Used to the Darkness [MHA x Worm]

[Julius_Garfield]

Blood.

There was so much blood. Was she floating in it?

She was going somewhere.

Where was she going?

Glass.

There was glass in her chest, wasn't there? It had pierced her body; it had left her crippled. There was steel in her shoulder, it had pinned her down. There was blood in her lungs, where had it gone? She was surrounded by glass, glass held down by steel while she floated in blood. She needed to get there, where she was going.

Where was she going?

Beeps and horns and screeches and cries. Sounds upon sounds upon sounds upon sounds. They pierced her brain like the glass had pierced her body, they wrapped around her like the steel had wrapped around her shoulder. It was drowning her, she was drowning. She didn't want to die, to fall into that abyss.

Was she dead? Was she alive?

Thunder, her heart beating in her chest.

The slow thuds echoed out from the right of her chest, a creeping sensation that urged her to move. Each deafening pulse brought more color to the world around her, to the crimson that she was stuck in.

A hiss echoed out. The blood was draining, out and away. The glass that sealed her opened slowly and exposed her form to ice cold air and almost all-consuming darkness. This wasn't where she was going. She was going somewhere warm and bright and happy and kind. She was lost.

The glass had moved out of the way, and she could vaguely make out three figures. The darkness hid their features, but she could tell they were all looking at her. Why were they looking at her, did they know where she was supposed to be?

She tried to walk, to approach the figures, to ask them… anything. One foot after the other, slowly. She walked before, didn't she? She walked with the kind man with large eyes and dark hair. He was nice to her. He adored her. They walked-

Where did they walk to?

She tripped.

She was caught by another man. A man with a big round nose, his eyes smaller and not as kind as the eyes of the kind man she had walked with before. He wore a coat that was as white as bone, with streaks of unknown liquids marring its perfection. The small man looked scared. Why was he scared? She tried to apologize, like instinct. Yet all that came out was a gargle. Why couldn't she speak? Was she choking? Her outstretched hand raced back to her neck. She couldn't choke again, she couldn't, she had to get back to… she had to…

Where was she going back to?

Walking with the kind man. Going somewhere. Glass and Blood. Choking, drowning. A hand clawed at her scalp, and drew back to find it left a stream of black muck. She stared at her fingers and the muck she had drawn, breathing in and out slowly. Dark slime, constantly flowing off her skin, utterly subsuming her shape and form, and yet she was solid beneath it all. The ooze was her and she was the ooze, each and every bit of it. What had happened to her? She didn't look like this before. What did she look like before? She tried to recall, to remember, yet each slipped through her hands like grains of sand.

Another figure, slowly walked up, with a titanic black hand for a face. He was tall and gaunt, his clothing casual yet his body strong. Just looking at him filled her with an overwhelming desire to yield, to bow.

Her eyes widened. Was the figure before her Death? Had she died? She clutched at her throat again, her hands trying to clear blood that wasn't there. Death brought his hands to her own and pulled them away from her throat. Death shooed away the smaller, not as kind man and sat down close to where she had fallen.

She was afraid.

She wasn't ready to die.

She had to get back to Taylor.

Taylor.

She remembered.

She remembered her long curly hair and her wide adorable smiles and her big kind eyes that were filled with adoration. She remembered how small she was when she held her in her arms.

She had to get back to her.

She didn't know why, but the feeling of longing was overwhelming. She had to see Taylor again, she had to. Taylor was waiting for her to return. She couldn't die. She couldn't. She couldn't.

Death's hands went to its face, his long, calloused fingers wrapping around the black hand before pulling it off in one graceful motion. The hand was a mask that hid its true face, and as it came off, Death's sweat-filled hair fell to the sides of his face. She gazed into his eyes, eyes that glowed with hatred, with acceptance, with pity.

But above all, with sadness.

Why did Death have such sorrow in its eyes?

His face was littered with scars and half-picked skin, wrinkles that would look abnormal on a man that thrice his age, yet her gaze simply kept wandering back to his sad, sad eyes. Her breathing steadied, as she looked at Death, a young man with sad eyes. She wondered for a second if he saw her own eyes, what they were filled with. Would he find fear, confusion, pain? Then, he spoke, his voice like a knife through flesh, like a stroke of thunder in the night.

"I… don't care for manipulating people very much, so I'm gonna have to be pretty blunt with ya, if you'll excuse me."

She nodded slowly, his voice was raspy, yet deep and for reasons she couldn't truly fathom, she hung on each and every word, as though she were some sort of devotee at a sermon.

"You're going to be my assistant from today onwards. Your name is Kuraiuzu, got it?"

Kuraiuzu. That was her name. She accepted it as easily as one might accept the sun rises in the east and sets in the west. Yet she wondered, what could she offer to Death? She was nothing more than a broken toy holding onto fragments of things she couldn't even dare to fathom. How could she assist him?

Yet, she nodded just as slowly. If the young man was to give her a second chance at finding Taylor, then she had to agree. She needed to live. Kuraiuzu focused, every muscle in her throat tensing up and spasming as she got them under control. She had to speak, to let Death know. Slowly, each word and syllable escaped her mouth, her tongue feeling like weights tied to her ankles as she forced it to move. It was an unpracticed, almost childlike warble that wormed its way out of her throat.

"I have to get back to her."

Death looked slightly surprised, but he gave her a small smile. His grip tightened around her hands, as he gradually pulled her to her feet, and yelled something she couldn't quite make out to the small man with his big nose. She stood shakily on her unfamiliar legs as the less kind man returned and wrapped a blanket around her shoulders. She was taller than Death, she noted. A good head and a half taller.

Death spoke again, breaking her out of her musings, giving her a simple side eye.

"Who is the "her", you're talking about?"

"My little owl," she said, as though it was the most natural thing in the world.

Death exhaled, putting a hand on his chin. "I'll see if I can help you then, if you help me as well."

She nodded once more. She would help him in whatever way she could. To repay him for his kindness and his magnanimity. Body and soul, she would do whatever it takes to pay back her debt.

To go back.

---

AN: Interlude as promised. This one was enjoyable to write, and I hope you guys like it. Fun, albeit unrelated, fact while the chapter names are based on songs, as you've probably guessed, the Interlude names are based on movies.

 

[Julius_Garfield]

Sunday morning had passed by in a flash. Most of the day had been spent at home, watching the news of the chase, letting her bruised, cut and slightly concussed body rest, and just enjoying some time with her dad. It was sometime in the afternoon that Taylor had worked up the courage to go visit the Undersiders, telling her father the half-truth of wanting to check in on her friends in the aftermath of the attack. Walking to their lair was easier than she expected, considering her state, but the real surprise still lay in wait.

Brian led her in, his lips tightly pursed together. Alec waved her from his seat on the couch, giving a rather worried looking glance in the direction of Lisa's room. Rachel meanwhile was nowhere to be found. Brian explained she'd left in a huff with Brutus, mumbling something about finding someone, but other than that, he knew little. He led her to Lisa's room, before leaving her to stand in front of her, giving her a hint of privacy. Taylor drew a deep breath, before gently knocking on the door, hoping not to disturb her friend too much. A voice, surprisingly chipper, emerged from the other side of the door.

"Come in!"

Strange.

Taylor slowly pushed the door open, despite… resistance? As the door finally opened fully, she saw what had been causing said resistance: a veritable pile of paper. It wasn't the only one of its kind, as strewn across Lisa's room were veritable monuments of documents and notes. Taylor felt her jaw drop slightly as she stepped in further. Glancing over the notes she could see, there was a recurring theme: Shigaraki. Tabloids, internet posts, sketches, theories about his power and theories about a mysterious tall man in a suit. Her feet crunched up against bloodied tissue, scattered across the floor without a care in the world while the blinding fluorescent lights of Lisa's room blasted the air, leaving it totally illuminated.

"Hey Taylor, you seem to be doing pretty well!"

Her attention snapped to the center of this ordered chaos: Lisa herself. She was currently standing right in front of a whiteboard, countless spider diagrams linking into each other with such minutiae that Taylor could barely even read what was written on it. Lisa's hair, normally well-kept, was a mess. Bags had formed under her eyes, and they didn't seem to… shine with the same light they had in the past, yet a wide smile had found itself at home on her face. Hurriedly, she gestured for Taylor to sit down in a patch of her room that hadn't been totally filled.

"Sorry 'bout the mess, I've just been hard at work."

"L-lisa…"

"I'm almost certain I'm this close to a breakthrough about what Shigaraki has in store, look, look!"

Lisa scooped up a handful of papers, before dropping them in Taylor's lap. It was a document from PRT internals if all the branding was to be believed regarding rumors surrounding Shigaraki. Lisa tapped a line close to the top of the page, highlighted in bright yellow. It was a simple statement, that Shigaraki was the creator of something called "Trigger."

"There have been these rumors running around about this thing named "Trigger", that supposedly gives you powers if you ingest it! Most people wrote it off as hearsay, but this isn't the first time something like this has popped up! Similar rumors emerged about a figure called "the Dealer, who's MO is the exact same. So, I'm thinking the two are connected somehow, but I'm just not sure how…"

Lisa slid across the room back to her whiteboard, grabbing a tissue from nearby and using it to swipe away at blood dripping out of her nose in an almost mechanical fashion, scrunching the tissue up before throwing it on the floor to Taylor's horror. She acted as if it hadn't even happened as she gestured towards a particularly arcane looking spider diagram on the board.

"But that's not too important, cause remember those Laser Ants of yours? I'm thinking that they were either an early test case or freak accident regarding Trigger, why else would we stumble upon Shigaraki and a drug lab in the middle of being moved? My guess is simple, Shigaraki's ramping up operations using Lung's resources so that the ABB can make a gambit for the entire city. He's smart, and because of that he has to know that the PRT and gangs of Brockton can't just let something like this slide! Which is why we've gotta broach the topic when we meet with all the others at Somer's Rock!"

Taylor's face found itself curling into a deep frown as Lisa continued with her mania. This wasn't healthy, was it? The countless bloody tissues in the room and Lisa's utter dishevelment were testaments to an unavoidable truth: her friend was hurting herself. Bit by bit, Taylor's discontent grew and bubbled until she just couldn't take it anymore, her tongue moving before her mind even knew what was happening.

"Lisa. When was the last time you slept?"

"Huh? Oh, I mean I passed out yesterday, I'm well-rested en-"

"Slept Lisa. Not passed out, not fainted. Slept."

Lisa was silent at that for a moment, all of the energy that had previously possessed her leaving her body as though it had never even been there in the first place. Her smile drooped slowly, and then collapsed all at once, turning into a small frown.

"I-i have more import-"

"Lisa, please. I'm worried about you. Brian's worried about you, hell, Alec's worried about you!"

"I'm scared."

It was simple and slow, yet it hit Taylor like a punch in the gut. Lisa's head hung low, her voice in the midst of breaking as she admitted her feelings, even if they were only a fraction of what she was going through. Taylor went silent, allowing Lisa to recollect herself, as she struggled not to cry, tears already bubbling on the edges of her eyes.

"W-what if I close my eyes and I go back? What if I didn't come back in the first place? Am I even Lisa Wilbourn? Every time I so much as blink it gets dark, and it gets cold, and I fight so hard to get warm again so that I don't fail you guys through being a stupid fucking-"

Taylor cut her off wrapping her in a hug. Lisa fell into it almost immediately, and in a little under a minute, Taylor could feel her shoulder begin to get wet as Lisa silently wept into it. She wasn't equipped to unpack everything that Lisa was carrying, and she doubted that Lisa was ready to undertake that journey either, but this was a step in the right direction.

Here, holding her crying friend in her arms, Taylor Hebert felt like a hero.

-

Kuraiuzu was more of a handful than he expected, Shigaraki found.

The old man held all the blueprints for the Nomu in that seemingly perfect memory of his, so her blueprint was mostly based on Kurogiri, thus it made sense she had taken after him in some ways. She was tall, and her entire body was obscured by a flowing dark slime, the same slime used within Warping, the quirk he had so rudely pushed into her at the last minute in an attempt to one-up his master. She was quite the silhouette he had noticed, tall with glowing yellow eyes, hair made out of ooze framing a mouthless face. This combined with a hastily put together outfit, mostly dominated by a waistcoat, to make her look professional.

It was a perfectly intimidating appearance.

Sadly, Kuraiuzu was anything but intimidating.

She was like… a big toddler. She tried her best to help out where she could, but being fresh out of the pod and with an utterly frazzled headspace (which his Master took great glee in pointing out was due to an improperly done lobotomy), left her mostly useless. Still, she was smart, and she learned quickly. The problem was that she took everything at face value. Leet could've told her the sky was a vivid yellow and she would have nodded along as if it were the truth. Putting it bluntly, she was kind of a dunce.

Sunday morning was when they first tried to tap into her Quirk. He had led her out to a more open part of the warehouse they were operating out of this week and fed her coordinates to open portals at. She started off strong, easily smashing through the first couple of coordinates, but then the flaws in her design began to show, bit by bit.

Her Quirk operated much the same as the regular Warp Gate, though the greater the distance, the more drained the Nomu found itself. Normally, exhaustion wouldn't be a problem in regard to the Nomu, but Kuraiuzu was made with limited time and limited funds, so constrained by energy she was. Luckily, she didn't need to sleep or eat or anything time consuming like that, she simply just needed to rest for a while.

Similarly, using the more direct, forceful teleportation aspect of her quirk inherited from Warping left the Nomu almost catatonic. It was an issue that could likely be rectified by training or future surgeries, but it was a real problem, nonetheless. Reliable transport was the name of the game with Warp Gate, so getting that locked down became priority number one.

Sometime in the middle of this testing, Über and Leet had taken a break, heading out of the lab to go grab some breakfast from a fast-food joint, in the meanwhile, Shigaraki tested out a different potential limit for her power: how many portals she could open at once.

For now, he was simply content sitting on a pile of crates, testing out how many portals Kuraiuzu could sustain at once. They were going on 63 portals open at once, when Über and Leet burst into the lab, sweat streaked across his forehead, the sudden and loud sound causing Kuraiuzu to jump and all the portals she had opened to close suddenly. Ah, that wouldn't have happened with a regular Nomu. Maybe the specter really was right about making sure these things were properly lobotomized. Shigaraki turned slowly, glaring daggers at the pair.

"What the hell's all the fuss for?"

"You just gotta see this man!"

Über stepped forward, a bag of coffee in one hand and a newspaper in the other, eyes wide open as he handed the paper over to Shigaraki, who opened it up lazily. The front page was dominated by a grainy photo, yet one still able to be made out: a figure made out of light flying through the air, while a figure bulging with muscle stood near the bottom of the frame, grinning wildly.

The headline read simply: "A FIFTH PARAHUMAN IN THE ABB?"

Ah.

That was a Kyodai using Muscle Augmentation.

On the front-page news.

Well, he had a lot of calendars to adjust now, didn't he?

---

AN: It's currently an hour before midnight in my timezone, so I'm currently coping that my goal of weekly chapters is still alive. Hope you all enjoyed this one, even if it feels a bit rushed on my end.

 

[Julius_Garfield]

Monday morning, hooray.

Once again, Tenko Shimura went through his daily routine: using his power to clean himself up, grabbing everything he needed for school and stuffing it into his backpack, before heading down to the bus stop. He effectively did the tasks automatically by now, but his real focus was upon the tempest that was the Brockton Bay rumor mill. Already speculation was abound about how two whole parahumans had dropped out of the sky, and some of said speculation was getting dangerously close to the truth. He'd of course already been intending to use the ABB as a spear to wipe out or absorb the other villainous groups of the bay, but he was hoping that he'd be able to get a High-End up and running by the time all-out war erupted.

He'd maybe be able to get a Middle-tier Nomu ready for a fight, but that was neither here nor there. No, more pressing was the state of the ABB. He'd talked to Lung over the phone about it last night, and he could tell the big guy on the other end barely gave a shit. The information he'd managed to get out of the guy was scarce, but enough to put together an image. He had already recognized the glowing lady as Purity, her attacks on ABB having cropped up at a few of the meetings he'd chimed in on, but the Kyodai was a rather new face to him.

His name was Geram Yew, one of Lung's younger lieutenants, only about 23. He'd risen through the ranks and managed to make a name for himself as a hotshot. If it wasn't for his lack of powers, he'd probably be top brass in the ABB already. It seemed he was desperate for any excuse to test Trigger out, so he jumped at the first opportunity against Purity and drove her away using Muscle Enhancement. It was impressive that he was able to get a handle on what was almost certainly an unfamiliar Quirk, sure, but Yew's actions had cost Shigaraki valuable time. Maybe he'd use the Kyodai's latent talent with a Quirk and turn him into a Guinea pig for future experiments…

But that paled in comparison to a rather cruel judgement that Tenko was slowly forming in Tenko's mind. Lung was lazy. Or perhaps lazy wasn't the right word… unambitious, then? The mirror he held within him was titanic, spanning longer than Tenko could see, and yet what did he do with it? Sit on his laurels in a relatively backwater city? He was smart and from what he knew he was strong enough to keep Lee and Bakuda in line, but he was complacent. Like a daimyo who had no ambition beyond his castle.

"He really is rather garish, isn't he?" The specter chimed.

"Stop reading my mind. It's weird."

"It's just about the only thing I can do, dear Tomura, so I'd advise that you get used to it. Either way, the "Azn Bad Boys" as it is now likely will not be able to survive an all-out war."

"Speaking from experience?"

"Of course. I grew up in an era of overt war and I've seen organizations like your friends come and go. He rules through fear and while fear is a mighty motivator, you have to layer it with manipulation. If you want to last long, people need to worship you."

He rolled his eyes at that, even ghostly purgatory couldn't make him less smarmy it seemed.

"That's just the start of it too, isn't it Tomura? The way Lung runs the Azn Bad Boys, it's more like 4 distinct Asian gangs wearing a trench coat. A collective of dogs forced into cages, and they might see Trigger as the key to their freedom."

"So, you think some of the Kyodai will make a move against Lung once they've got a steady supply? I don't disagree."

"Then you know we're on an even tighter schedule than we would be otherwise, dear Tomura. As much as I despise this ghastly existence, I much prefer it to the likely oblivion that would take me if you were to meet an untimely demise."

Always the narcissist with this one, no?

Tenko simply focused his mind in his Master's direction, banishing him to the recesses of his mind temporarily. He would be back, like the cockroach he was, but he'd have to crawl his way back, and that was more than cathartic enough. The bus ride was regular, though today he took the time to think to himself, to refocus.

He knew… embarrassingly little about his soon to be opponents, to be quite franks. He knew about the Empire vaguely, but they weren't of too much concern to him until recently. He knew about the PRT, a predecessor to the World Heroes Association, from the looks of it and the Undersiders, who he was steadily coming to know rather intimately. Still, he was aware of other Capes in Brockton just not exactly where they stood or what they did and that was a glaring flaw.

So, all he'd have to do was learn everything about every cape in the city.

Pretty easy, right?

Still, from what little he did know, the Heroes and Villains he was coming up against lacked… pizzazz. They were like… a legion of diet Endeavors and Overhauls. Blegh. Just thinking about it made him sick. Maybe further interactions would change that view, but for the most part, that was all he could think. Heroes who were more soldiers than saviors and villains who clung to the shadows like a baby grasped at its blanket. And the villains who weren't Overhauls sounded like they were Musculars, the Slaughterhouse Nine he saw mentioned every so often being a particularly nasty case. That just wouldn't do in his opinion, things would almost certainly have to change.

He'd get the chance soon, a proper chance to introduce himself to his soon to be enemies. Lung off-handedly mentioned a meeting at Somer's Rock, and made it pretty clear he had no intention of going, surely though, he wouldn't mind Shigaraki and Kuraiuzu going instead? A show of force never hurt anyone, so why not go visit his lessers, flex his muscles a little bit?

The bus finally reached its destination, putting a stop to his internal monologue as he slinked out of the vehicle and out onto the road, essentially right in front of his school. He had a pretty simple plan today; use homeroom to do some research on the other gangs in Brockton in depth. The things he had learned before had all background reading, today was going to be for real research. Interviews, documentaries, tabloid pieces, whatever he could get his hands on to know who he was up against.

He entered the school quietly, heading for his locker. Whatever poor Janitor they'd assigned to the thing had done a pretty good job, and it was as clean as one could expect something like it to be. Still, he had to wonder how exactly those guys had managed to get into the thing without even breaking the lock?

Eh, questions for another day.

He placed a few books within the locker that he had in the meantime kept in his backpack, leaving it noticeably lighter as he headed for Homeroom. The second he found the class, he entered without a fuss and slipped back into his climbed seat. Strangely enough, Herbert wasn't here, strange considering she was often either here before he was or arrived shortly after he did. He simply shrugged, maybe she'd missed the bus on her way over.

Mrs. Knott stood up from her desk, an unusually wide smile on her face, as she moved to switch on a projector that hug from the ceiling/ Simultaneously, she motioned for one of the students close to the far well to hit the light switch, as she stepped to the side of the board. Tenko could only cock an eyebrow, Knott was normally a pretty hands-off teacher, what was with all the theatrics today?

"Alright class, a few of you may have already known, but…"

She clicked a pointer, and a slide burst to life from the projector. It was an illustration of a muscled tan woman, a visor covering the upper half of her face and a flowing cape around her shoulders. It took him a minute, but he eventually clocked it as Alexandria. The text next to her was bright blue and in the most stylized font he could imagine, but the words it was spelling out were simple: "Sports Week."

A mixture of groans and cheers filled the classroom, as Mrs. Knott motioned for the noise to settle down, leaving Tenko in a state of… middling confusion.

"This week is sports week, a venerable tradition here at Winslow, and one we're very proud of. We'll have a multitude of small events, though classes should mostly stay the same leading up to…"

Another click of the slide, and another illustration, this time of Armsmaster vaulting over a hurdle. It had a few inaccuracies, Tenko noted. The blue of his armor was of a much deeper shade than that. Still, much like Alexandria before him, that horrid font was plastered over the slide, spelling out the words…

"The Presidential Fitness Test!"

The response to that was more unanimous than the announcement before it, groans universally emanating through the room as a pout settled upon Mrs. Knott's face. She seemed rather excited by this whole thing, and rather disappointed that the reaction to it was mostly negative.

"Now, now. The Fitness Test is integral in ensuring all of you stay healthy! Why, back in my youth…"

Tenko mentally clocked out as Mrs. Knott began to run her mouth. He'd never actually done many sports. He'd trained of course, but that was more… physical than anything like football or basketball. Hell, he barely knew how to play Shogi. Still, maybe it'd be fun to participate even if just a little bit.

His musing, and Mrs. Knott's ramblings were interrupted at once, as a very sweaty Taylor Herbert burst onto the scene, her dark hair stuck to her forehead and a noticeable number of band-aids plastered across her body. The girl panted out an apology, half-limping her way over to her seat, before flailing into it with a long exhale. Knott spared a short glare in the girl's direction, shaking her head slowly before she continued on with the slide, clicking through it and explaining the events register.

Tenko simply looked over at his ragged friend, whispering to her.

"You look like you just finished a Marathon."

"Kinda did."

He snickered at that, before continuing the conversation.

"You wanna let me in on why exactly you're so late?"

"I kinda… forgot."

"You forgot we had school?"

"Well, yeah? I had more important things on my mind."

"You wanna let me know what those more important things are?"

A shadow flickered over Taylor's face, only for a fraction of a second before it disappeared. A frown tugged at the edge of his lips.

"If ya ain't comfortable talking about it, don't."

"Thanks."

"Yeah, yeah. Anyway, you excited for Sports Week?" He pointed a thumb back at Mrs. Knott's rather long-winded presentation, and Taylor balked in response all the color draining from her face. Tenko could barely stop a Cheshire grin from spreading across his face.

"You forget that too, Herbert?"

"Ki-"

"-nda. Y'know, Alzheimer's should only start developing around the age of 30."

"Buzz off," She let out a small snort at his words, before recollecting herself and speaking again. "I don't really do sports too much, I'll probably just attend the mandatory events, skip out on the others. The school normally doesn't even notice you're missing."

"But that's boring, where the hell's your school spirit Herbert?"

"First of all, Tenko, it's Hebert," He knew that of course, he just found it funny the way her eyebrow twitched every time he called her Herbert. "And secondly, there isn't much to have Spirit for, I don't think Winslow's won a single game in any sport against the other schools in Brockton in over a decade."

"That's because people like you don't have any School Spirit y'know? Through hope anything's possible or something like that."

Taylor snorted again at his words, a little louder this time, but Mrs. Knott still managed not to hear. They continued on like that, for almost the entire rest of homeroom, before Mrs. Knott finally dismissed them alongside the bell. It's shrill ring acting as the capstone to her long presentation. Splitting up with Taylor, Tenko slowly came to a realization he thought he'd already come to ages ago.

Having friends was nice.

---

AN: A bit of a breather and navel-gazing chapter, which I felt was only natural, hopefully the wait doesn't make this too disappointing. I'll probably attempt to put out the next (and hopefully more exciting) chapter sometime by Wednesday next week. I often feel that people forget Winslow is a school, so I wanted to have a bit of fun with the setting, in what ways I could, sports can get pretty serious after all. Hope you guys enjoyed.

 

[Julius_Garfield]

Taylor Hebert's Monday wasn't going spectacularly.

She'd spent the vast majority of it on her morning run and talked to Brian over the phone about how the rest of the team was doing until she realized she'd missed her bus to school. The result was a haphazard dash to the next bus stop to catch the next one to Winslow.

At the very least, she learned something pretty neat during her run: the media was calling her Elytra now, which was a much better name than anything she could've come up with. Still, she'd been utterly blinded by the fact that this week was Sports Week. She never had any particular attachment to the entire thing, mostly due to it often just being Sophia showing up everyone in their year and making a particular case to show her up whenever she competed. After a certain year, she just… stopped, outside of what was mandatory.

Still, Tenko seemed pretty excited about the entire thing, if the way he grinned to himself whenever the topic managed to crop up during their conversations throughout the day. She was learning more and more about him the more time they spent together. He liked video games, that much was obvious, even if he often made rather arcane references to things she'd never even heard about (Dark Souls? Hotline Miami?), she mostly just assumed they were some niche titles, and he tended to wave her off whenever she asked about them. Tenko wasn't particularly serious, he was like Alec in that respect, but he was sharp. If she let so much as anything slip, he'd pick it up and stab her with it.

Still, it was good to have a friend.

They broke up just after school, waving each other goodbye as they headed home. Taylor wondered for a second what Tenko's guardian was like, was he a nice person? Tenko seemed kind enough, so whoever raised him probably wasn't that bad either.

Maybe she'd ask if she could meet them one day.

-

"I personally think you should just murder the man. Splat his brains against the wall."

His master was blabbering in his ears again, as he leaped across rooftops in his full villain outfit. After a particularly long leap, he rolled across the concrete, before coming to a stop just at the ledge of the roof. Standing to his full height, he loomed over the edge, staring down at a ramshackle apartment complex on the street below.

The morning had been consumed by his time at Winslow, a not entirely useless endeavor, considering it was not only a much-needed break from the constant mania of the Azn Bad Boys, but also provided valuable time to research. He was lucky enough to have a proper class with Mrs. Knott today outside of Homeroom, and he'd spent the majority of it looking up rival gangs, chief among them, the Empire 88.

It was an interesting organization, most similar to the Creature Rejection Clan of his time, but focused more on skin color than mutations? Tomura honestly just found the whole thing weird, why throw away potentially useful pawns and allies? Seemed rather wasteful to him. His sensei had referred to them as "Nazis", with the same enthusiasm one might have when seeing an ancient relic in person, so he simply sorted their entire ideology as something from before his time. Still, Purity, the gal who'd attack provoked Geram Yew to use Trigger, was among their ranks and what that meant is that the Empire were likely to be their main and most aggressive rivals.

Speaking of Geram Yew, he was the man Tomura was currently endeavoring to find and meet. He had quite a few choice words for the man, given the circumstances, and the vast majority of them weren't too nice. According to his intel, the bastard was currently stationed at the Southern Docks. He'd assigned Uber and Leet to keep an eye on Kuraiuzu for the foreseeable future, and all he could hope is that they weren't horribly stunting her development while he was away.

"I'm not going to kill a potential asset."

"It sends a rather strong message though, doesn't it Tomura? You work on my timing, or you work on no timing at all."

He rolled his eyes at that.

"Yew made a choice when fighting Purity, an annoying choice without a damn doubt, but the fact he could use Muscle Augmentation without turning into a bloody mess shows he has use."

"Hm, you're not wrong. I still vote that we should kill him though."

"This isn't a democracy old man; we go with my plan."

"Aw, look at my little autocrat, all grown up."

He almost threw up a little in his mouth.

Still, that was what the specter wanted. Best to ignore it for now, not give into his taunts. He was powerless, and he knew it, these jabs were simply his way of trying to remain more than a memory. With a deep breath, he leaped from the roof of the building, soaring across the street below them and landing on the front face of the apartment building. Carefully, he slid down the side of the building, landing with a thud. He dusted himself off quickly, heading to the front entrance to find a couple of thugs in ABB colors slacking off, smoking. They were pretty well-built guys he noticed, probably a particularity with how Yew ran his slice of their operation.

As soon as they saw him though, the thugs shot up, one going as far as to throw his half-used cigarette in the opposite direction. Good, Capes like him were still scary enough. He pushed past them wordlessly, entering into the complex. More thugs laid around aimlessly, all of them following the same pattern of shooting up straight as a bamboo sprout at the sight of him. Eventually, he snapped in the direction of one of the thugs, a seemingly new recruit from the way he was shaking.

"Where's Yew."

"U-upstairs sir, third room on the left."

He nodded, before continuing on his path towards his quarry. He could hear sighs and mumbled words of relief from behind him as he walked, and he could only just barely stop a grin from spreading across his face. He followed the grunt's directions through the winding hallways of the apartment complex, before finally pushing open a door, leading him into a gym of sorts.

It was a real Frankenstein, made up of seemingly stolen equipment, with mismatched weights and makeshift equipment scattered around the room, without care for color or theming. In the center of this mess of a gym was a sweaty figure in a tank top, currently struggling away at a particularly beat-up looking dumbbell, his large back turned away from Tomura at the moment. The figure's black hair stuck to his scalp due to the sweat, with vibrant purple highlights throughout his mane. He was tall, taller than Shigaraki, and well-built too. No wonder he was a good fit for Muscle Augmentation. Without wasting a second, Shigaraki spoke.

"Are you Yew?"

"What if I am?" Yew responded in between grunts, without even turning around to face him. Shigaraki felt an eyebrow twitch.

Already this guy was getting on his nerves.

Without a second word, Shigaraki closed the gap between them, grabbed Yew by the collar of his tank top, before throwing him cleanly across the room, sending him tumbling into the roughshod brick walls of the apartment. Yew couldn't even let out a sound before the moment of impact, left groaning on the floor. Shigaraki approached him, before crouching down and hovering just over the hurt Kyodai's resting place.

"Listen Geram, you put me in a pretty bad mood, y'know? I had a whole timeline, a plan of how I was going to deal with Trigger's rollout, and whaddya do? You go ahead and inject the dangerous experimental serum Lung gave out to you guys in case of emergency the first chance you get. That pissed me off, like, aren't you pissed off that I ruined your gym by throwing you across the room?"

Yew let out a groan.

"Exactly! That's how I felt when I heard the news. Now, brace yourself, this is gonna hurt for a bit, then you're gonna feel much better."

Shigaraki placed his palm on Yew's head, focusing for a second as he used his power to heal him. Yew let out a blood curdling howl as the entire event transpired, eventually rapidly sitting up once the entire deal was over, his hands tracing across his form as if to ensure his entire body was still there. Tomura could only snicker in response. While Yew ensured that he was still alive, Tomura took further stock of him. He was certainly on the younger side, maybe a bit younger than Uber and Leet, so early 20s? He had a sharp looking face, and his eyes seemed to burn with a fire that Tomura could recognize. Hm, maybe the guy would have some use after all. Geram refocused, his dark eyes glaring at Tomura with an emotion he couldn't quite pinpoint.

"The hell would you have me do ya hands faced freak? Just watch my guys get blown to bits while I have the means to stop it myself?"

"That would've made my life easier, so probably."

Yew stared at him with amazement, his jaw slightly agape, before Tomura continued.

"I'm just joking around Ramsy, well, half-joking. You not doing what you did would have made my life a lot easier, but it also revealed a diamond in the rough, I think. Tell me Geram, did you experience any side-effects after using my Trigger?"

The kyodai growled, before speaking, turning his gaze away from Shigaraki.

"Muscle soreness."

"Just muscle soreness?"

"Yeah, what more do you want me to say? That I couldn't get it up or something?!"

Tomura couldn't contain his laugh, a sound that came out like a crow in the midst of being strangled to death. He wasn't laughing because of Yew's crude remark, oh no. A person with a bad Quirk compatibility would've been turned to paste by a quirk as powerful as Muscle Augmentation, and yet here Yew was right in front of him, saying all it did was make his muscles a little sore. He knew people like this existed of course, freaks who had a monstrously high compatibility with Quirks, but he wasn't expecting one to fall right into his lap.

In a handful of minutes, he recollected himself, taking deep breaths to regain his composure, before finally looking back at a rather angry looking Yew. Before Tomura could speak, Yew cut him off, standing back up.

"You're the guy behind this 'trigger', aren't you? You called it yours earlier."

Oooh, so he wasn't just a musclehead then.

"What if I am?"

Yew grit his teeth, and Tomura could just hear them grinding together in frustration before finally he spoke again.

"Then you can make me stronger then, can't ya?"

Tomura shoved his hands in his pockets and walked closer to the Kyodai.

"I can. Being my test subject won't be a painless experience, though."

Yew's eyes locked with Tomura's own, and he could see true and proper conviction in them. Those eyes of his reminded him of a pair of real blistering hot heroes, the type of glare a guy would give you before he burned half your face off.

Tomura liked that.

"Don't care, all that I want is to be able to punch in the face of anyone who looks at me wrong."

"Alright then, I promise you this Geram Yew. I'll make you stronger than you could've ever dreamed of."

---

AN: As promised, it's still about 3 minutes before Thursday in my timezone, so I made it! Another chapter will probably also be posted on Friday, as I'm on a short break from college at the moment. I really wanted to include a joke regarding Tomura, HOI4 and the E88 in this chapter, but couldn't find anywhere to slot it in, sad ain't it? Aside from that, Yew's been a character I've had in my head for a while now, and he's a rather blatant expy in some cases, as you'll probably see later on.

 

[Julius_Garfield]

Tuesday morning in Winslow High was going exceptionally slowly, Tenko found.

He woke up and headed to school without issue, and even the specter was surprisingly quiet, compared to his usual constant buzzing.

When he got to Winslow, he was a spectator at a small sporting event, a swimming competition. The only name he recognized among the participants was Barnes, who placed third. But after that, the school day reverted to a normal schedule, and his day was taken up by mind-numbingly boring subjects such as Physics and Maths. It wasn't anything fun like Art or Computer Science, nor potentially useful like Biology or Chemistry, which just left Tenko to twiddle his thumbs staring at horrible abominations made up of letters and numbers. Eugh. His mind wandered in the meanwhile, away from his tedious prison and onto more important matters: the ABB.

Yew was an interesting figure to say the least, from his record and the short interactions he'd had with him he had a general profile: prideful, power-hungry and, to a certain extent, honorable. He ran his branch of the ABB pretty well, and he showed respect to those under him. He was panther-like if Tomura had to choose a single word. Furthermore, that twisted sense of honor combined with the determination he could see within his soul made him perfect for the Quirk he planned to permanently transfer to the freak.

His mind meanwhile drifted to the other members of the ABB, as he steadily totally dissociated from the class. Bakuda was… unreliable. They often butt heads, and that ego of hers made her quite the landmine, and yet she was smart, deadly smart. If Yew was like a young panther, then Bakuda was most similar to a Peacock, utterly prideful, yet capable of horrible acts of aggression. A thought crossed his mind, possibly at the nudging of the specter within his skull, how would Bakuda react to Bomber Cells?

He felt a cold shiver run down his spine, as he simply decided to move on from that thought.

Uber and Leet weren't even technically part of the ABB, merely help brought on deck temporarily, though the most permanent solutions were often intended to be temporary. They were like… Gophers. Yes, that was a good description of them. Easily frightened, small and pitiable things. Still, they had their uses, and much like Gophers, they had the potential to change the landscape around them.

Oni Lee was the enigma of their bunch, almost mannequin-like in some respects. His speech was stilted, and the only time he seemed to be alive was when he was in motion. Tomura had seen short clips and videos of Lee on the move, and he truly did look like a demon in those moments. Perhaps the best comparison, keeping up with their animal theming, was a Shark. Empty-headed in quite a few respects, yet still an Apex Predator.

Last but not least within the ABB, (excluding Kuraiuzu, of course), was Lung. Choosing an animal for him was as easy as taking candy from a baby; Lung was a Dragon, from his head to his toes. Mighty, yet in some ways Lethargic, content to sit on his pile of gold and let the nations of Men sleep easy. His thoughts on Lung were mixed, between scathing criticism and genuine approval in many ways. Keeping him on Deck somehow would be his preferred solution for the future, the question was how to deal with that ego of his, if such an ego could even be wrestled with in the first place.

The Kyodai he'd only had glancing interactions with, but from a mixture of research and his own intuition, he could tell quite a few of them probably had an axe to grind with Lung. He brought the Azn Bad Boys together through conquest and kept it together through fear, which wasn't very healthy in the long-term. He could side with the Kyodai in the all but certain power struggle, but then he'd have to somehow make sure their heads didn't grow to the size of UA. A bundle of arrogant pent-up noobs at the forefront of what was likely to be a superhuman gang war would be crippling, even if they all had the same freakish synergy with quirks that Yew did.

"Tenko, would you mind telling the class the answer to this equation?"

The voice sunk into his mind like a dagger might sink into an unsuspecting victim's back. Mr. Quinlan stood at the front of the class, a piece of chalk within his hands as he pointed towards an utterly anathematic equation. Tenko stared at it for a second, desperately trying to pull together what little he had remembered from the class before his dissociative episode. He racked his brain trying to think of an answer.

"Uhhhhh, 42?"

"Huh, that's… correct."

Praise be to the Random Number God.

-

Taylor Hebert managed to escape Winslow without incident, a rather rare occurrence in her book.

Perhaps it was because of the fact that Emma and her friends had all their attention hogged by the swimming competition, but she wasn't the type to look a gift horse in the mouth. Her dad already knew she'd be coming home from school a bit later, as she wanted to see exactly how Lisa was doing in the aftermath of the attack. Much like before, it wasn't exactly a lie, but it wasn't the full truth either.

Best not to think about it too much, in any case.

She entered the Undersiders hideout quietly, to find Rachel sat on the couch, hunched over with a hand on her chin. Her face was scrunched up, as if deep in thought, while a dog she recognized as Brutus was currently playing with a rather fresh-looking tennis ball at her feet. Maybe that was what Rachel spent all the money she made with the Undersiders on. Taylor approached steadily, giving her a small wave.

"Hey uh Bitch, whatcha doing?"

"Thinking."

That was rather obvious, to be fair.

"About what?" Taylor questioned.

A scowl descended across Rachel's face, her teeth baring slightly as her eyes moved to glare at Taylor.

"None of your damn business."

Well, that was rather rude.

Taylor simply threw her hands up, trying to dissuade her temper from rising any more than it already had.

"Hey, sorry. I was just wondering. Is Lisa around?"

Rachel rolled her eyes, cocking her head slightly in the direction of Lisa's room before fully returning to her thinking. Best to just leave her to it, Taylor decided. She walked past the couch, and headed over to Tattletale's room, creaking open the door carefully.

The first thing she noticed was that the place was still a mess. Yet the mess was substantially less than before, so kind of a win? Lisa herself was currently hunched over her desk, typing away at something on her laptop at a less frantic pace than Taylor would have expected. The sound of the door opening caught the blonde's attention, and she looked up at Taylor with tired eyes, but the bags underneath them were less pronounced. Taylor closed the door behind her, before taking a seat on the bed, keeping her eyes on Lisa all the while.

"Hey."

"Doing better?"

"Mm," An affirmation, but her heart wasn't fully in it.

"What've you been… up to?"

"Slept through almost the entirety of yesterday. Ate a bowl of ice cream. Watched a shitty soap opera. Fell asleep again watching it."

"Sounds fun."

"It was… fine."

"Mhm, and what're you doing now?" Taylor asked with a hint of worry in her voice.

"Research. Turns out I was right, like always," She weakly chuckled. "Guy called Geram Yew popped up on the news recently, throwing cars with his muscles bursting out of his skin. I cross-referenced, no events involving the guy that could've resulted in him getting powers naturally, but then again, I'm not the guy's shrink."

"So, he probably used a better version of Trigger?"

"Bingo. There's probably still enough time to strangle the snake in its cradle, I think, but it'll need to be a team effort. No doubt all the other groups in the Bay have heard whispers too. I plan on posting some of what I've assembled online anonymously, send some tips to the PRT without incriminating us too much before I go public with it at Somer's Rock."

"Are you sure you're… up for that? Presenting it at Somer's Rock, I mean."

"I… honestly don't know. But I've gotta be."

"Lisa, please just remember that the rest of us are here, y'know? If you need it."

Taylor wanted to punch herself as soon as the words left her mouth. She wasn't great at motivational speeches or just speeches in general. Still, she wanted to help her friend where she could, even if she didn't know the best way to do so. She stood swiftly, trying desperately to escape the aftermath of what she thought to be an utterly cringeworthy statement. But just as she headed for the door, Lisa's voice rang out.

"Thank you."

Taylor could only nod in response.

-

"So, what the hell've you got me in this grungy ass place for?"

Shigaraki looked up at Yew, the man currently standing just across from him, hands in his pockets, hunched over as he glanced around their current base of operations, his eyes dancing around multiple vials of Trigger labeled and unlabeled. Shigaraki sat lazily at a makeshift desk, legs upon the table, a rubix cube in his hands that he was using as a way to simply keep his hands occupied.

"You wanted to get stronger right? Sorry, but getting strong ain't always clean."

"Tch, whatever you say, handfreak."

Shigaraki let out a sigh, quite the attitude on this guy, wasn't there? Still, he didn't seem too likely to try and break anything out of boredom while Uber and Leet tinkered away slavishly at a separate project. In truth, he didn't even need them for what he planned to do, well, he wasn't sure if he needed them just yet. There was no telling if he'd need them to perform an on-the-spot lobotomy. That was dependent on how Yew answered his questions.

"How'd you join the ABB purple hair?"

Yew, rolled his eyes, leaning backwards.

"Lee beat me blue, and Lung turned my old boss into a stain on the ground, that what you wanted to hear?"

"You still got a grudge against Lung and Lee for that?"

"A grudge? Tch, what's the point? My old boss was weak, he died, the end. I want a rematch with Lee though, wasn't a fair fight the first time around, I had other guys backing me."

Oooh, how chivalrous. Shigaraki's eyes left the cube, focusing on Yew.

"How'd you feel about the power that Trigger gave you?"

Yew let out a growl, his patience with the questions clearly running rather thin. He walked over to the table, slamming his open palm against it.

"What the hell are all these questions for Handfreak? You're acting like this is American Idol or some shit. You promised me strength, I want it."

"Slow your roll big guy. I'm trying to decide if the power I have in mind for ya is fitting and if you're trustworthy enough to nab it. If you're really in such a hurry, I'll give ya the power to shit chipmunks and send ya on your way."

Yew snarled, before withdrawing, pulling away from Shigaraki and back to his original position in the center of the room.

"Fine, it was fun to use. Bit difficult to control though. If I get a choice, I'd prefer something simpler, if only so I could punch faces in better."

"See how much easier things are when you cooperate? Now then, final question, do you enjoy fighting?"

"Enjoy it? People like us, people like me, we live to fight, don't we? We wouldn't be in a fucking gang if we didn't."

"Alright then, I've made my decision. You're good enough."

Shigaraki placed the cub down on the desk, still only half-solved, before he hopped up from his seat and walked over to Yew. Each and every footstep rang out across the warehouse until he was only a single pace away from Yew, he gave the Kyodai a final once over, before shrugging, and throwing off his trench coat, revealing the thin black shirt beneath it. Best to get it out of the way before it was almost certainly soaked in sweat.

"This probably won't be the most comfortable experience. Hope you're ready."

With that word of warning, he put a hand to his chest and got about to recreating the Quirk factor that he had in mind for his little lab rat: Endurance. The problem with that quirk was that it was far more complex than one would assume, you turn vigor into strength, that's a pretty easy thing to do ain't it? The problem was that the quirk changed you from head to toe, and it wasn't a quirk you could build brick by brick like Warp Gate either. You just had to go through with it. He felt it, the searing hot pain endemic to reconstructing Quirks, and the main roadblock to doing so. It was like a thousand needles being shoved into every single pore in your skin at once, millions of drops of blood pouring out from the countless tiny wounds.

And yet, he pushed through.

Through the pain, through the suffering, until he finally had Endurance in his hands, so to say. Without so much as a second word, his hand wrapped around Yew's face, the smirk that had found itself there from watching Shigaraki's exertion falling away in an instant, as wisps of red energy burst out from his palm, inserting themselves into every hole in Yew's face. Through his nose, under his eyelids, into his ears, until finally, silence.

Yew fell backwards, landing on his behind, as he hacked and coughed as a result of the transfer. Tomura looked at him for a second, before turning his attention to Uber and Leet, staring over at the scene with mouths agape. He snapped his fingers in their direction, his voice coming out an exhausted rasp.

"You two didn't see anything."

"Yes sir," Leet replied, his voice barely above a whimper.

Tomura then turned his attention back to the now recovering Yew, crouching down to meet him face to face.

"Congratulations Ramsy, you're officially a cape. Hope you're ready for all the bullshit that comes with it."

---

AN: This was supposed to be out yesterday, but then I went to go watch Captain America: Brave New World (pretty alright film) and then I got a cold, so sorry for my tardiness. Yet more build-up to Somer's Rock, I just hope that it isn't too grating. Don't worry, not every day up until Friday will be elaborated on like this, and chapters will have less of a gap between them in general to hopefully make it flow better. As always, hope y'all enjoyed.