Chapter 393 - All for... uh, someone, probably by WorldMonarchAreyesha

I honestly cannot comprehend why there is not more au or sı all for one fics the possiblities such as a alternate all for one quirk with ability to merge quirks or quirk farming is immense yet we never see it such ideas should be explored more

Words: 168k+

Link: https://archiveofourown.org/works/52464970/chapters/132724681

(All for One is a villain of unmatched power and malice, who will stop at nothing to bring Japan to its knees, and rule over everything with an iron fist.

…or at least, that's what the Third user of One for All will tell his successor, mere hours before getting himself killed.

In reality, Enzai Shigaraki is, quite frankly, just some guy who got lucky with his meta ability.

Consequently, he has to deal with the fallout of other people's lies and miscommunication.

Sucks to be him.)

According to my lord and saviour, Google Translate, Enzai (冤罪) is a translation of 'false accusation', which fits this version of All for One to a tee, and is therefore the name I will be using for the poor guy.

Chapter 1: Nice Meta Ability you've got there. Shame if something were to… happen to it

Notes:

(See the end of the chapter for notes.)

Chapter Text

Up until approximately 4 minutes ago, Enzai was having a good day.

He'd managed to successfully force feed Yoichi his medicine for the first time in the week, not hit his head on the door frame as he left the house on his way to buy groceries for the two of them, spat on his father's grave as he made his way past it through the cemetery, traded his normal insults with the cashier who ran the store he typically bought from (her calling him a mutant freak who oughta go jump off a bridge to keep humanity pure, and him calling her a waste of space who should carry a potted plant around to replace the oxygen she took up) and was just admiring the sunset on his walk home when someone grabbed his arm and bodily dragged him into an alleyway.

Well, he when he says dragged, he more means 'threw like a demented fucking frisbee'.

Now, don't get him wrong, this wasn't the first time Enzai had been yanked into a random back alley, but it had become exponentially harder for people to drag him around when he hit his growth spurt at around 14 and rapidly shot up from a reasonably modest 170 cm to a towering 225 cm like some sort of albino beanstalk, so he felt he was owed a little bit of forgiveness for being caught off guard when he was tossed into a dumpster hard enough to leave a dent in it.

"Ow." He said eloquently, watching in despair as a tin of tuna rolled into a nearby drain.

"Ok Zero," whispered a vaguely man-shaped… shape from the entrance to the alleyway, "be quick about this."

"My tuna…" Enzai bemoaned as a second tin followed its predecessor into the drain, tumbling into the empty depths below, never again to be seen by those who had brought it into the world.

The man-shaped shape gave him an odd look as he stared into the abyss that was the drain, before stepping forwards to loom over him, an angry look in its eyes. "Listen up, dumbass," it began, "my name is Ze-"

"Your veins are glowing." Enzai interrupted blandly. "Did you inject yourself with glowstick juice or something? 'Cause my cousin did that once, and let me tell you, he did not enjoy the experience."

"What?" The shape replied, flabbergasted. "Glowstick ju- its my fuckin' meta ability you humanist asshole! Do you have fuckin' brain damage!?"

"Well," Enzai replied seriously, "I did crash into a dumpster a minute or so ago, so I wouldn't be surprised if I've got a concussion at least."

"ARE YOU FUCKING MOCKING ME!?" The shape yelled, incensed. Enzai didn't see why it was so angry. It had asked a question, and he'd answered. What was the problem?

His contemplation seemed to only make the shape even more angry, and he soon found himself being held off the ground by his neck. Or, well, he would be if the person dangling him could reach that far.

For you see, despite Zero's meta ability granting them the ability to stockpile his strength and use it however he saw fit, he was still a 130 cm, 13 year old boy who couldn't raise his arm far enough to fully lift Enzai off the ground.

"Now you listen here," the shape tried to say threateningly, even though his voice cracked on every other word, "either you're going to give me your wallet, or I'm gonna choke you to death."

"Kinky." Enzai replied absentmindedly.

"What?"

"What?"

The shape - which was probably a person, Enzai decided - shook their head as if to clear their thoughts before continuing. "My asshole parents tossed me out of the house cause I could throw people around, so now I gotta go around beating up you fucking weaklings just so I can get the money I need to eat." He sneered, looking like a radioactive tomato thanks to the glowing veins across his face. "So what's it gonna be, asshole? Your money or your life?"

Enzai squinted at him. "Did you just trauma dump on someone you assaulted? Also, how old are you? You look like a child."

The guy growled. "Shut the fuck up you weakass baseline."

Enzai groaned. "I have had it, up to HERE with this meta ability discrimination shit." He announced loudly. "The next person who calls me a mutant just because my hair is white is going to eat the dirt. Albinism is perfectly fucking normal. It has been a documented phenomenon since 1905. I will take no more shit about it, from you, or anyone else." He glared defiantly. "Fuck you."

The kid (at least, Enzai assumed he was a kid, with the voice cracks and all) stared at him for a second. "Alright," he deadpanned, "I've decided for you. You're gonna die."

Enzai's eyes widened in panic, and he grabbed the kid's face. "Wait, fuck, no!"

The kid started to squeeze at the same time as Enzai began to flail like a dying fish, kicking him in the stomach and forcing the kid to drop him like a sack of bricks.

Scrambling like a madman, Enzai lunged at the kid again, crashing into him and knocking them both to the ground. Grabbing the side of the kid's face and stabbing his fingers into his eyes, Enzai thought to himself 'man, it'd be really neat if I had a meta ability right about now.' at which point he started glowing.

The two of them stopped, staring at each other in shock for a moment whilst a bolt of black lightning jumped between them, surrounded by a blood red aura, and the kid made a sound somewhere between a dolphin having an orgasm and the final warcry of a hamster before it died doing something stupid, like eating a kilogram of drywall despite weighing less than a tenth of that.

Then he passed out.

It was probably for the best.

Enzai pushed himself to his feet and stared blankly at his hands.

His hands, which were covered in blood.

And had a small hole sat directly in their centre.

That was still glowing a dim red.

"What the fuck." He whispered, feeling a faint warmth settle in his chest. Following instincts that he hadn't known he had, Enzai cautiously pulled the warmth back up to the surface, feeling how it spread throughout his body like he'd just stepped into a comforting bath.

His veins bulged under his skin, raw energy flowing through him as they began to glow. Staring blankly as his blood vessels decided now was a good time to put on a light show, Enzai briefly had the hysteric thought of calling up his cousin to brag about getting his veins to glow without injecting himself with the insides of a glowstick like an idiot, but quickly dismissed the idea.

Standing up on wobbly legs, Enzai grabbed the unconscious boy, lifting him off the ground with almost no effort whatsoever, despite the fact he would normally have struggled to even yank someone of his size to his feet. (Which Yoichi could attest to.)

"Holy shit." Enzai breathed. "I took his meta ability."

Enzai stared at the kid in bewilderment, failing utterly to understand how he'd even been able to do that. Well, no, it was pretty obvious how he'd been able to do it, but Enzai believed himself entitled to a little bit of denial every now and then.

Closing the fist not holding onto the boy, Enzai considered how much stronger the meta ability had made him. If an evidently malnourished, 130 cm kid who looked like he didn't have a muscle on him could lift Enzai, who was almost a full metre taller than him and weighed around 120 kg with one arm and no visible strain, what could a 225 cm full ass adult man who went to the gym on alternate thursdays do?

Deciding to find out, Enzai dropped the kid, and threw a punch at the alley wall.

His fist buried itself completely within the brick, coating him in dust as it was shook from the mortar by the impact. Pulling his fist back, Enzai studied the small scrapes across his knuckles for a moment, before shrugging and shaking it out.

Sparing the unconscious kid a final glance, Enzai stepped over his prone form and bent down to grab his groceries, just barely remembering to push the warmth of the meta ability down before exiting back out of the alley way.

That would've been awkward.

Enzai stared at his own damn front door, flummoxed.

How had he completely forgotten about telling Yoichi?

His little brother was even more obsessed with comics and heroes than he was, a feat Enzai wasn't sure whether to feel proud or jealous of, and would no doubt want to hear all about his older brother's new found ability to take away other people's superpowers.

The problem was if Enzai should tell him.

He'd had Yoichi since he was 9 years old, having even named the kid himself since their parents were too lazy to. (First gift - he'd thought it was appropriate, as the first precious thing their parents had ever given him. There had yet to be a second.) For all intents and purposes, he'd raised Yoichi by himself - since their parents certainly weren't going to - and had been the one to take his then baby brother to the hospital when Yoichi was a 5 year old upon realising something was wrong with him.

Shaking his head, Enzai unlocked the door and pushed it open, wondering where the teenager was now. Probably in his room reading a manga or something. Doing his schoolwork if Enzai was lucky. Which was pretty rare.

Anyway, Enzai had fought tooth and nail to get custody of Yoichi since the moment he was able - having spent all his free time since he was 16 studying adoption and child neglect laws to make his case as airtight as possible - finally winning when he was 19 after his father died, ending the flow of income to the house, and had looked after his brother ever since.

All this to say that Enzai trusted Yoichi with his life, and therefore came to the conclusion of 'fuck it'. He'd tell Yoichi about his meta ability.

Walking up the stairs to Yoichi's room after dumping the groceries on the kitchen table, he let the power of the kid - Zero? Zero. - flow over him, glowing red veins covering his body. Casually pushing the door open, Enzai leaned on his brother's door frame. "Hey." He called into the room.

"Hey." Yoichi replied absently, shooting him a quick glance before returning to his manga.

Enzai began to count down from 5 in his head.

Just as he reached 1, Yoichi froze. Calmly folding the corner of his manga before closing it and placing it on the bed next to him, Yoichi turned to face him. "Why are your veins glowing?"

"You remember my story about Hikaruchi?" Enzai began.

"The cousin who injected himself with a glowstick?" Yoichi asked sceptically.

"Well it's nothing like that!" Enzai announced, clapping his hands together and ducking into the room. "This," he gestured to himself, "is a meta ability."

Yoichi's eyes widened comically. "You've got a meta ability?" He breathed in awe.

"Yes," Enzai agreed, before deciding to drop the second bombshell of the evening, "but this is someone else's."

"What."

"My meta ability," Enzai said, flopping backwards into the beanbag in the corner of Yoichi's room, "let me take the other guy's meta ability."

Yoichi stared at him, slack jawed. Eventually managing to regain the ability to speak, he said "Damn, that's broken as hell."

"Tell me about it." Enzai agreed.

Yoichi tilted his head in contemplation for a moment. "Can you give them away?"

"No clue." Enzai stated. "Why," he added teasingly, "do you want it?"

"I mean, kinda. Always wanted a superpower." Yoichi said. He leaned back onto the bed, hand on his chin in contemplation. "Depends what it is."

"Makes me stronger, and something tells me it stockpiles energy or something, though I have no idea how I know that."

"Maybe it has something to do with your meta ability," Yoichi theorised, "there was a study on T.V last month where they said that metas had instincts to do with their abilities." He waved his hand absently. "Anyway, yeah, I'd like it. I definitely want to be stronger since…" he grimaced, "y'know."

Enzai grimaced with him. "Yeah, fair enough." Leaning over, he placed a hand on Yoichi's shoulder. "Here goes nothing." He remarked. Taking a deep breath and closing his eyes, he drew the warmth of the meta ability up to the surface, pushing it along his arm until it felt like it was completely concentrated in the hand. Opening his eyes at Yoichi's soft 'whoa' Enzai saw a small halo of black and red lightning had begun to swirl down his arm.

"Your eyes are glowing." His brother observed.

"I'll bear it in mind." Enzai replied, giving the heat one final push, before feeling it leave him completely.

At the same time, Yoichi jolted from his position on the bed, the red glow flowing over his veins for a moment before he released a slow breath, the glow dying down with it. "Right." He said breathlessly. "That answers that question."

"Aw," Enzai said, "my hand's bleeding again."

"What the hell does that mean?"

"Look," he replied, holding up his hand, "there's a hole in it."

Yoichi blinked, looked at him, then at his hand, and then him again. "What do you mean there's a hole in it!?"

Then he sneezed, and launched himself into the ceiling.

Enzai didn't stop laughing for another 20 minutes.

"So you've got a meta ability," Yoichi said over breakfast, "and you used your meta ability to take away the meta ability of the guy who tried to mug you using his meta ability, before coming here to show off your meta ability by showing off his meta ability and then used your meta ability to give me his meta ability, meaning it's now my meta ability."

"Say meta ability again." Enzai responded without looking up from his phone, scrolling through his news feed.

"Fuck you. I could beat your ass now." Yoichi replied petulantly, taking a large spoonful of cereal and promptly choking on it.

"Sure you could." Enzai snarked, Yoichi flipping him the bird in response as he got himself back under control. "Did you take your meds?"

"Nah," Yoichi replied brazenly, "don't think I really need them anymore, to be honest."

Enzai looked up from his phone, startled. "What do you mean by 'I don't really think I need them anymore'?" He said incredulously.

Yoichi waved his hand dismissively. "I've felt waaay better since you gave me that guys meta ability - which doesn't sound like a real term anymore, I've said it too much - and the meds were meant to make me stronger, right?" He raised his right arm and flexed his pitiful bicep, before the veins in it began to glow. "I think we've got that covered."

"Huh, just the arm, that's new." Enzai remarked.

Yoichi shrugged. "I got a superpower last night, did you expect me not to spend the whole night trying to figure out how it worked? It wasn't a school night anyway, so it wouldn't matter even if I was dead on my feet. Honestly, I think it's the only thing keeping me awake right now."

"Yoichi, you don't go to school." Enzai deadpanned.

"My point still stands."

"Fair enough." He replied, leaning back on his chair. "We should really write this stuff down, do some experimenting."

"Maybe later." Yoichi agreed, returning to his cereal as the two of them descended into a comfortable silence.

"You're still taking those meds."

"Damn. I'd hoped you'd forgotten about that."

An hour later, having somehow managed to verbally harass Yoichi into taking the medicine necessary to make sure he remained a functional human being - mostly by playing the 'take your meds or I'll confiscate your superpower' card - Yoichi decided now would be a good time to ask a question Enzai had been deliberately avoiding asking himself for the better part of half a day.

"Sooo…" his little brother began, "are you gonna use your ability again?"

"When?" Enzai questioned. "Where? On who?"

"How should I know, its not my meta ability." Yoichi responded. Stroking his non-existent beard in thought, putting on a show of contemplating the issue, his little brother continued after a moment. "Although, there are a few meta criminals right? Why not go out and steal their abilities before they do anything else?"

Enzai squinted at him. "Are you trying to turn me into a superhero right now?"

"No." Yoichi said immediately. Enzai gave him a flat look. "Maybe." He amended.

Enzai sighed. "I categorically refuse to go outside in garishly coloured spandex and beat up people with superpowers. If you have that much power, displaying it is just stupid. Heroes would be much more effective if no one ever saw them coming."

"What?" Yoichi asked, eyebrow raised. "Like a villain?"

"Yes." Enzai nodded smugly. "The main problem with heroes is the fact they're almost exclusively reactive, they need to be able to prepare for problems and stop them before they begin rather than always be forced to stop the villain right before he enacts his big doomsday plan. Take the Demon Lord, for example," he explained, "he's always ready for whatever the heroes throw at him."

Yoichi narrowed his eyes at him. "Isn't that the same Demon Lord you called an 'incomprehensible dumbass' just last week because, and I quote, 'he refused to just break the infinite blade, and ended up allowing a wielder strong enough to defeat him to show up because he was so determined to steal it'."

"Yes, but shut up."

Yoichi let out a snort and shook his head. "Right, another idea I had was to post about having a miracle cure for meta abilities online. Enough parents and kids are desperate enough to fall for that, and unlike the other assholes doing it, we actually do have a way to remove people's meta abilities."

"How sure are we that I can take more than one anyway?" Enzai questioned.

Yoichi shrugged dismissively. "It makes sense though, right?"

Enzai sighed. "Unfortunately, I am forced to admit that that's a good point."

"Sick," Yoichi responded, "I'll make a post about it somewhere."

He hopped off his chair and raced up to his room, far faster than he would previously have been able to, and Enzai felt a grin stretch across his face at his brother's new found healthiness. He didn't think he'd ever seen Yoichi so energetic for years.

He returned with his laptop around a minute later, a forum post already half typed. "Alright," he said, "now all we need are code names."

"Suddenly, I'm filled with immeasurable dread."

"We got one." Yoichi announced, apropos of nothing.

"One what?" Enzai asked, looking up from his half cut onion, wiping away tears that had formed as the vegetable continued its assault on his eyes.

"A reply to the post, idiot. What else would I feel the need to mention so dramatically?"

"Shut up." Enzai responded eloquently, gesturing with the knife in his hands. "Any ideas who?"

"A kid, based on how they wrote their reply, which is somewhat concerning." Yoichi said offhandedly.

"You're a kid." Enzai reminded him.

"Excuse you, I'm a teenager, not a kid." Yoichi refuted. "And I meant, like, under 9 years old."

"That is concerning." Enzai admitted. "What are we going to do about it?"

"Ask if they're sure, and if yes, ask them to bring someone older they trust with them to a meeting place of their choice, on a date also of their choice."

"That's… pretty thorough."

"We want them to trust us. This seems like the best way to do that."

"Fair enough."

Overall, Enzai thought, this just about explained why he was sat in a cat café on the outskirts of Tokyo wearing a medical mask, sunglasses and a black beanie whilst Yoichi sat next to him with the same medical mask and haphazardly dyed hair two weeks after they'd first been messaged.

Apparently, the kid was bringing their older brother with them, and would be there around 16:00, but Yoichi had insisted that they arrive half an hour early, partially so they would appear professional, but mostly so that he could get an extra 30 minutes of time playing with cats in.

"Who's the cutest little girl?" Yoichi asked, patting the head of a fluffy white furred cat who'd decided to sit on his lap and demand attention. "It's you, isn't it? Yes it is, yes it is."

"Yoichi," Enzai hissed watching a small girl enter the building holding a gangly teenager's hand, "they're here."

Without hesitation, Yoichi grabbed the cat from his lap, and dumped it on top of the person on the table behind them. "Here you go." He said blandly. Then, ignoring the man's affronted look, he stood up and marched over to the brother and sister duo that had just entered.

"You're Musketeer, I presume?" The teenager asked sarcastically, looking down at Yoichi through partially cracked glasses.

"Yup." Yoichi replied without missing a beat. "Do you want to do this outside or in here?"

The teenagers' eyes nervously swept the room. "Outside." He ground out.

"Cool." Yoichi replied. "I'll go get All for One."

"I still can't believe you called me that." Enzai hissed when Yoichi came over to get him.

His brother shrugged. "It makes sense, both thematically and when it comes to your meta ability."

"You just wanted to have an excuse to call yourself Musketeer, didn't you?"

"Absolutely."

Enzai sighed, standing up. "At least you didn't go with One for All."

Yoichi scoffed. "Of course not. That's stupid."

Enzai let a smug smile form on his face, glad his brother saw-

"That's what I called my meta ability."

"I hate you sometimes."

Yoichi just shrugged as Enzai joined him in following the teenager out of the café and into a secluded part of a nearby park, his sister clinging to his leg as they walked.

"Alright," the teenager said once they'd arrived, "here's how this is gonna work. You're going to call me Big, and my sister Small. You're going to tell me what this 'procedure' to get rid of her meta ability is, and if I don't like what I hear, we're getting the hell out of here and calling the police." He glared at the two of them. "Understood?"

'Wow,' Enzai thought, 'you sneer at Musketeer and All for One, but decided to call yourself Big and your sister Small? Perspective, much.'

Yoichi and Enzai shared a look, before turning back to the brother and sister duo. "Sure thing, Big." Yoichi said.

Enzai sighed. "The way we'll remove her meta ability is rather simple really: I'm going to take it."

Big's eyes narrowed. "And how're you going to do that?"

"Using my own meta ability, I am able to give and take the abilities of others, although I don't yet fully understand the process. However, I do warn you that to do so will likely knock her out."

Big's eyes narrowed further. "So, you'll have her ability at the end of this? Is this why you didn't say anything about payment?"

Yoichi nodded. "The ability itself is payment enough for us."

Big searched both their faces, covered by masks as they were, and seemed to decide that whatever he saw in them was trustworthy enough. "We've tried to find something like this before, but they've all been sketchy as hell." He admitted. "You guys are the only ones who recommended adult supervision. So believe me when I say if anything happens to her," he continued in a low voice, "I'll kill you both."

Now, coming from someone older, bigger, or scarier than what was probably a 165 cm 17 year old boy, that might have been intimidating. But as previously stated, Big was a 160 something centimetre tall roughly 17 year old boy who had little muscle to speak of, a smattering of acne across his face, slightly askew glasses, and a small child hanging onto his leg.

As it was, Enzai nodded and crouched down to talk with Small. "Hello," he said politely, "you asked for me to take away your sparky hands, didn't you?"

Small gave a slight nod, and Enzai smiled at her through his mask. "Give me your hand." He said softly. "I'm going to take away the sparks now, but be warned, it's going to make you sleepy."

Small gave him another nod and closed her eyes in preparation. A moment later, Enzai began to pull on the warmth he felt under her skin, coaxing it towards him. Quickly, the two of them were surrounded by a small vortex of red and black lightning, before Enzai pulled the warmth from her into his chest.

Small gave a squeak that sounded like a bizarre mixture of a dog toy that had just been trodden on and a mouse that had just been flung off a mouse wheel at highway speeds (don't ask why he knew what that sounded like, he still had nightmares) and promptly passed out.

Enzai caught her before she hit the ground, briefly questioned if people were always going to make oddly specific squeaking noises whenever they lost their meta abilities, and was quickly joined by Big. Who gave him a death glare that might be effective against particularly cowardly gerbil, but honestly not much else. "I did warn you." Enzai said conversationally. Holding out a hand and drawing Small's meta ability into it, continuing as it began to spark with small arcs of electricity. "As you can see, I have taken the ability off her hands. You don't need to worry about it anymore."

Big gave him a searching look, before picking up his sister, nodding, and walking away back towards Tokyo proper, presumably to return home with the now powerless girl. Enzai prided himself with knowing that they no longer needed to fear discovery of her strange power and the hatred that would come, and no longer had any reason to keep her hidden from the world around them. That they no longer-

"'Off her hands.' Nice pun, bro." Yoichi interrupted his internal monologue, rocking on his feet.

Enzai electrocuted him.

Notes:

Yes, I'm aware Yoichi and AfO are canonically twins . No, I don't care. You can pry older brother AfO out of my cold, dead hands.

Ultimately, we know so little about the dawn of quirks that I'm going to have to make 90% of it up, even ignoring the obvious divergences to canon that'll be coming as the story progresses, so I'll be taking some creative liberties on dates, times and other information about events happening in that time period.

Anyway, I hope this was funny, and will be trying to update once a week.

Also, please notify me of any mistakes via carrier pigeon.

Or the comments, that works too.

Chapter 2: I got 99 problems and One for All is, like, 12 of them

Summary:

Under no circumstances, is Yoichi allowed to become a vigilante.

...at least, not without adult supervision.

In the meantime, Enzai and Yoichi discover a strange property of Yoichi's meta ability, to both of their confusion.

Notes:

(See the end of the chapter for notes.)

Chapter Text

The past week had been… interesting to say the least.

In that time, Enzai had informed the cashier at his usual grocery store that either she needed to find some more creative insults or he was going to start going somewhere else, taken Yoichi to go have a roast session at their father's grave for his 15th birthday, continued his bi-monthly ritual of making up something absurd so that their mother didn't have an excuse to try and come visit them, ("The sink caught fire?" "Yeah, the entire thing's ruined. It's a shame really, I'd always hoped you'd be in the house when something exploded." "What?" "You heard me.") gotten his hands on another meta ability from a panicky and not particularly intelligent college student, (Who had called it 'Blood Typo' since it let him temporarily change people's blood types) and stopped Yoichi from trying to be a vigilante no less than 6 separate times.

Currently, he was in the process of stopping him for the 7th.

"And where do you think you're going?" He called through the kitchen as a shadow slipped across the lounge, light from the microwave window playing across his face.

"Uhhhhhh…" His brother replied, cringing. "The park?" He offered hesitantly.

"At-" he glanced at the clock "-half 1 in the morning?"

"...Yeah?"

"Got back to bed Yoichi." Enzai said, unimpressed. "No wonder you went to sleep so early."

"You never let me do anything fun." Yoichi whined as he marched past him and up the stairs back to his room, muttering insults under his breath as he went. Enzai rolled his eyes at his brother's dramatics before returning to the microwave in front of him, despondently watching his bowl go round and round, round and round…

A loud crunch sounded from upstairs, immediately followed by Yoichi's swearing. Soon after, his footsteps began to trail across the floor above and back down the stairs. Enzai removed the bowl from the microwave just as Yoichi reentered the kitchen, taking a scoop from its contents and quickly swallowing it before Yoichi could question what he was eating. Watching his brother take their first aid kit down from their cupboard and begin wrapping his hand, Enzai smirked. "Break your door handle again?"

Spinning around, Yoichi flipped him the bird before hissing in pain, and did a double take upon glancing into Enzai's bowl. "Are you eating plain rice?"

"Yeah," Enzai said defensively, cradling the bowl under his arm, "what of it?"

Yoichi stared at him, face filled with disbelief, and a small hint of disgust. "Why?"

"Fuck you, that's why."

Yoichi shook his head before returning to bandaging his hand, humming the tune to 'Never gonna give you up' as he did so. "I've had a thought." He said after a while. "Since I keep breaking the door handle 'cause I'm not used to my new strength, why don't you just take it away at night so that I don't wreck the place when I'm dead on my feet?"

"You sure?" Enzai asked, giving him a concerned look. "You've always wanted a superpower."

"Yeah, but I didn't want to have to deal with such things as my actions having consequences." Yoichi complained, stuffing the first aid box back into the cupboard haphazardly.

"Honestly," Enzai said, "you should probably keep that on the counter at this point. It'd make your life easier."

"I wouldn't have to take it down in the first place if you removed the superstrength." Yoichi countered casually.

Enzai sighed. "Alright." He placed his hand on Yoichi's shoulder. "Ready?"

"Ready." Yoichi agreed.

Enzai pulled at the warmth beneath Yoichi's skin, feeling it rise to the surface-

Before it promptly sank right back down again, tucking itself safely into Yoichi's chest. Simultaneously, it seemed to reach out and slap him in the face before filling his head with an entire gumball machine's worth of rubber balls, dumped them into a blender, and finally poured the resulting mixture of elastic slime out from his ears. Pinwheeling his arms in surprise as he let go, Enzai stumbled back from Yoichi, his hand throbbing and eyes crossed before tripping over the carpet in the doorframe and crashing onto his back over the living room couch, draped across it like a possum playing dead.

"You good?" Yoichi called from the kitchen after a moment's pause.

"Head's full of jelly beans."

"Uh," Yoichi responded as he entered the room, "that's… unfortunate?" Making his way over to the couch, he looked down on Enzai. "What just happened, by the way?" He asked as if the previous 20 seconds were perfectly normal.

"Well," Enzai said, staring blankly at the ceiling, "I tried to take the meta ability away."

Yoichi nodded. "And...?" He said leadingly.

"And I got bitch slapped."

Yoichi blinked. "What by?" He asked curiously.

"Fuck if I know," Enzai said, pushing himself back to his feet, "maybe I just can't take a meta ability after I've given it away?"

"No, that doesn't make sense." Yoichi denied with a shake of his head. "You remember how many times the blood type guy changed his mind? You had to give and take it like 6 times before he made a decision and let you keep it."

Enzai nodded absently. "It was good practice in taking abilities without knocking people out, at least." And in discovering what kind of squeaky noises humans could make. A fun afternoon all round.

"So it's just me then?" Yoichi questioned.

"Seems like it." Enzai paused in thought. "Maybe it's a meta ability or something?" He offered.

"That's just bullshit!" Yoichi said, throwing his hands into the air. "A meta ability that means your meta ability doesn't work on me? Why!?"

"Well, I can give you other abilities, maybe I just can't take them?" Enzai theorised. "Automatic defence system?"

Yoichi contemplated this for a moment, before nodding slowly. "That makes the most sense I guess, I can't think of anything else it could be." He sighed in disappointment. "Guess I'm stuck destroying door handles and shattering glasses until I can work out how to control the strength I'm using."

"Maybe just don't use it?" Enzai suggested blandly.

"But that defeats the point of having a superpower!" Yoichi complained

"Sucks to be you then, I guess." Enzai replied, yawning. "Time for bed though."

"Yeah, yeah." Yoichi responded, yawning in turn.

"Also, your costume looks dumb as hell."

"Fuck you, I made this myself!"

"That explains it."

"Did you hear? They're starting to roll out some regulations for those mutants." One of Enzai's coworkers - the one that looked vaguely like a raccoon, somehow, if you both squinted and had seen the bottom of at least 5 glasses of sake - started. "About time, I say."

"Uh-huh." Another coworker - a pretty blonde woman racoon guy probably had a crush on, not that she knew that - responded absently. She'd been standing by the water cooler for the past half an hour. Enzai didn't have any clue what she actually did at the company, and was at least 80% sure she'd been hired as a piece of sentient furniture rather than for her non-existent skillset. Hell, he didn't think he'd ever seen her so much as fill in a spreadsheet in the entire 2 years he'd been working here.

"Yeah," racoon guy continued, oblivious to his conversation partner's ignorance, or perhaps in denial of it. "We really need to stomp down on those freaks before they start getting out of hand, thinking they're better than us normal people. Did you hear what they've started to call us? Baselines. Disgusting."

Enzai grimaced at racoon guy's words. He'd never liked him much, his suspicious glances and snide comments about his 'mutation' (not that he could prove anything, since albinism wasn't particularly new) made it pretty clear what he thought of Enzai specifically and metas in general. Normally Enzai wouldn't pay him any mind, and would simply block out his comments, since there was nothing 'abnormal' about him.

But that was before he knew he had a meta ability.

Then again, it's not like he was going to do anything about it now either. The most Enzai could do to him right this second was give him a mild electric shock or change his blood type, nothing to write home about.

However, he wasn't the only one to grimace. A new intern at the company had also made a pained expression at racoon guy's little speech, and the two of them made eye contact over the barrier separating the stalls. Which had always been a little too short to hide Enzai from view, but it was whatever, he swears.

They stared at each other in silence before the intern mimicked typing whilst he mouthed 'Email?' at Enzai. In response, Enzai aggressively shook his head, mouthing back 'No, you idiot, they monitor intra-company emails.'

'What?'

'No email.'

'No email?'

Enzai nodded.

The intern gestured with his head. 'Talk outside?'

'Give me 5. Gotta finish this.' He mouthed back at the question, pointing at his computer. Honestly, it was a miracle racoon guy and the blonde woman hadn't noticed them.

'Cool.' The intern mouthed again, shooting a glance towards the clock on the wall and returning to doing… whatever it was he was doing.

Enzai returned to his work, and decided to just straight up invent some numbers to put into the spreadsheet. In all honesty, he'd been doing this for about a month and a half at this point, trying to get fired, but was unfortunately the only halfway intelligent person in the entire accounting department. Consequently, even his random bullshit was still better than most of the others' genuine effort. Then again, 'effort' was probably too strong a word.

Given that the company was still somehow afloat in spite of that fact, Enzai was more than willing to bet that it was a front for the Yakuza or something.

Anyway, Enzai flicked the computer off 6 minutes later (it took ages to shut down, ok?) and made his way towards the elevator at the back of the floor, the intern nervously following behind him, shooting quick glances at Enzai that he didn't acknowledge. The two of them took the elevator to the ground floor, the intern awkwardly rubbing his arm as they went down, before they walked out of the back door into the alleyway at the side of the building.

"I'll show you mine if you show me yours." The intern blurted out as soon as Enzai had closed the door behind them.

Spinning around, Enzai gave the intern a wide-eyed stare as the younger man began to blush once his brain caught up with what he'd just said. "I-I mean-" he stuttered out. "META ABILITY!" He suddenly yelled. "I MEAN MY META ABILI-mmph."

"Are you insane?" Enzai hissed, clamping his hand over the intern's mouth. "Do you want to get jumped? Because yelling like that is how you get jumped!"

"S-Sorry." The intern said once Enzai let go of his mouth, looking down at his feet whilst rubbing his arm again. Probably a nervous tick.

Enzai sighed. "So what does yours do, then?"

The intern gave him an unsteady grin. "I call it 'Physics Problem'! I can make things immune to air resistance."

Enzai blinked. Alright. That was intriguing. And somewhat bizarre. "So, what?" he questioned, "Do things you use your ability on act like they're moving through a vacuum?"

The intern furrowed his eyebrows. "I guess?"

"That's… a little weird."

The intern shrugged again, a timid look on his face. "Most abilities are." He said quietly, looking away before snapping back to face Enzai again. "What's yours then?"

"It's, uh-" 'crap I don't have a name for it,' "-called 'All for One'-"

"Like the Three Musketeers?"

"-yeah, and it lets me take other people's meta abilities."

"Woah," the intern breathed out, awed, "that's incredible!" His expression dropped slightly. "Makes mine seem lame though."

"Not really," Enzai dismissed with a wave of his hand, "you could apply it to a car or something and be able to accelerate way more since the air wouldn't slow you down, or apply it to a bullet and increase the range, same with a ball or something." He frowned in thought. "Would it be able to make you move silently since you won't be affecting the air around you? Actually, how far does this extend? Do you completely ignore the air around you?" He narrowed his eyes at the intern. "Can you breathe if you use it on yourself? Can you use it on yourself?"

"Wow," the intern breathed out, ignoring his questions. "You've put way more thought into this than I have." He paused, and then tapped himself on the chest twice, and took a deep breath. "Also," he continued, "yes."

Enzai blushed lightly at the praise and scratched the back of his neck. "Me and my brother are big comic fans, we talk about superpowers and how they'd work a lot."

The intern shrugged. "Fair enough." He said before his face scrunched up like he was arguing with himself.

"Do you want it?" He continued after a few moments in silence.

"What?" Enzai said. "Why?"

The intern looked away again, sighing. "I… I'm afraid that someone's going to find out about this and I'll get hunted down, and as you saw earlier," he said with a wry grin, "I'm not great at hiding that I have one, so…" He shrugged helplessly. "You can take it away from me before I mess up and get lynched, and it seems like you'd be better with it than I am." He paused, looking Enzai in the eye. "So, do you want it?"

Enzai sighed quietly. "Sure, sure." He took a step forwards, laying a hand on the intern's shoulder, feeling the hole appear on it. "But please try not to make a weird squeaking noise."

"What?"

He, of course, did.

"Attempt number 3 at taking 'One for All' - still a dumbass name by the way Yoichi -" Enzai whispered into his phone recorder, standing outside his brother's bedroom door, "can I take it whilst you're asleep?"

Carefully pushing the door open whilst trying to make as little noise as possible, Enzai tip-toed over to Yoichi's bed, artfully dodging the randomly discarded manga laying around the room as he got closer to his brother's unconscious form. Reaching out his hand, Enzai came to a stop, a bemused expression on his face as his eyes adjusted to the dark, and saw Yoichi sprawled across his bed in the most uncomfortable looking position Enzai thought he'd ever seen. It, somehow, looked like a starfish that had been put through a carwash.

Shaking the thought away, he carefully placed his hand on Yoichi's shoulder - holding his breath when his brother grunted at the contact - and tried to pull away the warmth resting under Yoichi's skin. Suddenly feeling like someone had rung a gong right next to his ears, stuffed an entire turkey up his nose, kicked him in the balls and then told him he smelled of deep fried garbage, Enzai rocked backwards at the same time as Yoichi's veins began to glow a bright red, his elbow catching Enzai's stomach and sending him flying across the room.

Acting on instinct as Yoichi flailed about under his covers, Enzai activated the meta ability Grapple - which he'd gotten from a 5 year old girl whose parents had come to get it removed after she'd accidentally broken a window with it - firing a thin green rope with a pointed end from his palm which impaled itself on the frame of Yoichi's bed and pulled him towards it at speed even as his phone got knocked clean from his hand. Simultaneously, Yoichi began to stand up on his mattress as the grapple pulled the bed towards Enzai from under him, causing his enhanced legs to eject the object off the frame and send it hurtling across the room where it crashed into his wardrobe and sent it to the floor with a bang. Yoichi himself got launched backwards into the wall hard enough to bounce right back off it, letting out a strangled yelp as he did so, and landed sprawled on his back with an 'oof' a moment before Enzai collided with the bed frame, cursing.

"I take it we can cross sleeping off the list then?" Yoichi said dazedly from his position on the floor after a few moments of silence had passed.

"Yep," Enzai groaned, pushing himself to his feet, "at least this confirms its an unconscious action though." He stood up, rubbing his head where he'd hit the bed frame. "As I said before, automatic defence mechanism."

"What did you feel this time?"

"Gong, turkey up my nose, nutshot and an insult."

"What was the insult?"

"Told I smell like deep fried garbage."

Yoichi gave him a bemused look. "That's an odd one." He pushed himself to his feet. "Also, nice shot with the grapple."

"That was instinct." Enzai defended.

"Get better instincts then." Yoichi rebuked.

"Maybe I will." Enzai spat back. "Can't be that hard, surely someone out there has a meta ability that helps with fighting."

"Well, you know how best to try and get some, even without The Exchange." Yoichi said, giving him a meaningful look.

"I could hear the capitalisation there," Enzai said pointedly, "and there's no way I'm letting you go on a vigilante spree, let alone joining you."

"Awww, why not?" Yoichi whined. "It'll be fun."

"You are 15 years old."

"And?" Yoichi said arrogantly. "I just threw you across the room whilst half asleep, didn't I?"

Enzai gave him a flat look. "They've just released a round of new laws about metas," he explained, "if we get caught using - or, more likely, having - meta abilities as a part of a crime, we get a massively extended sentence."

"That's discrimination." Yoichi pointed out pointlessly.

"You think they care?"

"No, but I'm still allowed to complain about it." Yoichi said defiantly. "And don't you want more abilities?" He coaxed.

"You just want an excuse to beat people up with super strength, don't you?" Enzai accused.

"No."

"That was a little quick."

"Lies. I am a saint."

"Your over defiance isn't helping your case, Yoichi."

"Slander, this is slander."

"At the very least, I'm not wearing a stupid costume."

"Take a suit or something."

"Ties are a combat hazard."

"Just take the tie off."

"Take the tie off?" Enzai said, insulted. "You want me to take the tie off? It's not a suit without the tie."

"Then you're gonna have to wear a costume then, aren't you?" Yoichi said with a shiteating grin.

"Listen here you little shit-" Enzai said, pointing aggressively at his brother, "-I refuse to wear one of your vigilante 'costumes'. They look like they were made by a cosplayer who had a seizure halfway through deciding what they should wear that was then modified by someone who was simultaneously drunk to the point of blindness and high as a kite. It's just not happening."

"Design one yourself then, coward." Yoichi taunted.

"Maybe I will!" Enzai responded.

"Go on then!" Yoichi challenged. "Do it!"

"Fine!" Enzai yelled, stomping out of the room. "It'll be a thousand times better than your drunkard's cosplay outfit!"

"What did you just call my costume!?"

"You heard me!"

"How the fuck did you talk me into doing this?" Enzai questioned as he clambered onto the roof of a building across the road from their house, a plastic mask affixed firmly to his face, wearing the cheapest suit he could find. (Sans tie. The sacrilege.)

"I'm just that good." Yoichi responded, doing a standing jump 2 metres straight up, like a show off. No, Enzai wasn't jealous of his brother's jumping ability, why do you ask?

Yoichi, too, was wearing a costume. Well, 'costume'. At least it was better put together than his previous attempts. Bless Enzai's time in his drama course. "So now what?" He asked once he landed, glancing around like he expected someone to suddenly leap out at him.

Enzai gave him a disbelieving look. "Hold on," he said, concerned, "this whole operation was your idea."

"Nice Star Wars reference," Yoichi replied, "and in my defence, I expected us to just find stuff immediately. In comics they don't usually show the aimless wandering that's part of patrols, no one would read it. They only show the interesting bits."

"Unbelievable." Enzai muttered as he walked over the rooftop. Coming to a stop at the other end, Enzai looked down at the alleyway separating the building he was standing on and the next one over, contemplating how they were going to get across the gap. Yoichi jogged over and joined him in looking over the edge, a small frown on his face. "...I could carry you?" He offered after a moment's hesitation.

Wordlessly, Enzai fired the glowing green rope of Grapple from his palm, where it stuck into the side of the building opposite.

"Or you could do that, I guess." Yoichi conceded.

Taking a running leap, Enzai let the grapple pull him in, bracing himself as he approached the wall. Barely managing to not slam into it face first, he grabbed a hold of the ledge of the roof above him and scrambled upwards onto it like a spider on crack just as Yoichi landed in a crouch next to him with a grunt of exertion. "That's just unfair." Enzai complained as the grapple dissipated into motes of green light.

Yoichi gave him a smug grin. "Should've kept it then, shouldn't you?" He said mockingly, before taking off towards the next alley.

"I swear to god, I'm gonna beat your ass." Enzai muttered as he ran after his brother.

As the two of them leapt over a few more buildings, Enzai grew increasingly confident in his aim and ability to grapple from one roof to another, and even took a few jumps without it. It took a while - and at least two breaks to catch their (his) breath - but the two of them eventually found something interesting.

(And if - for whatever reason - he was asked, he at no point face planted into a water tower. And anyone who tells anyone that is lying.)

(It took Yoichi 5 minutes to stop laughing.)

They came across a pair of people, sort of just… standing around in an alleyway. Typically, this would be less than normal behaviour, but given it was around midnight, and the two people were both teenagers, Enzai was willing to bet they were past 'abnormal' territory and had firmly entered the realm of 'strange' if not outright 'concerning'.

Yoichi, naturally, dropped into the alleyway without a second of hesitation, and - after a moment of questioning why his brother was like this - Enzai clambered down after him.

Much less dramatically, using a nearby fire escape.

"Who's there?" The taller of the two called loudly, turning towards them and-

"Woah," Yoichi said, "where the heck is your face?"

The teenager - probably, Enzai couldn't exactly make out his features since he didn't seem to have a face - made a sputtering noise at Yoichi's exclamation, stumbling backwards in indignation. "Well I never!" He(?) said. "That is an unbelievably rude question to ask someone!"

"Oh no," the other figure muttered, "not again."

"It is hardly my fault that I was born in such a manner that others could not seem to perceive the glory of my features," the faceless boy said dramatically, "but it has brought about ridicule from those who cannot understand my beauty. Insults, ignorance, even idiotic brutality against my most magnificent person. But no more!" He announced, striking a pose. "I will show the world my stunning presence, even if I must harm others to do so. They will know me and my works! Never again shall they be hidden from view, dismissed by society! Never again shall Mask be for- mmph!"

"Why did you punch him!" Yoichi yelled, rushing forwards towards the shorter teenager as Enzai cut 'Mask' off mid-monologue with a fist directly to the nose. Probably the nose. It's not like he could see it.

"Don't you know?" Enzai responded, leaning down to grab Mask by the, uh… face? "Monologuing is when they're most vulnerable!"

"But I wanted to hear his tragic backstory!" Yoichi whined as he threw a jab towards the shorter teenager, who leapt almost 3 metres straight backwards to avoid it. "Woah, big jumper over here!"

"Good to know!" Enzai responded as Mask flailed around below him.

"Unhand me you cur!" The boy yelled. "Lest I make sure you are remembered as the fool who believed himself capable of defeating the great Mask by- eep!"

Enzai ripped Mask's meta ability away, causing the teen to let out the signature squeak, even if Enzai made sure he remained conscious. "Mask!" The other teen yelped in surprise as he jumped over one of Yoichi's attacks. "I can see your face!"

"Truly Bunny?" Mask yelled eagerly, as Enzai stepped off of him, moving towards the now identified Bunny as he did so.

"Bunny?" Yoichi questioned under his breath.

"Because I can jump so well." Bunny clarified quickly, bouncing clean over Enzai's head. "And for no other reason." He shot Mask a glare the other boy probably didn't even notice.

"Am I not glorious?" Mask asked his partner, pushing himself up, a manic grin on his face. "Beauty incarnate?"

The three of them - Enzai, Yoichi and Bunny - all came to an abrupt stop, and awkwardly glanced at each other. "Uh, not really?" Bunny said, wincing.

"You don't look bad?" Yoichi offered.

"Honestly," Enzai continued, doing his best to sound comforting, "you just look like some guy."

"No," Mask bemoaned, dropping back to the ground in despair, "this cannot be. Return the mask, I beg of you." He addressed Enzai. "I cannot bear the shame."

"No." Enzai replied offhandedly. "Go to therapy, or something."

It was at this point Yoichi brought his fist down on the back of Bunny's head, using the distraction of Mask's unmasking to drop the teen like a sack of bricks. "He's all yours." He said to Enzai.

"Thanks." Enzai responded, leaning down to pull Bunny's meta ability into his chest, before activating it and jumping straight upwards, almost clearing the building they were standing next to.

"Nice." He said upon landing, letting the ability fade into the background.

"What manner of devilry have you performed?" Mask asked them, clutching his chest like he was in a melodrama. "Return my and my partner's abilities at once! We must show the world our true colours! They must learn to fear our power!"

"Well," Yoichi started, drawing on One for All at the same time Enzai reactivated Bunny's meta ability.

"Good luck with that." Enzai completed as the two of them bounced upwards and jumped off the alley wall onto the roof across from them in an impressive and improvised bit of parkour. "Oh how the turn tables." Enzai said smugly as he leapt ahead of Yoichi, racing back towards the street they'd come from earlier in the night.

"Shut up." His brother replied, the glow of his veins increasing as he accelerated. "What were the chances of finding two people with meta abilities in the same place, anyway?" He questioned. "Aren't they supposed to be super rare?"

"Actually," Enzai said, "apparently about 5% of people under the age of 20 have one, so it's not that uncommon. Plus, it's only reasonable for them to group up."

"And how many people over 20 have meta abilities?"

"About one in ten thousand."

"Guess you're just weird then."

"Yep."

Notes:

Canon!Yoichi: I became a hero to protect people from my brother's tyranny

AFUSP!Yoichi: I became a hero so I had an excuse to kneecap criminals

I'm hoping to use these earlier chapters to lay the groundwork for what will become the early hero-villain system and other big events of the Dawn of Quirks, so expect a few time skips around this area.

Again, I'm hopeful this is funny, and am requesting all mistakes be sent to me through smoke signals and/or the comments.

Chapter 3: The Number's Club

Summary:

A glance away from the chaos that is Enzai and Yoichi to see how others react to their presence in the world.

And a set up for a mess that is just starting to take shape.

Notes:

(See the end of the chapter for notes.)

Chapter Text

Sometimes, One felt like he was herding cats rather than looking after a pair of runaway teenagers.

Though in all honesty, the cats probably would've been easier.

"Two!" He yelled as a grape rocketed past his face at half the speed of sound. "What in the name of God do you think you are doing!"

"Don't fucking yell at me!" Two roared back. "Jack in the box started it!"

Three's face twisted into a small frown at his fellow ward's words. "I did no such thing." He said in a level tone. "It is not my fault you felt you were entitled to the last donut even after I had eaten it."

"All this over a donut?" One asked in an incredulous tone as he took in the devastated state of the room. "Seriously?!"

Two seemed not to have noticed him speaking. Presumably, it was drowned out by the sound of him grinding his teeth together. "Yeah, well," he sneered, "you should've known I'd want it, shouldn't you Jack in the box?"

"Alright, enough." One said tiredly, rubbing his brow. He wasn't paid enough for this. Actually, he wasn't paid at all.

"How would I know that you wanted the last one?" Three asked, a confused expression on his face.

"I said, enough." One repeated sternly, giving the two of them a hard look.

"How would you know tha- BECAUSE I FUCKING TOLD YOU, ASSHOLE!" Two screamed, the apple clenched in his hand glowing bright blue with the power of his meta ability.

"I SAID ENOUGH!" One bellowed, slamming his hands down onto the table and releasing a wave of flame across it. Wincing at the heat that washed over his palms, he turned to look Two in the eyes. "You," he growled, "bring that thing back into Neutral, and you," he turned towards Three, "don't think I don't see you charging Fa Jin. Turn that off right now."

Two gave him a dirty look, and for a moment it seemed like he might argue, but he thankfully just dropped the apple back onto the table when faced with One's glare. Or, well, he tried to. In actuality, the apple hung in the air like a pinata, completely immobile. "I said Neutral, not Park." One stated flatly. Two scowled harshly, but released the fruit from his power a second later. Similarly, Three released the red glow that surrounded his lower legs, allowing the stockpiled energy to dissipate harmlessly.

"Fuck." One said quietly, running his hand down his face. "You two are almost adults, this is getting out of hand." He sighed. "Seriously, you were ready to go to blows, meta abilities and all, for a fucking donut!?"

The two of them looked away, ashamed.

"It was a good donut." Three said under his breath.

One shot him a look and decided to let Two's muttered "I'll fucking kill you." slide.

"Alright. Clearly the two of you need to let off some steam." He turned to walk out the room. "We need to go get some money anyway, come on." He threw over his shoulder as he went.

Two gave him a suspicious look. "What, gonna go beat up some random businessman for our funds again?"

"That was only once Two," One responded, "you know we normally only target people who deserve it."

They didn't, of course, but these idiots had had comic book morals forced down their throats since birth and didn't seem to understand that money was money no matter where it came from and that they really rather needed some.

Two tsked in response, but he and Three followed him into the hallway anyway.

The three of them made their way out of his apartment, sticking to the side alley to avoid drawing attention. They didn't exactly live in the nicest part of the neighbourhood, but given how things were at the moment with all the MLA protestors running around and the military doing their level best to drown them in lead, nowhere really was at this point.

Two went to absently kick a rock that was in his path, but instead simply slipped his foot over it uselessly and wheeled around to give it a look of pure betrayal. One smirked at his ward's misfortune and even Three's blank expression seemed to give off the impression of amusement for a moment.

"Are we going to find someone or not?" Two asked, working off his sudden increase in aggression from failing to kick a pebble through making his voice as vicious as possible.

One felt his eyes almost roll into the back of his head at the latest display of Two's utter lack of patience. "We've been out here for less than 2 minutes, I'm sure we'll find someone eventually."

As if on cue, the sound of an argument began to emerge from up ahead of them.

"Screw you, asshole!" A teenage boy's voice, cracks and all, echoed through the alleyway. "If I still had my meta ability I'd beat the ever-loving shit out of you!"

"'Still had'?" One muttered to himself.

"'Meta ability'?!" An adult's voice yelled, jolting One out of his shock. "You're a little freak aren't you?! I knew there was something wrong with you when you walked into my shop!"

Picking up his pace, One rounded the corner at the same time as a strangled scream sounded from past it and saw… well, he wasn't quite sure what he saw.

A thin kid, covered in scratches and dirt and wearing some pretty torn up clothes was hanging onto a pot-bellied middle-aged man by the neck with his teeth sunk fully into the guy's shoulder like some sort of vampire that has no idea what it's doing. The kid was pale, with sunken skin and black hair that appeared to be at least 30% dirt by volume, completing the vagrant child look perfectly. The man himself flailed madly, clearly with no idea what to do when faced with the world's largest leech. "Get off me, freak!" He screeched like an arachnophobic child 40 years his junior faced with the world's largest tarantula.

Somehow, his desperate thrashing managed to knock the teenager off him and send him rolling across the floor. "I'll kill you for that!" He threatened shrilly.

"Sure you will." One said sarcastically, catching the side of the man's cheek with a flaming hand and slamming him face first into the concrete below, knocking him out cold.

Now, to the kid, he probably looked pretty cool. A full grown adult jumping out of the shadows and decking your attacker with a flaming arm, saving you from getting hurt? Yeah, most people would find that worthy of coolness, but internally all One was thinking was 'Ow, ow, ow, ow, ow, ow, ow-' as the fire burned against his skin.

"Ow." He muttered under his breath as the fire faded back into nothingness, shaking the pain out of his hand.

"Holy shit." The kid breathed. "That was sick."

"Thanks." One said, leaning down to rifle through the man's pockets for his wallet. He drew out a pack of mints, a crumpled receipt, three sweet wrappers, a used napkin, and-

"An eggshell? What?" He glanced down at the man. "Why in the name of sanity would someone carry around an eggshell?"

"Fuck if I know." Two said, walking into the alleyway with his hands in his pockets, doing his level best to radiate cool kid energy as if his hair wasn't the worst shade of pink. "Maybe he was part of a cult or something, who cares, just take the asshole's shit and let's get going." He caught sight of the kid. "Who's the kid?"

"Fuck you, I'm 14!" The kid responded hotly. One wasn't sure he believed him.

"That doesn't answer his question." Three observed calmly, also sliding into the alley.

The teenager spat on the ground next to him, wiped his mouth, and stood up. "I'm Zero, asshole." He spat.

"Zero, huh?" One said, smirking as he pocketed the eggshell for reasons even he didn't understand, "You'll fit right in."

He pulled a handful of Yen out of the man's wallet and tossed it on top of his prone form. "You a meta, kid?" He asked offhandedly.

Zero grimaced and glanced away, looking all the world like a feral kicked puppy. "I used to be."

"Yeah," One's eyes narrowed, "what do you mean by that?"

Zero glared distrustfully at One as he slurped down the bowl of noodles the man had made for him.

"There's no point in that look," One had said, rolling his startlingly blue eyes, "if I'd poisoned it, I promise you, it'd only make it taste better."

And now, eating noodles that were somehow incredibly dry despite having the texture of seaweed and tasted like someone had decided to make an omelette with vanilla and ketchup, Zero could do nothing but believe him. "How the fuck?" Zero muttered to himself in disbelief. "How can someone possibly mess up noodles this badly?"

"With a concentrated effort." One said, dropping into the chair opposite him. "None of us can cook well, I'm just the one that cooks the least badly."

Zero stared at him blankly for a moment. "If you're the best, I'm deeply afraid of what the others can do. Hell, I might even reconsider taking your offer to stay here."

One shrugged. "If you can do better, be my guest. But that's not what I wanted to talk to you about." He leaned forwards over the table. "You said you'd explain what you meant when you said you 'used to be' a meta." He sat back and gestured for Zero to talk. "So go on."

Zero scowled into his bowl of the world's worst noodles. He didn't trust One with the truth, and similarly didn't know how the flaming bastard might react to a lie. He'd heard Two and Three talking about making sure they didn't pick on people who didn't deserve it, and wasn't sure how One fit into that particular paradigm of idiocy. They needed to get money from somewhere, didn't they? And being metas certainly wasn't going to help their job prospects. Robbery was the best option, stealing from useless fools who wander around like nothing's wrong. They'd always made easy pickings.

"I know that look." One said knowingly, eyebrow raised. "I don't care why it happened, just how."

"Yeah, you might not," Zero muttered, "but your pet idiots might."

One shrugged. "Then I'll just change the story or something, not that hard."

Zero gave him a quick once over, from his dark red hair to the small burn scars dotted across his hands. The man stared at him expectantly, and the look in his eyes expressed that he truly didn't give a shit. "Fine." Zero ground out. "My parents had tossed me out for putting some baseline assholes in their place right, and I was going around on the streets grabbing money and other shit from anyone stupid enough to get too close and I guess I just picked the wrong target." He leaned back into his chair. "I grabbed some albino motherfucker with some dumbass bags of groceries off the streets, tossed him into an alleyway, and started threatening him with my meta ability." He wiggled his finger. "And let me tell you, the guy was stupid tall, like, at least 2 metres."

One gave him a look that screamed 'and this is relevant how?', so Zero continued with his stupid story.

"Anyway, I was doing my thing and he was making some dumbass commentary, and eventually he managed to squirm out of my grip and tackle me to the floor." Zero scrunched his face up in annoyance and decided not to mention that he'd been unable to lift the guy off his feet. "His eyes start glowing and the next thing I know I'm waking up with a cat nibbling at my leg, no longer able to use my meta ability." He desperately tried not to gag as he ate some more of the noodles from hell. "That was about half a year ago now."

"Oh." One said, stunned. "So there's a guy out there that can remove people's meta abilities?"

Zero shrugged. "Seems like it." He took another mouthful of the noodles and fought to swallow the horrific things down before they revolted against his taste buds. "No idea what happens to them afterwards though."

"Well." One began. "Fuck."

"What I wanna do is find the bastard and give him a piece of my mind." Zero continued, stabbing the noodles with enough aggressiveness that One wouldn't be surprised to find that they'd killed his beloved pet salamander or something.

"That might work." One said thoughtfully. "There are a few people online who say they can remove meta abilities. We might be able to find him that way." He waved his hand dismissively. "Most of them are scams, obviously, but given how many people there are who want to have their meta abilities removed, he might be willing to sell it."

Zero scoffed in disbelief. "Who the fuck would want to remove their meta ability?"

"Tell me about it." One agreed with a nod. "These are a gift. Let me tell you, Two and Three would be more than willing to fight the guy if they thought he was going around removing people's meta abilities for money."

Zero hummed thoughtfully. "Would that work?" He asked, curiosity laced through his tone.

"Probably." One said in an amused voice. "I'm pretty sure they'd take anything I tell them about anyone as the truth at this point, they're surprisingly gullible for a pair of near-adults who got run out of their own homes. I could just go 'hey, there's a guy who wants to destroy everyone's meta abilities like a supervillain, go beat the shit out of him' and they would."

Zero began chuckling. "'Don't worry though'," he continues with their stupid story, "'you guys will be just fine, it's not like the guy we know can destroy meta abilities will destroy your meta ability, or anything.'"

One cracked up at Zero's dry tone, openly laughing at the idea of trigger happy Two and emotionally stunted Three trying to fight a guy who could render them powerless with a touch. Hell, the two of them barely even knew how to throw a punch without their meta abilities! If the albino guy knew how to fight, even a little bit, they'd be screwed.

"You know what?" One said as their laughter died down. "Let's find this guy. I'm not going to fight him, but you should be able to do some damage."

"Fuck yeah." Zero replied. "I've always wanted to go on a revenge trip." He said wistfully.

"Would you please stop?" One said in an annoyed voice a few days later, sat in a dirty side alley on the other side of town.

"Sorry." Zero's insincere voice echoed down from the fire escape above. The sound of a pocket knife flicking open and closed silenced.

For about 10 seconds.

One let out a deep groan and ignored Zero's quiet snickering as the sound restarted. "Is he late?" The evidently knife obsessed teen asked.

One checked his watch, squinting past the decals in the dark as he attempted to make out the time. "Is that a fucking Hello Kitty watch?" Zero asked, voice filled with delight. One felt his face heat up, and even noticed small flames dance across his hair. "Shut up." He hissed. "Two stole it from his little sister, okay? It's the only watch we have."

"Wow, that's incredible." Zero said, wiping tears of laughter from his eyes. "But it also doesn't answer my question."

One sighed, willing the embarrassed blush off his face. "Just a little late, yeah."

They returned to silence.

A knife flicked.

Near silence then.

The hairs on the back of One's neck abruptly stood up, and he straightened his spine, head darting about to search for the source of the sudden activation of his flight or fight response.

Just in front of him, in the mouth of the alleyway, a figure began to melt out of the shadows.

Now, this wasn't your everyday melting out of the shadows. No, this was advanced melting out of the shadows. The darkness of the night seemed to cling onto the figure like particularly obsessed fangirls trailing after the latest lead singer of a mildly popular boy band. The figure casually rolled their shoulders, and the shadows went scrambling back like a pack of especially cowardly cockroaches. They straightened the cuffs of a suit that One was willing to bet was worth more than his liver, and checked a watch that was probably worth more than his soul.

"Ah," they said, voice as smooth as a wet bar of soap, "my apologies. I appear to be late."

One stared up at them, and did a double take at their faceless visage. "You're All for One then?" He said apprehensively.

"I am." The figure confirmed, bowing his head minutely and allowing his snow white hair to be jostled ever so slightly. "You are One, correct?" The maroon haired man nodded in reply.

A second, significantly shorter figure emerged from the darkness next to All for One, wearing a white full face mask and significantly less expensive but much more chaotic clothing. The taller man gestured to them with an open palm. "This is Musketeer, my… assistant." He said hesitantly, making a poor attempt at hiding the fact that was a terrible description for whatever their true relationship was.

"Now then," he continued as if there had been no interruption, his perfectly blank face staring directly into One's soul, "I do believe we are here for business?"

"Yep." One attempted to say in a level tone, trying valiantly to pretend he wasn't intimidated. He didn't do very well.

"Are you, like… okay?" Musketeer asked in a concerned voice.

All for One let out an aggravated sigh. "His mental state is hardly our concern, Musketeer. Your input on the matter is unneeded."

"Yeah, yeah." Musketeer muttered.

All for One turned his face towards Musketeer slow enough One almost expected to hear the sound of two stones grinding together. "Do you recall," he began, voice as cold as a strawberry popsicle, "what happened the last time you annoyed me?"

Musketeer grimaced and looked away. "Yes." He ground out.

"Good." All for One continued. "Don't do so again." He turned back to One, and held out a hand. "Shall we?"

"Well, I would, but…" One trailed off.

The three of them stood there in awkward silence long enough that One began to question who, exactly, allowed All for One to be quite so tall. "But what?" All for One asked after a full 15 seconds of dead silence had passed, slenderman-like face staring directly at him.

One cursed loudly. "Zero, you idiot, that was your cue!" He yelled.

"Oh, right!" Zero called, and promptly lunged off the roof, knife held out to strike at the towering figure. At the same time, One took a step backwards and let the teenager hit the blank faced man, sending the both of them flying along the alleyway like ragdolls. All for One hit the ground back-first and One was forced to watch - to his utter disbelief - as the ground underneath his back deformed like a trampoline and launched him back into the air with a bounce worthy of a comedy boing sound effect, Zero's knife skittering across the ground as it flew out of his hand. How he'd missed stabbing All for One, One had no idea. Clearly the knife obsessed teen was not as good with them as One had been led to believe.

All for One managed to land a wildly unbalanced backflip, pinwheeling his arms like a madman as he regained his footing. Simultaneously, Zero continued flailing through the air, letting out an overdrawn yelp, and ended up landing in a dumpster full of rotten food and old appliances with a crunch.

Throughout that particular failure of flight, neither One or Musketeer had moved.

All for One wheeled round and pointed aggressively at Zero as the teen clambered out of the pile of garbage with a grimace. "You're the kid who tried to mug me!" He announced.

"So what!" Zero replied defiantly, flicking a banana peel off to the side. "You destroyed my meta ability!"

"Okay!" Musketeer stated, stepping in between them, arms held out and veins glowing red. "Why don't we all just-"

"THAT'S MY META ABILITY!" Zero screamed, a deranged look on his face as he pointed frantically at Musketeer. "HOW THE FUCK!"

"Wouldn't you like to know, weather boy." All for One said, voice full of scorn, all sense of gravitas gone down the drain as he dragged a several decade old meme into their dramatic showdown.

"Alright, enough of this mess." One muttered, lunging towards All for One with flaming hands. Yes, he'd said he wasn't going to fight the man, but this was too embarrassing to be allowed to continue.

The white-haired man spun around at the sound of his voice just in time for One to shove his burning palm directly into his egg-like head in a rough approximation of where his eyes should be. He was pretty confident he succeeded given All for One immediately yelled "MY EYES!" and shoved him hard enough to send him crashing to the ground.

One saw Musketeer drop a frothing-at-the-mouth-with-rage Zero with a vicious punch to the side of the head as All for One stumbled backwards, hand covering the area his eyes would be - if he had any - in his perfectly smooth face. The towering man dropped his hand with a growl, revealing an ominous red glow about three quarters of the way up his face. "You're going to give me that," he snarled, taking a step forward, "whether you like it or not."

One managed to scramble away from him for a moment before he felt his hand slip on the banana peel Zero had discarded earlier, and crashed to the ground with an all encompassing sense of defeat. All for One's hand latched onto his shoulder like a jealous child with their favourite toy, and red lighting began to jump between them.

The cry of a broken fire alarm desperate to warn everyone of the life threatening event that was a burnt piece of toast managed to fight its way past One's lips, and then the world went black.

When One came to, the sun was crawling over the horizon, he was damp as all hell, and someone was poking him in the side.

"I've come to a realisation." Zero said, a huge purple welt covering the left side of his face that made him look like he'd lost a fight with a rotten plum.

"Oh?" One said with a voice that sounded like someone was dishwashing gravel. "And that is?"

"The faceless bastard doesn't destroy our meta abilities." Zero said carefully. "He takes them."

"And how did you come to that conclusion?" One sarcastically as he pushed himself to his feet, shaking water out of his dark red hair like a black puppy covered in hot sauce.

"Well," Zero said, his tone conveying that he thought One was about as intelligent as half a dead goldfish, "you would agree that the whole no face and weird bouncing thing looked like meta abilities, yes?" One nodded and made to open his mouth, but Zero simply steamrolled on. Damn, this kid was starting to get on his nerves. "That, and the fact that his little 'assistant' had my meta ability, the motherfucker," he grumbled, "suggests he does more than just destroy them."

One returned to lying on his back. "He's probably got mine then, doesn't he?"

Zero shrugged unapologetically. "Why don't you find out?"

Sighing, One held out his hand and tried to force the flames that had always rested just beneath his skin to the surface. Nothing happened. "You look constipated." Zero mentioned callously.

One snapped around to point directly at Zero, tired of his bullshit. "Shut up you stupid brat! Because of you I don't have my meta ability any more, and I've spent the night in a random back alley!"

All Zero did was raise an eyebrow at him.

One sighed and ran his hand down his face. "Sorry, I'm just a little annoyed about last night."

Zero snorted. "I can't imagine why." He said sarcastically. Then he glanced around them and offered One a hand. "We should probably head back to the apartment."

One grasped his hand and used it to pull himself up. "Agreed."

The two of them awkwardly shuffled out of the alleyway, Zero trying - and failing - to hide the huge bruise with his shirt whilst One wrung his hair out to remove the morning dew. "So," the teenager asked as they meandered down the street, "what the fuck are we going to tell Two and Three?"

"I have no clue." One admitted, beginning to wish he could get some peace and quiet for once in his life. Damn past him for deciding to try and raise a group of teenagers. "But certainly not the truth."

"Really?" Zero asked with mock curiosity. "You not gonna give them a highlight reel of the night then?"

"Yeah," One said sarcastically, "because that's just a great idea. 'Hey, me and this little brat we picked up a few days ago decided to go on a revenge spree against some guy who was only defending himself from being mugged' will totally go over well with the two most morally upright teenagers I've ever met in my life."

"How'd they end up like that anyway?" Zero asked, a note of genuine curiosity in his voice.

"Trauma." One answered vaguely, hoping it was enough to shut the teen up for a while so he could think in peace.

"Ah."

They continued on in thankful, blissful, silence.

For about 3 minutes.

"So…" Zero began, shooting One a meaningful look he deliberately ignored, "what are we telling them then."

In response, One looked skywards and begged for patience, because God knew that if he begged for strength he'd very quickly find himself in an entirely different brand of trouble. "I'll think of something." He answered shortly, and pleaded that Zero would get the hint to be quiet.

He did not.

"We could tell them he was going around stealing people's meta abilities and we went to go stop him or something." Zero suggested. "They seem like they'd support us trying to beat up a criminal mastermind who was taking away people's superpowers."

"Uh huh." One dismissed, absently taking a left towards his apartment. "And what reason are we going to give for not taking them?"

Zero gave him a flat look. "Maybe," he began in a voice as sarcastic as the sun was warm, "it was because we were going to fight someone who could steal meta abilities?!"

Unfortunately, that was a good point, and One was forced to concede it. However, he had a counterpoint. "Then why did we go?" He challenged.

"Because I've already gotten my meta ability taken and you can actually use yours to fight rather than just throwing things and crashing into walls?" Zero suggested mockingly. "Therefore, don't you think we might be just a little better equipped to fight a hypothetical superpower stealing supervillain?"

One snorted and repeated "supervillain" under his breath. "Alright, fine." He said. "That works. So let's get our story straight." He turned to Zero. "You got your meta ability taken away from you by some guy calling himself All for One and asked me to help find him." The teen nodded. "We decided it was too dangerous to take them into combat since they weren't prepared and he might be able to steal their extra special meta abilities." He waved his hand at Zero's questioning look. "A little flattery goes a long way, although, obviously, don't say it like that. They may be weirdly goody-two-shoes for a pair of runaways, but they aren't that stupid.

"Anyway, he was there with his 'assistant' who had your meta ability - that kid seemed like he was around your age, right? Plus he didn't seem like he wanted to be there - and had gotten it from All for One in exchange for… loyalty, or something. So we fought him, but he was too powerful, and he stole my meta ability before leaving us both unconscious in an alleyway."

"Right." Zero said, clambering up the final few stairs. "I can work with that."

"Let's just hope they believe us." One muttered, unlocking his apartment door.

Notes:

Immediately after this chapter:

Yoichi: So what was that guy's meta ability?

Enzai: Let's find out

Enzai: *bursts into flames*

Enzai: Hmm

As previously, please send mistakes through telegraph, and if that's too inconvenient, the comments.