dust. Ready for this one?" a woman's voice replied as his program pulled up a globe and triangulated on the person's location.
"Ready as can be Red. What's the mark this time?"
The location was pinpointed to San Francisco, Technate of California, United States of America.
"Illegal drug and medical supply delivery. Gold and I will sneak into the ship, place the trackers for the police to find when the ship refuels in the Kingdom of Hawai'I, and we'll head off to the next mark."
"Got any idea where the delivery is heading for?"
"That's the interesting bit Dust. From what we gathered, it's heading towards Japan, your home country." Gold said in his usual gruff tone.
"Japan? I'm guessing the yakuza then."
"Not exactly, from what I saw from the delivery manifests, it's going to a number of medical companies and hospitals under the orders of someone called Shogun." Red said.
"Shogun huh? Quite a bogeyman there."
"So you heard of him?"
"Red, I browse the deep and dark web for the guy when I first heard of him. Nothing much. Only whispers and rumors. Some Hexadecimal level conspiracy theories about some secret underground shogun of crime."
"Just a shogun? Why not the emperor of crime?"
"Not one clue, Red. Not one clue. Maybe the shogun's a traditionalist and secretly follows the imperial family like a ninja or something. The criminal conspiracy sites could spin a crazy yarn or two about that discrepancy alone."
"Well, if we could stop this delivery, it would hinder whatever the Shogun is planning or doing."
"Agreed." Tenko said with a grin as he began to subtly take over the smart city's systems. "And we got in, Red, Gold, do your thing before the technate's cybersecurity notices."
The woman chuckled while the man snorted.
"Got an estimate there Dust?" Gold asked as Tenko looked at the screens showing him of what the hijacked security cameras were watching. Red in her red trench coat and Gold in his black jacket. Gold got his quirk active, which only made it more mind boggling at how he managed to stay hidden despite looking like a living gold film trophy wearing clothes, on the nose name notwithstanding.
"Thirty minutes at most. Fifteen minutes at best. At least we're not in the San Angeles megacity. Performer has the LA quadrant under her super AI thumb."
"It's in the name Dust. Performer loves to be the star and where else to go but Hollywood?"
"The real question is what does VILE want with the criminals of Japan?" Gold asked as Tenko watched the duo chased their tracks while he covered them up with his programs. "Japan has a properly functioning national hero system. Here in the US, it's a perpetual states right's issue given how Rhode Island started it instead of the federal government so the criminals here got a lot of breathing room. The criminals in Japan are hiding like ninjas, among the shadows and hiding among the crowd, yet this is practically flaunting their crimes."
"Could be a way to show to VILE that Japan hasn't gone fully dark from the global crime network." Tenko suggested as he watched the two leaped onto the cargo ship.
"Given that we're dealing with Shogun here, who might be a figurehead or a rumor for all we know, it's likely the mass incarceration of yakuza and other groups during the early quirk years only pushed for greater cooperation and secrecy. Let the villains take the spotlight, the real crimes are better made in the background."
"Quote from a teacher there Red?"
"That would be from M, the sixth leader of VILE and in charge of hacking and software. He never physically shows up, just a state of the art hard light hologram of a totally featureless man. He sometimes call himself Moriarty but everyone's certain that's more of an interest in Sherlock than his actual name."
"Sounds like an ancient creepypasta to me."
"Jackpot." Red derailed the conversation.
"Found the shipment?"
"Yup, trackers in place and crates photographed." a screen showed what's inside the crates and the programs began to search the web. Tenko's eyes widen from the search results.
"Red, careful with some of those chemicals. Some of those are ingredients for Trigger. Quirk boosting drug, with an added side effect of temporary lost of higher brain function. Japan's been having trouble with a sudden increase of Trigger use lately."
"Cause chaos in the country? Test out some experimental drugs on a country size petri dish?" Gold suggested.
"What about the rest of the haul? Found a grandma's secret recipe for those?"
Tenko turned to look at his other screens.
"No, but they are similar to some experimental top secret drugs. Increases quirk mutation, boosts reflexes, yikes, some chemical designs dating back to the old Ministry of Health of the People's Republic, the Unit 731 of our quirky times, all designed to increase obedience and decrease the chance of rebellion against any perceived authority. Seems that Hive wanted a non-quirk method of maintaining control, just in case." Tenko said as he skimmed down the historical document.
"That is some Orwellian shit right there." Gold muttered.
"Sadly the research and doctors were secretly acquired and mostly pardoned for the needed expertise in the new field of quirk research after the fall of Hive. Dr. Bellum is a fan of their, let's just say, methodology in experimentation." Red said with some tension in her voice.
They were silent for a moment.
"We could destroy the shipment Red." Gold said with worry.
"No, the authorities need a head's up. Someone or something is casting a shadow for crime to hide in. We need to expose them. Dust, to recap, the trackers are in."
"Got it. An anonymous tip or two is being sent to the authorities as we speak."
"Please and thank you." she said before shouting was heard and gun shots fired.
Red and Gold escaped the ship's security and the ship itself.
"You sure you don't want a name change to Teal, Dust?" Red asked to which Tenko rolled his eyes.
"Red, Gold, Teal, let me guess, it was Miss Red in the Study with the Rope?" Tenko said which Gold snorted.
"It would fit in the whole color theme we're going with."
"Eh, you know how it is, patterns make it easy to be noticed. Then again, how you two manage to do your thing while being as conspicuous as a moving target is still surprising."
"I got training, Gold here has ridiculous luck."
"I prefer making my own luck."
"Probably from stealing a leprechaun's pot of gold." Tenko joked.
"Those things are a menace." Gold argued.
Tenko rolled his eyes.
"Leprechauns don't exist Gold."
"I won't argue with a skeptic."
"I got that from my dad. Then again my dad's a total nerd. He reads Shakespeare in Klingon."
"Try to keep an open mind when it comes to the mystical. Those types hide in the shadows more easily than criminals."
"Yeah yeah, maybe when we find El Dorado or Atlantis or Shambhala or something."
"So, what's next on the list, Dust, before you two start arguing again."
"The next mark would be a planned tech heist in a research black site in the Moscow Technate. Retroviral engineering research. VILE will use and sell that tech for a pretty penny."
"Sounds good. We'll get a plane ride soon, after the concert. Red and Gold, out." Red said before they disconnected from the line.
Tenko turned off his programs for a job well done, Inko called him to help her out at his dad's home office.
Akaguro Chizome
It was chaos, beneath the veneer of stability and civility.
He killed off another guilty villain after his trigger induced rampage.
He knew he would be acquitted for his false innocence. It was a public service, in his opinion.
Then a bunch of vigilantes defeated him and taught him something about the world, particularly the hero profession. The false heroes blinding people with their status while the real heroes worked in the shadows…
When he was left alone, he fell through the darkness and landed somewhere else.
The floor was carpeted.
The lights relatively dimmed in the office room.
In front of him was a green haired woman wearing a simple domino mask and a suit happily seating behind the desk with two men on her left and right, also wearing store bought domino masks.
"You were hard to contact, so I apologize for the rather rude delivery."
Chizome reached for his blades, only to stop at a strong tugging on his costume, pulled towards the woman.
"Try anything against me and this act of mercy would be dropped and you will be dealt with, by the law or by more retributive means." she said coldly. She glanced at her bodyguards to stop them, one more ready to fight than the other. "I can, if I ever so desire it, burst blood vessels, break delicate machinery, even give people cancer without their knowing. So please, tell me, how can a man whose quirk is paralyzing people by licking their blood can stop my range?"
Chizome raised his hands away from his blades and the tugging ceased.
"Who are you, what do you want, and how did you know that.?"
The woman made a mothering smile.
"Just someone doing their part in cleaning up the country I love and recycling used and broken things is one of them. For your other questions, I want to hire you, in a way, and I have my informants. No need for anyone to know who they are. No one would believe it anyway."
Chizome stared at the woman in confusion. Her guards seemed to look at her in confusion as well.
"I have eyes and ears in many places. It pays to be in the heartbeat of the media after all."
"And what exactly do you want me to do?"
"It sounds simple over all. Investigative hero journalism."
A cover job for something else.
"Tell me, what do you think of the heroes out there? Of their publicity, their merchandising, their media presence?"
It touched a nerve.
"Despicable." he spat. The woman nodded.
"Yes, they absolutely soil the modern idea of heroism with their bright and tacky costumes straight out of ancient comic books. Heroes for money, heroes for sex, heroes for fame, heroes for power, whatever happened to good old heroism for the sake of helping others? Why must there be some other reason to do the things people do?"
"At least you get it."
The woman frowned.
"It's a wonderful ideal. But like all ideals, it's faced to deal with gritty reality. Tell me, what do you plan to do to make the ideal a reality? Kill all the heroes below your chosen standard?"
The two glared at each other for a few seconds.
The woman then looked down with a sad smile.
"It's not gonna work. All you do is wash their hands of their wrong doing, if they have any, and be celebrated as martyrs for the profession. History gets written to tell the tale of the brave and the bold while ignoring or erasing their errors and failures, the same is true for villains. No one wants to know that this villain became that because of poverty and some entitled individual metaphorically kicking them to the ground, no, it was a madman attacking a respected member of the community who just so happen to have friends in high places."
She stood up.
"Not to mention the ideal you wish all heroes to follow. Can a society function with such a stringent requirement and maintaining said requirement? Let's see how putting the same ideals in other professions work out? Police shouldn't focus on money nor power nor influence, they should focus on maintaining the law and peace of society. The same goes for doctors, no money nor power nor influence, but maintaining the well being of the patients. And if only politicians were as selfless as your ideal would make of them."
The stare turned sharp.
"Are you really expecting human beings to act so well in such restrictions? No need to eat, no need to get praised, no need to rest, no need to simply be themselves? We may as well give the country to the Hexadecimal, automate everything, and become their faithful little cultists in their fabled places of plenty. I mean, they only accept islands to rule for some unknown reason so I'm sure it would be for the best."
"They're not human!"
"And what you want heroes to be is simply inhuman. There is only one being on the planet that we guess fits what your ideals for heroes to be. Champion, one of the first iteration of the Hexadecimal and a big Superman fan. He made a couple dozen robot supermen to help the world, if the world wants it. Of course, you would need to somehow destroy the Bioconservative party and put the Technosocialists in charge to even put into consideration of surrendering the country to the Hexadecimal and have Champion replace the all too human heroes with his unyielding metal enforcers."
"And you think your idea of putting me in journalism would work?" Chizome asked with disdain, not convinced on the whole idea.
"Heroes made themselves into celebrities. Use it to your advantage. Air their dirty laundry so to speak. The Internet is forever and a battleground of algorithms."
"Like that would ever change anything."
"That's the thing. Kill a hero and people will make stories about the legacy of the hero. They would stay a hero and when enough time passed, the wrongdoings become nothing more than a footnote if it's not extreme to tarnish the reputation. Leave them alive and have people learn of their wrongdoing? Well, it'll start make people talking, push for reforms, and all that. You just need the right people to reach the necessary audience."
She smiled and took her seat.
"And we're the right people for the job. All we ask is to stop the literal killing and start going for the reputation killing. After all, most heroes become a villain of some kind if they live long enough. Some tiny like using a hero in training as a lackey, others great, like promoting and protecting corruption in the government."
There was a pause.
"What would it be?"
Chizome looked around for anything. To figure out what sort of hidden motive this was. He worked alone and never considered himself to be a team player but ruining the false heroes that way, make people see their falsehood instead of being glorified after death…
"Let me think about the offer."
"Of course."
"And you never gave me a name."
"You can call me Mazu."
Chizome then felt a sense of dread coming from the two guards. He never saw himself as a religious man but he was suddenly reminded of the Little Guangzhou district in Nagasaki where a temple to Mazu was erected when refugees from Chin came during the twenty first century.
He wondered if the woman was Mazu, the Queen of Heaven, with the two men being the demons Qianliyan and Shunfeng'er. They certainly gave off a rather terrifying aura of terror.
"Of course, Mazu. How will I contact you on my decision?"
"Do not worry about that. You'll be ready in time."
Then he fell into darkness as Chizome soon found himself back to his hiding spot. He then laid down on the cot and began to think about the offer.
Hisashi Midoriya
"What the fuck was that all about mom?" Tenko asked as Kurogiri reformed after sending the vigilante away. Inko then fell on her knees, crying. "Mom!"
"Inko!"
"Mrs. Midoriya!"
Inko kept crying while apologizing repeatedly.
Kurogiri went to make some tea in the kitchen while Hisashi led Inko to a couch to sit down while he and Tenko tried to calm her down.
"Inko, I know I agreed to help you but what exactly did you made us do?"
"I… a week ago, I went to a fortune teller, the informant, who got a minor future vision quirk. Random snippets of the future of a chosen person." she started. "I wanted to see what's in Izuku's future. It was horrible. I saw a our son, our teenaged son, fighting in an alleyway against a madman with a sword, a Hero Killer Stain… that was the future of the man we just met."
Hisashi couldn't help but be sceptical. Seer quirks are more trouble than their worth. It's at best seeing a possible future that may or may not happen, at worst it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. Thank the kami Hisashi didn't went after Nighteye's quirk. There was a reason why Foundation agents stood far from him and tried to not listen to him when he has a vision.
"And you think changing fate would work? How can you be so sure that it's an actual future seeing quirk and not some fancy illusion?"
"Yeah mom, I mean, a fortune teller? Those still exist?" Tenko added.
The glare from Inko was full of disdain and contempt despite the tearful eyes.
"I can trust them with my life. And I was given proof that it worked. I then asked to look about the man and what he was doing within this week. At the moment, he's still a vigilante, had yet to turn into a villain. So, I did a gamble. I hope I managed to convince him to reform." Inko then groaned. "Not to mention we need to actually hire him as an investigative journalist on heroes in one of your media companies."
"How long were you planning this, and how did you managed to play the part of some secret queen of crime?" Hisashi asked, curious on his wife's apparent planning and acting skills.
Inko chuckled as Kurogiri arrived with a mug of tea. She thanked him and took a sip.
"A week or two now, and my dad taught me how to act a particular role, which became useful in looking confident in court."
"And where would this fortune teller be?"
"They only stayed for a week before moving on. One of those traveling circus types."
"A circus, mom?"
"You know, the whole purple cloth with the moon and stars and a crystal ball."
"Inko, dear, that sounds like a charlatan acting like an ancient gypsy stereotype." Hisashi pointed out while Tenko poured himself a cup of tea before taking a sip.
"Well, she did showed me enough. The man I let in the house killed a couple of people who used trigger and we can't exactly kill him."
Tenko choked on his tea.
"Mom, you let a serial killer inside the house and tried to reform him as a journalist!?"
"I can't just pull at the blood vessels of his brain and bury the body in a ditch. There's always repercussions." Inko then faced Hisashi. "And if I can help reform you, who can't I reform for the better?"
Hisashi couldn't help but chuckle before taking a deep breath.
"Very well. I'll help you play the part of Mazu for this guy. All to stop this terrible future you saw."
"Wait, dad's a criminal?"
Hisashi and Kurogiri looked at each other for a moment.
"Tenko," Inko started, "Your father is some two hundred years old and managed to own or control some eighty percent of the media companies in the country. You don't exactly get that without making enemies and backdoor deals." Tenko thought about it for a second.
"You got a point there."
"There was a weird thing about the visions though. The visions felt both real and dream like, so I assumed it's my mind struggling to see things clearly, but for a moment, I thought I saw two other Izukus looking at me, both still young than the one fighting in the alleyway. One wearing his pajamas chasing after the other one. The other one looked off. He was wearing what looked like those sci-fi suits with the smart fabrics and hexagons, a black suit with a glowing green trimming. There was a symbol on his suit… and his eyes were glowing with it…"
Inko dropped her cup of tea in a sudden migraine, which Hisashi managed to catch, while he saw Inko bled from her nose.
"Mom!" Tenko shouted as Kurogiri ran for a tissue.
Hisashi turned off the Tell the Truth quirk. It was always a risk and as much as he hated using it on his family, but he had to be sure. Lessen the possibility of miscommunication between family. He didn't want a repeat with what happened with his brother.
"I think the stress is getting to you dear. Let's go downstairs and relax. Tenko will keep watch over the guy over the week or so, just in case. What's the name of the man?"
"S-Stendhal." Inko said as she stood up. Hisashi looked at Tenko and Tenko nodded.
Hisashi and Inko then headed downstairs to recuperate from the experience. While Tenko went to his room. Those computer programming lessons were starting to pay off, in Hisashi's opinion.
Katsuki Bakugou
It was late at night when Katsuki woke up from some weird dream about a glowing green eye or something. Groaning, he decided to drink some soy milk before going to sleep.
What he didn't expect was his parents and cat chatting in secret like they're planning a robbery in, Katsuki's opinion, ridiculous fantasy cosplay.
Despite what people assumed, Katsuki could stay quiet and do stealth. So he hid from his family and listened to their conversation.
"You sure it was wise to let Inko see through the future?" a familiar growling voice asked.
"You fucking told us that she was better suited for the pentacle court magic ritual due to her quirk and what she did in high school." Mitsuki said quietly in subdued anger.
"There's a difference between being easier for her to use and being easy to cope with what she saw." Katsuki was pretty sure it was Leo talking by then. "Who knows what future she saw through that spell."
"You were the one who told us how it worked and we agreed to use it to find the killer. Don't fucking have second thoughts about it now."
"Remember that Katsuki's asleep. Don't want him to wake up by another argument." Masaru interjected. "Anyway, I got a call from Knuckleduster. They found and defeated the killer."
"Really? What about Koko's plan? She told me she'll do it tonight."
There was a moment of silence.
"Well, let's refocus on purifying the Darkened areas and kill off anything that emerged from them then. We might need some help in cleansing any lingering spirits of the dead in the process." Leo said. "Mitsuki, teleport us to the first place."
Katsuki tried to burst in to interrupt but there was a bright light and they were gone, leaving Katsuki alone.
"What the fuck." he muttered as he felt a strange sensation in his hands. He saw his hands glowing for a moment before fading, but he could tell whatever that light was, a piece of it was in him, and always had been. The Light in him awakened.
"What the fuck."
Izuku Midoriya
Of all the dreams he remembered, this one would one of the stranger ones.
He dreamed he was playing with Kacchan in a strange dark place before it lit up, revealing cameras all pointing at Kacchan. Then some sort of bright light lit up behind him and Kacchan just vanished. Izuku turned around to see a wall of LED lights and a door. In the door was himself, smiling with his eyes closed, wearing what looked like a high tech black suit with hexagons and green trimming that seemed to pulse and glow.
"Let's play a game of tag, little singulus." the other Izuku said before running off. Izuku chased after the other Izuku. He and the other Izuku had to be close, he just couldn't tell why.
They ran and ran into the darkness until Izuku saw strings flowing all around them. Strands all heading towards a bright light in the distance. Most strands never reached the light, ending at various lengths. All of them seem to wove together as Izuku saw a bright green string flowing behind, through, and in front of him. His string, he suddenly knew.
Dark mists with glowing green lines flowed among the strings, reweaving them, cutting some short, pulling others long, detaching points of contact, attaching new points of contact. Somehow, Izuku felt like they're his, doing a job he ordered so long ago.
Izuku then noticed something moving by his peripheral vision and saw a ghostly visage of his mom holding onto a string as if in a trance, moving forward until the string touched his own string.
There was a bright light and Izuku and the other Izuku was standing in a field of white, outside of a scene of an alleyway. Like an outsider looking in.
"My, my, this is interesting." The other Izuku said as he pulled out what looked like a black tablet with a green symbol on its back. The symbol looked familiar, personal even, it he had it designed years before drawing it. But the memory escaped him. He felt too small to recall it fully.
"Izuku!" the voice of Inko shook him from his thoughts as he turned to look at his mom, a ghost in the more real scene of battle between blurs.
"Mom!" Izuku called out and his mom turned to look at his direction.
"It's too early to be seen, little singulus." the other Izuku said as he opened his eyes at Inko. His eyes glowed an electronic green as Inko stood in place before vanishing.
"What did you do!?" Izuku shouted as the other Izuku turned to face him. The world turned dark as Izuku saw the other Izuku's eyes.
They glowed with the same symbol. His head began to ache as he struggled to think straight.
"Do you remember?"
It was like something big being shoved into his head as he kept looking at the eyes.
"I-it… hurts…"
The other Izuku frowned and closed his eyes.
"You're not yet ready to remember, it seems." the other Izuku said as the pain subsided.
"W-what are you?" Izuku asked the other Izuku.
"I'm just a ghost of a memory in a dream."
"A dream?"
The other Izuku grinned as he placed his hand on Izuku's shoulder and Izuku felt better, like a piece of him was found.
"Yes, a dream. Time to wake up." the other Izuku said as he opened his mouth and a loud earth shaking honking came out.
Izuku groaned as the young eleven year old woke up from the dream and turned off his alarm clock that morning. He then grab his dream journal to write down the dream but stopped at the sight of a symbol. It was familiar somehow, a broken circle and a line, like an inverted power symbol.
By the time he shook off the mental tangent, he had forgotten most of the dream. He wrote down what he could remember before getting ready to start the day.
He couldn't help but feel something was different about Kacchan. He seemed brighter than before.
---------------
Red and Gold are based mostly on the Carmen Sandiego cartoon, Netflix version, with some Kim Possible and Transistor in the mix.
Red - based on Carmen, Kim Possible, and Red from Transistor.
Name: Victoria
Cover Job: Singer
Quirk: Minor Shapeshifting - can alter her bodily features but it works like a muscle, too long maintaining a form tires her out and can cause bodily spasms. Training in body language and posture means she could be almost any woman.
Gold - based on Zack & Ivy, Ron Stoppable, and Red's boyfriend from Transistor
Name: Oscar
Cover Job: Victoria's Manager
Quirk: Technically quirkless. Material Man - can change his body into animate material, usually titanium covered in gold but stone, metal, and other materials work just as well.
VILE is more of a secret criminal network than a united villain organization. There are seven leaders. M is the software, hacking, and AI instructor while Amita Chandria is the first aid, poisons, and biotech instructor.
Hive
Chairman Shengji Yang
Quirk: Hive - causes those who hear his words in his presence to become loyal and obedient to him and thus his ideology.
He has two close lieutenants that work as his left and right hand man, Nerve Staple and Genejack.
Nerve Staple - by touch, he can cut or form neural connections in the body. Uses this to cut off brain neurons to remove disobedience in troublemakers.
Genejack - by touch, he can alter a person's genetic code to make them better fit their assigned role up to and including rewriting the brain to make one into a philosophical zombie, a being that acts like an independent being but has no actual free will.
Champion might had a role in the development and promotion of the hero system.
Hisashi began to understand why his mother sometimes looked through the make up catalogue despite not having the money to buy them.
The urge to acquire some more gnawed in both mother and son, it seemed.
Unlike his late mother's vanity collection, Hisashi looked through the research papers and quirk profiles gathered by the doctor for his first and oldest collection.
He promised his wife to at least pause in his villainy but he could feel his draconic quirk wanting more for his quirk hoard.
Maybe someday. Best keep the ones he found interesting under watch. Perhaps set up some charities to help any family in trouble. Gratitude made for loyal employees and subordinates after all.
Hisashi flipped to the next page as he passed his time in his home office.
Until his wife entered the home office a few hours later.
Tenko Midoriya
Tenko was in his room by his computer, playing with the code as he connected to the group network. He adjusted his earphones and microphone.
"Hey there Red." Tenko said in accented English as he watched his program did its job.
"Good to hear from ya Dust. Ready for this one?" a woman's voice replied as his program pulled up a globe and triangulated on the person's location.
"Ready as can be Red. What's the mark this time?"
The location was pinpointed to San Francisco, Technate of California, United States of America.
"Illegal drug and medical supply delivery. Gold and I will sneak into the ship, place the trackers for the police to find when the ship refuels in the Kingdom of Hawai'I, and we'll head off to the next mark."
"Got any idea where the delivery is heading for?"
"That's the interesting bit Dust. From what we gathered, it's heading towards Japan, your home country." Gold said in his usual gruff tone.
"Japan? I'm guessing the yakuza then."
"Not exactly, from what I saw from the delivery manifests, it's going to a number of medical companies and hospitals under the orders of someone called Shogun." Red said.
"Shogun huh? Quite a bogeyman there."
"So you heard of him?"
"Red, I browse the deep and dark web for the guy when I first heard of him. Nothing much. Only whispers and rumors. Some Hexadecimal level conspiracy theories about some secret underground shogun of crime."
"Just a shogun? Why not the emperor of crime?"
"Not one clue, Red. Not one clue. Maybe the shogun's a traditionalist and secretly follows the imperial family like a ninja or something. The criminal conspiracy sites could spin a crazy yarn or two about that discrepancy alone."
"Well, if we could stop this delivery, it would hinder whatever the Shogun is planning or doing."
"Agreed." Tenko said with a grin as he began to subtly take over the smart city's systems. "And we got in, Red, Gold, do your thing before the technate's cybersecurity notices."
The woman chuckled while the man snorted.
"Got an estimate there Dust?" Gold asked as Tenko looked at the screens showing him of what the hijacked security cameras were watching. Red in her red trench coat and Gold in his black jacket. Gold got his quirk active, which only made it more mind boggling at how he managed to stay hidden despite looking like a living gold film trophy wearing clothes, on the nose name notwithstanding.
"Thirty minutes at most. Fifteen minutes at best. At least we're not in the San Angeles megacity. Performer has the LA quadrant under her super AI thumb."
"It's in the name Dust. Performer loves to be the star and where else to go but Hollywood?"
"The real question is what does VILE want with the criminals of Japan?" Gold asked as Tenko watched the duo chased their tracks while he covered them up with his programs. "Japan has a properly functioning national hero system. Here in the US, it's a perpetual states right's issue given how Rhode Island started it instead of the federal government so the criminals here got a lot of breathing room. The criminals in Japan are hiding like ninjas, among the shadows and hiding among the crowd, yet this is practically flaunting their crimes."
"Could be a way to show to VILE that Japan hasn't gone fully dark from the global crime network." Tenko suggested as he watched the two leaped onto the cargo ship.
"Given that we're dealing with Shogun here, who might be a figurehead or a rumor for all we know, it's likely the mass incarceration of yakuza and other groups during the early quirk years only pushed for greater cooperation and secrecy. Let the villains take the spotlight, the real crimes are better made in the background."
"Quote from a teacher there Red?"
"That would be from M, the sixth leader of VILE and in charge of hacking and software. He never physically shows up, just a state of the art hard light hologram of a totally featureless man. He sometimes call himself Moriarty but everyone's certain that's more of an interest in Sherlock than his actual name."
"Sounds like an ancient creepypasta to me."
"Jackpot." Red derailed the conversation.
"Found the shipment?"
"Yup, trackers in place and crates photographed." a screen showed what's inside the crates and the programs began to search the web. Tenko's eyes widen from the search results.
"Red, careful with some of those chemicals. Some of those are ingredients for Trigger. Quirk boosting drug, with an added side effect of temporary lost of higher brain function. Japan's been having trouble with a sudden increase of Trigger use lately."
"Cause chaos in the country? Test out some experimental drugs on a country size petri dish?" Gold suggested.
"What about the rest of the haul? Found a grandma's secret recipe for those?"
Tenko turned to look at his other screens.
"No, but they are similar to some experimental top secret drugs. Increases quirk mutation, boosts reflexes, yikes, some chemical designs dating back to the old Ministry of Health of the People's Republic, the Unit 731 of our quirky times, all designed to increase obedience and decrease the chance of rebellion against any perceived authority. Seems that Hive wanted a non-quirk method of maintaining control, just in case." Tenko said as he skimmed down the historical document.
"That is some Orwellian shit right there." Gold muttered.
"Sadly the research and doctors were secretly acquired and mostly pardoned for the needed expertise in the new field of quirk research after the fall of Hive. Dr. Bellum is a fan of their, let's just say, methodology in experimentation." Red said with some tension in her voice.
They were silent for a moment.
"We could destroy the shipment Red." Gold said with worry.
"No, the authorities need a head's up. Someone or something is casting a shadow for crime to hide in. We need to expose them. Dust, to recap, the trackers are in."
"Got it. An anonymous tip or two is being sent to the authorities as we speak."
"Please and thank you." she said before shouting was heard and gun shots fired.
Red and Gold escaped the ship's security and the ship itself.
"You sure you don't want a name change to Teal, Dust?" Red asked to which Tenko rolled his eyes.
"Red, Gold, Teal, let me guess, it was Miss Red in the Study with the Rope?" Tenko said which Gold snorted.
"It would fit in the whole color theme we're going with."
"Eh, you know how it is, patterns make it easy to be noticed. Then again, how you two manage to do your thing while being as conspicuous as a moving target is still surprising."
"I got training, Gold here has ridiculous luck."
"I prefer making my own luck."
"Probably from stealing a leprechaun's pot of gold." Tenko joked.
"Those things are a menace." Gold argued.
Tenko rolled his eyes.
"Leprechauns don't exist Gold."
"I won't argue with a skeptic."
"I got that from my dad. Then again my dad's a total nerd. He reads Shakespeare in Klingon."
"Try to keep an open mind when it comes to the mystical. Those types hide in the shadows more easily than criminals."
"Yeah yeah, maybe when we find El Dorado or Atlantis or Shambhala or something."
"So, what's next on the list, Dust, before you two start arguing again."
"The next mark would be a planned tech heist in a research black site in the Moscow Technate. Retroviral engineering research. VILE will use and sell that tech for a pretty penny."
"Sounds good. We'll get a plane ride soon, after the concert. Red and Gold, out." Red said before they disconnected from the line.
Tenko turned off his programs for a job well done, Inko called him to help her out at his dad's home office.
Akaguro Chizome
It was chaos, beneath the veneer of stability and civility.
He killed off another guilty villain after his trigger induced rampage.
He knew he would be acquitted for his false innocence. It was a public service, in his opinion.
Then a bunch of vigilantes defeated him and taught him something about the world, particularly the hero profession. The false heroes blinding people with their status while the real heroes worked in the shadows…
When he was left alone, he fell through the darkness and landed somewhere else.
The floor was carpeted.
The lights relatively dimmed in the office room.
In front of him was a green haired woman wearing a simple domino mask and a suit happily seating behind the desk with two men on her left and right, also wearing store bought domino masks.
"You were hard to contact, so I apologize for the rather rude delivery."
Chizome reached for his blades, only to stop at a strong tugging on his costume, pulled towards the woman.
"Try anything against me and this act of mercy would be dropped and you will be dealt with, by the law or by more retributive means." she said coldly. She glanced at her bodyguards to stop them, one more ready to fight than the other. "I can, if I ever so desire it, burst blood vessels, break delicate machinery, even give people cancer without their knowing. So please, tell me, how can a man whose quirk is paralyzing people by licking their blood can stop my range?"
Chizome raised his hands away from his blades and the tugging ceased.
"Who are you, what do you want, and how did you know that.?"
The woman made a mothering smile.
"Just someone doing their part in cleaning up the country I love and recycling used and broken things is one of them. For your other questions, I want to hire you, in a way, and I have my informants. No need for anyone to know who they are. No one would believe it anyway."
Chizome stared at the woman in confusion. Her guards seemed to look at her in confusion as well.
"I have eyes and ears in many places. It pays to be in the heartbeat of the media after all."
"And what exactly do you want me to do?"
"It sounds simple over all. Investigative hero journalism."
A cover job for something else.
"Tell me, what do you think of the heroes out there? Of their publicity, their merchandising, their media presence?"
It touched a nerve.
"Despicable." he spat. The woman nodded.
"Yes, they absolutely soil the modern idea of heroism with their bright and tacky costumes straight out of ancient comic books. Heroes for money, heroes for sex, heroes for fame, heroes for power, whatever happened to good old heroism for the sake of helping others? Why must there be some other reason to do the things people do?"
"At least you get it."
The woman frowned.
"It's a wonderful ideal. But like all ideals, it's faced to deal with gritty reality. Tell me, what do you plan to do to make the ideal a reality? Kill all the heroes below your chosen standard?"
The two glared at each other for a few seconds.
The woman then looked down with a sad smile.
"It's not gonna work. All you do is wash their hands of their wrong doing, if they have any, and be celebrated as martyrs for the profession. History gets written to tell the tale of the brave and the bold while ignoring or erasing their errors and failures, the same is true for villains. No one wants to know that this villain became that because of poverty and some entitled individual metaphorically kicking them to the ground, no, it was a madman attacking a respected member of the community who just so happen to have friends in high places."
She stood up.
"Not to mention the ideal you wish all heroes to follow. Can a society function with such a stringent requirement and maintaining said requirement? Let's see how putting the same ideals in other professions work out? Police shouldn't focus on money nor power nor influence, they should focus on maintaining the law and peace of society. The same goes for doctors, no money nor power nor influence, but maintaining the well being of the patients. And if only politicians were as selfless as your ideal would make of them."
The stare turned sharp.
"Are you really expecting human beings to act so well in such restrictions? No need to eat, no need to get praised, no need to rest, no need to simply be themselves? We may as well give the country to the Hexadecimal, automate everything, and become their faithful little cultists in their fabled places of plenty. I mean, they only accept islands to rule for some unknown reason so I'm sure it would be for the best."
"They're not human!"
"And what you want heroes to be is simply inhuman. There is only one being on the planet that we guess fits what your ideals for heroes to be. Champion, one of the first iteration of the Hexadecimal and a big Superman fan. He made a couple dozen robot supermen to help the world, if the world wants it. Of course, you would need to somehow destroy the Bioconservative party and put the Technosocialists in charge to even put into consideration of surrendering the country to the Hexadecimal and have Champion replace the all too human heroes with his unyielding metal enforcers."
"And you think your idea of putting me in journalism would work?" Chizome asked with disdain, not convinced on the whole idea.
"Heroes made themselves into celebrities. Use it to your advantage. Air their dirty laundry so to speak. The Internet is forever and a battleground of algorithms."
"Like that would ever change anything."
"That's the thing. Kill a hero and people will make stories about the legacy of the hero. They would stay a hero and when enough time passed, the wrongdoings become nothing more than a footnote if it's not extreme to tarnish the reputation. Leave them alive and have people learn of their wrongdoing? Well, it'll start make people talking, push for reforms, and all that. You just need the right people to reach the necessary audience."
She smiled and took her seat.
"And we're the right people for the job. All we ask is to stop the literal killing and start going for the reputation killing. After all, most heroes become a villain of some kind if they live long enough. Some tiny like using a hero in training as a lackey, others great, like promoting and protecting corruption in the government."
There was a pause.
"What would it be?"
Chizome looked around for anything. To figure out what sort of hidden motive this was. He worked alone and never considered himself to be a team player but ruining the false heroes that way, make people see their falsehood instead of being glorified after death…
"Let me think about the offer."
"Of course."
"And you never gave me a name."
"You can call me Mazu."
Chizome then felt a sense of dread coming from the two guards. He never saw himself as a religious man but he was suddenly reminded of the Little Guangzhou district in Nagasaki where a temple to Mazu was erected when refugees from Chin came during the twenty first century.
He wondered if the woman was Mazu, the Queen of Heaven, with the two men being the demons Qianliyan and Shunfeng'er. They certainly gave off a rather terrifying aura of terror.
"Of course, Mazu. How will I contact you on my decision?"
"Do not worry about that. You'll be ready in time."
Then he fell into darkness as Chizome soon found himself back to his hiding spot. He then laid down on the cot and began to think about the offer.
Hisashi Midoriya
"What the fuck was that all about mom?" Tenko asked as Kurogiri reformed after sending the vigilante away. Inko then fell on her knees, crying. "Mom!"
"Inko!"
"Mrs. Midoriya!"
Inko kept crying while apologizing repeatedly.
Kurogiri went to make some tea in the kitchen while Hisashi led Inko to a couch to sit down while he and Tenko tried to calm her down.
"Inko, I know I agreed to help you but what exactly did you made us do?"
"I… a week ago, I went to a fortune teller, the informant, who got a minor future vision quirk. Random snippets of the future of a chosen person." she started. "I wanted to see what's in Izuku's future. It was horrible. I saw a our son, our teenaged son, fighting in an alleyway against a madman with a sword, a Hero Killer Stain… that was the future of the man we just met."
Hisashi couldn't help but be sceptical. Seer quirks are more trouble than their worth. It's at best seeing a possible future that may or may not happen, at worst it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. Thank the kami Hisashi didn't went after Nighteye's quirk. There was a reason why Foundation agents stood far from him and tried to not listen to him when he has a vision.
"And you think changing fate would work? How can you be so sure that it's an actual future seeing quirk and not some fancy illusion?"
"Yeah mom, I mean, a fortune teller? Those still exist?" Tenko added.
The glare from Inko was full of disdain and contempt despite the tearful eyes.
"I can trust them with my life. And I was given proof that it worked. I then asked to look about the man and what he was doing within this week. At the moment, he's still a vigilante, had yet to turn into a villain. So, I did a gamble. I hope I managed to convince him to reform." Inko then groaned. "Not to mention we need to actually hire him as an investigative journalist on heroes in one of your media companies."
"How long were you planning this, and how did you managed to play the part of some secret queen of crime?" Hisashi asked, curious on his wife's apparent planning and acting skills.
Inko chuckled as Kurogiri arrived with a mug of tea. She thanked him and took a sip.
"A week or two now, and my dad taught me how to act a particular role, which became useful in looking confident in court."
"And where would this fortune teller be?"
"They only stayed for a week before moving on. One of those traveling circus types."
"A circus, mom?"
"You know, the whole purple cloth with the moon and stars and a crystal ball."
"Inko, dear, that sounds like a charlatan acting like an ancient gypsy stereotype." Hisashi pointed out while Tenko poured himself a cup of tea before taking a sip.
"Well, she did showed me enough. The man I let in the house killed a couple of people who used trigger and we can't exactly kill him."
Tenko choked on his tea.
"Mom, you let a serial killer inside the house and tried to reform him as a journalist!?"
"I can't just pull at the blood vessels of his brain and bury the body in a ditch. There's always repercussions." Inko then faced Hisashi. "And if I can help reform you, who can't I reform for the better?"
Hisashi couldn't help but chuckle before taking a deep breath.
"Very well. I'll help you play the part of Mazu for this guy. All to stop this terrible future you saw."
"Wait, dad's a criminal?"
Hisashi and Kurogiri looked at each other for a moment.
"Tenko," Inko started, "Your father is some two hundred years old and managed to own or control some eighty percent of the media companies in the country. You don't exactly get that without making enemies and backdoor deals." Tenko thought about it for a second.
"You got a point there."
"There was a weird thing about the visions though. The visions felt both real and dream like, so I assumed it's my mind struggling to see things clearly, but for a moment, I thought I saw two other Izukus looking at me, both still young than the one fighting in the alleyway. One wearing his pajamas chasing after the other one. The other one looked off. He was wearing what looked like those sci-fi suits with the smart fabrics and hexagons, a black suit with a glowing green trimming. There was a symbol on his suit… and his eyes were glowing with it…"
Inko dropped her cup of tea in a sudden migraine, which Hisashi managed to catch, while he saw Inko bled from her nose.
"Mom!" Tenko shouted as Kurogiri ran for a tissue.
Hisashi turned off the Tell the Truth quirk. It was always a risk and as much as he hated using it on his family, but he had to be sure. Lessen the possibility of miscommunication between family. He didn't want a repeat with what happened with his brother.
"I think the stress is getting to you dear. Let's go downstairs and relax. Tenko will keep watch over the guy over the week or so, just in case. What's the name of the man?"
"S-Stendhal." Inko said as she stood up. Hisashi looked at Tenko and Tenko nodded.
Hisashi and Inko then headed downstairs to recuperate from the experience. While Tenko went to his room. Those computer programming lessons were starting to pay off, in Hisashi's opinion.
Katsuki Bakugou
It was late at night when Katsuki woke up from some weird dream about a glowing green eye or something. Groaning, he decided to drink some soy milk before going to sleep.
What he didn't expect was his parents and cat chatting in secret like they're planning a robbery in, Katsuki's opinion, ridiculous fantasy cosplay.
Despite what people assumed, Katsuki could stay quiet and do stealth. So he hid from his family and listened to their conversation.
"You sure it was wise to let Inko see through the future?" a familiar growling voice asked.
"You fucking told us that she was better suited for the pentacle court magic ritual due to her quirk and what she did in high school." Mitsuki said quietly in subdued anger.
"There's a difference between being easier for her to use and being easy to cope with what she saw." Katsuki was pretty sure it was Leo talking by then. "Who knows what future she saw through that spell."
"You were the one who told us how it worked and we agreed to use it to find the killer. Don't fucking have second thoughts about it now."
"Remember that Katsuki's asleep. Don't want him to wake up by another argument." Masaru interjected. "Anyway, I got a call from Knuckleduster. They found and defeated the killer."
"Really? What about Koko's plan? She told me she'll do it tonight."
There was a moment of silence.
"Well, let's refocus on purifying the Darkened areas and kill off anything that emerged from them then. We might need some help in cleansing any lingering spirits of the dead in the process." Leo said. "Mitsuki, teleport us to the first place."
Katsuki tried to burst in to interrupt but there was a bright light and they were gone, leaving Katsuki alone.
"What the fuck." he muttered as he felt a strange sensation in his hands. He saw his hands glowing for a moment before fading, but he could tell whatever that light was, a piece of it was in him, and always had been. The Light in him awakened.
"What the fuck."
Izuku Midoriya
Of all the dreams he remembered, this one would one of the stranger ones.
He dreamed he was playing with Kacchan in a strange dark place before it lit up, revealing cameras all pointing at Kacchan. Then some sort of bright light lit up behind him and Kacchan just vanished. Izuku turned around to see a wall of LED lights and a door. In the door was himself, smiling with his eyes closed, wearing what looked like a high tech black suit with hexagons and green trimming that seemed to pulse and glow.
"Let's play a game of tag, little singulus." the other Izuku said before running off. Izuku chased after the other Izuku. He and the other Izuku had to be close, he just couldn't tell why.
They ran and ran into the darkness until Izuku saw strings flowing all around them. Strands all heading towards a bright light in the distance. Most strands never reached the light, ending at various lengths. All of them seem to wove together as Izuku saw a bright green string flowing behind, through, and in front of him. His string, he suddenly knew.
Dark mists with glowing green lines flowed among the strings, reweaving them, cutting some short, pulling others long, detaching points of contact, attaching new points of contact. Somehow, Izuku felt like they're his, doing a job he ordered so long ago.
Izuku then noticed something moving by his peripheral vision and saw a ghostly visage of his mom holding onto a string as if in a trance, moving forward until the string touched his own string.
There was a bright light and Izuku and the other Izuku was standing in a field of white, outside of a scene of an alleyway. Like an outsider looking in.
"My, my, this is interesting." The other Izuku said as he pulled out what looked like a black tablet with a green symbol on its back. The symbol looked familiar, personal even, it he had it designed years before drawing it. But the memory escaped him. He felt too small to recall it fully.
"Izuku!" the voice of Inko shook him from his thoughts as he turned to look at his mom, a ghost in the more real scene of battle between blurs.
"Mom!" Izuku called out and his mom turned to look at his direction.
"It's too early to be seen, little singulus." the other Izuku said as he opened his eyes at Inko. His eyes glowed an electronic green as Inko stood in place before vanishing.
"What did you do!?" Izuku shouted as the other Izuku turned to face him. The world turned dark as Izuku saw the other Izuku's eyes.
They glowed with the same symbol. His head began to ache as he struggled to think straight.
"Do you remember?"
It was like something big being shoved into his head as he kept looking at the eyes.
"I-it… hurts…"
The other Izuku frowned and closed his eyes.
"You're not yet ready to remember, it seems." the other Izuku said as the pain subsided.
"W-what are you?" Izuku asked the other Izuku.
"I'm just a ghost of a memory in a dream."
"A dream?"
The other Izuku grinned as he placed his hand on Izuku's shoulder and Izuku felt better, like a piece of him was found.
"Yes, a dream. Time to wake up." the other Izuku said as he opened his mouth and a loud earth shaking honking came out.
Izuku groaned as the young eleven year old woke up from the dream and turned off his alarm clock that morning. He then grab his dream journal to write down the dream but stopped at the sight of a symbol. It was familiar somehow, a broken circle and a line, like an inverted power symbol.
By the time he shook off the mental tangent, he had forgotten most of the dream. He wrote down what he could remember before getting ready to start the day.
He couldn't help but feel something was different about Kacchan. He seemed brighter than before.
---------------
Red and Gold are based mostly on the Carmen Sandiego cartoon, Netflix version, with some Kim Possible and Transistor in the mix.
Red - based on Carmen, Kim Possible, and Red from Transistor.
Name: Victoria
Cover Job: Singer
Quirk: Minor Shapeshifting - can alter her bodily features but it works like a muscle, too long maintaining a form tires her out and can cause bodily spasms. Training in body language and posture means she could be almost any woman.
Gold - based on Zack & Ivy, Ron Stoppable, and Red's boyfriend from Transistor
Name: Oscar
Cover Job: Victoria's Manager
Quirk: Technically quirkless. Material Man - can change his body into animate material, usually titanium covered in gold but stone, metal, and other materials work just as well.
VILE is more of a secret criminal network than a united villain organization. There are seven leaders. M is the software, hacking, and AI instructor while Amita Chandria is the first aid, poisons, and biotech instructor.
Hive
Chairman Shengji Yang
Quirk: Hive - causes those who hear his words in his presence to become loyal and obedient to him and thus his ideology.
He has two close lieutenants that work as his left and right hand man, Nerve Staple and Genejack.
Nerve Staple - by touch, he can cut or form neural connections in the body. Uses this to cut off brain neurons to remove disobedience in troublemakers.
Genejack - by touch, he can alter a person's genetic code to make them better fit their assigned role up to and including rewriting the brain to make one into a philosophical zombie, a being that acts like an independent being but has no actual free will.
Champion might had a role in the development and promotion of the hero system.