Chapter 23
In the morning, the footprints were gone. This was driving me crazy. I began to wonder if someone had managed to summon Imp's spirit from my world. This was just her sort of fun. I wondered if there was any connection between the phantom footprints and my mystery eyepatch. It was hard to imagine otherwise.
After I had to kick Jin out last night, I spent several hours doing translation work. I had not made any money during my extended stay in the valley and was running short. The addition of wisps for the ability to see screens allowed me to work on my phone and my tablet at the same time I was on the computer. This almost doubled my output. The actual translation between Emily and I was the main bottleneck, but we were getting much faster as our communication channel expanded. I would invest in a few more tablets to see just how fast I could get.
I did take the time to look over the internship offers in more depth. Alpine wanted to 'continue my training' and pointed out my mother would be happy to have me in the mountains, even if I wasn't in Dasumiru. While he was a nice enough person and had helped me out, thinking of him and Mrs. Yanagi flirting in my hospital room was mildly nauseating. I decided to pass. Native was interested in working with me after our interaction in the bus battle, but I felt no special connection with him.
There were several from agencies and heroes I had never heard of – X-Less in Nagoya, Death Arms in Tokyo, Springer in Chiba, Kal-el Hero Agency in Argo City, Morning Crow Hero Agency in Kobe, Molotov in Niigata, Kesagiriman in Tokushima, and iPhome Hero Agency in Hiroshima. Two were of particular interest – The Majestic Magical Agency from Hosu City, which was run by Yuyu's uncle and Greedo's Bounty Hero Agency in Mosuaizuri.
Majestic had included a note that Yuyu had personally recommended me for his internship opening. She said my versatile quirk, tactical thinking, and supernatural theme would all fit well with his agency. I thought that was very sweet and was tempted to accept.
But Greedo was a mystery I was interested in unraveling. He was almost the only "hero" in my neighborhood – ran the only hero agency. According to Nightwing, he was a villain, or at least a mercenary, masquerading as a hero. I'm supposed to be living in Mosuiazuri for the next three years and I've always been territorial. If this guy is a threat to my neighborhood, I want to know more about him. Sending me an invite meant he's interested in me as well. That, plus the fact that he'd been following Jin yesterday, meant there was some likelihood he might pose a personal danger to my friend or me. If he was hired to do the job, who was behind him and what did they want with us?
I decided to take his internship offer. I wanted to find out more about him, and inside his crew seemed the best place to do so. I mean, what could go wrong?
You sound uncertain, Emily inquired.
I've done this before – gone undercover to find out more about a villain group – and still can't decide if that was a good decision. Actually, it was a rotten decision. The question whether the eventual outcome was worth the problems it caused.
So why repeat the tactic if it was such a mistake the first time? We have talked about you using this opportunity of a new life to avoid making the same poor choices.
On the surface, it may look like the same decision. But it's not. In this case, I'm not doing it because I'm desperate for friendship and acceptance. I'm not going against the express orders of the leader of the government hero team. And I'm not going to agree to participate in any criminal activity. Instead, I'm going to have the school, the police, a professional hero, and a reporter on speed dial to report any such activity I uncover.
It seems as if your mind is made up. I do wonder at you choosing to treat what is supposed to be a carefully curated learning opportunity as a private investigation to uncover corruption.
I need to do an internship. All of them have some level of danger. Working for Greedo allows me to use that time for my own ends as well as the school's. I'm convinced most of the offers are only because of my high media profile. In the past, I've been both a mole and a PR stunt. Being a mole got me shot, stabbed, blown up, and hunted by one of the most powerful agencies on the planet. Of the two, I still preferred it to being a media showpiece.
I see I have my work cut out for me, if I am to help guide you to enlightenment.
A person's reach should always exceed their grasp, my mother used to say.
School was surprisingly normal that day. Endeavor had made a big bust of Nine Head Dragon drug smugglers – capturing over a ton of unspecified drugs. That knocked me off the front page and focused the schools' attention on Todoroki, the Flame Hero's son. Hero Class was brushing up on quirk law, especially as it applied to unlicensed students under professional supervision. There was a long list of dos and don'ts, but it came down to don't do anything unless your pro tells you to, And even then, don't do anything that would break the law.
"Does that mean we can finally fight villains?" Kosei asked. Several other students were excited by the prospects.
"Almost certainly not," Kan-sensei replied. "Until such time as you have your provisional license, you are present only in an observational role."
"What if we are personally attacked?" I argued.
"Then the self-defense provisions apply." He didn't sound happy to admit it. I pushed him because I didn't want the others freezing up if it came down to fight or die. "But you need to recall that the provisions do not allow for you to engage your quirk only to fight in the defense of others. That is not allowed."
"But why? Heroes are supposed to save people, not stand around while they get hurt." Tokage was gripping her desk tightly, as if to keep from throwing herself at the teacher to better convince him of her point.
"But you aren't heroes yet." The teacher's voice was cold as his hard eyes swept the class. "You've only been at UA a few weeks. You have not learned enough to know how to use your quirks safely. Without that training you could end up hurting more people than you help. If you are not willing to abide by this law, you may not be ready to go on the internship."
The class looked rebellious, but no one challenged him. I wanted to disagree with him, but I'd seen the class in simulations. A few were probably able to keep a clear head in a real combat situation and had enough control of their quirks to do more good than harm. But not many. Even with that, I thought the laws were stupid for not recognizing that there were those among the class that could help in a crisis.
I wasn't in a position to do anything about the laws, yet. But someday that would change.
There were no clubs that afternoon, so I spent an hour in the gym. I noticed Agoyamato, the large gen ed student, and Fuwa, the second-year girl that was supposed to be acting as a class mentor. I hadn't seen her since the first day she was introduced to the class. I was tempted to ask her for advice on the internship offers, but I'd more or less made my choice.
I moved to the big guy. He was bench pressing almost four hundred kilos. I watched him through eight reps before he put the bar on the rest. "Hey," I said. "I have an odd question for you. Tell me to shove off it is too personal."
"Ok." He was wiping his face with a towel. "But that's not a good start."
"Did you apply for the hero course?"
"Sure I did." He gave a derisive chuckle. "Almost everyone applying for UA tries for the hero course, except maybe the support students. Most of us did well enough on the academic tests. It was the practical exam we couldn't hack. I only took out three or four robots. They moved too quickly for me most of the time. Well, you've seen my quirk. Not really suited for hero work."
"So, most gen ed and business students still want to be heroes?"
He looked at me, his face clouding. "Probably not most. It was a pipe dream for many. They'd take their chance, but when it didn't pan out, they settled into plans for a real life. But some of us would give our eye teeth for a place in the program."
"Do you have to go to a hero academy to become a hero? Can't you arrange to take the licensing exam on your own?"
"I don't know what your point is." He was getting angry. "I mean it's theoretically possible for someone to walk in off the street and pass the test. But you'd still need references and some sort of proper education. Also, without the prestige and connections of one of the good schools, there's almost no chance of getting hired by a good agency."
"But you'd still be a hero."
"Maybe in some little village in the middle of nowhere, but you can't feed a family on that kind of money. To make a living as a hero, you need the right connections or to get very lucky. I mean you missed the sports festival, but you've been plastered all over the news since March. I bet you got some offers."
"Yeah," I said, brushing my hair back to reveal my eyepatch. "Real lucky."
I turned, letting my hair fall. "What we were talking about yesterday at the club meeting – isn't there any sort of defense classes or club available to the non-hero course students?"
His voice was strained and his face pale, but he continued. "There are the normal martial arts clubs – karate, judo, kendo, kyudo, even western fencing. But those aren't very popular because quirk use is forbidden and people with innate mutations aren't allowed to compete. We can practice, just not compete."
"Are there any sorts of private companies or schools that offer help preparing for the provisional licensing exam?" I asked.
"How can you not know this?" he demanded.
"I come from one of those little villages in the middle of nowhere. Lovely place. You may have heard about it in the news recently?" I offered.
"Yeah, right." He looked away embarrassed. "Uh … there are juku and training centers, but they're really expensive and I'm not sure they're any good."
"So, there are alternatives to being a hero course student for you to learn to defend yourself, and even to become a hero." I confirmed.
"Well, yeah. But …" he trailed off.
"Something to think about." I changed the subject. "I think you have more potential to be effective in combat than you realize. I can, at least, give you a few tips. But I'm not committing to anything more. Ok?"
"Sure! That would be great."
"See me after next week. I'll be doing the internship thing until then. But after that, we'll find some time and I'll show you a few possibilities. In the meanwhile, I want you to practice shifting back and forth as fast as you can, with as little time in between shifts as you can. Don't hurt yourself, but see what your minimum time is now and if it can be improved."
"Yes! I can do that. Thank you." He grabbed my hand and shook it. The boy had some grip on him.
After he left, I wiped off the machine and reset the weights for myself. I worked out without the use of my spirits to build my base strength. I set the bar to one hundred kilos. This body was stronger than it looked – something that was common to all heroes and villains. After I was done with my first set, Fuwa stopped by to talk.
"You're wasting your time," she said. I turned to look at the short-haired blond. She was sneering at me as she blotted her chest and neck with a towel.
"What do you mean?"
"Offering to help a Gen," she replied. "If you're doing it just to impress the teachers, then don't. If they wanted the Gens to be trained as heroes, they'd expand the hero course. They won't appreciate your rocking the boat. If you're doing it because you think you can help him become a hero on his own, you're just building up his hope only for him to fail like they all do. Like I said – wasting your time and his. On the other hand if you're just trying to get him to like you , or owe you a favor, it might work. But do you really want to date one of them?"
"Interesting perspective. Thanks for the advice. I can see why Kan-sensei wanted you to be a mentor."
"Of course. He recognizes quality when he sees it. Always happy to help." She smiled and walked towards the locker room.
I sat down to continue my reps, wondering if she had been serious or not at the end. What was the homeroom teacher thinking?
Perhaps he hoped that by offering her a position of responsibility and the opportunity to foster the growth of those junior to her, that she may also achieve some modicum of personal progress on her own path to enlightenment?
So he inflicted her on us to help her get better?
Or, more cynically, perhaps he added her to act as a foil for Yuyu-chan's predominantly supportive personality and perspective and Amajiki-senpai's inherent introversion. There is benefit in offering the students of the class a variety of outlooks.
That I could believe. Then what she said really sank in. Actually, I can believe both.
I am pleased to see your perspective broadening. It is a sign that your own journey is progressing.
That evening, as I was walking out to pick up some dinner, I spied Nightwing soaring in the distance outlined against the illuminated cloud cover.
"There he is again," said a woman standing in the door of a Chinese restaurant. She was attractive, probably late twenties or early thirties with medium length shiny black hair. She was dressed in one of those traditional Chinese dresses that fastened on the right shoulder. Hers was an eye-catching red and gold. Obviously, the hostess for the restaurant. It was one of the fancier places in the area, maybe even drawing in people from outside of Mosaizuri.
"There who is?" I asked.
"The night dragon." She was looking up at him. "Some say he is a hero, some a criminal. All I know is that where he goes, trouble can always be found."
"Is he the cause of that trouble?" I wondered what the thoughts of the average person on the street might be in regards to vigilantes, heroes and villains. Unlike in Brockton Bay, here most people had some sort of power, so the disparity between capes and normal people might not be so great. In this world the difference was more like the disparity between a karaoke singer and a popular musician or a weekend runner and a professional athlete – more a matter of scale than possibility.
"Does it matter if he is the cause? Trouble is trouble, and people like us best avoid it." She finally looked at me. "Are you looking for something for dinner? Tonight, we have half price appetizers. Two of those are as filling as a meal and half the price." She winked at me. "Or if you're looking for a job, we just lost two busboys."
"What?" I asked confused by her sudden attention and the job offer out of nowhere.
"Sorry, didn't mean to scare you," she said, holding up her hands. "I've seen you around the neighborhood. Word is that you live by yourself. I figure you could use some extra money, or at least a good meal. No offence meant."
"Thank you. That is very kind. But I have a job and I ate a big lunch." I offered a small bow and moved on. My spirits kept an eye on her as she watched me walk away. While I knew there were kind people in the world that would offer a supposed orphan a helping hand; something about this lady told me that wasn't the case here.
I sent my scouts out further and gathered my geists in tight. I was always cautious, but between the dragon and the lady something had me particularly paranoid.
A block over I found two men being chased out of an alley by three hulking mutants with scaled skin, bulging muscles, and long claws. They weren't identical. Along with their reptilian features, each showed evidence of a different quirk. One had tentacles writhing from his neck. One had dust swirling around him. And the third had light beams shooting from her eyes. They were smashing trash cans and vending machines as they stormed forward.
The people on the street either stopped and stared or immediately turned and fled – depending on how honed their survival instincts were. Metal coverings began to slam down to barricade shop windows all along the block. I quickly found some stairs leading to a second-floor electronics store that was closed. This got me off the street and allowed me to stay hidden from view, while leaving me an escape route if needed. I kept a few shadows floating sentinel over me as I concentrated on the action almost at the edge of my range.
This was exactly the sort of situation the quirk laws would forbid me from getting involved in. I wasn't certain I was going to get involved, but …
Surely you cannot allow those brutes to endanger innocent lives. Emily argued.
What! You're saying I should fight?
Not exactly. She sounded chagrined. I do not say you should do violence to the marauders. Only that you have the ability to protect people from harm. That is not the same thing.
It sounds like we are both changing, but this isn't the time for a discussion. Keep a watch around us. I'll be seeing what good I can do over there.
The three marauders, as Emily called them, were closing on a family who looked to be carrying their groceries – a mother and three kids. All had duck features, bills and webbed feet. They were waddling as fast as they could move, but Headlamps had them spotlighted and the others were closing in.
I could only grab things within ten yards of me and move them to the edge of my range. That meant I couldn't affect the attackers directly, nor could I grab the family out of the way. I quickly searched nearby for anything I could use. The bar next door had stacks of empty beer and alcohol bottles in trays along their wall waiting to return them to the vendor. I grabbed a dozen and sent them sailing over the rooftop. People seldom look up, so no one noticed the dark bottles moving against the night sky.
But before I could bring the glass pelting down, a figure appeared, dropping from a roof outside of my range. It was a man dressed in a black bodysuit with a stylized grey 'Z' starting halfway up his chest, the top bar covering his shoulders. His mask was a full-face grey cowl with no mouth opening. My wisps showed the figure possessed a familiar splotchy soul crystal.
I watched as Jin lowered himself down from the roof top using some sort of mechanized rappelling device attached to his torso. The device disappeared as he hit the ground. He pulled a bell-muzzled pistol from nowhere and fired two shots. The egg-shaped shells opened into red nets that quickly bound Octocollar and Dustbuster. Vanishing the gun, Jin pulled a staff out of nowhere and engaged Headlamps.
I had sparred with the man so I knew he was good, but I hadn't realized how much Jin had been holding back. His acrobatic style made him almost untouchable and the staff gave him the reach and striking power to take down his stronger opponent.
While Jin was busy showing the obviously boosted villain that his staff was harder than her head, I lobbed some carefully aimed bottles at the heads of the two trapped marauders, as they were slowly working their way free of the netting. I made it look like the bottles were thrown from the upper floor or roof of the building, but invisibly guided them to impact so as to knock the bad guys out. When the bottle shattered, I made sure the individual spirits kept their grips on the shards of glass, so I still had potential weapons.
By the time the short fight was finished, the street had cleared. As Jin used the recreated grapnel harness to make his escape, I called the police to report the fight and the captured villains. "Some hero I'm not familiar with took them out. I was just watching from down the street."
"We'll try to get someone out there soon, but I wouldn't wait for them if I were you. Those punks sound like Dragon Blood junkies. If so, someone sold them the stuff and might still be around." The woman on the other end of the call sounded familiar – like many of the cops in my old world – dispirited and overwhelmed, but still on the job.
By the time I got to my apartment, Jin was waiting on my stairs.
"I like the new outfit," I said.
He looked down at his clothes, the same one I always saw him in. I had noticed that a lot of people in this world seemed to find a look that they liked and stuck with it, often having multiple sets of the same outfit. "These old things?"
"Come on in." I unlocked the door, after checking for any surprises. I looked around and nothing was out of place. Even to my unaided eye.
"You did some pretty good work out there," I said once we were seated. I had water on to boil and tea and snacks ready on a tray.
"Thanks. I thought that was you with the bottles at the end. I wondered when you were going to jump in."
"You knew I was there?"
"Your little fireflies aren't invisible if you know what to look for. You got your eye on me." He made the gesture – pointing from his eyes to me. "Or is that the other way around?"
"So, you're going vigilante?"
"I thought I might give it a try. If you can be a hero, I can do something close to it. And vigilantes have a better reputation in this neighborhood than heroes."
"I can see that." I brought the tea tray floating in and poured for both of us. "Where did you get the tinker tech?"
"The babies? From a girl at your school. I was watching the Sports Festival and she had the funniest product demo disguised as a one-on-one fight. She's got some great gear. Lets me test it – or copies of it at least. I let her know any issues that crop up. I even paid her a fee. Reduced because there are no production costs, of course. I have other gear that I've analyzed over the years. I have some copies of people too. But they wouldn't be much help in a fight as they'd either turn on me or run away. You're the only person that might stick around."
"I'm not really comfortable with you making copies of me," I said. I was flashing back to Echidna.
"oh …"
Taylor.
What?
Look at Jin. I think you really hurt his feelings.
I looked at him. He was hunched, his face fallen, tears forming at the corners of his eyes.
"Yeah, I gotta go," he said, not looking at me and starting to stand.
"Wait," I said. "Please sit down. Let me explain. Some years ago, I had a really bad experience with someone who made duplicates of me. They were twisted to be the opposite of me and to hate me. A lot of people died before we were able to stop her. That's what I was thinking of. Not you. Not the nice guy that helped save my family – and just risked his life and freedom to protect another family."
Jin was sitting straighter looking at me hopefully.
"Not the person that I hope is becoming a friend."
"Ok. So?"
"You want to copy me?"
He nodded.
I was imagining all sorts of evil or perverted things he could do with a clone of me.
He has reaffirmed several times that his duplicates all retain the personality of the original. If he were to try something you would not want with the duplicate, she would show him her active displeasure. I believe he sees this as the ultimate symbol of trust and acceptance. He needs this to be sure we are not going to turn on him.
Way outside my comfort zone here.
Do you trust him?
I really want to.
Trust is a choice, not a state. Make that choice. Take that chance, for yourself as well as for him.
"Alright." I sighed and held out my hand.
He pulled a measuring tape out of the air. He spent the next ten minutes taking various measurements. It was no more embarrassing that getting measured for a costume, but in the solitude of my apartment it was a lot more intimate. Or would have been if he hadn't kept making bad jokes.
"So, these two philosophers walk into a bar, which was really stupid – the second one should have ducked."
"Stop it."
"The bartender asks the first one if he wants a beer. The first one said 'Sure.' The bartender turned to the second one and asked, 'You want a beer too?" The second philosopher said, 'I think not,' and disappeared."
I groaned and said "You do realize I can pull your intestines out through your nose, don't you? Really, stop with the jokes."
"So you never asked me what the 'Z' stands for." He said. "On my new costume, I mean."
"Ok…What does the Z stand for?' I asked wearily.
"Zerox! The duplicating vigilante."
It was a long ten minutes.
At the end of it, we both stood in the center of my floor as he created a clone of me. I was observing with all my own and my spirits' senses, paying particular attention to the two soul crystals in my head and the one in Jin's. If I saw any disturbance at all I was shutting this down.
The grey goop slowly shaped into an exact likeness of me, including my clothes. I felt the briefest flash of cold from my eyepatch as the copy completed. She stood there; her eye open. The only difference I could see between us was her eyepatch was missing the kagome crest. That and she had no soul crystal in her head.
"Hello?" Jin said, poking the double on the shoulder. Nothing happened. She didn't move.
"Is something supposed to happen?"
"Yes! She's supposed to be you. Moving, talking, telling me to get stuffed. Whatever you would do in this situation." He waved his hand in front of her face, even twisted her nose.
Nothing.
I checked. She was breathing. Her heart was beating. Her eye reacted to light and sensation reflexively. But there was no one home.
"For some reason this didn't work like it should," I said, rubbing his shoulder. "I'm sure it is something about me and my unique situation. It's not your fault. So just make her go away and we'll never mention this again."
He gestured and the other 'me' melted into a grey ooze that disappeared into smoke.
"Did you hear the one about the two heroes, the geisha, and the goose?"
"Out!"