ตอน 57: Phantoms Dance: Ch 8
Took a trip back home on Friday to visit my family. We celebrated my sister's birthday on Saturday, which was much more convenient to everyone than doing it on her actual birthday on Thursday.
Regardless, we got together, had a small celebration, had fun, and had to watch my aunt absolutely butcher the green bean casserole.
It's not that hard, GBC is like five ingredients max, what the Hell? It looked fine on the surface but when I scooped it onto my plate it was just a mush of carrots, celery, broccoli, fucking brussel sprouts ! It was nasty!
The Green Beans, the thing that the dish is named after, had been ground up into a green paste and mixed through it.
Blasphemy.
She didn't even use real milk! It was a Vegan dish!
LADY! You are in rural fucking TEXAS! The only other vegan in a fifteen mile radius was the pig sitting chopped up in the middle of the table!
I pulled my Dad aside, and we both agreed that He'll be the one making the casserole next time the family gets together, because Holy shit it was nasty.
There was definitely something in it, because I had the weirdest dream last night, it felt like I was tripping hard.
I dreamed that the Skibidi toilet trend died, and the social media vacuum was replaced by "female streamer burping compilations". There was this small petite girl, kinda mousy looking, who was the fastest growing channel of all time, and all she did was chug mountain dew and belch into the mic. She was being called the next Dream, from how many subs she was getting, and someone made a joke about her cheating in a burping speedrun that was so bad it physically woke me up.
What made the dream worse was that when I woke up, I opened Tor (yeah Tor, this search is past incognito mode) and looked up if that shit actually exists and it does .
And yes, the comments are nothing but degenerates being degenerates.
-Rain of Sins-
-Phantoms Dance: Ch 8-
Pawn Log 3: The Hero Public Safety Commision (HPSC).
The Safety Commision is a dangerous thing. Its legal definition in the law that signed it into existence is "an enforcement agency responsible for managing the interactions between Heroes and society as a whole and for investigating the most dangerous cases of criminality." But the document was very vague on a lot of things, and so the HPSC have taken advantage of that to do things that they were never specifically told they had the authority to do, but that they could say was implied to be a part of their jurisdiction.
Training their own Heroes in their own program, such as Hawks, and then paying them from their own pocket rather than through usual governmental stipends based on ranking, isn't something that they were ever supposed to be able to do. But they get away with it because it's kept under wraps, and the people who do know, let it slide because they'd have to pick a fight with the commision.
And this sort of thing becomes a pattern if you know where to look for it. They control who gets licensed as a Hero, they control the Hero rankings, they can take control of local police forces to supplement an investigation, they can censor the press to suppress panic and "problematic content", such as Stain's manifesto or criticism of the HPSC.
Their biggest weakness, however, is their very nature. They get away with so much because they keep a low profile, but the fact that they have to do that means they are forced to keep overhead to an absolute minimum. This had led to critical shortages of manpower, and their employees being overworked.
But with the recent security bill, and the panic that Shigaraki has caused, they have been stepping further out of the shadows. Hiring more people, pulling vehicles and material out of storage, putting middlemen in to oversee entire police precincts, taking a management role in the Hero academies, meddling with government, and making public announcements.
They pose an asymmetrical risk to my plans and operations, they have the tools and experience to track me down, and can pull strings to get a disproportionate amount of firepower pointed in any direction they want. And unlike with every other faction, they don't have an overreliance on quirks that I can take advantage of with Entropy.
That being said, I will be watching and eagerly waiting for them to bite off more than they can chew, so I can be recording when this situation blows up in their face.
-Rain of Sins-
Jeremy galloped down the dark tunnel as fast as his quirks and augmented limbs could carry him.
From the Nomu's back, Izuku watched a black armored train slowly come into view.
"Hold these for me." He said as he tied a bag around Jeremy's neck, containing the blood vials he had collected over the day. "I'll want them back later."
He slowly rose to his feet, wobbling slightly at the wind rushing by, and for a moment he was worried he might fall before he managed to stabilize himself.
This would be where a less sane person would jump and risk going splat on the ground below. But instead Izuku raised his gauntlet and fired a metal line up in an arc, which came down and snagged on the small gap between the train cars. He tugged to make sure the grappling hook was securely in place, activated the motors in his gauntlet to reel him in, and then jumped.
Izuku landed safely on the roof of the train with a thud.
He was scared, nervous, and somewhat queasy about what he was about to do, but he took a deep breath and centered himself.
This was the Safety Commission, the same people who had helped brush his mother's murder under the rug. And they were the only ones left standing between him and Endeavor. If anyone deserved this, it was them.
The Sovereign of Sin knelt, laying his palm flat against the roof of the train, and causing his gauntlet's claws scraping lightly on the cold black metal.
The wind rushed by him, causing his cloak to billow behind him like a dark Ash. Izuku closed his eyes, and without their glow the tunnel went completely black.
He had given himself three quirks, all what the Hero system would classify as "support" abilities.
His Regeneration was an easy pick to understand, same with why he chose an intelligence boosting quirk, but [Tech Interface] had raised eyebrows when he told Ujiko and Yuyara about it.
Sure it made it easier to use his gear, let him adapt to his new spine and tail so much faster, and being able to send messages and calls with just a thought was useful, but there was so much more possibility to the quirk than such simple uses, especially with how much of the modern world was built on software.
And to think, All For One really only used the thing as a crutch to get around his lack of eyesight. What an uncharacteristic lack of imagination.
Izuku reached out with his quirk and grabbed a hold of the fiber cables that ran along the length of the train, and followed them back to the main computer. The "brain" in the front car was a simple thing, it had an autopilot, controlled lights, and controlled a series of emergency blast doors that could slam shut and quarantine the different train cars.
He reached a mental hand into the code, grabbing a fistful of lines, and began wrapping as much as he could around his hand. The system quickly realized something was wrong, and enacted countermeasures that burnt into his palm, but firewalls and antiviruses were designed to stop malicious code, not a quirk directly interacting with it.
With one swift pull Izuku ripped the entire core of the system out.
-Rain of Sins-
Two Safety Commision specialists, codenames Ash and Jackle, walked down the semi tight corridors of the armored military train, passing dozens of their peers.
It was unusual for so many to be in one place, usually only a squad or two were deployed to anything at once. Oh sure, there were the usual men in suits that popped up anywhere that caught the HPSC's eye, but most of the people on this train wore the same featureless black combat gear that they did. It was unnerving.
They were specialists, limited in number. If this many were here, then someone important was worried something big was going to hit this train.
Some were hired on after being discharged from the military, some poached directly from elite units with the promise of better pay, and some had been brought in at a young age specifically for their quirk- like Hawks. Although most of them usually weren't as spectacular as the Hero. Ash, for instance, could see a "shadow" of the world around him that was always three seconds ahead of the current time. Nowhere near flashy enough to be a Hero, but perfect for pulling your squadmate back into cover before they took a bullet to the head.
Ash and Jackle reached the end of the train, an empty car with two women in suits leading against the wall.
The specialists surveyed the room, and when it revealed itself to be the same as it had been the last seven times, they turned and began walking the way they came, to do another patrol lap.
Thud
In an instant the two had their rifles pointed at the ceiling.
…Seconds dragged on but neither moved, guns at the ready, slowly shifting their footwork to sandwich the place where the noise came from directly between them.
The two suits startled at the sudden action, one of them walked over to the two men, while the other checked her earpiece.
"Hey." She said as she approached, her brown ponytail and sunglasses reflecting off the specialist's black visor. "What's going on?"
Ash didn't answer her, his focus trained solely on the ceiling.
"Hello? Are yo-"
"Quiet!" He hushed her, straining his ears for any further sounds.
…
The constant thunk thunk thunk of the tacks.
…
The dull humm of the AC.
…
The distant sound of wind washing over the sides of the vehicle.
…
thud .
…
The specialist reached up and adjusted a small dial on the side of his helmet with his left hand, turning his radio from receiving only to broadcasting for every channel on the train to hear him.
"This is specialist Ash-"
Thud
"There's something on the roof."
As soon as the words left his mouth, the power cut out with a BVOOOooom , bathing the entire train in darkness as every system on board shut off.
BEEP
Red emergency lights flashed with the alarm, briefly flooding the car in weak crimson light for several seconds at a time before plunging it back into darkness again.
BEEP
The suits looked around in fear, clearly fresh out of training with how easy their emotions were to read.
BEEP
One pulled the pistol from her hip.
BEEP
The rest of the train was full of shuffling as Specialists rushed to defensive positions, weapons at the ready.
BEEP
The emergency light flashed once more…
…
And then didn't.
"They got the emergency power!" One of the suits whispered the obvious, their voice echoing from somewhere to his left in the dark.
Thankfully Jackal took it on himself to shut her up this time. Ash hated repeating himself, and would have just clamped her mouth shut. Instead he listened, keeping his ears open as he slowly stepped backwards to press his back against the wall, his gun still locked on the roof, as he waited for whatever it was to try to break in.
He was so focused on waiting for the breach, that it took him several seconds to notice the pair of glowing green eyes that opened right in front of him.
Ironically, it was the suit's inexperience that saved his life.
She panicked and screamed with enough force to shatter glass, snapping him to attention.
A single crack from her pistol lit up the area for a fraction of a second, revealing a black shape that seemed more fog than man, and gave the perfect lighting for everyone to clearly see a metal tendril shoot out of the fog and crush the woman's head against the wall like a grape.
The specialists opened fire and the specter lunged forward, bullets ripped into the black cloud, seemingly passing through harmlessly or splattering blood on the floor at random chance.
A monsterous hand with claws as long as knives lashed out of the fog, cleanly cutting out Jackal's throat with a single precise cut. The tentacle shot out the other direction, its wicked tip piercing the second suit's heart dead center and withdrawing with a single motion, before flicking at Ash like a whip.
He shifted his weapon, blocking the thing with his gun just in time to save himself the same fate, thanks to the foresight of his quirk, but the impact shattered his weapon and sent him flying down the corridor.
Someone caught him and helped him settle back to his feet, he couldn't see who, and was far too focused on the attacker to check.
Gunshots roared in the hundreds, an entire firing line opening up as the shade launched itself after him. Ash pulled out his side arm and fell in sync with his brothers in arms. Every shot lit up the car for a moment, creating a horrifying slideshow of death.
The thing lunged forward, the black cloud spilling around it, and the two nearest to it went down screaming.
The metal tentacle, slick with blood, lashed out, sweeping one man off his feet and bisecting another.
The shade flickered back and forth, fast, seemingly invisible limbs easily slipping behind guards and slitting throats. It jumped to the roof, bracing against the metal, before launching itself back down and crushing a specialist to paste.
The tendril pierced down, stabbing through one man, digging through the floor, and erupting from under another. He screamed as he was dragged below and thrown to be crushed under the tracks.
One specialist lunged forward into the mist, his knife plunging into its center mass, but he fell straight through as if it weren't solid at all, and emerged from the back with blood pouring from a gaping hole in his chest.
A blast door that should have been deactivated suddenly slammed shut, crushing a specialist, and protecting the monster from the bullets- but it didn't do anything to protect the men from the monster. The tail pierced through the door, wrapped around a specialist, and dragged her back through into the other car, where her screaming abruptly cut off.
The door opened, and the shade rushed forward again, not even slowed down.
"WHAT THE HELL IS THAT THING!?" One man screamed, watching in horror as his bullets passed through the fog harmlessly. "WE CAN'T KILL IT! IT'S A GHOST! THIS THINGS A FUCKING GHO- GLK !" But he was cut off as his head toppled to the ground.
The black tendril shot forward, and Ash barely managed to duck in time, even with his quirk. Three shots from his sidearm sparked uselessly as they bounced off the metal plates, at least confirming that whatever this thing was, it was still solid.
His sidearm clicked empty and, lacking any more clips for it, he hurled it at the fog. Then he turned and ran, rushing towards the front cars. His main weapon had been lost, his sidearm was out of ammo, and sticking around without one wasn't going to do anyone any good. It wasn't exactly cowardice but it still left a bad taste in his mouth.
BEEP
Red light flashed again- they'd gotten the emergency power back on! That was very good, but also slightly annoying for him.
Almost immediately the blast doors began slamming down, and he had to throw himself into a slide that just barely managed to get him under the door and into the second train car without getting chopped in half.
BEEP
The other people in the room, five specialists, immediately had their guns on him, but when they saw his armor, they relaxed.
BEEP
Ash stood up and made his way to the left wall, a large safe had been opened and was already halfway looted by the others. It was a small armory of ammo, explosives, and the types of big guns you used when you really wanted a problem to go away.
Ash grabbed a belt fed machine gun from the rack and the entire box of ammunition it was sitting next to it.
BEEP
He set the gun up at the far side of the room, clipping in an unbroken belt of ammo straight from the box, and laid down flat against the floor, training the weapon on the blast door.
BEEP
The others weren't far behind him, ravaging the small compartment for all it was worth.
BEEP
One even pulled out a rocket launcher.
BEEP
…
BEEP
The gunshots from the other cars had stopped.
BEEP
Ash flicked on his radio again. "This is specialist Ash calling on all channels. Is there anyone alive past car two? Over."
…
"Repeat. Is there anyone alive in the train beyond car two, please respond. Over."
…Silence… nothing but damning silence.
…
…Not even the alarm anymore. Fuck.
"This is specialist Ash, is the first car still under control? Over."
Ulike before, a response was quick to come over the radio.
"This is agent Mulder, the first car is still safe. The package is secure, and I have regained control over the doors, but they managed to cut the emergency power again. Give me a few seconds, and I'll see what I can do with the backup batteries. They're only supposed to be used for the brakes and won't be anywhere near enough to power all of the train, but it should be enough for just the front two cars. Over."
Sure enough, the lights overhead slowly flickered to life. They were dull, much weaker than they usually were, but being able to see at all was incredibly useful.
The specialist who had picked up the rocket launcher, a particularly large man, strutted into the middle of the room with the weapon hoisted on his shoulder, and flicked on his radio as well.
"This is specialist Burner. If you have the doors under control then open every door besides the ones for our cars. Over."
The lights dimmed and several dull thunks echoed through the train, before Mulder radioed back.
"Done. I'm assuming you have a plan?"
"Better than that. Open the porthole, because I've got a gift for this piece of shit."
A small square opened in the middle of the blast door, about the size of a dog door.
Burner kneeled, lined up his shot perfectly, and pulled the trigger without a moment of hesitation. For anyone else such a shot was incredibly stupid, but specialists weren't "anyone else".
The rocket flew perfectly though the small hole, and down the dark wallway, its tail illuminating a scene of bloody gore in its wake.
Ash's view was cut off as the porthole slammed shut again, and a few seconds later the train shook from an explosion at its very back.
Burner growed, tossing the launcher to the floor, and pulling an SMG from his back.
Then the lights went out again.
"Shit! The batteries still have 60% charge left, but something fried the wires! Keep your eyes open, we'll be out of this fucking tunnel and into sunlight in a few more minutes!"
Ash swallowed nervously. Not only had the rocket not hit the monster, he hadn't even seen it in the hallway. And whatever it was, it had complete control of the system.
A bead of sweat ran down his brow, his finger twitched on the trigger, and he struggled to keep control of his breathing.
Seconds dragged on into minutes as everyone waited with baited breath for the inevitable.
What was this stupid door even supposed to do!? They'd all seen it punch through one earlier without a second thought!
What was that noise? Was that movement in the dark or was his mind playing tricks? Why was it colder all of a sudden? Were those footsteps? Was another specialist adjusting their stance, or was the thing on the roof above them again?!
Was it already in the room with them!?
His quirk was useless here, he couldn't see ! It could be right in front of him and he'd never know it!
That THING could even be-
"BEHIND US!"
Gunfire lit up the room, and Ash rolled onto his back, dragging the machine gun up and bracing its butt on the floor under his shoulder.
He didn't even bother lining up his shot, he knew he didn't have time to, he just pulled the trigger and wildly sprayed AP rounds into the whirling black shape of blades and claws as it descended on him.
-Rain of Sins-
Agent Mulder kept his growing fear in check with the same professional efficiency that had been hammered into him during training. Instead of panicking he ignored the violent sounds of combat behind him, and focused on getting the power back online, so he could get the package out safely.
"Open the door and let me roast this idiot alive, your men clearly aren't competent enough to do anything on their own. This is why Japan needs Heroes! Not just some overpaid cops in black suits."
But the package was making that very difficult to do because he just would stop talking!
"Are you even listening to me?" King scoffed, glaring at the shrimpy agent from his spot leaning against the wall.
No! No he wasn't! He was busy trying to splice these wires together while not electrocuting himself!
"Either open the door and I fight him now, or we wait a few minutes and I fight him when he breaks in."
Did this one go to the batteries, or the transmitter? Ugh! Who decided to make every wire the same color!
"Really I could just melt the door down myself. I don't get why you're making this so difficult."
Okay, he should just need to connect these two, and then they should divert the batteries around the fried wires. So why wasn't it working!?
"Wait, do you not think I could take this guy? I'm KING! The top Hero in Japan! I dethroned ALL MIGHT!"
Oh! He'd crossed those two and gotten them mixed up. Ha. Hahaha! Golly, he was so glad to have a voice constantly complaining over his shoulder and distracting him!
"The naive arrogance! Really! You're not letting me do anything because you're scared I'll show your men up! Just admit it!"
This to that, wrap the copper threads and…
The light overhead came back on with a hum. And Mulder leapt to his feet, burnt fingers immediately scrambling to the control panel as he did something he had been trying to do the entire time.
He turned on the train's transmitter and called for help.
"This is agent Mulder breaking planned radio silence! The convoy is under attack! Repeat. The convoy is under attack! Situation critical! Situation critical! Can anyone respond!?"
-Rain of Sins-
Dixie cursed as he dove behind cover to avoid a flying rock from Muscular, the size of a small car.
The fighting had been intense and brutal, his men were thinning rapidly, and the Villains were down to just three members- Tomura, Muscular, and Kurogiri, all of their backup was slumped over in bloody puddles on the floor.
Tomura cackled gleefully as he grabbed ahold of an HPSC agent and reduced her to dust.
Dixie snapped his gun up and took a shot, but sneered as a purple wormhole opened to swallow the bullet and drop it into one of his own men's legs, instead of its rightful place between Shigaraki's eyes.
That fucking warper was really starting to piss him off. He was what had made the League so hard to catch, what enabled them to pull off all of their attacks, and was single handedly the only thing keeping Tomura alive right now.
Muscular rushed forward, picking people up like dolls and popping their heads like grapes, not even acknowledging the rounds punching into the thick bands of red that wrapped around him like a cocoon.
One specialist threw a grenade, but just like with every other thing they tried that might actually do something, a purple mist appeared and swallowed it right out of his hand. Then, a few seconds later, dropped it right on top of that same man's head.
The chief of security watched one of his nation's finest get blown to pieces with a burning anger… and the beginnings of an idea.
The difference between stupidity and bravery was a razor thin line, but history belonged to those who knew the difference and seized it by the reins.
"I am the instrument of providence," Dixie quoted as he unhooked a smart grenade from his belt. "She will use me as long as I accomplish her designs," He pulled the pin and manually set the timer to zero. "Then she will shatter me like a glass."
He lept from cover, arm wound back to throw, but when the portal opened to steal his grenade he did not let go, instead he thrust his arm elbow deep into the cold murky sludge.
Kurogiri, caught off guard, didn't immediately open an exit portal.
Dixie smirked and let go of the lever.
The flag grenade exploded instantly, and he screamed as it shredded arm to ribbons. But Kurogiri fared much worse.
The mutant couldn't even yell, his form bloated with cancerous looking tumors, and shrapnel began shooting out of his body, shredding the metal case on his neck, and ripping out chunks of purple mush that turned into liquid as that splattered on the floor. He tittered, swaying slightly before collapsing in on himself and splashing to the floor.
"Kurogiri?!" Tomura stared at him second in command with wide eyes, not comprehending what he'd just witnessed.
Dixie grit his teeth, biting back the pain and lightheadedness that threatened to overtake him as blood gushed from the shredded strings that hung from his left shoulder.
He didn't have time to die right now!
Once more he brought his gun to bear, an antique Desert Eagle that had kept him company since his father had bought it for him, lined it up with Tomura's head, and pulled the trigger.
The Villain's head jerked to the side as his jaw was blown completely off by the .50 caliber bullet.
Tomura screamed, screamed , in pain as he crumbled to the floor.
Dixie ignored him, swinging his gun around to the last threat, who would be easy pickings to any decent shot now that no one was protecting his head.
But he didn't see Muscular, instead he found himself face to face with a giant rock speeding at him like a bullet.
…
…
…
"...nned rad… lenc…"
…
"...onvoy…"
…
"-nder a…ck!..."
…
"...at. T… convoy is un…r attack! Repeat. The convoy is under attack! Situation critical! Situation critical! Can anyone respond!?"
Dixie jerked awake, his right arm grabbing at an empty holster for a gun that wasn't there, and his left arm… well his left arm didn't seem to be doing much of anything.
But a glance at the bloody bandages that stopped several inches short of where his elbow should be, kind of explained that.
As his senses returned to him he noticed a few things, first he was missing his hat, second he had been moved from the underground railroad stop to some sort of storage room, while he was passed out.
There were a bunch of old dusty boxes everywhere, and of the 10 specialists and 20 or so suits who had been with him initially, only 4 specialists were in the room with him, most nursing their own wounds.
Third, and most importantly, however…
Tomura Shigaraki sobbed into a thick cloth gag that doubled as a bandage for his entire lower skull. He was blindfolded, and all four of his limbs were individually handcuffed to two different metal poles, leaving him to hang between them.
One of the specialists also had decided to take care of the Villain's quirk in a permanent fashion, if the bloody stumps where his pinky and ring fingers used to be were any indication. (Dixie's money was on the feller who's leg was looking a bit too chalky to be healthy.)
All in all, it was a rather pitiful look for the so-called "greatest threat to Hero society".
Speculation danced at the back of his mind. Had Muscular been killed, or merely chased off once Kurogiri stopped protecting him and Tomura had been downed. Did he think his boss had been killed and decided to cut his losses?
'Bah! Head in the game, Dixie! You don't have time for that right now!'
He reached over and grabbed the radio with his good hand and dragged it closer to himself.
"This is the Chief of Security, who is this, and what the Hell is goin on over there?"
"This is agent Mulder, sir! The convoy is under attack! Our defenses have been compromised, and almost all hands have been lost!"
"What hit you, a bomb? Missile?"
"We were boarded, sir."
"How many? Twenty? Fifty?"
"N-No sir. Less."
"A dozen? Ten? How many, son?"
"Just one, sir. It's the Sovereign."
…
"Sir?"
Dixie couldn't help the weak smirk that grew on his face at the morbid humor of the whole situation.
Kino had hijacked his original plan for the whole thing, turning what should have only ever been the bait into the mousetrap. Now, by pure coincidence, the leftover pieces of his first draft had fallen into place to give him a perfect flush.
Except instead of showing his hand with an empty train on auto pilot, and a single Hero who was tough enough to survive, he was going to have to give the order to a man who had done nothing to deserve it. And use it in a populated part of the city, rather than the abandoned district that Kino had taken for use in her own trap. Which hadn't even worked.
Damn it all.
"Listen very closely, agent. You were involved with the original plan, correct? Before Kino's meddling? The best hand in Poker is the gun under the table. Do you understand?"
There was a pause over the radio.
"...Sir?"
"For peace in our time, Mulder, for peace in our time."
Another pause.
"...Yes sir. It's been an honor."
And the radio clicked silent, the connection lost.
"The honor was all mine, son." Dixie said sadly to himself, as he leaned back against the wall, and rubbed at his missing arm with a sigh.
-Rain of Sins-
Agent Mulder stared at the radio with an unreadable expression. Emotions warring just underneath the surface of his mask.
"Was that the security chief?" King asked with a raised eyebrow. "Did he finally tell you to open the door and let me at him? I don't know why you idiots are coddling me, so what if I'm still recovering, I'm the number one! I could take anyone with one arm tied behind my back! No! Both arms tied behind my back!"
Mulder didn't respond, the Hero's voice was just white noise, static in the background as he stared at his reflection in the control panel.
"We should have left the tunnel by now, if you pulled down the metal shields, the windows in the other cars would show us racing over the city on a suspended magnetic track."
He punched a button, causing a portion of the wall King was leaning on to swing open, revealing a door to the outside. Wind rushed into the room as the world raced by.
"Watch it!" The Hero growled as he waved his arms to stabilize himself. "I could have fallen out of the fucking train, you idi ooOOOTT! "
Mulder kicked the back of his knee and shoved him as hard as he could, causing the flaming Hero to topple out of the train, screaming obscenities as he fell twenty or so feet to the city below.
Mulder closed the door, and trudged his way back to the panel, a cold sense of numbness falling over him like a blanket.
"For peace in our time."
-Rain of Sins-
Izuku panted heavily, one hand holding onto a wall to help keep him upright, and the other braced on his knee.
His clothes were wrecked, his cloak riddled in so many bullet holes it might as well have been swiss cheese. Red electricity danced along his skin constantly, knitting flesh back together in all the places it had been punched open.
Bullets clinked as they bounced off the metal flooring, as his regeneration pushed them out of his wounds- or worse, it was sometimes too effective and closed the wound before the bullet was fully pushed out. Whenever that happened he had to do… not fun things with his claws.
His Entropy cloud was gone, turned off, its tanks were down to 10% capacity and he'd already expended more than he wanted to.
And he was covered in blood splatters. His tail, especially, was drenched in the red fluid.
With shaky eyes he watched the life liquid drip from his hands into pools of yet more on the ground at his feet.
…He had never killed someone before.
He'd assisted Stain, sure, but he had never physically been the one to end a life.
It was a weak defense, a pathetic, paper thin deflection that didn't even matter, especially when his own creations had drawn rivers of blood at his orders, but it had been his defense, one of the last things he'd held onto when his gut twisted and his thoughts wandered to dangerous places when he tried to sleep at night.
And now he'd lost it.
There were plenty of worse things he could have lost it to- these were paid soldiers who were part of the organization who had helped Endeavor get away with his mother's murder, and had actively been trying to kill him. But still…
"Just one more thing I've lost." He sighed and stood up straight, now completely healed.
The Sovereign of Sin walked towards the final door separating him from justice, with purpose in his step, and reached out into the system to force it open.
But just before he could, the entire train he was standing in promptly stopped existing.
-Rain of Sins-
Aoyama forced a smile as he braced his shoulder against the rock and pushed it off the ground with all his might. Mineta swept underneath, his small size letting him slip into the gap and pull out the small kid who had been trapped beneath.
The abandoned district had been completely leveled by All Might and Charbidis' final clash, and that destruction had spilled out into the very much not abandoned areas around it.
Buildings were crumbling, rubble was everywhere, people were trapped, and if the rain didn't stop soon they were in very real danger of flash flooding.
La Brava was coordinating with first responders to organize rescued civilians, Gentle was using his quirk to turn collapsing infrastructure into slow and controlled falls that didn't crush people, and Mineta and Aoyama were ankle deep in the flood water, climbing through the rubble, and pulling out survivors.
It was exhausting, the water was freezing, his muscles ached, and Aoyama felt like he might collapse at any moment. The only thing that kept him going was the survivors.
Every time he brought another one back he was sure that that was it, that he'd collapse once he got that person to safety, but then he'd crest the hill that they cordoned off for survivors, and all of the crowd would cheer for him, and it would give him the energy that he never knew he had to go out and try to find another.
And it was even more so this time. When he and Mineta returned the crowd hooped and hollered, a sobbing mother rushed forward and took her child from them with a smothering hug.
"WAY TO GO KNIGHTS!" A man from the crowd yelled from under a large white medical tent. "LET'S FUCKING GOOOOO!"
The people recognized them. Aoyama didn't know if it was from their videos or from the news, but people recognized them!
Aoyama stood taller and waved at the people, before turning, ready to brave the rubble and rushing rivers once again. But something swept the ground out from beneath his feet, knocking him to the ground as everything shook.
Frantically he looked around for what could have caused it, but nothing stood out. He looked back to the survivors, to make sure they were alright, and locked eyes with La Brava who was pale as a sheet.
"What happened?!" He shouted at her.
The shortstack held up her phone and shouted something, but while he couldn't read the screen and her voice was drowned out by the storm, he could read her lips with gut wrenching clarity.
Another explosion! East Tokyo!
-Rain of Sins-
Izuku woke up to a headache. A very bad headache that bordered on turning into a migraine if it got any worse.
He glared up at the gray sky, and the sparse raindrops that landed on his face. He seemed to be under the edge of a storm, enough to get some clouds and rain, but not enough to fully block the evil bright dot in the sky that stabbed into his retina.
Strange, he didn't remember falling asleep outside.
Slowly Izuku pushed himself up into a sitting position on really sore limbs, and an awful crick in the neck.
He looked left, he looked right, and then did it again just to be sure.
He seemed to be in the middle of a large crater, about the size of a football field. And his clothes were in ruins! His coat had been black, sure, but it was just char at this point! His entropy tanks were ripped to shreds, his gauntlets were mangled, his boots were practically half melted.
What in the world had been on the other side of that door?
…
The door. He'd been on that train! With the Safety Commission troops!
Izuku's eye twitched violently as his brain fully woke up and everything clicked together,
"...Mother fuckers . They really tried to blow me up." He paused momentarily as something clicked in his mind. " Again . This is the second time! What's their deal with this?"
Really he didn't even have the words. What's a good word that crossed "angry" with "dumbfounded" and "annoyed". "Irritated" would technically be it, but that really didn't seem to capture just how violently pissed off he was at the moment.
"SOVEREIGN!" A voice bellowed from the distance.
That got Izuku's attention. His focus lasered in on a large form climbing over the edge of the crater, and sliding down into it.
"Ah, Endeavor, just the man I've been looking for." The Sovereign of Sin smiled with all the warmth of a blizzard, and the sharpness of a knife. "You always have the tendency to turn up at the best moments, don't you?" He said with snark as he looked over his ruined gear.
The touching reunion was interrupted as a news helicopter rushed by overhead, hard banking to bleed off speed and start circling the crater.
The cameras pivoted, locking onto the Villain and zoomed in on him, showing the world the first ever clear look at the Sovereign of Sins. The burnt, twisted, mangled, broken, and bloodied form of the S rank Villain.
Izuku tilted his head, almost amused at what was about to happen, and brought a single charred finger with metal melted into the skin, up to the remnants of his mask. Giving a "shh" sign to the camera, as if not to tell anyone of a secret.
Then he disappeared.
Izuku fell through the ground, sliding through a soup of sandy gray foam, right before the flaming Hero could ram him like a bull, and landed back in a bed at the Origins Lab with a pained grunt.
Almost immediately his two news assistants were on him. Two floating metal droids, black orbs the size of basketballs, with dozens of small robotic claws that ended in everything from scalpels, knives, scissors, and bone saws, to syringes, screwdrivers, welders, and vacuum tubes.
Mei's gifts buzzed around him, scanning him and immediately getting to work on fixing him. They peeled off burnt cloth, hooked him up to a blood pack, and gave him a quick numbing shot before precisely cutting out bits of metal that had melted into his hands, and extracting bullets that he hadn't managed to get out on his own.
The charred remnants of his gear slowly dropped into a pile of rubble at his feet, until he wore nothing but his visible annoyance.
One droid unscrewed the lid on his spine, opening up the black casing and tinkering on some minor damage, while the other stabbed him with a shot of vitamins, a small dose of adrenaline, and unhooked the blood tube. They closed back up his spine, gave him a quick spray down with a water hose, and then flew off.
A few seconds later, Izuku's regeneration quirk died down, and he looked as good as new.
It was marvelous just how effective quirks could be when treated like a science instead of magic, and given proper support.
One of the droids came back, a bundle of clothes balanced on its head, which he quickly threw on and marched into his personal lab.
He ignored the empty growth vats along the walls, and beelined directly to his desk in the middle of the room. A small tank of thick green liquid sat on the far end. It was around half a gallon of an old project that was finally starting to show results.
The second droid came back, carefully setting down a box of backup equipment next to Izuku. Gauntlets, boots, cloak, rebreather mask, etc, as if none of them had been lost in the explosion at all.
The only thing he didn't have a backup of, was a supply of Entropy gas, and that was fine.
He wouldn't be using Entropy against Endeavor this time around, anyway.
Izuku picked up the tank, and together the droids draped his black cloak over his shoulders as if they were lowering a crown to a king's head.
-Rain of Sins-
Izuku stepped out of a whirlpool of gray sand, onto the edge of the crater that he had escaped from not three minutes prior.
Overhead the helicopter banked to broadside him, its news camera eagerly drinking in the footage of the Sovereign who had been at death's door, disappearing and then reappearing only a few minutes later, seemingly completely unharmed.
"This really won't help with all those online rumors that I'm some kind of ghost." He muttered before putting the aircraft out of mind, and focusing his attention on his one and only target.
In the middle of the crater Endeavor was stomping around, glaring at the ground as if it had personally wronged him somehow. But it didn't take long for him to notice the menacing figure looking down at him.
"Endeavor!" Izuku shouted with his enhanced lungs, easily loud enough for both the Hero and the camera to pick up. "I am the Villain Prometheus, though you may better recognise me for the name the Safety Commision has used to demonize me: The Sovereign of Sin. According to them, I am the highest ranked Villain at large today, but I disagree."
Shadows slowly enveloped him, and spilled forward as the clouds drew closer overhead. Crows and Ravens crying loudly from above as they flocked to their master's call, and pulled the storm with them.
"You are arrogant and prideful, you take what you want by force, you don't care for others, you don't value human life, the only thing you care about is prestige and your stupid pathetic ranking that means NOTHING !"
Thunder roared overhead as Izuku's eyes flared Green.
"Enji Todoroki, you killed my Mother… and you're going to die for that. "
-Chapter End-
"My name is Inigo Montoya, you killed my father, prepare to die." -The Princess Bride
This chapter was brought to you by: "My rewatch of the 2003 clone wars cartoons, and how absolutely fucking awesome Grevious was in them."
What? You thought I was only taking inspiration from Made in Abyss' #1 dad Bondrewd? Ha! You clearly have missed every reference I have put in this fic, because you must not realize just how much I love a good villain.
(Who was more badass? 2003 Grievous, or Rogue One's Darth Vader?)
(Ho-Lee SHIT! Disney! Wtf are you doing? Throw Rei in the trash, forget about the fucking bullshit you where on when you talked about doing a stand alone Finn movie, and fire everyone who was on a Star Wars shooting set during the new trilogy! The get the guy in charge of Rogue One, and give them a team from the old LucasFilm employees, because I was old Star Wars back! And remaster Forced Unleashed while your at it, because why the fuck not?!)
*Minecraft Sip Sound Effect*
Ahem.
Sorry, I got carried away. Now where was the script?
"Oh no! It's a cliff hanger! I am so saaad and anxious! I want the next chapter now! Please give it! Howw will i live two (three) whole weeks again without a resolution?"
Well first off, this chapter was almost 7000 words and I needed to end it, and second I have a solution!
Introducing a way you can get all of the updates of every story one whole ass update ahead of everyone else! Crazy!
That's right! It's the website that starts with a "Pat" and rhymes with "Pigron", the thing that gets auto censored by FFN! Thank you so much for that, website, you're a joy as always.
Patreon!
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What's not to love?
Hey!
Don't blame me, the Holidays are coming up and while business is slowing down Rent sure as Hell isn't.
Besides, if somehow, someway, my far reaching expectation of like, maybe two people joining gets blown out of the park, and every person who has this favorited on FFN alone subscribes, then I would literally be able to quit my job and do nothing but write my books.
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