Mind Games - Chapter 17

I worried that I was adapting to my new life a little too well at this point.

Step to dodge.

Most people had a stress response that included avoidance, particularly of more stressors.

Strike solar plexus, target incapacitated.

Once upon a time, I'd counted myself in that esteemed group known as the 'majority.'

Dodge again, spike quirk, moderate accuracy – low CQC skill.

After a few months in a superhero setting, though, I was jumping out my bedroom window to go punch criminals in the face to relieve stress.

Sweep leg, chest strike, target incapacitated.

Sighing, I pulled some industrial-strength zip-ties out of my pocket and began tying my latest punching bags up.

Well... okay, I was being a little bit hard on myself there.

My first night out had been a midnight stroll to get used to moving through an urban environment. The crimes I'd happened upon had been entirely coincidental and I'd done my diligence before storming into any location with bad guys. I had the patience, training, and maturity to make reasonable calls with a number of aces up my sleeve and a willingness to call for help should I find myself in over my head.

Even as I looked around the small gang's hideout, all of those factors still held true. The 'stress relief' was entirely incidental to what I was accomplishing tonight.

That fact still didn't stop the physical violence from feeling very therapeutic.

“What – the – fuck,” one of the downed villain thugs gasped. “Did we do to piss you off, bitch?!”

“You klepped a cop and his kids,” I stated, my senses roving over the building once again and homing in on the basement door where the darkness dwelt. “And decided to set up shop in a place where twenty-one people have disappeared over the past fifteen years.”

It'd been an accident for me to stumble on the case, working backwards as I had been.

The location was what had set off the alarm bells for me, not any sort of evidence relating to the crime I'd discovered. The whole area was just fucking cursed, a demographic trench of low-income, low-density barren properties full of squatters, wanna-be villains, small-time gangers, bottom-rung sex workers, and the poorest of the poor. The cluster of buildings I'd been looking at specifically, though?

People just vanished.

And it got a lot worse if you went back further than a decade and a half.

To a certain extent, I'd be willing to buy that some of the people disappearing would have been the work of your usual suspects. No rest for the wicked, after all. People have bills to pay and mouths to feed. And they're often willing to do pretty horrible things to make sure their children don't have to make the same choices.

But no bodies? Really!?

Again, there were plenty of ways to get rid of an inconvenient human corpse, even more with certain quirks offering certain advantages in that department. But once you tallied up all the missing persons, the length of time, the complete lack of any bodies showing up over the past century... which was another thing. No bodies had ever been picked up in this tiny stretch of urban housing. Not even a lonely elder dying in their sleep, which set off more alarm bells for me.

Take all of that together and there's been something hanging around here for a lot longer than a normal human lifespan disappearing people.

“How tha'fuck-” He wheezed, drawing a laborious breath as he writhed painfully against his bonds. “-did'ya know it was us? Hadn't even-” A hacking cough. “-done tha' ransom yet!”

I rolled my eyes, steeling myself for where I needed to go and palming the small arsenal of 'weapons' I'd picked up. “Numb nuts over there-” I jabbed a thumb to the dumb muscle of the group. “-left his Cape profile set to public.”

Thank god for stupid criminals.

The dumbass stared at me blankly for a long moment, as if he couldn't believe what had come out of my mouth. I ignored him and started making my way towards the basement, which... yeah, this was the right place. It didn't feel as bad as whatever was hiding under the Endeavor Agency, but it didn't really need to in order to be very bad news.

Then the muffled screaming started and I was moving even before dropping the curse from my lips.

As I impacted the door, the venerable locking mechanism shattered and I crouched low to avoid hitting the underside of a stairwell while skating down the railing in a smooth slide to-

I hate it when I'm right.

I suppose, in theory, it could have been an especially creepy heteromorphic quirk.

It wasn't, though, and I knew that instinctively.

And, judging by the terrified faces of the bound man trying to shield his gagged children with his own body, they knew it too. It wasn't just fear in their expressions. It was something more atavistic, more primal than that. At the end of the day, even a villain like Moonfish... they were just a human. An evil, creepy, monster of a human being... but a human being nonetheless.

What I saw in that instant where I crouched on the last post of the handrail, staring into the darkness of the basement, was…

Something that pressed against my mind, fear and horror clawing to get in and only barred by my collective willpower. It was twisting space and pulsing power held back only by the thin veneer of the physical world. As the pulsing mass moved, the detritus of the basement was not so much pushed aside as pulled into a new location, as if the world around it were too afraid to bar its path.

It wasn't alive.

It didn't think or feel or eat or sleep or breathe.

I don't know how I knew that just from a single glance at it, but I did.

It was... less a creature and more a distortion of space itself. Something that was... that was pressing in on reality to create a body, twisting the very fabric of the world and casting a shadow that was simultaneously part of this world and manifested by something which was most decidedly not.

The best description I can think to give is waking in the dead of the night while camping and finding something pressing in on the fabric of the tent around you. You couldn't tell what was making the impressions, but you knew that there was something out there. Something that knew you were inside that flimsy mesh of fabric, and if it pushed hard enough...

...it could reach you.

Only instead of a tent in the woods, the fabric was that of time and space woven around you in your everyday life.

For all that it wasn’t a being made of flesh and blood, though, it saw something in the cowering forms of the man and children that was driving it forward, driving it to consume…

I pushed my own horror aside and struck.

Essence flared in my heart, burning bright in response to my emotion, focus, and will.

And then I kicked it in the closest analog I could pick out to a face, a wreath of red energy coalescing around my foot as I struck.

Even if I felt sure that whatever it was could not be 'surprised,' there was an element of shock in its sudden stillness as my blow actually impacted and forced it back.

The Thing Beyond the Veil didn't lurch towards the wall, though. No, instead its imprint on reality lessened in a way that only the Sidereal part of me was qualified to fully grasp. A ripple in reality spun out from where I'd struck, and something in me could feel the world around me twist and pulse under the stress of two supernatural powers playing tug of war with it.

Whatever it was, I didn't give it time to rebound and, instead, threw the adult man over my shoulders before picking one child up in each arm and manifesting more essence around me to twist reality just a bit more to close the gap of the stairs to a single step.

I slid to a stop at the outside the door and watched as the tortured fabric of the basement's physical substance gave way, snapping and cracking-

-then disappearing, leaving only a brick wall where the stairs had been.

 I glared at the wide-eyed criminal who looked as though he was trying – unsuccessfully – to work himself free and set the children down before dropping the man off my back. Tearing at the cloth gag biting into his cheeks, I disregarded the two-day filth coating his head of yellow feathers.

“Thank you, thank you, thank you-” The grown man wept.

“You're welcome, let's get you out of here,” I said, reaching to untie him. “Take care of your children while I call this in, okay?”

The man cried something that might have been an affirmative as I got his hands free and he embraced his children briefly before working on their bonds.

Meanwhile, I stepped away to make my call, placing myself in a calculated position between the villains and the former hostages.

I met the conscious man's eyes. “Give me an excuse, please.”

His own gaze slid upwards to where the glowing mark on my forehead was now faintly visible, then back down to my eyes. My eyes, which were subtly sparking with power as well. He shook his head convulsively as I sighed and brought my phone up, glancing briefly at the notification before dismissing it.

What Goes Bump: Encounter a phenomenon or lifeform that does not possess or is not created by a 'Quirk,' yet still explicitly supernatural. Five points awarded for non-hostile contact. Ten points awarded for hostile contact.

Now wasn't the time.

I sighed and made sure my phone was running in incognito mode before hitting speed-dial for Endeavor's emergency hotline number.

“Hello, you've reached the Endeavor Agency. Is your call regarding an emergency?”

“Yes,” I replied instantly, my eyes flicking towards the father, his son, and daughter. “I'm a vigilante and I've just raided a small-time group of villains who kidnapped Officer Nakamura and his two children. My current location is approximately fifteen kilometers northwest of your building in the old Shindai Housing Complex. I have three villains incapacitated, one unconscious. The hostages have been freed, but are showing signs of physical and mental trauma. Please send both emergency response personnel, emergency medical services, and at least one group of heroes to attend.”

There was a significant pause as I heard her turn away and start barking instructions, her fingers hitting keys loudly.

“I'd like to ask you to stay on the scene until such time as the heroes arrive to ensure the transfer of custody, ma'am. May I have a name to identify you and a description to give the heroes I'm dispatching?”

“My name is Perspicacious Mauve Avenger,” I replied. “And I'm five-foot four-inches – one hundred, sixty-two and a half centimeters – with lavender hair and eyes. Leather jacket and pants over a plain t-shirt. I'll be waiting with the villains and kidnapping victims.”

Then I hung up.

And took a deep breath, reaching up to rub at my nose. I heard the faint sound of movement and, without opening my eyes, spoke up. “You in the kitchen. I know you're awake. Your options are going to jail with a broken leg or without. Choose.”

The movement stopped.

I shook my head and turned to the cop, who was now standing and holding his preteen children close. He dipped his head to me as soon as he saw me looking. “Th-thank you. I can never begin to repay you for saving my family fro-from that... that...”

He glanced at where the basement used to be and shivered violently.

“It's best not to think about it,” his somewhat wild gaze returned to me. “And I really mean that. It's best to think of it like a particularly vivid nightmare. Let it fade into the back of your mind and only pop back up when you roll over in your sleep with a cold sweat.”

The cop stared at me, uncomprehendingly. “What was-”

“A hallucination brought on by a traumatic experience and a shared delusion, likely resulting from exposure to toxic fumes in a poorly-maintained house with bad ventilation,” I stated bluntly. “Or, at least, that's what your superiors are going to tell you after they complete their investigation, because it's the only thing that makes sense.”

 I paused pointedly, my eyes narrowed at him. “If you don't want to look crazy, I'd suggest you accept their version of events.”

“Thank you.”

My eyes tilted downward and my expression softened as I smiled at the ten year old girl looking at me from where she was clutching at her dad's shirt. Honestly, I was less worried about the kids suffering from long-term problems than the father. Kids bounced back with fewer problems, probably because their memories could fade more easily.

“You're welcome, Mayoi-chan,” I smiled.

Her eyes widened. “You know my name?”

“Of course I do. I came here to save you,” I replied with another smile, bending down to her level. “Because that's what heroes do when people are in trouble.”

“How did you find us?” The father asked, massaging his daughter's back as she ruffled her head of brown feathers against his shirt.

“That one,” I threw a thumb over my shoulder to the one who was still unconscious. “Left his Cape account-” The man blinked and frowned. “-social media account set to public. I was looking into this area for... reasons.”

Unwillingly, both of us glanced at the basement.

“-and I wanted to check on the current residents,” I finished, shaking my head. “It was a complete fluke I found some idiot who was whining about not being able to make an idol show he'd wanted to go see because he had to watch you and your kids.”

The talkative asshole started thumping his head against the floor, muttering obscenities towards his teammate.

“Now... I think we should get out of here,” I sighed, glancing at the basement again even as the cop realized that was an option and started hurrying his kids towards the door. Personally, I didn't think anything was going to happen. When space had torn and snapped, the feeling of something pushing at the walls of reality had faded substantially. It was still there, still faintly present to my more esoteric senses, but the immediately vulnerable part of the area was gone now and whatever it was would probably have to wear another section thin to get back in, if it was struggling like that.

I'll have to see if I can collate dates and times for disappearances around here to a better degree, but the records are just so shit...

There were dozens of factors that could be at play for how often something like this recurred – time of day, time of year, stages of the moon, correlating to human violence or trauma – the list was practically endless.

The sound of sirens cut my thoughts short.

“Behave,” I warned the two villains. “Or I'll be back.”

Stepping outside, I arrived just as one of the Endeavor Agency's iconic red and white hero transports drove up. I bounced on my heels once before shooting up to sit on the window ledge of a second-floor apartment as the heroes rolled out. As luck – or fate, a traitorous part of my mind whispered – would have it, Charcoal, Brazier, and Onibi filed out of the vehicle even as a swarm of regular police cars came rolling up.

“Hey, you the vigilante that called this in?” Charcoal rumbled up at me.

“Three villains, all restrained in the building. Three captives freed. No permanent injuries on any of them.” I stated, flipping up fingers on my hand as I did. “And I even stayed until you got here. I'll be going now, if you don't mind.”

“What you're doing is against the law,” Brazier stated, stepping forward to look up at me as I stood. “I'll admit you're a cut above the average vigilante, but you're going to get in over your head or really hurt someone sooner or later. We have licensing programs for people like you.”

“As long as you haven't crossed a serious line,” Onibi chimed in, her too-wide grin absent in the face of the serious mood. “Once that happens, we can't help you.”

I nodded and pulled out a card, spinning the hand-crafted piece of cardstock for Brazier to catch. “I'll keep it in mind. Now I really need to get out of here if I want to dodge the cameras.”

“Thank you, miss!” The two children cried out as I made a particularly impressive series of jumps along the window ledges until I hit the corner of the building and could begin pinballing between two different walls to reach the roof.

All in all, a good night's work.

As I dropped to street level and shifted back near a train station, I felt the change from female to male cleanse my body of essence and seal my caste mark away again.  Definitely a neat trick.

…

I hummed as I walked through the Endeavor Agency, delivering memos and handing out paperwork and other notoriously intern-level tasks. Essentially anything that didn't involve violence and arresting criminals, which was the standard experience. I gave it a few days before I ended up on the non-standard side of the experience again, something I was beginning to privately refer to as the '1-A' side of things.

“And... that's that,” I muttered, dropping off the last bundle of documents into a tray.

“Thanks, kid,” one of the employees waved me off. “You should go get lunch.”

“Roger that,” I replied easily, steering myself towards where I'd left my packed lunch. Normally, I'd just go for a local takeout store or one of the select in-house bento services provided by brands Endeavor had licensed for advertising, but anything they could make, I could do better.

A few minutes later, I had grabbed my lunch and was heading towards the small internal office that had been converted from a storage room into a space I could use.

There were still a number of boxes and metal racks covering the place, but it had working outlets, a three-legged desk I'd found a few bricks to prop up, and even a utility sink in the corner. The only thing I was privately miffed about was the shitty office chair that apparently came standard for the agency. That would be getting replaced ASAP. Or, at least, as soon as I got my office on the books for internal mail and could receive a new one.

“Hey Shinso, surprised I caught – oh, no.”

I looked up to Fuyumi, my eyebrows rising as I lowered the chopsticks from my mouth. Swallowing, I frowned. “What?”

She crossed her arms, rumpling the stack of papers in her left hand slightly. “No. You are not going to become one of our workaholics who eats lunch in their office by themselves.”

I opened my mouth to deny that was what I was doing, then glanced at the open laptop to my side and the open coding suite I'd had running.

Damn, that was what I was doing.

Out of all the lives I remembered, only River and the Sidereal were social eaters. The rest of 'us' were of the opinion that food was fuel and would be consumed as-needed wherever was available.

“I'm an introvert and don't actually enjoy interacting with people all that much,” I replied instead. “I've literally been running around the building the entire day talking to everyone and delivering documents. That makes this the closest I get to a real break, and I don't want to spend it doing the same thing I've been doing all day.”

Fuyumi's frown didn't disappear, but it did lessen in its severity.

“If it makes you feel better, I'll pop open Herotube and play some funny-but-informative trash while I eat instead of working?” I offered as a reasonable middle-ground.

The pro-hero sighed, and rolled her eyes before looking around and kicking one of the boxes full of random office trash up to the other side of my desk, pulling out her own bento from her bag, and sitting down opposite me.

Finally, she slapped the papers down in front of my lunch, as if daring me to object.

I sighed and slumped. “If you think you have to.”

Fuyumi nodded, her eyes narrowed. “Good. I don't know what my father was thinking, honestly, giving you an office by yourself. You should be socializing with someone else, even while you're working. Closed off spaces like this aren't good for your mental health, Shinso.”

“Probably wanted to stop interoffice harassment and workplace hazing rituals,” I replied, resuming eating between sentences. “Which is why I'm practically down the hall from him.”

Fuyumi paused in preparing her bento and grimaced. “I... want to say that wouldn't happen here, but when I started a few years ago...”

The way she trailed off was admission enough.

I pointed with my chopsticks at the stack of papers. “That the revised contract?”

Fuyumi perked up, adjusting her glasses as she visibly regained firmer ground. “Ah, yes. We've made the agreed upon changes. I actually just sent a copy to your father via email, but I wanted to go ahead and give you a physical one to read over.”

I nodded, pulling the document to the side and scanning the first page before catching the older woman's frown and dismissing it momentarily. “Thanks. Dad'll send it over to his lawyer to review and we'll either get more corrections or a signed copy back to you tomorrow.”

The pro-hero exhaled in relief, rolling her shoulders. “I'm going to be so glad when this is all done. It's been a huge mess trying to get all the paperwork filed properly. The only thing that's keeping our insurance provider from losing their minds, I think, is that we've promised you won't be anywhere near combat and that you'll be enrolling in a hero school come spring.”

I blinked, rewound the conversation, then started picking through my memories.

I cocked my head. “Aren't I supposed to enroll... next year? Like, I'm fourteen. Don't you have to be fifteen to go to UA or whatever?”

Fuyumi paused in her chewing, reached for her energy drink (with her father's face on it) and took a long pull from it. “Wait... your Dad didn't tell you? No, I'm sure...”

I sighed. “Look, my Dad can be...”

Shaking my head, I grimaced and waved between me and the laptop with my chopsticks, the gesture all the explanation I really needed. “I come by my work habits honestly, if you know what I mean. We both tend to monofocus and stuff slips our minds. So he probably thought he told me or I was tuning him out while I was working on something.”

Fuyumi groaned and palmed her face. “Shinso... I don't want to discourage you from telling me these things, but that really doesn't sound like a healthy relationship dynamic with your father.”

“I'd rather be functioning than healthy,” I told her bluntly.

“Gods... we're getting you in for a psych eval as soon as you're on payroll,” Fuyumi muttered.

I decided not to object at the moment. Even if I couldn't head that plan off, I pitied the fool the got to try looking in my head.

Heh, I don't know if it'd be better or worse than looking in Himiko's... head...

“So I'm skipping a year, testing out of junior high, and going straight to a hero school?” I asked for clarification, pursing my lips thoughtfully.

“That's the plan... unless you have an objection?” Fuyumi asked, almost visibly worried at the prospect.

“No, that's fine. I don't have any close friends at my school,” I waved her off, mildly amused to see – feel – relief war with regret.

Huh, that's new.

“Just making sure we're on the same page,” I replied, tapping my utensils against the box of my bento. “Am I on the recommended track or the general admission test?”

“The recommended track, of course,” Fuyumi replied with surprise. “You've already demonstrated a number of very important qualities we look for in young heroes. The fact that we believe you're already good enough to sign to the agency should be enough evidence that we're willing to put our reputation behind you.”

I nodded absently. “So... is the entire agency only allowed to recommend one student, or is it based on individual pro-heroes?”

Fuyumi pursed her lips, frowning as she thought. “Technically? I think it's the latter. Of course, since it's my father signing your recommendation, everyone knows you've got his agency behind you, but the rules for this stuff are a little archaic.”

“So... hypothetically speaking... if you had another promising student to recommend, you could put your own name behind them? In addition to your father?” I asked pointedly.

Fuyumi began to lean back, catching herself as she remembered she was sitting on a box and not a chair. Shaking her head and fighting back a blush she cupped her chin. “Do you have someone in mind? Applications are due by the end of January, in two weeks. I'd need to vet them pretty harshly in that time to make sure I'm not damaging my own reputation by naming someone who would flop under pressure.”

“Let me talk to them tomorrow to make sure of some things,” I replied. “Maybe... could you schedule some time Tuesday? In the afternoon?”

Fuyumi gave me a skeptical look, but nodded. “I hope this isn't that Buster kid you got to co-star your channel, Shinso. He has promise, but he's nowhere near good enough, not yet.”

I waved her off. “This is someone else. Someone who's really got talent.”

All I needed to do was determine whether or not I'd have to blackmail her parents, now.

~~~

Still playing catch-up a little bit, but I've already got the Where Your God Is chapter started. Same deal as always and it'll probably be ready either right before or right after the new month starts. Likely posted with the new polls.

In the meantime, some exciting new stuff for Hitoshi to deal with. That poor guy has so much shit on his plate right now. I envy his only needing two hours of sleep, let me tell you.

Next chapter will feature some nitty-gritty contract stuff and the first part of the next Himiko Date. People seem to like those, for some reason.

Thanks again for all your support!