Chapter Text
JUNE
NYC, New York
After a bit of resistance, Koichi nudged his front door open and staggered into his apartment, looking as if he ran through a minefield of glitter bombs. “Phew. Boy, there sure are a lot of friendly people out there today,” he laughed. “...uh, except for those guys with the ‘God Hates… Word-I’m-Pretty-Sure-I’m-Not-Allowed-To-Say’ signs. Those guys were just mean and nasty for no good reason.”
“Eh, the No Fun Allowed Brigade are just pissed they didn’t get invited and want to make it everyone else’s problem.”
On his way out of work the day before, a brightly colored flier stuck to the bulletin board in the break room caught Koichi’s eye, advertising the annual NYC Pride March. A little bit of internet research told him that it would be following the same route it takes every year, down Fifth Avenue and through Greenwich Village, surprisingly close to his apartment building and as an added bonus, some enterprising people, local artists and entertainers for the most part, managed to get some space reserved in Washington Square Park to keep the party going while everybody was waiting for the parade. With no plans for that day, Koichi figured it wouldn’t hurt to poke his head out of his apartment and see what all the hubbub was about.
Just judging from the state he came home in, this little adventure of his was a roaring success… for the most part. He’s going to be picking glitter out of his clothes for weeks. But otherwise, he had a great time.
Koichi reached up to brush some glitter out of his hair, pulling out the hair clip that had a green rubber stalk glued to the side that gave off the impression that a plant was growing out of his head. Koichi could not for the life of him remember where it came from or who gave it to him. After a couple months, this somewhat spur-of-the-moment decision to take Number Six’s advice and grow his hair out was starting to gain some traction, now much fluffier than before and creeping down the back of his neck. Not ideal for the increasing temperatures, but it’s the price you pay for style.
“Hmph, shock of all shocks: The Skycrawler’s a big hit with the girls, the gays and the theys,” 6 snarked. “How do you do it, anyway?”
“Hmm? Do what?”
Number Six pointed directly at the big, sparkly, red kiss mark that one of his new fans left on his cheek and said, “How do you get people to like you so damn much?” Koichi’s answer was a clueless shrug. “Oh, don’t give me that.”
“It’s not like I’m trying to do anything, really,” Koichi answered. “I just… try my best to be a decent person. That’s all.”
“I thought that ‘be yourself’ never works.”
Koichi shrugged and replied, “Guess it does for me.”
“Well, good for you then, you lucky bastard,” 6 grumbled and stalked off into the living room, dropping right through the couch in his attempt to flop down on it. “Argh, son of a-!”
“C’mon, 6, don’t be mad,” Koichi said. Something paper-y smacked the heel of his hand as it came back down and Koichi remembered the sticky note that was stuck to his chest, plucking it off to actually read it now that he could.
‘XXX-XXX-XXXX
Call me if you miss me sometime, cowboy~♡
-Ms. Beulah-Mae’
Ah, the queen that was lip-syncing to Dolly Parton in the drag show that seemed to take a liking to Koichi, given that she sat right on his lap for part of ‘I Get a Kick Out of You’ and gave him that big ol’ smooch when she had to get back up. She seemed like a very nice lady, funny, charming, very, very pretty and her costume and makeup work was, to use a couple words he heard quite a bit during the show that apparently have a much more positive connotation with the context given, ‘fierce and sickening.’ That sticky note was going up on the fridge. Y’know, just in case.
On his way into the kitchen, Koichi glanced down and admired the other souvenir he got from his first Pride festival. Just before he left, one of the vendors recognized him and waved him over. Apparently, they had a relative that was on Skyfall Flight 400 from a couple months ago when it started going down towards the Hudson and they wanted to personally thank him for that and for everything that he does for the city, once again citing the Wall Street blunder like that was something he meant to say on purpose which was… embarrassing but not entirely surprising why they’d think that, given the big, red anarchy symbol on the back of their vest.
Their trade was hand-made accessories and they insisted on giving him one of their pieces for free, as a thank-you gift. They absolutely refused any form of payment. Koichi tried at least 2-3 times to talk them into letting him pay for it but they wouldn’t budge on that. When they asked what his preference was, Koichi’s confused response of not having any got him this: a bracelet of woven, dyed twine in pansexual pink-yellow-and-blue. Evidently, they weren’t talking about the same sort of ‘preference’ at the time. Koichi had to look up the meaning of that on his walk back to the apartment and the definition, being able to feel attraction to people regardless of their gender identity… Well, he hadn’t thought about it before but, even though all he had to go off of so far was the romantic ‘will they, won’t they?’ between him, Makoto and Kazuho(?) and the very brief crush he had on Tensei, it sounded like a match. He’s got all the time in the world to figure it out. There’s no rush.
Koichi smoothed out the adhesive of Ms. Beulah-Mae’s sticky note onto the fridge, nice and secure. Koichi was honestly glad he decided to do this. What a fun day. “Well, that was interesting,” 6 said, only his calf visible as it phased through the couch while it rested on his other knee. “Now what do we do?”
Koichi shrugged and picked at a clump of glitter on his shoulder. “I’m gonna take a shower and see if I can’t get all this glitter off me,” he said.
“Pfft- Good luck with that, buddy. You’re gonna need it.”
-
The next day was business as usual.
“Dare you to do a front flip off the runway this time.”
“C’mon, gimme a challenge.”
“Heh, alright then, smartass,” Number 6 laughed. “Then… cartwheel, back handspring and triple twist somersault. How’s that for a challenge?”
“Repeat, Skycrawler?”
“OH!” Koichi’s hand shot to the side of his communicator and he sputtered, “I copy, Control. Ready for take-off.”
“Acknowledged, Skycrawler. You’re cleared for take-off. Have a nice flight.”
After a moment to limber up and measure out the distance, Koichi put all those months of training he got in from the CCC to work, pulling off a cartwheel, turning into a back handspring and culminating in a triple twist off the edge of the runway, free falling for a few floors before he caught himself in the air with his Quirk. He waved hello to Jan from administration through the window and then rocketed off.
“Okay, now you’re just showing off.”
“ You dared me to do all that!”
Norman absolutely called it the second that the American Museum of Natural History announced a new exhibit to show off the haul from a recent archeological dig in Egypt that uncovered a previously inaccessible tomb. Amongst the pharaoh’s most prized possessions from his life, the archeologists found a special and incredibly valuable trinket clutched in his hands: a gorgeous diamond, held in a gold scarab-shaped base. Norman and his razor sharp intuition knew for a fact that someone was going to try and go for that diamond scarab one day, museum security be damned. And lo and behold, go for it someone did.
Koichi landed on the museum’s roof, yanking off his visor the second he landed. “Agh, for crying out loud, how did I get glitter in my visor?” he grumbled, blowing out most of the sparkly distractions and shaking out the excess. “Where does this stuff keep coming from?”
“Skycrawler!” The Paranormals had beaten him there by a few minutes and Split leaned up from the ledge they were looking down from to wave Koichi over. Koichi hooked his visor back on and came to join his teammates, peering down over the ledge at one of several police barricades set up around the entrance, ready to nab a suspicious ne’er-do-well if they saw one.
Koichi looked up and asked Split, “What’s the situation?”
“From what we got told, a villain waltzed right in the front door, petrified a bunch of people and went straight for the new exhibit.”
“Exactly what I said was gonna happen!” Ultra Instinct huffed, vindicated about his intuition. “He’s probably going after that crazy valuable diamond thingy.”
“So what’s the plan for us?”
“Right now, we’re just on standby in case they need us,” Jinx replied.
Danger Magnet added, “Cow Lady and Elecplant were already on the scene when we got here. They just went in to nab the guy.”
“What was the point in calling us out here then?”
“With them doing the heavy-lifting, we’ll probably go in with the cops when they pull the villain out and do a sweep of the museum, just in case someone got stuck or injured,” Split said.
“Not very exciting stuff, I know,” Danger Magnet said with an apologetic smile.
“Happy to help either way,” Koichi replied.
“Uh, guys?” Ultra Instinct leaned up from looking down over the ledge. “It… doesn’t look like it went so good in there.”
Down on the ground floor, the entrance door was kicked open and the NYPD sprung into action, guns drawn and barking for whoever it was to come out with their hands raised. The villain did no such thing, staggering out of the museum with the diamond scarab clutched in one hand and the other dragging a petrified Elecplant behind him. The villain dropped Elecplant to the ground with a solid thud and yanked down on the dingy strips of cloth wrapped around him, freeing an eye to glare back at the annoying cops standing in his way. Two Heroes couldn’t stop him. What makes these fools think that they will?
“Oh, the scarab wasn’t enough? He had to steal the mummy’s bandages too? That’s just petty.”
“...”
“...stop looking at me like that.”
At the back of the barricade, police captain Douglas Falcon leaned over the open door of his squad car and asked his accompanying sergeant, “I don’t recognize this guy. Does he show up in the registry?”
“I’m not seeing anything about a mummy villain, Cap. At least not one that isn’t already in custody,” Sergeant Packman replied. “Probably an amateur.”
“He seems pretty confident for this being his first offense.”
Sergeant Packman grabbed the megaphone out of the passenger seat and passed it over to his superior. “This should be a cakewalk,” he snickered.
Captain Falcon and Sergeant Packman pushed their way to the front of the barricade, drawing the new villain’s attention towards them. Falcon brought the megaphone to his mouth and growled into the microphone, “End of the line, dirtbag. We’ve got all the exits covered. You may as well come quietly. Down on your knees with your hands behind your head. Make this easy for yourself.”
The mummy villain tilted his head at the captain, less out of confusion but more amusement at the captain’s challenge. He lifted the diamond scarab up, waggling it tauntingly. That’s what they want, isn’t it? To have their precious diamond back?
“Yeah, you can’t keep that. Leave it on the ground and get down on your knees.”
The mummy villain’s shoulders shook from his quiet, rueful laugh and instead of following Falcon’s directions, he tugged the collar of his bandage-wrapped shirt open and dropped the scarab down into its temporary holding place down the front of his shirt.
Falcon sighed, “You’re not doing yourself any favors, pal. One way or another, we’re just going to-”
Suddenly, the villain created a globby substance the texture of wet sand between his hands and whipped his arms forward in a wide arc, flinging the sandy goop out in front of him and taking the NYPD barricade by surprise. The second the substance made contact, it snap-dried, freezing a good handful of officers solid, including Falcon and Packman. A quickly constructed barrier of hardened concrete protected the villain from retaliatory gunfire and as soon as they had to stop to reload, the villain made short work of the rest of the blockade, turning the troop of police officers into living statues.
The mummy villain dusted off his hands, laughing to himself over how easy it was to overpower these obsolete fools. He strutted down the steps, approaching the petrified police captain. He was still alive in there. They all were. His Quirk would wear off in an hour or two, long enough for him to get away with his ill-gotten treasure. The villain looked deep into Falcon’s eyes, smirking at how his eyes darted around, confused and deep down terrified.
Just to punctuate how crappy Falcon’s situation was, the villain grabbed the megaphone by the horn and with one heavy strike with the heel of his hand, snapped off the main body of the bullhorn, leaving just the grip left in Falcon’s petrified fist. The message was loud and clear. The villain’s Quirk would wear off regardless of how many pieces Falcon was in. The terror left in his eyes became even more obvious and muffled screams of pleading protest came from behind his concrete shell as the villain gripped him by the jaw.
But before the villain could do anything, something zipped past his ankles and knocked him off of his feet. “Hey, calm down, buddy,” Skycrawler scolded. “All this over a diamond seems a bit extreme, doesn’t it?”
As is Koichi’s luck, there was no way this guy was planning to listen to reason. Instead, enraged that his rampage was being interrupted, he flung a glob of his concrete-esque ooze at Koichi in the hopes that he’d be petrified too and the villain could make his escape. Koichi was quick on the draw, protecting himself with a forcefield that the ooze snap-dried around. “Whoa, this is some serious stuff,” Koichi wheezed, taking his forcefield back and letting the disc of concrete drop to the asphalt. Slide ‘n Glide dragged him backwards and Koichi tried one more time to reach the villain. “Look, we just want you to give that diamond thingy back. You just gotta cooperate. Nobody needs to get hurt.” The villain scoffed and stalked after Koichi, another handful of petrifying goop forming in his hand.
Welp, Koichi tried.
Fortunately, luring the villain a little closer to the building was part of the plan. That way, Split had a clear shot to drop down from the roof and take the villain by surprise with a swift dropkick to the dome. “Mind if I drop in? ”
While Split kept the villain busy, Koichi zipped around the fight back to the barricade. “Uh, captain?” he said, tapping Falcon’s concrete shell right in the middle of his forehead. “You still alive in there?”
“ Mmm!? ”
“Oh, good. Then Elecplant might not be in as bad a situation as it looks.”
“ Mut nuh muk r oo ayin!? ”
“...oh, right. You don’t speak Japanese.” Koichi cleared his throat and said in his shaky English, “<Don’t worry! We’ll get you out of there… somehow…>”
“Skycrawler!”
“On your left!”
Koichi dropped into a split and narrowly avoided another blast of petrifying muck from the mummy villain. From that stance, Koichi pulled himself back with his Quirk and swept the villain’s pivot leg out from under him.
Just when Split and Skycrawler thought they got him and Frank readied his wrist-mounted net gun, the villain splashed his petrifying sludge against the ground, providing himself some cover and scaring the Heroes back. With that, the villain used the platform he created to leap into the frozen barricade, grabbed Sergeant Packman and tossed his petrified body at the Heroes to slow them down.
“Yikes!” With such little time to react, Koichi’s subconscious took the reins and threw out a forcefield to catch Packman with… forgetting that Koichi’s forcefields are hard. It got the job done, certainly, catching the frozen police officer and keeping him from shattering on the ground in a million tiny, bloody stone pieces but doing it that way left a noticeable crack in the concrete shell around Packman’s arm that he definitely felt in there. “Oh crap!” Koichi hissed.
“Oooh, ouch. That had to suck. Sorry about that, meter maid.”
“Sorry, sorry, sorry!” Koichi wheezed, making sure to set the screaming and cursing statue back down on his feet. “Please don’t sue me! I’m already in enough legal trouble as it is!”
“Skycrawler, c’mon! He’s getting away!”
After one last plea for Packman to not sue him, Koichi slid over to Split. “Hop on and hang on tight!” Split climbed aboard the Skycrawler Express and the two zipped off after the fleeing villain.
Split tapped his communicator and said, “Team, we’ve got the villain on the run! He’s heading straight down Columbus Avenue!”
Koichi gave a sharp whistle and shouted out to the civilians nearby, “<Everybody get off the street! This guy’s trouble!>” Which the villain proved by petrifying some poor jerk’s sports car trying to trip up the Heroes chasing him. “Too many innocent bystanders out here!” Koichi said to the Hero clinging to his back. “We gotta lure him to a less populated area so no one gets caught in the middle!”
“Agreed!” Split looked up, keeping the villain in his sights. If they kept going this way, they’d wind up in Hell’s Kitchen. That may prove beneficial if they could give the 10th and 18th Precincts a heads-up that a villain was coming their way… unless they could nab him before he gets there. Split glanced up and saw the street signs passing by. That gave him an idea.
“DM, grab something metal and heavy and meet us at the end of West 73rd!”
“West 73rd?” Koichi repeated. “I don’t think he’s planning to turn anytime soon!”
“Yeah, we’ve gotta force him down that road!” Split grinned down at Skycrawler and said, “You thinking what I’m thinking?”
“...Oh!”
“Yeah! It’s trappin’ time!”
“Boo, hiss, boo. Lame catchphrase. Get off the stage, ya hack.”
‘Oh, leave him alone, 6. He’s still working on it.’
“Kick it into high gear, partner!”
“Right!” Koichi sucked in a breath and put some Extra Oomph into it. The speed boost he got from it closed the distance between them and the fleeing villain. Split jumped off of Koichi’s back before he barreled straight into the villain’s legs and grabbed a handful of the back of his shirt, yanking the villain straight to the ground.
“Gotcha,” Split sighed and looked up to check on his partner. “You holding up alright over there, Skycrawler?” The winded, gasping Hero catching his breath a few feet away responded with a thumbs-up.
Just as Split figured he’d do, the villain tried that splash damage move again, forcing Split to back off. “Argh, again with that!?” The villain emerged from behind his shield, now clutching a rod of snap-dried cement in his hand. Now that he knew the Heroes could catch him, he was getting desperate, that much was certain. Good thing the others were on the way. Split and Skycrawler just had to herd him up West 73rd to the rendezvous… uh, wait, he’s going the wrong way.
“Eh? Whoa, whoa, whoa, hey, hey, hey! ” Koichi sputtered as the villain decided to chase after him for whatever reason, sliding backwards down the other side of the street to stay out of clubbing range. “You’re not supposed to chase me ! That’s not part of the plan!”
“Crap,” Split cursed and sprinted after his teammate in distress. “Uh, change of direction, team! The villain’s chasing Skycrawler back towards Central Park!”
“We see you guys!” Danger Magnet responded.
Split heard a noticeable thunking of hard plastic on metal from the rooftop beside them. Perfect! Good find, DM! Split whistled and called out to Koichi, pointing out the empty alley coming up. “Skycrawler, hard left!”
The zippy little Hero jerked to the left, leading his pursuer down the dingy alleyway with Split hot on their trail. Right into their makeshift trap. From above, Danger Magnet jumped off the roof and positioned the empty dumpster that she swiped on the way there underneath her, right above the villain and switched from Attract Mode to Repel Mode, sending the dumpster sailing down to the ground and catching the villain in its maw. Checkmate!
“Phew.” Now that the chase was over, Koichi slowed to a stop and got back up off the ground, dusting himself off as Danger Magnet switched back to Attract Mode and let her magnetism bring her back down out of the air, landing on the flipped underside of the dumpster with a loud thunk!
“Yeah! I got him!” Laurel cheered.
“Alright, Laurie! Great work!” Frank cheered with her, offering her a double high-five before helping her down and rewarding her quick thinking and ingenuity with a sweet peck on the lips that got Laurel blushing and giggling. “Proud of you, babe~”
“Ew, get a room!” Number 6 heckled from over Koichi’s shoulder as Koichi leaned on the back of the dumpster to catch his breath.
“Aw, that’s really swee-” CRUNCH! “ Whoa, holy crap! ”
Calling the chase over may have been a touch hasty. The villain, bound and determined to not get caught, punched his way through his metal prison, pried the jagged edges of the hole open and filled the empty space under him with petrifying ooze. He kept that going until he formed a tower of drying concrete under him, giving him enough lift to fling some of his bandages towards the fire escape and swing over to make his getaway.
“Man, this guy is stubborn,” Koichi huffed.
Frank answered with a confident reply. “Good thing we’ve got Plan B. C’mon, let’s… uh…” Oof, that’s a lot of stairs. Skycrawler doesn’t need them and Danger Magnet could jump up the side of the fire escape and be on the roof in no time. But Split…
“Need a lift?” Koichi said, offering to let Split cling to his back again.
Split sighed and agreed. “I wish I had a mobility Quirk like you guys…”
The mummy villain scrambled his way up to the roof, where, bizarrely, the same white-suited sidekick that was harassing him from down on the street was waiting for him. “Come on, aren’t you tired yet?” ‘Split’ sighed, readying his net gun. “We don’t want to fight. Just come quietly, would you?” The villain gave an annoyed growl and lunged forward, intending to take ‘Split’ by surprise and knock his block off with the makeshift concrete club of his… only for the stick to cleave straight through ‘Split’s’ head and banish part of the illusion.
‘Split’s’ last words before he fully vanished came in a taunting, “Ha! Made you look!” A sucker punch from Ultra Instinct blasted through Split’s doppelganger, banishing him completely and staggering the villain.
“Y’know, I’m kinda glad that Plan A backfired,” Ultra Instinct said, cracking his knuckles. “If it didn’t, Jinx and I would have nothing to do.” Speaking of her, Jinx shot up over the other side of the roof and a couple shots from her wrist-mounted electro-magnetic capture weapon scared the villain back up against the ledge.
Ultra Instinct dug into the pouch hanging from his utility belt where he carried his patented Norm Snacks, homemade oat clusters jam-packed with all of the calories that his Quirk could make use of to boost his strength, speed and durability, and popped one directly into his mouth. “Let’s dance, punk!”
The villain was immediately pushed back into playing defense against the powerhouse of The Paranormals, with Jinx hovering around in the background with her rocket boots and taking potshots at him with her capture weapon whenever she saw an opening. During the struggle, Ultra Instinct’s grip on the villain’s wraps proved a bit too tight and ripped something, dropping something behind him that Jinx took notice of.
While Ultra Instinct kept the villain busy, Jinx dropped to the roof and snatched up the item that the villain lost: a wallet. The kicker, it wasn’t his wallet. The image on the driver’s license claimed it as belonging to a Professor Art T. Fax, a pale, balding, middle-aged man that was the archeologist that led the excavation that found the tomb containing the diamond scarab that the villain was running off with. Looking back at the mummy villain, however, Jinx noticed through a rip in the villain’s wraps that he had a much darker complexion than the man in the license photo. Something didn’t add up. Not unless Professor Fax got a tan since he was last seen on the exhibit’s opening night, but from how pale he seemed in his driver’s license photo, Jinx had a hunch he’d burn before then.
“So if you’re not Professor Fax…?” Fortunately for her, the villain made a rookie mistake in choosing not to wear gloves. So, there’s definitely fingerprints left behind to scan that’ll tell her who they were dealing with. Jinx blinked and her Quirk took effect, swapping between one of the many extra sets of lens that her eyes had, this one able to produce blacklight. Instantly, her hypothesis was proven correct. She took a quick snapshot through her goggles and in an instant, the snapshot was sent to the forensics department in the CCC. They’d scan the prints and get an ID on the perp in minutes.
Just then, Danger Magnet, Skycrawler and Split joined the fray. Skycrawler happily took over the covering fire role that Jinx left behind, SGB readied and fired the second he zipped up over the ledge. Unfortunately, the villain was halfway decent at multi-tasking and he still had that concrete rod in his hand. He forced an opening with a cheap shot to the back of Ultra Instinct’s knee and swung the club at Koichi’s SGB shot, the ball of repulsive energy glancing off of it and hitting Jinx square in the side of her head instead.
“Oh, crap! Jinx, are you okay!?” Koichi gasped.
Physically , yeah. That would’ve been equivalent to being smacked in the head and Jinx has taken much worse during her career. But even still, she was handicapped by the friendly fire. “ Ack, my goggles! I can’t regulate my Quirk properly without ‘em!” Jinx was essentially down for the count, stuck partially blind and pawing at the ground looking for her support gear.
While he still had the upper hand, the villain hooked his arm around Norman’s and flung him into Danger Magnet, taking the both of them out of the equation in one fell swoop. Then, the villain zeroed in on Split. He added an extra glob of ooze onto the end of his club, carelessly swinging in a way that splashed an arc of concrete behind him. The intent was to send that pest flying out of the park, but instead of Split, Skycrawler pushed Frank out of the way and took the full force of that hit himself. That granted Split an opening to skirt around the villain and get the drop on him… but it left Koichi in a very hairy predicament.
Mid-air, definitely not somewhere Koichi wanted to be after getting the wind knocked out of him. Especially when it was him falling off of a ten-story building. Fortunately, this wasn’t Koichi’s first encounter with free-falling and Knuckleduster had taught him exactly what to do in this situation. In fact, it was the first piece of advice he ever gave Koichi.
Koichi twisted around and spotted a significant pile of trash bags that would break his fall. Perfect! He sucked in a desperate breath, enough to use his Quirk to at least nudge him in that direction. As soon as he landed, he’d be able to catch his breath again. He wouldn’t need too incredibly long and as soon as he did, he’d zip right up the side of the building and get back into the fi- KRASH!!!
See… the flaw with Knuckleduster’s logic was that Naruhata and New York City are two completely different places. Compared to NYC, Naruhata may as well be a glittering beacon of cleanliness with nary a speck of trash in sight. New York, on the other hand, seemed to have a bit of a trash problem… and that was even an understatement. More often than not, especially in hidden back alleys like this one, dumpsters would overflow and the piles of trash bags that they tried and failed to contain would completely conceal their point of origin…
…that was something Koichi found out the hard way.
Koichi lost those few seconds before he made contact with the dumpster, catching up with himself having fallen straight through the pile and clutching the back of his head after it struck the inside of the dumpster pretty hard. Everything hurt. His head hurt, his back hurt, the arm and leg he broke during the lockdown hurt, everything hurt . Breathing felt laborious. Koichi wasn’t sure what he was seeing since everything at the bottom of the dumpster was dark and his vision was blurry. Trying to catch up with himself made him nauseous and the smell certainly wasn’t helping.
“Oooh, shit. That didn’t sound good.”
On instinct, Koichi attempted to roll over to face the direction 6’s voice was coming from, but stopped halfway after his spine screamed at him for even thinking about doing that. “...Siksh?” he slurred. “Ish that you…?”
Number 6’s arm phased through the trash bag resting on his shoulder and lightly touched his arm. “Yeah. It’s me. I’m here.”
“...Whuht happen’d?”
“You fell? Pretty nasty trick that this thing played on you, that’s for sure.”
“ Owww… everything hurts… ” Koichi miserably whimpered.
“I bet,” 6 said. “C’mon, you can’t stay in here. Are you ‘stuck’ stuck or can you get up?”
Nothing ventured, nothing gained. Koichi pressed his palm into the floor of the dumpster and tried to push himself up, only to be punished with a bolt of pain down his back. “ Ah-ow! My back! ” Koichi yelped, dropping back down to the floor. “ Ow, and my leg! ”
“No good? What about that thing you did during the lockdown? You did… something to fix your arm and leg after I broke it. Try that.”
Uh… oh, right. The shell-cast thing, like Cap does. That did work last time, but he didn’t have a concussion drilling into his head during the lockdown. Attempting that move only aggravated his already bruised brain and Koichi curled up on himself with a sob of pain. This sucks. Everything sucks.
“Damn. Well, hey, you can still move your arms right? It looks like The Paranormals were pretty distracted up there. They might not know you’re down here. You’re gonna have to call them for help at this point.” Koichi made a noise of agreement and his hand found his communicator. One of them should be able to respond.
Back up on the roof, The Paranormals got control over the situation and Split finally got to use his net gun, finally putting an end to the villain’s rampage. After a moment of blind fumbling, Jinx found her goggles and pulled them back on her face. Fortunately, nothing was broken and a notification from the forensics department was waiting for her.
“Phew, that was one hell of a cardio workout,” Ultra Instinct sighed, taking a breather against the ledge and treating himself to a recovery string cheese stick.
“Tch, jerk made me break a nail,” Danger Magnet grumbled. “Jeez, does he even know how much my manicurist charged me for these?”
Split towered over their quarry and smeared the sweat from his brow. “Must’ve been a ton of fun leading us on that runaround, huh? Sorry, pal, but the show stops here,” he said, reaching down and grabbing a hold of one of the loose wraps around the villain’s face. “Let’s see who’s behind all these bandages…” Despite the villain attempting to wriggle away, Split unfurled the wraps, revealing the villain to be none other than…
“ Dr. Najib!? ”
“Wait, but aren’t you one of the guys that funded that dig in the first place?” Ultra Instinct said, befuddled. “Like, you would’ve gotten just as much money just from ticket sales. Maybe more. Why go to all this trouble just for a diamond?”
“I have a theory,” Jinx supposed, holding up the damning wallet. “I think it’s less about the money and more about a grudge. You had a pretty public falling out with Professor Fax, right? That’s what I gathered from a bit of social media research.”
A voice from her communicator took her attention for a second and she nodded. “Yup, I figured. That was the police. They went in to find hostages and figure out what happened to Cow Lady. She’s fine, by the way. She and Elecplant are ‘thawing out’ as we speak. But they did find Professor Art T. Fax… tied up, gagged and shoved in a storage closet and his office was a wreck.”
Jinx turned her attention to Dr. Najib and said, “So, let me take a shot in the dark about what your plan was. Dress up as a villain, make a bunch of noise, cause a little chaos, drop this during your big getaway and let Professor Fax take the heat for it so he can get arrested and discredited? Is that about right?” Dr. Najib didn’t have anything to defend himself with other than a groan of rage. “Right on the money, as usual.”
“And I would’ve gotten away with it too, if it weren’t for you meddling sidekicks!”
Split regarded his teammates with pride and said, “Job well done, team! I think we can call it a wrap for this mission!” The whole team shared a good, hearty laugh over the pun and out of triumph for a job well done… only for the laughter to start to die off when they noticed a voice was missing.
“Skycrawler?” The plucky lil guy should’ve been right behind Split. The fact that he was nowhere to be seen had the hairs on the back of his neck standing on end.
“...like, where’d Koichi go?”
“I don’t know. He was right there, wasn’t he?”
A tone from Split’s communicator gave him a brief moment of respite. Hopefully, Koichi was just stuck and needed rescue. “Skycrawler? Is that you?” he said into his communicator. “We caught the villain but we lost sight of you. What happened? Are you alright?” The response he got turned his blood to ice.
“Tell him you’re street level.”
“S-Street level…”
“You’re… on the west side of the building.”
“Weh… West side…”
In a way, Frank was right… but he sure didn’t want to be right like this .
Frank dashed forward, almost flinging himself right off the ledge, looking down to the street below in search of his distressed teammate. Concerned, Laurel got up and followed after him. But even with the extra pair of eyes, Koichi wasn’t easy to spot. He must’ve landed somewhere in their blind spot. Frank slapped a hand to his communicator and frantically sputtered, “Skycrawler, we can’t see you. If you can fire off an SGB to show us where you are…”
After a moment or two, a SGB shot up out of a nearby dumpster, bursting through the pile of trash bags flowing out of it and knocking them away.
“ Oh shit… ”
“ Oh no… ”
Frank threw a leg over the ledge and an order behind him. “You guys stay here with Dr. Najib and make sure he doesn’t go anywhere!”
“Why!? What happened!?”
“Is Koichi okay!?”
“Ah, wait for me! I’m coming too!”
With a little help from Danger Magnet’s Quirk, Frank and Laurel scrambled down the side of the building back down to the street and raced over to the dumpster Koichi landed in the second they hit the ground, furiously shoveling through the trash pile to their fallen comrade. The sudden blast of sunlight after staring at the dark for the last few minutes actually, physically hurt Koichi’s eyes. That was quickly relieved when Frank leaned over the edge of the open dumpster and yanked his mask down.
“Hey, we’re here! What happened? Are you alright?”
“Frank, don’t bombard him with questions!”
“R-Right… uh, here…” Frank reached down into the dumpster, holding a helping hand out for Koichi to take. “Let’s get you out of there.” Koichi grabbed a hold of the lifeline Frank offered and let him start to pull him up, but Koichi’s back, leg and head disapproved of this rescue attempt, the pain forcing Koichi to slip out of Frank’s grasp and drop back down the ground with a cry of agony.
While Frank floundered in a panic, Laurel’s hand snapped to her communicator. They were going to need some professional help on this one. “Control, this is Danger Magnet. We need medical to our location ASAP. We’ve got a man down behind The Langham… no, the other Langham. By Central Park West.”
His grip must’ve been bad, Frank decided and he climbed into the dumpster himself. The idea was to simply scoop Koichi up bridal style and lift him out that way but Laurel stepped back and stopped him. “Frank! Frank, no, don’t try to move him! That might make it worse.”
“Well, what should I do then?”
“Just keep him still. Medical’s on their way.”
The last thing Frank wanted to do was sit there and do nothing, especially considering that Koichi only got hurt because he pushed Frank out of the way of that attack, but if the paramedics said so, then he trusted their judgment. They knew more about how to help people that get hurt this bad than he did. Frank settled himself down on the floor of the dumpster beside Koichi and held onto his hand. With the most reassuring smile he could conjure up, Frank said, “Don’t worry. Help’s on the way. You’re gonna be alright.”
“...did we get ‘im?”
Frank huffed a miserable laugh and said, “Yeah… yeah, we got him.”
“You got ‘is mask off?”
“Yeah.”
“Who wuz he?”
“One of the guys that was backing the expedition. He had a falling out with the archaeologist in charge and staged a villain attack so he could try to frame him for it.”
“Oh… kinda ov’rkill, huh?”
Frank laughed, “Yeah, really overkill. He should try therapy next time.”
“Iz ev’rybody else okay?”
“Yeah. We’re a little bit scuffed up but we’re all good.”
“Thaz good… thaz good… ‘m glad…” At that point, Koichi’s body had quite enough of everything and consciousness started to drain from him. Everything went fuzzy and dark until he fully slipped into unconsciousness.
“Koichi? …K-Koichi!? Hey, hey, whoa, whoa, whoa, c’mon, stay with me. Come on, Koichi, you’ve gotta stay awake! Koichi? Laurel, tell them to step on it!”
-
Beep… Beep… Beep…
The rhythmic beeping of the EKG monitor roused Koichi from his unconscious slumber. Holy hell, his throat was dry and everything was just so bright for a moment or two. When his vision adjusted, he found himself in an all-too-familiar situation: laid up in a hospital bed with his arm in a sling and his leg elevated. Hasn’t even been an entire year since he healed up from the lockdown and here he is again, battered, bruised and barely holding together. Silver lining, he couldn’t feel his concussion at the moment.
A bit of movement beside him drew Koichi’s eye and he found his ghostly companion settled into one of the empty chairs by his bed. Number 6 stretched out in his chair, emitting a powerful yawn before he looked up and met Koichi’s gaze. Koichi smiled back at him, relieved to see him. ‘Hi, 6,’ he silently said to 6.
“Hey.”
‘...where are we? The hospital?’
“Sure looks like it.”
‘What happened?’
“Don’t ask me. I’ve been out for as long as you’ve been.”
‘Oh…’
Number 6 shrugged and joked, “Good job on not dying, by the way. The dumpster is a stupid place to die. I would be so pissed if it were me.”
‘Yeah… thanks, by the way.’
“Mmm? What for?”
‘Helping me.’
Number 6 raised an eyebrow at that and retorted, “Help how? The paramedics were the ones that pulled you out, not me.”
‘I mean, like, when I landed. Everything hurt, I couldn’t see anything, I was starting to freak out a little, but having you around, just to help me figure out what to do in that situation, really helped. Seriously, 6, thank you.’
Number 6 honestly didn’t know what to do with that sentiment and it showed in his body language, simply looking down at the floor at first before that was deemed insufficient and his head dropped so he could stare down at his lap instead. “W-Well, I mean… I am attached to you, y’know?” he replied. “If you die, I die, but permanently this time. I already died once and it really sucked so…”
‘I thought you said you were getting used to the idea of being dead…’
“I’m allowed to change my mind, Hero.”
Suddenly, something cold and metallic snuck under Koichi’s hospital gown and over his chest. “ Uwah! Cold! ” he yelped, scaring the owner of the stethoscope half to death.
“ AAH, goddammit! ” The nurse startled backwards, nearly backing straight into his colleague in the process. “Scared the hell out of me!” the nurse, designated as ‘Steve R.’ by his employee badge, wheezed as his coworker sidestepped around him.
“Hey, you’re awake,” the other nurse, going by ‘Casey M.’, said. “That’s good. We were worried you fell into a coma for a second there.”
“Oh… <Morning,>” Koichi said with a tired smile. “<Sorry about that…>”
Steve waved off his apology, now calmed down from his mini heart attack and laughed, “Trust me, that’s not the worst scare I’ve ever gotten around here… or, y’know, in general. ”
Casey sidled up against Koichi’s bed, checking the EKG monitor and jotting down the results on their clipboard. A little pop of color over the top of their clipboard got them to look up and they noticed the pretty pansexual bracelet on Koichi’s good wrist, the same one they gave him at the Pride March before. They smiled, so happy that he kept it and used that as a topic to test his memory.
“Uh… Mr. Skycrawler, do you remember me at all? We met at the Pride March the day before yesterday and I wanted to thank you for everything that you do for us little people.” They gently hooked a finger under Koichi’s bracelet and said, “I gave you this as a gift. Do you remember that?”
Koichi squinted at Casey’s face for a second and a lightbulb flicked on in his head. “<Oh! Hi,>” he replied, vaguely waving his free hand in front of his face, wordlessly acknowledging the piercings that they were missing since the last time he saw them.
“Yeah, I’m not allowed to wear my piercings at work,” Casey laughed.
Come to think of it, he also kinda recognized Steve from the Pride March or at least he thought so. If you add some flashy makeup, a voluminous blonde wig and a busty red dress to him… “<Ms. Beulah-Mae?>”
Steve let out a breath and joked to Casey, “Well, we can rule out amnesia, at least.” He tipped an imaginary cowboy hat to Koichi and said, “Howdy, cowboy~ You know, when I said I’d like to see you again, this isn’t what I meant. I didn’t want you to miss me this badly.”
“<Hi, again! I really liked your outfit.>”
“Aw, thank you, sugar. You’re so sweet,” the out-of-costume Ms. Beulah-Mae coyly crooned, giving Koichi an affectionate tap on the tip of his nose. Then Steve cleared his throat and switched back to Other Job Mode. “Anyway, how’re you feeling right now? On a scale of 1-10.”
“<Uh… 2? 3? I think?>”
“Good, that means the painkillers kicked in.”
Casey stepped back and retrieved a blood pressure cuff from the cart they brought in earlier. “EMS dragged you into the ER yesterday and your teammates told us that the villain you guys were chasing chucked you off of a tall building,” Casey explained as they strapped the cuff to Koichi’s free arm.
“<How bad is it?>”
“Aside from the busted leg and the injured arm, you got a mild concussion and a crack in your pelvis. Not a full-on fracture but still not particularly good,” Steve explained, swiping a penlight out of the front pocket of his scrubs and testing the dilation of Koichi’s pupils with it. They responded to the light the way they were supposed to, which was a relief.
“Doctor’s especially worried about your spine, though,” Casey said, jotting down Koichi’s blood pressure into his chart and releasing the pressure on the cuff. “A fall from that high and a sudden stop that hard…” Casey frowned for a moment, the worst case scenario putting Koichi’s crawling days to an end permanently. But hope can work wonders. “Well, now that you’re up, we can get an MRI done to see exactly how bad it is and we’ll figure out a treatment plan from there,” they said with a reassuring smile. “You’re in good hands, Mr. Skycrawler.”
“<Thanks for taking care of me.>”
“You don’t have to thank us for that.”
“Yeah, this is our job.”
A tone from Steve’s two-way drew his attention. “Hey, Steve, we need backup in Room 246. Guess who managed to rip all the wrapping out of the inside of their cast? Again. ”
Steve sighed and shook his head. “Roger that. On my way.” With that, he let his two-way rest against him and pinched the bridge of his nose, complaining, “I don’t know how many times I need to tell this guy that the itch means that it’s healing and he needs to leave it alone.”
“At least 55,000 more times.”
“Sure feels like it. Sheesh.”
As if his body itself was in on the joke, Koichi’s bad arm started to itch and without sparing a single thought about it, he rubbed at the itch through his sling. After that was satisfied, he glanced back up and was met with chuckles and enduring sighs from the nurses that were just talking about that sort of thing. ”<Sorry. I’ll leave it alone,>” Koichi sheepishly laughed.
“It’ll heal faster if you do.” Steve brought the two-way up to his mouth one more time and said, “Dr. McDreamy, your patient in room Triple 2 is awake.” If the doctor responded, Koichi didn’t hear it. Steve dusted his hands off and as he paced towards the door, he smiled back at Koichi and said, “Doctor should be over to touch base in a little bit. If you need anything, just hit the call button and one of us will come ru- GAH! ” Steve flinched away from the door in surprise after Makoto’s sudden appearance through the window took him off guard. “What is it with everyone sneaking up on me today?”
Makoto inched in through the door with an apologetic, “Sorry about that. I didn’t mean to scare you.”
“Hi again, Ms. Tsukauchi,” Casey said. “You’re right on time. He just woke up.”
Pleased to see a familiar face, Koichi waved his good arm and cheered, “Hi, Makoto!”
“Oh, good,” Makoto sighed. “I came as soon as I got the call yesterday and waited until visiting hours ended and they threw me out. I’m so glad to see you’re up.”
Makoto abandoned the doorway, allowing Steve to head off on his next task and came to the side of Koichi’s bed, settling herself in the chair that Number 6 was sitting in, unknowingly phasing right through him and sitting in him. That sort of concept did not sit right with 6 and he almost launched himself right out of the chair in protest. “Ew, ew, ew, weird, weird, don’t like it! Get out of me, lady!”
Makoto sighed and cautiously joked, “It hasn’t even been a full year since the last time you were in the hospital, Koichi. I mean, I get it. Free food and you get to lay in bed for days on end but I don’t know. This is a little too often for my liking.”
“You sure scared the hell out of The Paranormals.” Chris appeared in the doorway, finally having caught up after being stopped by a couple starstruck nurses. “They’ve been apologizing nonstop since they got back to the office. Frank, especially. Hopefully, hearing that you’re still alive and kickin’ will help him relax a bit.”
“I’m sorry about that. I wasn’t trying to scare anybody.” Now that he was fully awake, the logical part of his brain kicked in and he nervously asked, “This isn’t gonna affect the whole lawsuit thing, is it?”
“Aside from having to attend through video call, not really,” Makoto answered.
“Well… uh, what about the cop whose arm I accidentally broke?”
“Don’t worry about him,” Makoto replied, giving Koichi a reassuring pat on his good shoulder. “We stopped by his room and appeased him with a very generous ‘please-don’t-sue-us’ gift.”
Chris felt that one in his wallet and he groaned, “I’m pretty sure you’re actually trying to bankrupt me at this point, Makoto.”
“All for a good cause, boss!”
“My generosity’s getting stretched a bit thin, though. Would’ve been cheaper to just let Mike threaten him out of suing us.”
“True, but that’d be bad for your image.”
Defeated, Chris sighed and asked Koichi, “Fine, fine, just do me a favor and keep the manslaughter to a minimum from now on, alright kid?”
“Sorry about that, Cap. I’ll be more careful from now on, promise,” Koichi answered, uncomfortably shifting around against the pillow to try and scratch at an itch that formed right in between his shoulder blades. The worst place to get an itch.
A soft knocking announced the white-coat wearing new visitor before he opened the door. Casey was quick to greet him first and stepped forward to hand Koichi’s chart off. “Thank you, Casey,” the doctor said softly as Casey slipped around him and disappeared back to the unseen nurse’s station. “Mr. Haimawari, it’s good to see you awake. My name’s Dr. Derek McDreamy.”
‘Wow… he sure lives up to his name,’ Koichi said to himself, accepting the soap opera handsome doctor’s handshake. Koichi almost had to squint looking up at Dr. McDreamy from his spot on the bed. Clearly, they have a really good dental program here.
“...tch. He’s a 4 at best.”
‘C’mon, 6, don’t be mean.’
Chris greeted the doctor in kind with a nice, firm handshake. “Thanks for taking care of my sidekick, doc.”
“My pleasure, Captain.” Dr. McDreamy offered the same courtesy to Makoto with a joking, “And you must be the infamous Ms. Tsukauchi.”
“Christ,” Chris sighed, resting his forehead in his hand. “We’re not still going on about that ‘goddess’ slipup, are we? For the last time, our relationship is strictly professional!”
“Don’t worry, boss. There’s been way more embarrassing foot-in-mouth moments since then. I’m sure this meme will die off soon,” Makoto teased.
“ Meme??? ”
Okay, that itch is really starting to get annoying. Koichi snuck his good arm behind his back and yet, it still managed to evade his reach. Always, right in between the shoulder blades where he can’t reach. So irritating…!
“So, Mr. Haimawari…” Koichi’s attention snapped back to the doctor. He flicked on the backlight, illuminating the radiographs that they had collected while Koichi was out cold. “Frankly, I’m impressed that after a fall like that, this is the worst you came away with,” Dr. McDreamy said in an attempt to lighten the mood just a little. “The concussion should clear up long before the fractures heal. We think… a 6-8 week stay should do the trick.”
Koichi nodded and mumbled to himself, “Yeah, just like last time.”
Dr. McDreamy sighed and tapped one of the radiographs in the middle of the lineup. “This is the area I’m most concerned about. The imaging we managed to do while you were unconscious indicates that you did sustain some damage to your spine. The extent of it… well, after a day or two, when any swelling goes down, we’ll do a more comprehensive neurological assessment. If we’re lucky, surgery won’t be necessary.”
“Uh… <Is that bad?>”
“We won’t know for sure until we perform that assessment and determine just how severe this injury is. Best case scenario, after a few months of recovery and rehabilitation, you may be able to return to work no problem…” Dr. McDreamy’s face grew grave and he had to say, “Worst case scenario… you may have to consider retiring from Hero work early.”
“Ah! I can’t- ahem <I can’t do that. I really need this job.>” Koichi combed his good hand through his hair and panickedly continued to mutter, “<With the debt and my rent and bills and everything, I can barely afford it all. I need this job.>”
“I completely understand, Mr. Haimawari,” Dr. McDreamy answered, placing a comforting hand on Koichi’s ankle. “We’re going to do everything in our power to get you back up on your feet as quickly as possible. If all else fails, there are a few experimental treatment options we could try-”
“< Yes! >”
“ But we can discuss all that after the assessment.”
Chris leaned over to Makoto and whispered, “We could at least sue that villain to cover Koichi’s medical bills, couldn’t we?”
“...yeah, I think we might have a case. We should call Mike about it after this.”
Koichi sighed, his good hand squeezing at his jaw. Now what is he gonna do? After all this, is he just going to wind up in prison anyway? All because of a bad judgment call that wound up costing him his health, income and his apartment all in one fell swoop? No, no, Makoto wouldn’t let that happen. Thinking like that would just turn that into a self-fulfilling- oh, for the love of-!
When his good arm failed to get at that damn itch for a second time, without even a single thought about it, Koichi ripped his supposedly broken arm out of the sling and actually managed to succeed at finally silencing that obnoxious sensation that crawled down his spine. Finally freed from the torment, Koichi sighed, “<Sorry about that. That was really bugging me.>” He glanced up and was met with shocked stares from everyone in the room, living and ‘dead.’ “...what?”
“Uh… pretty sure that the doc said that arm was broken.”
It wasn’t until 6 pointed it out that Koichi noticed the empty sling resting against his chest. Looking at the arm that was immobilized until that moment, Koichi realized that his arm didn’t hurt at all and after experimentally flexing his fingers, he wasn’t suffering any impairment either.
“...what?” Dr. McDreamy looked back-and-forth between Koichi’s arm and the radiographs taken the night before. “Wait a minute…”
“Koichi?” Makoto gasped, relieved, sliding forward onto the edge of her seat.
“Wait a sec,” Chris said to the doctor as he all but ripped the radiographs down to look at them more closely. “I thought that you said Koichi was all busted up. What happened?”
“He… he was! These are his, I didn’t grab someone else’s chart by mistake,” the doctor sputtered, bewildered.
“Is that the thing you did?” Number 6 muttered to Koichi, despite not needing to. “During the lockdown?”
‘I… probably? I don’t know. It doesn’t feel like I’m doing anything.’
Koichi glanced up at the allegedly broken leg that was strung up and managed to wiggle his toes and flex his ankle. Another miraculous recovery! He glanced at 6 out of the corner of his eye and 6 gave him a hand wave-y gesture, encouraging him to try and get up out of bed. Koichi silently agreed and adjusted himself on the bed, finding a good enough angle so he could lift his leg up and out of the sling, planting his heel on the bed. He swiveled to the side, letting his legs dangle over the side of the bed and slowly and carefully, he pushed himself up onto his feet and… nothing. No pain, no weakness, nothing. Not in his legs or his back or his head or anywhere. Koichi took an experimental step forward, back, to the left, to the right and a little spin for good measure. Absolutely nothing, like he wasn’t even hurt in the first place.
“Phew…”
“Phew… that could’ve been really… permanent.”
“Oh, thank God!” Makoto happily exclaimed, jumping up out of her seat and wrapping Koichi in a tight hug.
After another double-take between his patient and his very concerning X-rays, a troubling thought struck Dr. McDreamy and he crossed the room, snatching the receiver off of its wall-mounted hook, jabbing a couple buttons and pressing it to his ear. “Hey, can we send Jerry down to radiology and have him run a diagnostic on the imager?” he asked the person on the other end. “...because I just told a guy he might have to retire from Hero work and now he’s back up on his feet like nothing happened. So clearly, one of us misdiagnosed him and I really hope it was me… thanks.” He glanced over his shoulder at Koichi thoughtfully before he returned to the conversation. “I’ll be in the wing later. I want to run an MRI anyway to get some closure, so send him my way when he’s done. Thank you.”
The receiver was hooked back onto the wall and Dr. McDreamy joined the group once again, Makoto handing his patient back off to him when he approached. Dr. McDreamy curiously poked and prodded at Koichi’s back, asking, “Anything? No pain or concerning sensations?”
“<Uh… nothing aspirin couldn’t fix.>”
“I see.” Dr. McDreamy gave a semi-relieved sigh and said, “Well, this is absolutely a good thing, if… really confusing. We should run an MRI, just to… compare to what we got while you were unconscious.”
“<Alright.>”
“I would like to do a full blood panel as well. Did Casey and Steve get a sample before I came in?” Koichi shook his head. “Alright, let’s do that.” Koichi sat back down on the bed and watched Dr. McDreamy rifle through the drawers in the middle of the room, retrieving everything he would need to collect a blood sample and snapping on a pair of latex gloves. The doctor returned, rolling a stool over so he could sit himself right next to his patient and gently took Koichi’s arm, resting the back of his hand against his knee so the vulnerable side of his elbow was easily accessible. While he prepped the area with a swab of rubbing alcohol, Dr. McDreamy asked, “Mr. Haimawari? What is your Quirk exactly?”
Ooh, boy, that one would require a lot of English words that Koichi wasn’t good with yet. Fortunately, Makoto sat on the bed right next to him and whispered, “I can translate.”
“Thanks.” Dr. McDreamy pitched the used cotton swab and adjusted his grip so that he was blocking Koichi’s line of sight with his shoulder, on the off-chance that he was squeamish about needles. Koichi wasn’t, but the thought was appreciated. “My Quirk’s called Slide and Glide,” Koichi explained, Makoto translating accordingly. “Although for some reason, it got renamed to ‘Flight’ in the American Quirk registry, which is just kinda…”
“Which is kinda asinine because that’s my Quirk,” Chris huffed.
“Yeah,” Koichi agreed. “It’s probably not even right either, since my Quirk can do way more than Cap’s.”
“Rude.”
“Huh? Was it? Sorry.”
“Is that right?” Dr. McDreamy said. “Such as?”
“It’s a mobility sort of Quirk,” Koichi explained. “As long as I maintain three points of contact, I can glide over surfaces. I used to only go as fast as a bike but now I can keep up with bullet trains.”
Ah, there’s the vein that the doctor was looking for. “I see. What else?”
“Mmm, I can project forcefields, I can shoot proje- owch! -projectiles, I can cling to walls and… yeah, I did kinda copy Cap once and that’s how I found out that I can kinda-sorta fly. Not for as long as him but something like that. And doing that helped me keep moving after my arm and leg got broken during the lockdown, so there’s that.”
And that was as good enough an explanation for what Dr. McDreamy was looking at. Pursuing that topic, he asked, “Is that the extent of it? Just holding your broken limbs together?”
“Pretty much.”
Dr. McDreamy hummed. “Do you suppose that part of your Quirk may have evolved since then? That may explain why you seemed to have healed so fast.”
“What, that I’ve suddenly developed a healing factor?” Koichi said, half-incredulously. “...well, I wouldn’t be that surprised if I did, I guess. Feels like my Quirk has been evolving a lot in the last few years. I’m starting to wonder when it’s gonna stop.”
“Well, we’ll see what the blood panel has to say.” Dr. McDreamy capped off the vial he filled with Koichi’s blood and tended to the puncture in his skin he had to create, strapping a ball of gauze to the inside of Koichi’s elbow. Curiously, Koichi’s blood looked a little darker than it should be, but then again, that probably didn’t mean much. One of the nurses here is entirely plant-based and that makes her blood green. Odd, but not cause for alarm yet.
As soon as he wrapped up the procedure, the phone by the door rang and Dr. McDreamy caught it after the second ring. “McDreamy… ah, good. We’ll be right down. Any word from Jerry? …he just got there? Alright, then. Be down in a bit.” Dr. McDreamy hung the phone back on its hook and said to Koichi, “Radiology’s ready for us. Shall we?”
Koichi nodded and stood back up, quietly laughing to himself as he realized how much he took the ability to move for granted until he nearly lost it. Makoto and Chris kept a hand on his back or shoulder, just in case he lost his balance and the three followed the doctor out of the room. Number 6, however, lingered for a bit, studying the radiographs. No way someone should be able to recover from injuries like that so quickly. “...again with the cheat codes?” he huffed under his breath. “Doesn’t this get exhausting after a while?”
‘You know I can still hear you, right?’
“Good!”
-
The next day was business as usual.
Aside from everyone tiptoeing around Koichi as if he’d crumble into pieces if he was breathed on too hard, it was a perfectly average day. Koichi certainly wasn’t complaining about having a generally boring, calm day after how his week has been going. Though, he did have a sneaking suspicion that he was intentionally being passed over when someone would call the agency for a Hero. He understood, he really did. Everyone was trying to give him a break so he didn’t get hurt any worse than he already did. But it would be nice if that stopped sometime soon.
Just like every other day, Koichi ended his shift doing some training with The Paranormals in the agency’s stadium-sized gym. “And switch.” Laurel leaned back, pulling Koichi into his stretch for the 30 seconds and the handful of breaths it took to start feeling it in his hamstrings before they switched again. As he pulled Laurel into her stretch, Koichi looked up at the green-clad man standing over them. Norman, in turn, smirked and dug out a freeze-dried candy from the bag beside him, silently offering him one. Koichi opened his mouth and Norman dropped the candy into it.
“Ruin his workout already, why don’t ya?” Thelma teased.
“They’re good though!” Koichi protested.
“Ah, we’re gonna work it off anyway,” Norman replied.
Laurel pulled back and unhooked herself from the diamond that she and Koichi made, shifting around until she got her feet under her again and pulled Koichi up with her. She pulled her arm across her chest to stretch out the muscles in her shoulder and he caught his ankle behind his back, stretching out his quads. “Y’know, for a guy that got cracked like a glowstick, you’re moving around pretty good now,” Norman said.
“You sure healed pretty fast,” Thelma agreed. “Did the hospital call you back about those tests they ran yet?”
“Not yet,” Koichi answered. “But the doctor’s probably right. Maybe that one part of my Quirk awakened or something. It would make sense, given how banged up I got.”
“Yeah, but if that’s the case, wouldn’t this ability have manifested a lot earlier?” Thelma argued. “From what you told us, you got just as beat up during the Naruhata Lockdown. Why wait until now?”
Koichi shrugged. “Maybe it’s a… late bloomer awakening? Or something? I’m not sure.”
“Hmmm… what a mystery.”
Koichi released his ankle, steady on both feet as he should be. In the background behind his teammates was their de facto leader, watching Koichi with great concern. Koichi gave Frank a soft smile and said, “Frank, I’m fine. You don’t need to worry about me.”
Frank sighed and replied, “Well… I know this guy’s really smart and he’s got a fancy degree… but he is still human. He might’ve missed something.”
“Everyone’s been fussing over me all day. I’m fine, I promise.” Koichi sidestepped over so he had a long stretch of empty mat in front of him. “Besides, if there was something still seriously wrong with me, could I do this?” To finally prove once and for all that he was just fine, Koichi took a running start and put his training to work. Round-off, front handspring, side aerial and a full twist. He did land awkwardly at the end but the worst that happened was him stumbling backwards off of the mat and bumping into one of the punching bags hanging behind him. But he made it without a new scratch or sprain.
Koichi cooly leaned against the punching bag and declared, “See? Fit as a fiddle!” The punching bag did beg to differ, dumping Koichi on the ground straight on his face. “ Ouch. ”
There were a few enduring laughs from the background while Koichi peeled his face off of the floor. When he looked up, Frank was there, holding a hand out for Koichi to take. As soon as Koichi was back up on his feet again, Frank gently placed his free hand on Koichi’s shoulder and said, “I’m sorry.”
“Huh? What for?”
“This wouldn’t have happened if you hadn’t taken that hit for me.”
“Well, to be fair, Frank,” Norman piped up. “If he hadn’t, you’d probably be a Frank Pancake right now.”
“They didn’t teach us that trash pile thing in school,” Laurel agreed. “Apparently that’s something you have to learn on the streets.”
“Yeah, in hindsight, I don’t think the trash pile trick works here,” Koichi miserably laughed.
“Still, though,” Frank said. “You nearly got seriously, permanently hurt on my watch. It’s never gonna happen again, I sw-”
Koichi gently tapped his fist against Frank’s chest and he said with a comforting grin, “I’d do it again in a heartbeat. We’re a team. We’ve gotta look out for each other, right?”
Koichi couldn’t be sure if Frank was completely reassured by that but he still smiled and replied, “Right.” Frank poked Koichi in the center of his forehead and added, “But next time, let me take the hit for you. Then we’ll be even. Okay?”
“Eh, not sure I can promise that.”
“Try? For me?”
“Mmmmaybe.”
“ Koichi… ”
From the background, Thelma cleared her throat and said, “Hey, they’re probably gonna kick us out soon. Are we gonna get to training?”
With his second wind restored, Frank returned to ‘leader mode’ and answered, “Right! Let’s do this, gang!”
Koichi glanced up towards one of the clear ledges of the rock wall beside them. Unbeknownst to any of his teammates, Number 6 perched there, watching the little Heroes below. He waved when he noticed Koichi before the squad of sidekicks got to their training, leaving 6 to just watch and think.
“...no, y’know, Glasses has a point, actually. Quirks usually awaken when you’re in a life-or-death kind of situation, right? So why would your Quirk awaken from falling off a tall building? Was the stress I was causing you during the lockdown not enough?” 6 folded his arms and harrumphed, “That’s just insulting.”
-
“So, Ms. Beulah-Mae…”
Steve laughingly sighed and responded in her practiced Southern accent, “Yes, sugar?”
“I gotta know,” Casey said, excitedly. “Was giving The Skycrawler your number part of the show or were you being genuine?” Their tea cup was empty and Steve simply had to fill it.
“Eh, a little of Column A, a little of Column B,” Steve chuckled. “He’s cute! You saw him, he’s cute!”
“He is cute,” Casey agreed. “If I was actually into men-”
“Well, I’d have to fight you then, ‘cuz I called dibs,” Steve playfully sneered. “Just gimme an hour or two to put my claws back on.”
Casey laughed and surrendered. “You’re good, you’re good.” Casey took a bite out of their burger and muttered, “Kinda wild that he just… healed from all that. I didn’t know he had that kinda power. Definitely a lucky break for him.”
“I’m glad about that, personally,” Steve agreed. “If he had to undergo surgery, I feel like they would’ve needed me and… I don’t know. Might be shallow of me, but I don’t know if I could date a guy if I knew what his insides looked like before the first date.” Steve shuddered dramatically. “It’d kill my appetite damn near forever.”
“Nah, I totally get that,” Casey laughed.
“Hey, you guys.” Steve and Casey looked up from their lunch as a very sleepy-sounding, plant woman strolled by their table.
“Pammy! Hey, girl!” Steve cheered.
“Hey, we missed you yesterday,” Casey added. “Where were you?”
Pam miserably laughed, brushing her palm-frond ponytail off her shoulder. “I was mostly on my couch, trying to adjust to reality again,” she admitted. “My girlfriend and I took a little too much over the weekend and we needed a day to try to be functioning human beings again.”
“Oooh, that sounds rough,” Casey sympathized.
“Yeah, but I’m alive, I didn’t puke or nothing and I’m lucid enough to survive driving here, so it’s all good,” Pam said, puffing her chest out victoriously. “I’m definitely, totally fine now and I’m absolutely not just telling myself that to convince myself.”
Steve snorted, “Whatever you need to do to cope, babe.”
Casey placed their heels on the chair across from them and shooed Pam towards the cafeteria. “Well, go grab your lunch. I’ll save you a spot. We don’t have to go anywhere for a bit.”
Pam sighed, “Sorry, I’m gonna have to take a raincheck,” to her favorite coworkers’ dismay. “Doctor wants this blood panel done today,” Pam explained, holding up the vial she was carrying with her. “So I gotta go do that before I forget about it. But I have Friday off! If you guys do too, you should come over and hang out. I pinky-promise that I won’t take nearly as much as I did the other day.”
“Please do, baby. Seriously, I worry about you sometimes,” Steve said, genuinely concerned about her.
“I know, Mama Mae, I’m sorry,” Pam replied. “I’m amazed I got this job sometimes. I absolutely suck at math.” Then a lightbulb went off in her head and she excitedly asked, “Oh, but we’re still on for Pitchfork next month, right?”
“Yes, absolutely! I wouldn’t miss it for anything!” Casey answered.
“I seriously need this vacation,” Steve miserably laughed. “My phone is starting to think that I actually live here.”
“Yes! Oh man, I’m so excited for this!” Pam cheered, nearly actually jumping for joy before she remembered the vial and paperwork she had in her grasp. “Okay, I better go do this so I can earn my lunch. Love you guys, I’ll see you later!” Casey and Steve sent her off with a wave from them and a blown kiss from Ms. Beulah-Mae.
Arriving at the hematology lab, Pam nudged the door behind her, set down the clipboard and gently shelved the vial of blood in an empty slot beside a few other test tubes. She needed to be fully awake for this and that’s where her secret stash of extra strength energy shots comes in. After knocking one back and squeezing her face in her hands to wake herself up as much as humanly possible, she retrieved the vial from where she left it and began.
With the diagnostic Jerry performed on the X-ray imager the day before turning up nothing and the MRI that was taken of The Skycrawler after confirming that the injuries he sustained simply vanished in a matter of hours, this was pretty much the last resort before the whole incident was written off as Koichi having developed a healing Quirk and calling it a day. The goal was to check his blood to see if any abnormalities were present. For starters, his blood was a shade of red that was much darker than it usually should be but that probably didn’t count. After all, Pam’s Quirk turned her blood green due to the high amount of chlorophyll in her system. So it’s probably less of an abnormality and more of a Quirk-related… quirk, for lack of a better word.
Pam prepared a slide with a drop of the patient’s blood and placed it underneath the lab's high-powered microscope. With a press of the button, the screen beside it came to life with a closeup display of Koichi Haimawari’s blood. The computer did its thing, measuring out the ranges of sodium, potassium, creatinine and glucose. That single drop of blood passed a basic metabolic panel with flying colors. The cells themselves seemed as healthy as could be, aside from the red blood cells being a little darker than they should be. The white blood cell count looked good as- “What was that?”
Pam swore that she saw something at the top-left corner of the screen, some black, tar-like substance overpowering one of Koichi’s red blood cells. But when she adjusted the scope to look directly at it… nothing. Just an ordinary red blood cell.
Pam knew she saw something. She frantically swiped the scope back-and-forth trying to catch it again but that little blob of something didn’t appear. Defeated and bewildered, Pam slumped back in the chair. She numbly jotted down what she saw on the clipboard, hoping beyond hope that someone wouldn’t immediately write her off as crazy and then she got her phone from her pocket.
Palm Tree:
Hey, sweetpea
We probably shouldn’t take shrooms anymore
I think they’re still messing with me