The abandoned industrial district on the far northern outskirts of Yokohama had long since been erased from public maps, zoning registries, and municipal memory. Decades ago, the factories here had processed heavy chemicals until a series of structural failures and corporate bankruptcies left the entire sector a skeleton of what it once was. Nature had tried to reclaim it, but the soil was too poisoned; only pale, brittle weeds grew from the fissures in the concrete.
The roads leading here were overgrown, choked by collapsed power lines and the detritus of a forgotten economic era. To any passing drone or satellite, it was just another dead zone in a nation currently suffocating under a dozen different crises.
And yet, deep beneath the cracked foundations of this derelict locomotive assembly plant, there was running electricity. And not a small amount either. Someone .... or something ... was drawing enough power to rival a medium-sized commercial facility.
Hence why three figures crouched behind the rusted shell of an overturned freight container were overlooking the factory grounds. Still finding it difficult to understand why they had been assigned to this in the middle of nowhere while mosquitoes the size of helicopters tried to drain your blood.
Support Hero Sledge, slapped his neck. "Ow! Son of a—"
"Will you shut up?" the woman beside him hissed. "Have you forgotten that this is a stakeout?"
Sledge lowered his hand, glaring at her. "What are you complaining about? For all we know, it could be a security system by a villain whose quirk can control mosquitoes."
The woman closed her eyes and inhaled deeply. Her name was Aoi. Twenty-eight. Five years in the profession. In those five years, she had somehow been assigned to babysit idiots more often than actual villains while the rest of their colleagues had much more important assignments.
Just then, the third member of their team lowered the scanner in his hands. "I've got it."
Both heroes looked over. "And?"
"Well, it's definitely originating from the central structural floor of that main assembly building," the third member, a sensory sidekick named Kazu, said as he adjusted the focus on his heat-signature lenses.
"Not just that. The temperature is several degrees higher than the surrounding area."
"Could it be geothermal?" Aoi frowned.
"No."
"Villains then." Sledge uttered, equipping his support gear.
"A hidden lab, or maybe a server farms for brokers?"
"Could be anything," Kazu muttered, shaking his head.
The prefecture dispatch hadn't given them any context. They just saw the regional utility charts screaming about a phantom substation drain and threw the nearest available low-priority patrol at it. Which, unfortunately was them.
"Just great." Teshima (Sledge) sighed. "So, how do we do this?"
"We stick to protocol," Aoi replied impatiently. "I lead. Sledge, take the flank. Kazu, you stay behind and keep that scanner live. If the ambient voltage spikes, you tell us before we walk into a grounded trap. Got it?" Aoi exchanged a glance with Teshima.
The latter nodded. "Let's go."
Moments later, the massive steel doors groaned as they slid open. Dust floated through the flashlight beams. Stepping in, Teshima immediately regretted entering.
The smell hit first. A deadly mix of chemicals. Rot. Burned flesh and something metallic. Aoi wrinkled her nose.
"Ugh... The hell is that smell?" Teshima looked seconds away from throwing up. "I think I'm gonna ..."
"Don't you dare." Aoi uttered, glaring at him. How could someone be this unreliable?
The warehouse stretched far deeper than expected. There were rows of crates, broken machinery and scattered cables. Until her flashlight drifted left.
Instantly, her expression drastically changed.
"What the ..." Teshima followed the light and froze, his hand instinctively dropping to his support belt.
The sight before his eyes? Huge glass cylinders.
Massive, green-tinted cylindrical glass tanks lined the interior of the facility like the ribs of some ancient, techno-organic leviathan.
Each tank was easily ten feet tall, connected to a complex web of thick copper pipes and pulsing pneumatic tubes that ran along the ceiling. At first glance, there seemed to be more than two dozen rows.
"My god." Most of the cylinders had shattered, their thick glass shards littered across the floor amidst puddles of stagnant, foul-smelling chemical fluid. Others were entirely intact, the dark green liquid inside bubbling rhythmically from automated aeration valves.
"Those are ..." And inside the liquid floated the nightmares that had broken hero society.
Grotesque, muscular figures floated in the amniotic fluid. Their bodies were an unnatural patchwork of dark, leather-like flesh, exposed brains, and elongated skulls.
"... Nomu."
The general public were well aware of these bioengineered creatures by now, as well as what they were made from. Aoi didn't reply. Her flashlight hand had gone still as the beam trembled on the nearest tank.
"No way." Sledge uttered at the sight before him. "There's more of these things? I thought All For One was dead."
"He is. This must be one of his hidden labs, or a new one recently created by the league of villains." Aoi replied though it was most likely the former.
Her brows furrowed as she drew closer to the glass. Inside floated a humanoid variant with six disproportionate arms, a completely smooth, with no eyes and a chest cavity.
"To think we'd run into this while investigating a power drain."
Sledge swallowed, the urge to throw up climbed his throat again. "There's... there's dozens of them," he muttered. "How the hell did nobody find this place?"
Aoi didn't answer, her eyes wandering around the warehouse. Then, she noticed something. On the floor were fresh footprints.
Instantly, her pupils narrowed. "Sledge." Teshima looked over. The footprints were recent. Very recent. Some large. Some small. All of different sizes. Along with the shattered tanks, abandoned equipment and power still running, someone had definitely been here recently.
Her hand immediately flew to the communicator at her ear. "Kazu," she said sharply. "Get dispatch on the line immediately. We found—"
Static buzzed on the other end.
Aoi froze.
"Kazu?" she repeated. Nothing.
Her expression darkened.
"Kazu, answer me."
Still nothing.
"Shit, this is ..."
Scratch.
The sound was incredibly faint, but in the dead silence of the warehouse, it sounded especially audible.
Clack.
A soft sound echoed from above. Both heroes snapped their heads upward.
Their flashlights swept toward the elevated steel walkways crossing the upper levels of the warehouse.
"Who's there?!" Teshima bellowed, his voice bouncing off the corrugated iron walls. "Identify yourself! This area is under federal quarantine!" Silence stretched for five agonizing seconds. The only response was the steady drip-drip-drip of a leaking pipe somewhere on the left flank. Then... a voice answered.
"You heroes..." A figure stepped out of the darkness, right into the beam of the flashlight.
Aoi yelled. "Stay where you are, villain. You're .." her voice halted as what came into view was a mess of shaggy, unwashed white hair and a young man with a hunched posture and dark clothes tattered and covered in dust. A severed, pale plaster hand was clamped firmly over his face, hands and shoulders like a terrifying mask. Through the narrow gaps between the plaster fingers, a single red eye gleamed with a searing, unblinking hatred.
Teshima's eyes widened. "Tomura Shigar .." The atmosphere in the warehouse transformed. Teshima's words caught in his throat as the air grew thick, cold, and heavy. The next second, the entire warehouse morphed, quite literally in their sights and began tumbling. An intense sense of Vertigo assaulted their senses.
"Hehe .. Are you Shloshed ..." A voice rang in the warehouse as both fell to their knees.
"Dammit! A quirk .." Aoi quickly realized what was going on.
Inside the warehouse, sitting on a crate, Deidoro poured a bottle of whiskey down his throat, the liquid overflowing without a care.
"Your legsh are probasblyy shaking now ..."
"This is bad." Sledge uttered through gritted teeth.
"Sledgehammer." His hands transformed rapidly into two giant sledgehammers. Then proceeded to swing one at the enemy without delay.
The metallic hands swung through the air and crashed right into a crate on the upper floor ten meters away from Shigaraki.
BANG
'Dammit! My equilibrium is all messed up.'
"Tch." Tomura's voice echoed softly through the warehouse.
"More trash that don't know when to stop snooping." Scratch. Scratch. Scratch.
Teshima looked up, only to see the object of his attack watching without making any further moves. The man in question, had his four fingers dug viciously into the raw, inflamed skin of his neck, his nails drawing thin lines of blood that ran down his collar.
Scratch.
"Why do you people always do that?" Shigaraki muttered, his voice dropping into a rasp. "By all rights, you should have more important things to deal with. I've heard you're pretty short staffed recently."
"The world is a complete mess out there. The streets are empty, society is bleeding, and yet you just keep scrounging around. Walking into places you don't belong... touching things you don't understand."
"You heroes..." Shigaraki's single visible eye tracked slowly between the two of them. "...always do that."
A voice from somewhere above and to the left, hidden comfortably in the shadows of the elevated walkway fell into their ears. "Curiosity, I suppose. Though I must confess, it does seem rather poorly timed on their part. Wandering into places like this while the country is in such a spectacular state of disarray. One would think the present climate might encourage a certain... professional restraint."
Shigaraki didn't look up. "It's a mystery, Compress." He tilted his head slightly to one side. "Though it won't be one they get to sit with for very long."
Aoi heard every word. She didn't waste time processing them. "Move!" She grabbed Teshima by the collar and hauled him sideways, the vertigo making every movement feel like running through deep water.
Her quirk activated on instinct.
Weight Release. Temporarily shedding every kilogram of mass from her own frame, turning her body functionally weightless. It didn't fix the equilibrium damage but it eliminated the physical drag required to escape. In moments, they were outside the warehouse. The next moment however, her feet stopped flat.
Blocking the exit path were two figures who hadn't been there five minutes ago. On the left stood a hulking, broad-shouldered giant, his knuckles wrapped in thick bandages, his face twisted into a massive, bloodthirsty grin.
The man on the right however was much smaller but more horrifying to look at. Wearing a dark, heavy coat, his jawline and arms carried a horrific patchwork of purple, burnt skin held together by crude surgical staples.
Dabi smiled. "Going somewhere?"
Aoi's legs coiled. "Wait—!"
FWOOOOOOOM.
A sudden, blinding blue heat erupted from his palms engulfing them in a split second.