Chapter Text
'For someone that only had a quirk that made them physically stronger, he sure managed to set a lot of stuff on fire.' Malkuth thought to herself, looking at the wreckage of what used to be a shopping district on the outskirts of Kyoto.
"Hello? Anyone still here?" Why did she bother yelling that out loud? What kind of hero asks if villains are still around? What, is she going to start asking people in burning buildings if they consent to getting their lives saved before she helps them?
Passing through a charred torii that appeared to have been split down the middle by a blunt object passing through it and down a short stone stairwell, Malkuth took in her new surroundings and could immediately see a difference in her surroundings. The first example she could name is the absolute lack of fire engulfing this zone, which was explained by the second thing she noticed, which is the fact that everything was absolutely soaked. If Malkuth didn't know a drought was currently gripping the country she now resided in, she would've assumed a very localized hurricane just blew through the area.
Wading through the ankle high water towards the center of town, she reflected on the past few days of her new career. Getting licensed was disappointingly easy after overhearing a bunch of civilians talk about how difficult going pro is. Helping out with building the new agency was rather tedious, even if it only took a day and a half between Netzach's and Gebura's new quirks. And the past few days of patrols has amounted to nothing more than her standing still and letting villains and crooks hit her until they knocked themselves out.
Maybe people in this universe never found out that drinking lead laced water makes them dumb? She'd have to look that up later, she thought as she skirted around a broken pipe spewing even more water into the growing pond below it.
As she finally reached the end of the plaza-turned-pond, she could already hear sounds of a struggle at the top of the staircase. Turning towards it, she could already see spouts of water getting shot into the air from two separate directions before one spout of water suddenly disappeared and she heard a woman scream in fear. Before she could even take a single step towards the staircase, she saw the body of a man in a black jumpsuit wearing a smashed red helmet get tossed above the staircases railing.
Running towards the plummeting man, Malkuth grabbed him right before he impacted the ground while twisting her entire upper torso to the side so she could headbutt the cracked pavement at the same moment she intercepted the hopefully unconscious man.
Ignoring the large hole she just blasted into the earth along with all the dirty water and grit she now had stuck in her hair, she quickly checked the man for a pulse before quickly laying him on top of a picnic table that hadn't managed to get broken or overturned in the recent chaos.
Jumping to the top of the staircase, the first thing she thought when she saw the man mercilessly beating the downed woman was that he almost looked like Gebura when she had first gotten her quirk. His entire body was a writing mass of muscular tendrils, the only features Malkuth still able to make out being his bleached white head of hair and the bloody gap where his left eye once was.
Before the man could land another blow on the battered woman, she tossed a brick at his head to get his attention before chasing the brick towards him. The brick made him stop reeling his punch back and look up towards her, which was fortunate because it let her land an easy blow on the weakest part of his face. She didn't expect him to instinctively try swatting at her when she got within arms reach, but she wouldn't look a gift horse in the mouth. Catch his left arm with her shoulder, she immediately planted her legs into the earth and extended her right arm out straight, sloppily palming the center of his chest. Feeling the amount of pressure his blow exerted, she could see why so many people said he could exchange blows with the top heroes in the world.
Too bad he couldn't take what he dished out, she idly thought to herself as she watched him get sent flying across the entire plaza.
After watching the man go careening off through a nearby building, she quickly checked the woman to make sure she was still alive. Seeing her open her eyes before quickly looking at everything she could see, Malkuth could tell that she had just been briefly knocked unconscious.
"Y-you need to get out of here. Muscular's gonna be back any moment!" The woman hoarsely croaked up at her, seemingly misunderstanding her decking Muscular across the plaza as him deciding to leave on his own.
"Don't worry ma'am, there's nothing to fear! For I am here!" God, did she really just say that? She knew she should've thought of a catchphrase on the way over here. Hoping the woman either didn't hear her say that or just decided to ignore it, she immediately tried lifting the woman up, only to stop when she started to scream in pain.
"I'm sorry ma'am, but I'll need to wait for help to arrive before I can move you." Maybe you could grab a discarded piece of rubble and slide her onto that and carry her out that way? On one hand, your first major outing as a hero would end with you carrying a woman like a fresh pizza. On the other hand, at least you'd be doing something helpful.
"No! You need to get out of here! Just leave me and run." The woman yelled at her, a look of pure terror encompassing her face.
"I'm not leaving you until you get medical treatment. I refuse." You'd probably even stick around even after she gets treated, unless they need help moving Muscular.
"Dammit! This is no time to play hero. Just get the hell out of here! You're too young to be taking some last stand." The woman begged her to leave, tears now streaming down her eyes. "Do you have some kinda death wish?! Kids like you shouldn't be putting their lives on the line."
"I'm not playing hero, ma'am. I just got my license a few days ago." And you're just going to ignore the kid comment for now. That's one topic you'd rather not approach for a while. "And I promise you, the only thing about to experience a last stand is Muscular's knee caps." Right after you say that you hear a slow groaning noise, as if two pieces of concrete were getting grinded together.
"Haha, wow! For such a small girl, you sure pack quite the fuckin' punch. If I didn't know any better, I would've thought All Might had just bitch slapped me." As you watch, you see the pile of rubble you smashed Muscular through shatter from muscular tendrils wrapping around them, before you watch him rise from the pile of crushed debris.
"It's almost a shame you're playing pretend and trying to save this worthless bargain bin hero. How about this. If you crush her skull right now, I'll let you live. Make it messy enough and maybe I'll even take you on as an apprentice!" Despite spending the majority of her life dealing with the literal nightmares of humanity, Malkuth still was amazed at just how depraved regular humans could get.
"You should do it. At least then you'd get to live." The broken woman lying behind her mumbled, already looking as if she had all but accepted her imminent death. Watching this woman lie against the pavement staring at nothing in particular made Malkuth decide there was only one possible ending to this fight.
She was going to break Muscular's body to rebuild this woman's hope.
"Ha! Even the trash knows when it deserves to get taken out to the curb. Well? Are you waiting for a damn permission slip or something? If you want I can sign one in her blood for you."
"Enough. You're nothing but a thug that thinks he can run around and throw a tantrum and make the whole world go along with it. If you think I'd let you leave, let alone join you, then you're delusional beyond hope." Man, she really hoped she was getting this hero thing down correct. Maybe she should've done more research besides watching old action movies before getting her license?
"Eh? Do you have a death wish? Do you even know what you're doing? I'm offering you a free out here. All you have to do is crush a bug and you're home free." Muscular yelled at her with a shit-eating grin, still not realizing the time he had left before he went to prison until he died of old age could be counted in minutes.
"I know exactly what I'm doing. I'm stopping a villain from making the world a worse place!" Pointing one arm up at the sky, she stood as straight as possible before lowering it down to point at Muscular. "Fear me, if you dare!"
"Heh. This is gonna be fun." Muscular was already moving before he was even finished speaking. Running at a speed belaying his overwhelming size, he jumped far enough into the air that the entire plaza became momentarily cast in shadows from his body eclipsing the sun. Spinning slightly in the air from the excess momentum of his jump, he lifted the writhing mass of tendons he called an arm as high above his head as he could stretch with his extended muscles before bringing it down on top of her head like an executioner's sword. Deciding to not even bother trying to meet him in the middle or land a blow on his torso, she instead held both arms above her head in an X shape to absorb as much of the force as possible before getting sent to her knees the moment it connected with her. Leaning back slightly with her entire right leg and her left knee bracing her against the plaza, she raised her fingers towards him and activated her quirk.
She heard him break before she felt it, and she felt it before she heard it. The sound of a hundred small twigs cracking from being thrown in a raging bonfire and the hissing noise of a pot of boiling water overflowing and touching the burner. The feeling of boiling blood being splattered across her entire upper body from the bones in his arm piercing his skin and his veins expanding due to the extended heat and pressure they were now under followed almost immediately after. And finally, she saw him flying directly into the sky leaving a trail of blood desperately trying to catch up to it's former owner and a dark trail of smoke in his wake after she quickly wiped his blood out of her eyes.
She knew from personal experience that if she were to breathe in that trail of smoke, it'd smell like copper and pork.
"Well, that went well." Better late than never, as Roland would probably say. At least she stopped the villain! As far as first major battles go, it could've been worse. At least she saved both the heroes he was fighting. She still felt like she was forgetting something important though.
Feeling the ground shake from Muscular's mangled body impacting it at terminal velocity reminded her about one important detail about hero work in this world.
"Oh yeah, I was supposed to take him in alive."
"You're very lucky Muscular survived his impact with the Earth. If he was in the air for even a few seconds longer his quirk would've worn off enough to make the fall lethal." The yellow skinned cop taking her report of the event told her, already finishing off the initial paperwork.
"Yeah, that would've been quite the tragedy." You say while nodding your head. You would hate your heroic career to start off with getting fined, or even worse, put on probation! Who's ever heard of a hero that had to take sensitivity courses?
"Tragedy is a bit of a stretch." Watching the cop's skin turn bright orange, she wondered how long this would take before they'd let her go. She kind of wanted to go home and take a shower and get this nasty lead water out of her hair. Could lead water make you stupid if you absorbed it into your skin? Yet another thing to look up later.
"Listen, I'm only giving you the ring around because you're new, you got your license from the government version of a document vending machine, and probably haven't learned anything worth remembering yet. To give it to you straight, you did good kid. You could've popped Muscular like a balloon and the most you would've gotten is a slap on the wrist." If she called Netzach right now could he get here fast enough to roll back the clock enough to do that? Probably not. Better forget about it. "The fact you took down an A-class villain within your first week is basically unheard of."
"Oh, it was nothing! I just did what anyone would've done. Probably?" Now that you think about it, most people probably wouldn't have accidentally boiled someone else's blood, villain or not. You should probably learn a little restraint.
"Doubtful. Most heroes would've hid in a corner and waited till backup arrived. Hell, a few might've even taken his deal!" As the cop's skin turned red, she wondered if she could've gotten a better deal if she roughed him up first. Maybe she could've had him tell her where his ill gotten gains were before pummeling him? She'll have to remember that idea. "The fact that you stood your ground speaks volumes about you. A lot of the first responders are already calling you the next All Might."
"I know, one of the paramedics asked me for an autograph. He seemed awfully miffed when I told him off for ignoring the person he was helping to talk to me." The expression on his face when she signed the victim's cast instead of his notebook was almost as funny as the expression on Muscular's face when she spiked him like a ball.
"The fact that you refused to socialize and pose for the cameras is exactly why people are saying you're the next All Might. Most heroes nowadays are too worried about networking or socializing. Not nearly enough of them do what you do." He nodded towards the herd of ambulances in the parking lot across from them.
"Flash fry bad guys?"
"You know what I was referring to. Saving lives. And most of the ones that do bother fighting instead of fleeing would still rather handle villains with kid gloves out of fear of causing any lasting harm to them. Afraid it'll hurt their public persona." She and the cop both stood there in silence for a moment, watching the reds and blues of the countless flashing lights reflect off of the countless puddles left behind from the Water Hose duo trying to stop Muscular's onslaught.
"It might be poor form to talk badly about them while they are still in the ER, but the Water Hose duo are a good example of what I'm referring to. Those water jets of their are no joke. Hell, one of them managed to blast a hole in Muscular's face." Ah, so that's why Muscular was missing an eye. She just assumed it was from a previous fight. "And yet, the second they drew blood they got scared and refused to harm him any further. Do you think either of them would be in critical condition in the hospital if they tried seeing how deep of a hole their water jets could drill into his head?"
Turning away from the view of the cop cars finally starting to pull out, the cop turned to stare down at Malkuth, watching her idly swing her legs while still sitting on the ledge she had been perched on since they first arrived.
"Just promise me you won't let anyone pressure you into conducting yourself in a way that goes against anything you believe in. People might heckle you for popping a villain like a balloon, but I'd personally rather have a villains blood on my hands than an innocent civilians." Realizing that this conversation was almost over, she finally leaned forward and hopped off the rail she was sitting on for the past hour before turning to the cop.
"You know I didn't need you to tell me any of that, right? I already drew my line in the sand when I became a hero. I'm going to be the best hero I can possibly be, no matter what it takes. If this means broiling a few villains along the way, then so be it." Turning to watch the second to last cop car pull out of the parking lot, she turned back to the cop she was talking to, noticing that his skin was now a softly glowing turquoise.
"I refuse to let anyone suffer near me suffer a single moment of injustice. As long as I can move my arms, I'll punch down anyone that tries taking advantage of those less fortunate. And if I lose my arms, I'll just kick them aside!" She yelled into the air, kicking a stray rock off of the ledge and into the darkness below.
"Well, at least you're energetic. That has to count for something in this line of work." The cop said, shaking his head at the strange girl yelling into the night. Turning around to head back to his car, the cop stopped before turning back towards her while reaching into her inner jacket.
"May I ask you one last thing, Malkuth?" Finally finding what he was looking for, the cop pulled out a worn journal and a marker.
"As long as it isn't more pseudo-philosophy, sure." Leaning against the cracked ledge, she tilted her head towards him slightly.
"Can I have your autograph? I've got a feeling that I'm gonna be hearing about you a lot from my daughters. Might as well get them one ahead of time."
Smiling slightly to herself, she took the marker and started writing her signature onto the page he flipped to. "Sure, but only because you waited until everyone was helped before asking for one."