Years had flown by fast, ten to be exact, since the day my quirk awakened and I blew that creepy deer to hell. Moe was now eighteen, sporting an athletic frame and a defiant spark in her eye, she was preparing to go to U.A university, a prestigious hero college or whatever the hell after finishing our homeschooling. This fucking gonk has been training like hell since the deer thing, always striving to never feel helpless like that again.
I mean I get it, getting your ass saved from you little bro is a little embarrassing, but ever since then she's had this single minded drive to be strong enough to do the protecting. And right now? She'd probably be able to brutalize your average NC gangoon with nothing more than a few kicks and one of her signature blazing headbutts. What had at once only been a deterrent of a flame could now be turned into a small localized wildfire when it came to destructive force.
As she got older her hair became more abundant and responsive, lashing out at will and able to turn stones to slag. I had to be honest, watching her get stronger definitely did help my nerves a bit. I couldn't help it, I had grown protective over the high temp booger, she was like a little sister to me, even if physically she was the older one.
I was proud for her but also worried a fuck ton. I know what combat can get like and honestly I don't want to ever look on the TV to see my sister being maimed by some cracked out supervillain who can just overpower her.
Knowing all this, I couldn't just sit back and not start developing myself as well. I had no plans of being a hero before, partly because I know how selfish I am, willing to burn down a whole city just for one group of people. But Moe had become my reason, my only dream right now is to see her happy and safe.
But knowing my hard headed ass sister she won't drop the hero thing for anyone. It's become her passion, she loves the thrill of using her quirk and the thought that she can be someone else's shield.
I think she's brainwashed, she says it's just what the strong are suppose to do.
Whatever, too much thought not enough sweat.
I heaved myself up again for another rep and drove into the ground to restart the motion of my pushups, the reps were well In the two hundreds. I would have gassed out a while ago had it not been for the synthetic lungs I manifested before I started.
Figured out how to do it when I turned ten, my body had that tingle it did when I first discovered my chrome powers except internally. It soon became instinctive, switching from my fleshy internal bits to the cold familiarity of my upgraded self. My high spec koroshi optics, auditory sensors and diagnostic systems were the only changes I could hold permanently, anything larger was a small but noticeable drain on my stamina as well as costing a massive amount of calories.
The matron wasn't particularly happy with my new appetite but I don't think I've ever seen her smile anyway so she'll just have to deal with it. I gotta get my body stronger if I want to be able to handle my heavier implants in the future.
When I got the power to transform parts of my body to chrome it felt like a massive info dump of all the cyberware I could create into my head. It came in the form of a sort of mental catalog with hundreds of items. The classics, all the pieces I had personally installed were included, my sandy, synaptic reflex system, the synthetic muscle fibers and titanium bones, all at a size fit perfect for the current 14 year old me.
Metabolic editors, second hearts, hell even some preem pieces I had never seen before, everything I could want and more was there, almost.
I saw no full body conversion pieces like Smasher's overpowered ass DaiOni armor or the cyber skeleton that I died in. Another anomaly was the lack of hacking options, only a few lower tier decks that were only really good for recon and data extraction. I don't really mind because they had never really been my style but still the option woulda been nice.
Lucy tried to explain hacking to me once, everything kinda just flew over my head after the first couple minutes. Data this, data that, subroutines or whatever. I only remembered the basics like what pinging a system is and how to tell when someone was trying to hack you, y'know practical stuff. After too long I really only cared to hear what would save my ass when someone was trying to fry me.
But other than that? So long as I had enough calories, I could make basically any piece I could think to need. Fire proof plating, optical camo, hell I'm even able to make a Mr.Studd for the fun of it.
The way I've been training since ten, forcing my muscles past normal limits by replacing my lungs during exercise with superhuman ones, forcing my muscles to adapt to the extra strain of more reps, has made being athletic an understatement. My arms didn't bulge out or anything, no where near my old ones that were as thick as logs but I was still one, fourteen and two training way differently.
Speed, endurance, and manuverability were my focus wholeheartedly, I mean my fire power was nothing to scoff at with all I had at my disposal so I wasn't too worried about how hard I could punch, I only needed enough muscle and room to fit my extra metal bits.
The results made me lean and luckily due to all the stretching, taller. I would say I had an Olympic runners build, with a fuck ton of emphasis on building my back. Simply put having more room made it easier for me to stack cyberware under my armor plating.
Even though using my power transmuted my existing organs, negating the need to worry about overlap, adding things like a second heart in the future would be awkward if my rib cage wasn't big enough to fit it anywhere.
I never knew an addiction quite like cyberware, I had become an expert on the subject damn near. Firstly with my experience in my past life, having to research all my upgrades, and secondly the catalog that gives me the specs on every piece.
I spend most of the time I'm not training, eating, or messing with Moe, focused on learning the mechanics to all my pieces. Doing so let me optimize how many I can store at a time without feeling any bodily strain.
Speaking of strain, I don't think that cyberpsycosis is gonna be an issue anytime soon. My mental state is considerably more stable here than it ever was back home, plus all my chrome is naturally occurring due to my quirk so after a few years my brain learned not to think of the additional metal as foreign, but as a temporary part of me.
It felt great, like my body finally caught up to how I've always felt about the chrome. That it belonged and was part of who I was. That I was a man born to be one with it.
But it was hard to feel special when there were so many other crazy powers out there. I mean even in this tiny orphanage there was a kid who could spawn an inferno from the top of her head like a damn volcano. I had no doubt that there were stronger ones, like whatever the hell that guy All Might has.
I mean seriously, I've only seen him on posters or online but the guy was built like a brick house who sprints. He was taller than Maine and wider than any Animal I had seen back home, and all of this is just looks.
What I've actually seen him do in the videos? It was hard to convince myself this guy was even human. Moe had shown me one of his clips of him holding up an eight story building that had almost been toppled and pushing it back onto its foundation.
I mean it still ended up crumbling but he was able to evacuate everyone before that happened. Anyone could see why people rally behind that kinda strength, the sheer magnitude of it was nothing short of astounding.
I'd bet good money that monster would turn Smasher to scrap metal with a few punches.
That's the typa strength I need to have to protect my idiot sister. Overwhelming and decisive enough to make any villain realize it's better to just go into custody than lay a hand her.
If I have to mutilate a few before they get the picture?
Who cares, I've killed innocents for cash and rep before, to keep jobs clean. Doing the same to some scumbag?
I've done that for free and will probably do it again.
~~~~~~~~~~~
"David, I need to speak with you." The matron gave her default stare, eyes passing through the me.
"Office. Now."
'Fuck, fuck, fuck. What'd I do now? More like what'd Moe blame me for this time. I'm gonna put my foot up her ass when I see her next!'
I got up from my resting spot on the floor and followed her down the hall. It wasn't a far walk but every step made my heart beat a little faster. I couldn't afford to get grounded and lose out on training time, I was seriously starting to get a grasp on using my monowires. Without almost turning myself into an amputee.
She opened the old mahogany door that seemed to spell my immediate doom. I waltzed in with confidence in the fact that I haven't actually done anything. Because frankly, I hadn't.
But something was off, she wasn't in, how do I put it, disciplinary mode I guess. My false confidence was wavering, her expression was one of worry I had only seen on my own mother.
Shit was downright unnerving when I've only seen her stone faced or irritated all these years.
I sat down on the two person couch in front of her desk as she let out what sounded like a breathe of resignation.
"Davi, you're a smart kid, you know this country, hell this world, isn't the safest of places."
I nodded as she continued, " But what you guys see on TV is just the start of it. Not all villains are caught, most of their actions done behind closed doors. Some slip away and others are scrubbed from history because their existence would cause mass panic. "
"Well yeah you've already told me this before, villains use the cover of night and low population areas to do the majority of their crime. The scrubbed part though, just how bad could they have been that they had to be erased?" Literally last week it was on live television a 15 foot crocodile dude ripping through an occupied public bus, and he was front page news. What type of damage did these other guys cause that was so gruesome it would send people into a panic if they knew?
My initial worry was beginning to melt away as this was starting to sound like your usual 'being a hero isn't a game' thing and there's always a bigger fish, don't think yourself invincible.
I was wrong. It was a warning. One I should heed. I always just brushed them off in the last life and look where that got me.
"There is a man among them, the top dog of the underworld of sorts. His power allows him to around collecting people and quirks like commodities, passing them out as he pleases. He's been doing so for almost two whole centuries." Her tone was expressly solemn, she looked at me like she wished the words would never have had to leave her lips.
A million questions raced through my head, all along the lines of; 'What the fuck do you mean taking powers? For how fucking long again? And why are you even bringing this up? I'm small fry to anyone that's been stockpiling fucking superpowers for a century and a half.'
The matron looked torn between pride and anguish as she cut me off before the questions could be verbalized.
"Your quirk is one the man would salivate to have, either for himself or one of his lackeys, Super speed, an arsenal of weapons, invisibility, a durable shell and whatever that whip thing is that slices through stone like butter, he would covet all of it. Your baseline is exactly the type of weapon he wants in his hit squads."
She didn't say it but her face was screaming she knows all of this from a personal experience. I had my suspicions she was a little shady over the years but this damn near confirms she had some history with this demon geezer.
A burning sense of Déjà vu filled me, wasn't that how I died last time, cause some shadowy figure from up top coveted my 'talent'? Why do I keep attracting creepy old men? 'This shit is getting really fucking annoying' would be an understatement.
First it was Tanaka and good ol uncle Saka looming over my shoulder, trying to coax me back to them to be a lab rat. Then when Kurosaki got his mitts on me he tried to fry my brain, make me a cyber psycho, and record the aftermath, then again with arasaka because that slimy fuck Faraday wanted to use me like a bargaining chip in the cyberskeleton.
And I remember clearly how that went. Getting flatlined by that damn demon possessed tin can.
Now there's some boogeyman out there who's set to do the same thing or worse should he discover me? Gimme a damn break.
I was snapped from spiral by her next sentence.
" Your a young man now Davi, I won't tell you to give up being a hero. I can see it in your face you care more about your sister then you let on, you wouldn't let her go out and do this alone."
The matrons voice steadied with grim determination as she rested her chin upon her folded hands.
" Just remember you have to look out for yourself to. Double because of the target on your back. Show me that your strong enough to afford worrying about anyone else."
I was looking into her ruby irises now, prepared to retort but was shut down by the way she was looking at me, not the eyes of the aloof matron or concerned guardian, but a look I recognized at a glance.
It was the gaze of someone who was used to death and a fuck tonof it at that. A gaze unwilling to watch it happen to one of her own.
"One on one training starts tomorrow, 4:30 am. Meet my by the entrance to the woods in the back."