Red Finger: Operation Murder Heist
[Soundtrack: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hBie-xdbLeM ]
Mochi Uranus, the Dark Weasel
It’s a busy throng, swirling between the Kinokuniya bookstore and the Kyoto Xpresso Café, positioned on opposite sides of the street. Rising above the squat Kyoto rooftops, their chatter, shouting and jeering create noise pollution that irritates the general populace, nuisance leeches that they are. To avoid any traffic coming through, two police cars have quarantined vehicle access on either side of the block. At any time, the two competing fangroups might throw a coffee at the other and splatter a car window, or push someone into traffic. That’d be hilarious, watching one of these useless hero- worshiping clowns get isekai’d under a truck.
Only select vehicles have been permitted entry: food trucks and carts profiting from the event. So what if some idiot ends up throwing their Takoyaki at another idiot? It’s more money in the cook’s pocket when they buy another one. Mochi sits at one of the tables outside of the café, wearing cheap Impakt cosplay, his cyber-leg supports hidden beneath the costume. The costume comes with its own gloves, perfect for leaving as small a DNA fingerprint on the scene as possible. Smiling to himself, Mochi thanks Hayasaka-sensei’s advanced crime scene investigation course for teaching him exactly what to do.
He’s already been on the receiving end of an earlier food fight, the splatter of red bean paste on the side of his helmet left behind by a thrown ningyo-yaki. The wasteful discarding of food by these fat bourgeois pigs makes Mochi relish the day when he can make them choke on their own vomit. When Mochi pops another piece of Takoyaki into his mouth, and decides that the cooks will be spared.
Zyra Mein, Zombie
Or maybe Zombie Queen, to differentiate herself from the number of common street thugs with gross powers wearing the name around. Stepping out of a clothing store in a fine dress and stylish matching gloves, Zyra swings a parasol over her shoulder. Yellow star-shaped sunglasses rest on her face, but even if they fell off, Imamu’s makeup artist made sure her eyes were made up to look suitably Asian. Her hair, too, has been dyed black.
Zyra didn’t understand at first why they couldn’t just use her power to sweep through Japan and reduce it to rubble. The goddess she is should not need to hide her face and crawl among the mortal swine. Turning up her nose at the sweaty smell of the Conman and Impakt fanbases wafting up on the wind, she decides she means these ones in particular.
”Hold them under your spell forever, and you will rule but a mob of drooling drones,” Imamu had reasoned to her in his wise, gentle voice. “A goddess deserves followers who understand her majesty.” And with the same gentleness and a soft smile he asserted, “Besides. It will be far more satisfying to look into the eyes of your enemy, in the moment they understand how little chance they fared.”
The words recall to mind now, and she spins the accessory on her shoulder, the patterns beneath its hood creating lovely patterns behind her, she is sure. The back streets behind the bookstore and café are guarded by private security working for the respective Hero Agencies, and it’s their job to patrol for the very kind of play the Red Finger is carrying out today.
All it takes is for Zyra to pass by the men at the alley mouths, and traces of her aura cling invisibly to them, gradually dulling their senses and intellect. Then, the challenge becomes holding her Quirk in the goldilocks zone. In the past, as Braindrain, she had simply let it run rampant and picked from the leftovers of the chaos like a scavenger. Now, Zyra finds herself needing to hold back. To balance the scale in a place where they are too dimwitted to be of any use in their jobs, but not tip over the edge and cause them to go feral on the crowd.
In a way, the mental exercise is refreshing. Like she’s finally broken free from rotting in a rut, and begun to realize her true potential.
Red Finger Agent, Kester Greenfield
Standing in the back room of an empty self-serve laundromat, Kester holds onto a pair of boulders- each roughly the size of a human torso. The place is locked up for the day. Sign on the door says closed for maintenance. Really Imamu just bought it and gave Kester the key. Using one of his ‘front groups’ or something. Kester doesn’t pay attention to those details much. Imamu gives him ways to fuck the world, and fuck Japan in particular and that’s just fine.
Flexing his shoulders, Kester waits for the signal to make Conman eat dirt.
Supervandal Mythopoesis
Across the alley behind Xpresso Café is a cheap apartment building, as many livable spaces tucked into as little space as possible. Exactly the sort of brutalist monument Mytho would love to take apart and put back together in a more interesting way. Not today, though. Today he’s got an important job to do! And this whole thing is itself a work of art. Mytho dubbed it: Operation Murder Heist. Imamu even laughed and okayed the name. Man, it’s so good to work with people who appreciate you.
Wearing a broad-rimmed white hat and a matching suit, with a black facemask to conceal his appearance and a pair of black gloves to boot, it’s the first time Mytho has bothered with a real costume. Normally though, he’s not at risk of being seen next to a hulking eight-foot-tall oni-masked guy right before a major crime. He could get used to looking this stylish though. The sweet, coppery taste of Mytho’s honey lingers on his tongue as he licks his lips. All he had to make for this job is a pittance compared to his usual feature presentations, and it’s not left him feeling drained like he just came off of a three-week bender. That’s a perk. So is having a cushy hideout to go back to after coming off of a pseudo-three-week bender of an art project.
The apartment building has a camera that may or may not be for show. Either way, Mytho encased it in a lightweight aluminum shell before they came in. Flipping to a new page in his book- all about structural engineering, which he’s been able to study more seriously ever since running into his new sugar villain. So far the boss has just been paying people to crunch the math for him, but Mytho hopes one day he won’t need them stifling his creative vision to keep things sturdy and stable.
“Dark Weasel in position, eyes on Floor,” a voice in Mytho’s earpiece interrupts his reading.
“Zombie in position.”
“AGENT GREENFIELD. IN POSITION.”
“Showtime,” closing his book with a punctuating slam, Mytho slips it into the backpack beside him and tugs the bag onto his shoulders. Cloth wadded inside muffles his collection of spraypaint canisters from clanking around.
“So it is. Open the way,” deep voice booming, the Red-Eyes Oni faces the wall, staring it down. Golden fluid begins to bubble through newly forming cracks, consuming the material to create a rectangular opening- a portal straight into the alley.
Mochi Uranus, the Dark Weasel
Holding a dripping dango in hand, the Standstill Hero, Floor catches trails of syrup with his tongue on his way back into the café. Teenagers with phones snap pictures or take videos of him trying to enjoy his food, making it a public spectacle. One teenager in particular gives him the stink-eye through a set of imitation Impakt goggles.
The wide-open front windows of the café give Mochi a perfect sight line into the building. Xpresso Cafés are heavily commercialized, with a dedicated side-kiosk that sells Hero merch and comic books. A table has been set up alongside the kiosk, where Impakt is seated, signing an endless line of his newest starring comic. For an extra couple of shekels, some sadsack can have him stand up next to a flashy cardboard background and take a picture with them, so they can pretend they’re a part of something more important than themselves by proximity. It’s one of the areas that Mochi disagrees with in Marxist theory: that societal motion is generated by class warfare, and not by persons of greatness. Maybe it was true in the old world, but this is a world shaped by persons of greatness. And Mochi will show everyone who’s counted him out that he’s one of those greats.
Waiting tactically until Floor has finished his dango stack, Mochi slowly turns on a foul aftertaste. The sidekick’s face scrunches up and he reaches for his water bottle, trying to wash it out of his mouth. To keep it seeming natural, Mochi dampens the aftertaste for a moment before having it resurge worse than before. Sadistic pleasure curdles in Mochi’s gut- not butterflies, but a swarm of tickling little houseflies- as Floor leans over a garbage can and gags. Impakt looks over and says something. Holding up a hand, Floor makes a beeline for the washrooms. More pictures. This is going to blow up.
Imami Belmitope, the Red-Eyes Oni
From the adjacent bathroom stall, gagging and vomiting sounds can be heard. The smell of sick hits Imamu’s nose. Underneath the stall, Imamu can see the hero’s knees on the floor as he grips the toilet bowl and relieves his guts. There is no reaction as the Oni’s heavy boots stomp on the tile floor, just another patron stepping out of their stall. Junpei Ozu’s body has bigger concerns, demanding all of his attention. Imamu is pleased to find that the man did not even close the stall door behind him, leaving it hanging open to his back.
With one foot, Imamu moves a wooden slab intended to prop the door open for the staff who clean it. He tucks it under the door, keeping it instead from being too easily opened.
Wasting no time, Imamu lets power flow into his eyes, then out. There’s very little tactile feedback when he strikes a target with his gaze, the glaring red light seeping through the back of Floor’s hero outfit and then turning skin into a numb stone-like material. It would not become apparent what is happening until the pins and needles set in. Or until the effect reaches something deeper, and more important, whose numbness the body will be forced to take issue with.
That happens when the effect drills deep enough to hit the back of Floor’s lungs. Breath hitching as he tries to suck in more air to dry heave into the toilet, the man tries to straighten his back, but its stiff rocky surface does not give. Instead, a painted squeak and whimper escape his gaping mouth. He falls to the side in his attempt to turn around, hitting his head on the porcelain seat and landing beside the toilet, staring up at Imamu.
Red eyes are now trained on Floor’s chest, spreading the petrification further. Skin hardens, ribs turn brittle. Stone teeth biting into the other side of the lungs as they try to expand upwards, then stilling them too. The heart. Reactive reflex kicks in, and Imamu feels the bottoms of his boots being fused to the floor. A useless effort with no aid coming.
It isn’t long before the fight goes out of the hero, and he slumps down. Stone edges begin to creep back into flesh. Soon enough, it will appear as if nothing happened at all- that this vaunted pillar of the community had choked to death on his own vomit in a café bathroom stall while a murder happens next door. Imamu smiles. This will be a more dire hit to morale than the Conman’s death could ever be.
The rubber in Imamu’s boot soles disintegrates and then reforms, now free of the floor. He takes one step, then the next, moving with casual confidence back into his own bathroom stall. A rectangular opening gapes at the back of the wall, exposing pipes and wiring, and in the alley on the other side is Mythopoesis, waiting. Imamu reaches up and brushes the hanging wires side, squeezing his girth through the intervening pipes. Behind him, golden honey begins to mold a new wall in place of the old one. As if nothing had ever happened, and no one had ever been there. The same begins in the wall of the apartment building, after the two make their quiet escape.
Red Finger Agent, Kester Greenfield
[Soundtrack: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6xzRa1EtOaw ]
The wall in front of Kester melts away and lets him through. Kester is a loaded gun, ready to go off. A loaded gun made of boulders, and full of boulders. Kester steps into the alley and swings his left hand up, tossing one boulder into the air.
The back of the bookstore has a big red X spraypainted on it where he’s supposed to target. The boulder comes back down and Kester punches it. With the force of a cannonball, it blows straight through the wall.
Mizuki Fuzukawa, Crystal Clear
“We’re here at the release of the Deceptive Hero Conman’s new book, Two Truths and a Lie: Confessions of a Conman. Rumors from the Conman Agency say that he has a special big announcement to make, and judging by the crowd outside a lot of people are eager to hear it live.”
Standing in front of a ‘window’ she’s opened in the wall of the Kinokuniya bookstore, Mizuki narrates for the camera. To her practiced eye, the masked hero behind the desk inside has a grim countenance. His shoulders are slack, and his handwriting is sloppy as he signs copies for his fans. All the online forums and social media sites are abound with speculation, but Mizuki’s professional opinion is that whatever news he’s about to drop isn’t good news.
The routine Hero Scene report turns into a bloodbath in a split second. The wall behind Conman shatters, and the bookshelf stood against it is reduced to wooden shrapnel spraying into the crowd. Books are thrown into the air, and torn pages rain down onto the floor. Where Conman sat is a broken heap, splayed out on top of the desk with his neck at a wrong angle and the back of his head missing. The crowd that had been gathered in front of his seat haven’t fared much better, the luckiest suffering a broken arm or several shattered ribs, lying and screaming on the ground.
A boulder, the projectile at fault, is embedded into the hood of one of the food trucks.
Catching her breath and finding her words, Mizuki quickly turns away from the grizzly scene on the other side of the wall, which remanifests behind her. “In a sudden turn of events, the book signings of Impakt and Conman have been targeted by-” a howling voice interrupts her.
“FUCK JAPAN! EAT DIRT, HEROES!” a loud voice hollers down from above, rapidly getting further away. The camera follows Mizuki’s eyes up, where a massive man is holding onto a rock like a life preserver and flying through the air overhead.
Mizuki turns to face the camera and finishes her sentence, “-by what appears to be a man flying on a boulder!”
The Washed Up Clown Hero, Popsy
Lying in her bed with a pillow over her ears, Popsy tries to drown out the sound of the shouting voices from next door. Impakt and Conman are both having some kind of big event at the same time, and it’s been awful for Popsy’s late day beauty sleep. It doesn’t help that some kid throwing a rock at dented the hinges of her window, preventing it from being fully shut. Everything outside comes right in, including flies through the torn bugscreen.
There’s a big crash, and Popsy just assumes somebody divebombed a food cart. At first, Popsy doesn’t notice the change. Then she starts to register that the shouts have turned into screams. “What?” voice cracking from a night and half a day of mouthbreathing in her sleep, she coughs and rolls over. Crawling out of bed, Popsy flops onto the floor and reaches for her costume, crumpled up in the corner.
Imamu Belmitope, the Red-Eyes Oni
Cutting through the apartment building, the Red-Eyes Oni exits the other side with Mythopoesis at his side, making their way towards the subway entrance. In the distance, he can hear Kester shouting down at the crowd, taunting them. Let him.
There is no way of knowing if Imamu’s ties to Conman would come to light in his announcement today. There is no way of knowing, but Imamu cannot take that risk. The liar’s growing conscience had led him to the conclusion that to absolve himself of his sins he would need to confess. An error that led him instead to his grave.
Today has been a productive day. Rolling his shoulders, Imamu looks forward to taking a shower and receiving a massage from his servants.