Harley 'Izumi' Quinn! (Ch 9)

“Nothing like a little death and destruction to start the day!” Joker cheers as he drives the car we stole in the direction of my middle school. Former middle school? Does being a villain automatically unenroll you from the school system, or does someone still have to go through the actual process of unenrolling them? Can I unenroll myself when we get there? First period will have started by the time we get there, so will they complain about how I should have showed up earlier to get it done and not let me?

I shake my head to discard the random thoughts flitting through my head and refocus my attention on making sure I have all of the support equipment I wanted to bring today just in case something happens. Not that it should, but I’m Izumi Midoriya! Good things don’t happen easily to me, which means that something is absolutely going to happen with our plans today. It’s a good thing that I’ve spent so many years as a hero fangirl and made it a point to fix up the abandoned support equipment I scavenged!

I pull out what I personally think is one of the more interesting things I picked up, once again closely examining it. It doesn’t really stand out as far as support equipment, basically designed as a mallet. The handle is as long as my arm and is made out of some kind of black-colored metal that my old blowtorch couldn’t even heat up, while the body has a red and black checkered pattern, with part of the handle expanding an inch or two past it. The two faces of the mallet are different and sort of whimsical, though. One has a simple red smiley face with crosses for the eyes and the other says ‘Your face here’.

I’m honestly not sure whether it belonged to a hero, villain, or a vigilante. In fact, the only reason I even found it in the first place is because I’d spent an afternoon hiding from my bullies in a dumpster and overheard some lady scolding her daughter about ‘dimension hopping alone’. Which isn’t exactly a reassuring thing to hear while you’re hiding, but thankfully they didn’t stick around long.

Unlike time travel, which travels either forward or backward along our reality’s timeline,  dimension hopping - or time-stepping, as some people call it - isn’t blatantly forbidden. Not that it’s encouraged or casual, but it’s common knowledge that each one of the world powers has at least one device capable of performing the feat for ‘just in case’ situations. What those situations end up being? Well, that’s up to those who have them.

Anyways, back to my mallet! As far as I can tell it’s basically indestructible, and it has some kind of shock absorption function built into it so the rebound of any missed swings doesn’t adversely affect the wielder. The handle can also be pushed into itself to adjust the height, which is how I managed to stuff it in my backpack when I left my apartment. What’s most interesting though-

The car’s tires squeal as they grind against the ground, pulling me out of my musings while the car swerves sideways and somehow manages to land perfectly in between two other cars parked on the side of the road. It does tilt up and hang precariously, on the verge of toppling upside down, but it falls back on all four wheels after a few seconds. Not that I’m concerned about that, obviously Joker just enjoys the show such a dramatic way of parking! Nothing is ever boring with the Clown Prince of Crime!

“Stupid foreign markets putting the steering wheel on the wrong side…” Joker grumbles to himself as he gets out of the driver’s side on the right side of the vehicle. I follow by climbing out of the window and then sitting on the roof, because why not? Also it lets me get a view of the police cordon blocking off the street around Aldera Middle School. I can see students through the windows of the school, so the school day wasn’t canceled, but that just makes it all the more curious that the police apparently have business with the hellhole.

I tap my heels against the car door and lightly spin my mallet while I tilt my head. “Huh. What do you think all this is about, Joker?”

The Prince raises a hand and strokes his chin thoughtfully and I blush at how dashing it makes him look. It really gives off the vibe that he’s a genius, which he is. Most people who would find themselves in his situation would hoard anything they brought with them in the fear of it somehow getting lost or stolen, but Joker established a base of operations and stored some of the riskier things he had on himself so nothing would happen to them while we were busy today! Not only foresight, but he trusts me when I say that heroes don’t patrol the area where we decided to hide. No one else has ever trusted me before, only Joker~!

Well, the people on the quirkless forums have, but I’ve never actually met any of the people there before so they don’t count!

Joker snaps his fingers and I pay attention to him again, stopping the humming I didn’t even realize I was doing so I can focus on his realization. “They must have known that we would want justice and set a trap for us!”

I tilt my head and peer at him curiously. “But why have the students there, then? Shouldn’t they have sent out a notice for them not to come in if they knew what we were planning?” Police don’t have as much attention on them as heroes, but that doesn’t mean that they can just ignore public opinion. In fact, they have to pay more attention to their image since people are more critical of them than heroes. So they wouldn’t put the lives of children at risk just to catch us, right?

But Joker is insightful and corrects my misunderstanding. “Ah, but if they did that they wouldn’t have any guarantee that we would go through with our plans! Blowing up an empty building isn’t nearly as satisfying as blowing up a full building!” That’s true. I would assume. This is my first time blowing up a building, so… “And don’t forget,” he continues, “the heroes in this time don’t deserve the title! How are they supposed to raise the stakes if there’s no danger? Hell, if a few kids get their heads bashed in, their popularity would skyrocket if they manage to catch us!”

My grip tightens around the handle of my mallet and I squint at the windows, trying to catch sight of any heroes walking through the halls or the classrooms. It takes a few minutes, but eventually I see someone I recognize and someone who clearly doesn’t belong. The latter is a man wearing a comfortable looking shirt and black pants with a utility belt on his waist and a scarf draped around his neck. The other is the Twilight hero Midnight!

Neither Underground nor Limelight, Twilight heroes work to maintain a public image while also providing off the record assistance to the police, often working closely with the all but incognito Underground heroes who actively avoid fame. On the flip side, Limelight heroes are those who almost never work with Underground heroes unless they’re actively told to, preferring to do work that will get them noticed and increase their popularity. Which makes the fact that I don’t recognize who I can only assume is a second hero all the more concerning.

A Twilight hero and an Underground hero. One whose capabilities excel at capture with minimal damage even if others end up caught in their quirk and the other whose capabilities are unknown.

I wonder for a moment why a Twilight hero like Midnight would be part of such a despicable ploy, but then the realization hits and I can’t help but scowl in the direction of the R18 hero. She’s clearly hoping to capture us and use the popularity boost to transition fully into a Limelight hero!

There’s always been pushback in Midnight’s role as a hero due to the adult persona she has, which has prevented her from being as popular as she otherwise could have. But if she catches ‘The Quirkless Rebel’ - as some news stations have labeled me - nobody would be able to complain without her supporters targeting them! How dare one of the few heroes I still respected be part of such a despicable ploy! Joker is right; all current heroes should fuck off and die so actual heroes can take their place!

I look back at my Prince and meet his eyes, gleaming with malicious mischief. “Does this mean we need to change our plan?”

He laughs. “Of course not! This just means that we get to have some more fun!”

I really love that laugh~.

`~`

Eraserhead lets out a sigh and squeezes the bridge of his nose in an effort to alleviate the headache that started the moment he walked into this so-called ‘middle school’ at six am and has been steadily building all the way to now, eleven am. The principal, who was politely ‘asked’ to remain by the Underground hero’s side during the police’s observation of a typical school day, flinches at the sound. The portly man dabs his sweating forehead with a handkerchief that’s already soaked with the substance. Disgusting.

Based on what the police and two heroes have observed, it’s safe to say that the teachers are all going to be jailed for a number of years, even if they don’t include the testimony from the students about how the staff encouraged them to use their quirks on the sole quirkless student. The majority of them didn’t even consider the fact that they could be classified as villains for what they did to the girl! A few, a very few seemed as if they were aware that law enforcement being at their school is a bad thing, but they seemed to think that since it’s all in regards to a quirkless girl, that they don’t have anything to worry about! Hell, Tsukauchi point blank asked one kid who could cover himself in stone if he thought it was wrong to hurt a civilian with his quirk, and he said ‘Of course!’, but when he changed the civilian for Midoriya the kid asked why it would be wrong! And he was genuinely confused, like he couldn’t figure out how the two questions were connected!

Some- scratch that, a lot of these kids are going to go into therapy. The rest are going to go to a juvenile detention center. A juvenile detention center with therapy. Good therapy. This assertion is only strengthened when he sees Midnight leading a girl with green twin tailed hair towards him and the principal. Her uniform is torn in some places, burned in others, and clearly has signs all over it showing how often it’s been repaired. She’s hugging her blue school bag tightly to her chest and is hunching in on herself while keeping her head down to avoid eye contact. It’s the perfect picture of a scared kid trying to not draw attention to themselves. So why…

Why are his instincts screaming warnings at him?

Midnight raises her hand in greeting and explains the girl’s presence out of class, unaware of Eraserhead’s rising tension. “Heya, Eraserhead. I was looking around the grounds and found this little one locked in the sports shed.” She clicks her tongue and shakes her head disapprovingly. “Such places are meant for secret passionate rendezvous, not bullying!”

The girl’s whole body flinches when Midnight says his hero name, as if she recognizes it. Which isn’t impossible, but is extremely unlikely given that no one else who’s a part of this school knows his identity except the principal. It puts the Underground hero even more on edge and his hand twitches, but he suppresses the urge to grab his scarf. Still, the slight movement is enough to alert Midnight that there’s something wrong and she subtly releases an infinitesimal amount of her quirk. It’s not nearly enough for a quick take down, but it will at least dull a person’s senses and set the groundwork for her to push her quirk to its full capabilities.

“You know who I am?” He asks slowly, his eyes narrowed on the girl. At this point it’s not just his instincts, there’s something in his memory niggling at him. He keeps part of his attention on her answer, but the main part of it is focused on her hair. That color…

“I’m kind of a hero fangirl,” she says quietly as Eraserhead’s mind works overtime. Before he’s even consciously aware of his actions, his hand darts up to grab his scarf just as the girl throws her bag towards him. “So I think it’s funny how they sent you after the quirkless girl.” His scarf wraps around the bag at the same time that it clicks in his mind. It looks so different that he didn’t recognize it at first, but that shade of green?

It’s the same shade of green as Izumi Midoriya.

The bag explodes before his scarf can fully wrap around it, the shockwave throwing each person backwards and flooding the hallway with smoke. The hero’s head slams against the ground and causes his eyesight to blur, but he forces himself to roll backwards and get to his feet and confront the villain who had the gall to come back to her school and attack a hero. He has to blink the stars from his eyes to get a read on the situation, but he’s pleased to see that Midnight’s also on her feet and has a large strip torn from her costume, her quirk flooding out from her skin to engulf the girl. But he doesn’t relax. He’s seen her notebook, after all.

And he’s right to be wary since a large mallet swings out of the quirk cloud and slams into Midnight’s stomach, forcing her to bend around it and spit out all the air in her lungs.Without wasting a moment the girl spins on her heel to swing the hammer back around in a full circle to slam it into Midnight’s side, and Eraserhead is positive that he hears at least one rib break. But he was already running on the first swing, and now his elbow is on a direct course for Midoriya’s head in the hopes of knocking her out in a single move. But he’s not that lucky.

She takes a small leap away from him while letting out the breath she was evidently holding in hysterical giggles. “You know,” she says conversationally while Midnight groans on the floor, quirk still flowing full power despite the pain she’s in, “I always did want to meet you. I’ve been a huge fan ever since I was eight years old!” Eraserhead feels a chill roll down his spine.

Eight years old. Six years ago. He’d only been a hero for a handful of years at that point, barely established even in the Underground hero community. The fact that she knew about him even then…

He needs to capture her. Now.

He activates his quirk to take advantage of its secondary effect, making his scarf float lightly like his hair so he can throw it quicker, aiming to wrap it around the girl so tightly that she won’t even be able to wiggle a finger. But her analytical abilities aren’t just for show, as proven by the small objects she throws that impact his scarf. His body seizes up as an electrical current runs through the metal infused cloth to flow into him, strong enough to incapacitate, but nowhere near lethal. Actually, it’s something he’s felt before, when he sparred with another Underground hero.

“How…” He manages to grit out despite the electricity paralyzing him, “How do you have Zap’s support equipment!?”

The dangerous girl giggles as she steps past him, twirling the mallet in her hand. “Heroes are surprisingly careless after they fight villains. And for something like Zap’s electro-balls? Well, it’s easy to lose track of them in the middle of the night~.”

Goddamn it. She’s one of those people who chases hero fights, isn’t she! As much as he wishes he could chew out the woman whose quirk essentially turns her into a walking charger, he knows that it’s normal for equipment to occasionally go missing. Most of the time it ends up in the trash or broken, so they don’t worry about it. Especially when the equipment is specifically designed to be used in conjunction with the hero’s specific quirk! So how the hell did this girl manage to charge them!?

But she walks behind him, out of sight, and it’s only when he hears the whimpers does he remember the principal. He wouldn’t have been able to shake off the pain from the explosion’s shockwave as easily as the two heroes, which means he wouldn’t have been able to get away.

Which means the girl whose abuse he encouraged is free to do whatever she wants with him.

Eraserhead struggles to force his body to move, but only manages to turn his head so he can see the two of them. The principal is begging, trying to appeal to Midoriya’s dream of being a hero, but she just laughs in his face before twisting the handle of her mallet and causing part of it to stick out at a shallow angle.

“A hero?” She jabs the top of the mallet into the man’s stomach, forcing the air out of him. “That dream is dead.” Her head tilts sharply to the side, her face hidden from Eraserhead’s eyes. But the principal’s isn’t, and he looks terrified. “Just as dead as you.” Her hand pulls on the part sticking out of her mallet, and a loud bang echoes through the hallway, accompanied by the principal’s agonizing screams.

And the girl throws back her head and laughs. A harsh, mocking laugh. A laugh targeted towards those whose beliefs are crumbling in front of their eyes. A laugh from someone who finds those beliefs as pathetic as a water gun against a forest fire.

A laugh from a broken girl who is finally getting back against the people who hurt her.

Then she spins on her foot and makes direct eye contact with Eraserhead as she pulls out a trigger, and his eyes widen at the manic smile stretched across her parting lips.

“Boom bada boom, Eraserhead.” She pushes the button.

And the school explodes.