[64: Would You Kindly?]
"Eleanor, are you sure this person is good to have on the team? I'm really doubting this," Lady Nagant asked Eleanor.
After recruiting Toga, they returned to the base. And Toga got off to quite the start with Lady Nagant. Toga immediately asked to drink her blood, which Lady Nagant refused on the spot. She had been distancing herself from Toga for as long as she'd been there, but Toga was more than willing to "get close" with her new friend. It certainly made the few days that passed more "fun."
"Kaina, I know how it looks, but it's not so bad. We can get some blood packs from a pharmacy or 'strategically transfer' some from a blood donation center. You do know they sell blood packs at pharmacies for people with blood-related quirks, right? Look at Vlad King; his quirk is all about his blood, just like Toga here. It makes you wonder why Vlad King isn't feared, but Toga is when their quirks are similar. Also, Vlad King needs a lot of blood, or else he'd pass out, but I'll just assume his body is adapted to his quirk, since it would explain so much with a lot of quirk users, not that it helps in any way," Eleanor said as she was looking for the next person to recruit. He would be a nice addition. She wondered if this was how it felt when football teams poached players from other teams and leagues. In this case, it was the League of Villains, or someone who should've been there.
"Vlad King. He's the one who can control his own blood and is able to solidify it instantly, right? Does he do it by freezing?" Lady Nagant shook her head a bit to refocus. "You're right. He expels his own blood from his body, but no one really fears him for that. And Toga is feared for…drinking blood? One of these should be scarier than the other. Well, putting aside her crimes and all, of course."
Eleanor laughed a little before she started explaining. "Freezing? No, Kaina. Vlad King doesn't freeze his blood when he solidifies it. If he did, he and everyone around him would be vaporized and die. If he really did solidify his quirk with thermal freezing, the energy required to remove heat from the blood to solidify it nearly instantly would be in the gigawatt range. And don't get me started on the process of turning the blood back into a liquid. Anyway, an average individual nuclear reactor produces one gigawatt of energy at any given time; Vlad King would need energy equivalent to a nuclear power plant to solidify his blood by freezing. The more plausible explanation would be either ultra-rapid coagulation or shear-thickening fluid dynamics. Of the two, I'd put my money on ultra-rapid coagulation. It's more likely that Vlad King is manipulating fibrinogen and platelets, or the proteins responsible for blood clotting, to turn his blood from a liquid into a sort of gel or solid scab, and his quirk is merely boosting this biological mechanism by acting as an instantaneous biochemical catalyst, forcing the proteins in his blood to hyper-polymerize into ultra-dense, rigid protein matrices on command. And the energy cost isn't anywhere near the nuclear power level as thermal freezing requires, but that solve all the other problems he definately has, like blood contamination, his chronic health issues, or his immune system."
(A/N: She did the thing again. Not that it isn't interesting, though. I kind of want her to discuss those last three.)
Lady Nagant nodded slowly. "Yeah, okay, got it." She didn't understand much, but she went along. "So, how is the search coming along for this new person?"
Eleanor watched the monitors as the mass surveillance algorithm scanned the entire city. Anyone who appeared as a match would have their information dug up and presented. "Just give it a bit of time. He'll be found."
"Oh! Are we getting another friend‽" Toga came up behind Eleanor and Lady Nagant as they watched the monitors. She bounced a little bit and had her hand on her face in excitement.
Eleanor smiled. 'Yeah, we're getting a new friend, Toga. He'll fit right into our little team and group. And he's also looking for a friend and someone he can be with and be accepted for who they are. Just like you, Toga."
Toga paused a little, a smile still on her face. "How exciting!" She clapped her hands in excitement. "Can I go with the two of you?"
"Hmm…sure, of course you can, Toga. And we'll get you some blood on the way back. Go and prepare, but don't expect any fighting or anything," Eleanor said.
"Yay!" Toga quickly left to go prepare for her first mission.
"I still don't know if she's…stable enough, Eleanor. And I know this isn't exactly an area for me to be talking about, but…she is a bad person. You know that, right?" Lady Nagant said.
"Yes. Yes, she is. But 'bad' people always get what's coming to them, and it depends on what you count as 'bad' anyway, since morality is subjective in the first place. If some people knew what we were doing or were going to do, there'd be a lot of mixed opinions," Eleanor said.
Lady Nagant was quiet for a moment, thinking, before she responded. "Are you a religious person, Eleanor?"
"Yeah, I am. Maybe a bit surprising, since I consider myself someone of science and all that, but yeah, I consider myself a religious person. Or well, I certainly believe in the divine and all that. I've had quite a…powerful experience. I'll just leave it at that," Eleanor said. "Anyway, you should go prepare as well, Kaina." (A/N: This totally isn't something that would cause an argument or anything like that⸮)
Lady Nagant nodded before leaving.
Eleanor continued looking at the monitor before a ping finally got her attention. He'd been found. The monitors synced up a live feed from a drone as it monitored him. It was a shady-looking apartment, clearly not in a good area.
'Time for another addition. The League of Villains is the gift that keeps on giving,' Eleanor thought to herself as the details were sent to her tablet.
⁂ (A/N: This thing looks cool. Will be the new transition thing or whatever they're called from now on.)
In a rundown apartment, someone was on the verge of an identity crisis. He was scratching his head, his thoughts running wild and fragmented. He was alone, but not really alone. He was quite literally "alone" by himself.
Everything stopped when there was a sudden knock. He stopped and looked at the door. Why would anyone knock at his door at a place like this?
He walked to the door and looked through the peephole. He didn't see anyone there.
'Probably some jokers,' he thought to himself.
Just when left, there was another knock on his door. This time, when he looked through the peephole, he saw a blonde-haired girl waving her hands in front of her. She had a smile on her face and was excited.
'What?' He thought to himself.
"Hey, we know you're in there! Just let us in and we can have a lot of fun!" The muffled voice of the girl came from outside the door.
'Someone's after me.' He ignored the door and prepared to leave, but as soon as he tried to leave through the window, the glass shattered, and an impact could be heard as splinters and shards covered the floor. He froze for a second and looked down. It was a bullet impact.
"Just let us in! We won't hurt you, and we have no intentions of doing so! You can trust us!" The same voice of the blonde-haired girl could be heard behind the door again.
'They got me trapped here already. Unless…I can try to rush out of here! Make enough clones and I'll survive! Wait, would it even be me that survives? Or one of the other ones?' He was stuck thinking again.
"Hey, come on! Open the door already! We're getting tired of standing out here!" It was her again. She knocked louder.
He shook his head and finally answered. "And if I don't open the door?!" He asked loudly.
"Then we'll just kick it down." The voice of another girl, much calmer than the other one, could be heard.
'Wasn't there only one outside?' He asked himself. But if whoever these people were were willing to shoot a bullet at him, then they really would kick the door down.
He walked to his door, grabbed the doorknob, took a deep breath, and opened it. There, in front of the door, were Toga and Eleanor.
"It's good to finally meet, Jin Bubaigawara. Let's have a conversation. Would you kindly let us in?" Eleanor stepped forward and asked.
"Uh…sure," Jin said. It's not like he had much of a choice either way.