The blue flames slowly faded. What remained of the heroes was scarcely recognizable. The entrance to the factory had been melted into a warped, blackened mess. The asphalt outside had liquefied and hardened again into uneven ridges of glassy stone. Smoke drifted lazily into the night sky as Dabi lowered his arm.
"Every single time," He muttered. "We leave the door open for five minutes to stretch our legs and some federal trash comes crawling out to find us." He stepped over the scorched remains without sparing them another glance. "Next person who leaves the power on overnight is doing cleanup duty." He wrinkled his nose. "The smell of burnt garbage is already giving me a headache."
"Perhaps you can try not burning them next time." Shigaraki replied. "From what I've heard, you've been burning a lot of people in the region recently. If I didn't know any better, I'd think you were drawing attention on purpose."
"Well it's not my fault we're short. After all, I'm not the one whose league holds little appeal at the moment." Dabi replied expressionlessly.
"Honestly, it's a miracle someone like me even wants to join this ragtag group."
Shigaraki tilted his head. "You little .."
"Oh, please, let's not begin the evening with such aggressive finger-pointing," Mr. Compress sighed, stepping gracefully down from an upper walkway, his gloved hand resting lightly on the brim of his top hat. "We are all still adjusting to our new... living arrangements, are we not? A touch of growing pains is entirely theatrical."
Shigaraki didn't reply, his teeth grinding in silence.
'Tch. It can't be helped,' he thought, his chest tightening with a deep, private surge of bitterness.
This ragtag group was just what Giran could scrape together on such short notice. A collection of loose cannons and broken pieces.
"I'm not the one bringing up shortcomings here, am I?" The flame user uttered with a grunt.
"Well you could stand to be less cavalier about that. We're barely a week into this arrangement. Announcing our location through charred heroes isn't exactly the beginning I'd have preferred." Compress sighed.
"Yeah. The herosh will probably find us after this." Everyone looked up to see Deidoro hanging off the roof. "Then we'll all jusus be thrown in jail anywaz ..."
Liquid dripped steadily from the edge of the roof. It splashed onto the crate beside Shigaraki's foot.
'So this is the best I got huh?' Compared to everything else he'd been dealing with lately, a perpetually drunk villain barely registered on his list of problems. It was the sound. That annoying little plip every few seconds.
Scratch!
His fingers dug into the inflamed skin of his neck. Above them, Deidoro remained hanging halfway off the rusted roof, an empty bottle dangling lazily from his fingers.
"The heroesh are definitely coming," he declared with absolute certainty. "Maybe tomorrow ... Maybe tonight ..." He took another swig. "Maybe they're already here."
"He has a point." Compress said, adjusting his hat. "The death of two heroes aren't going to go unnoticed."
"Three." Dabi said, tossing a tablet over. "There was a third hidden outside. Took care of him before we got here."
"I see. That explains why Rappa is covered in blood." Shigaraki stepped past both of them and crouched beside the dead sensor hero's equipment.
His four fingers pressed lightly against the casing of a fallen scanner. Then he picked up the tablet lying beside it. The screen was cracked but still running. He swiped once with his thumb, careful to keep his pinky raised. A live regional utility monitoring application loaded. A large anomalous drain was flagged in yellow, with an arrow pointing directly at their coordinates. Shigaraki stared at it for a moment. "That also explains how they found us."
Shigaraki set the tablet down. The facility's automated systems had been running this entire time, drawing from the regional grid through whatever dead infrastructure connected this zone to the broader network.
Nobody had thought to cut it when they moved in because nobody had thought to check. And because nobody had checked, three heroes had been dispatched to investigate a phantom substation drain and walked straight into a room full of Nomu.
It was a major problem that held consequences at the moment. If one of them had thought of this, the current scenario and subsequent trouble could have been avoided entirely. This was something Kurogiri would have known to check, alongside a dozen things that nobody here would think of.
'To think they found us because of a running electricity bill.' Too bad there were no ifs.
"How long do you think we have?" He asked without looking back.
"Well, depends. If a partial signal went out before the communicator was dealt with, dispatch will flag the team as unresponsive within the hour. When that happens, the response tier changes significantly." Compress replied.
"Even if that isn't the case," compress continued, folding his arms beneath his cape, "the utility records alone are enough to justify a more thorough investigation. The moment someone notices that the original team has gone silent, this area will stop being a footnote on a map."
"Then we agree we can't stay here."
"I know that." Shigaraki stood up, turning his single red eye toward the rows of massive glass cylinders.
The problem wasn't packing up their personal gear. The problem was the inventory. Dozens of ten-foot-tall, bio-engineered nightmares floating in glowing green amniotic fluid.
"We can't just abandon Master's assets," Tomura muttered, his fingers hovering inches away from his own thighs, itching to decay something out of sheer frustration. "But we don't have the heavy transport to haul thirty tons of medical glass through the streets without every hero agency in the country dropping on our heads."
Dabi leaned his head back against a structural pillar. "Hey, magician. Can't you just turn these oversized bird-monsters into pocket lint? That's your specialty, isn't it?"
"In theory, yes." Atsuhiro replied while adjusting his gloves. "My Compress Quirk can store objects within marble-sized spheres, preserving them indefinitely."
He paused, glancing toward the rows upon rows of tanks.
"I could marble the tanks, fluid and all. However, these creatures are in a delicate state of stasis. If the temperature fluctuates during the transition, or if the structural integrity of the life-support casing is compromised in the process, or if they are stored for too long without getting plugged back in before I release them... well ... We won't have an army of powerful weapons anymore, will we?"
Tomura nodded. "I guess it can't be helped." Then stood to his feet. "However, we don't really have a choice. Compared to leaving them here, it is a much better option." He turned to him. "Gather all the Nomu's. We leave in an hour."
"Just like that?" Atsuhiro was stunned. "What about everyone else? Aren't we going to wait for them to return?"
"Hmm?" Dabi let the lighter in his hand snap shut, his eyes scanning the cavernous, half-empty warehouse floor. "Oh yeah, there are supposed to be more of us. Where did everyone else go?"
"Huh? You're just noticing that now?"
Compress's words went unanswered.
"Twice went out to recruit new members," Shigaraki said through his mask. "He isn't back yet. As for Magne and Spinner, they went out to find more resources. Food, fuel, parts. They have cells, so we'll let them know of the changes."
"And what about our destination?" Compress asked as he stepped towards the tanks, to decide what parts of the machinery were needed to store these creatures. "Even if I encapsulate our sleeping giants, we cannot simply wander the streets with a pocketful of monsters and nowhere to put down roots." A proper hideout required privacy, structural stability, and ... as they had so painfully learned tonight .... a secure, off-grid power supply.
Shigaraki stayed where he was.
In reality, he had no idea how to go about this. It had been this way for the past eight days since Kurogiri's capture. The overgrown manchild had been placed where he had to make decisions for himself, and every decision carried consequences.
The Nomu that he previously wouldn't have cared about, had become his most prized possessions. In this state, the young symbol of evil had learned more than he had in previous months. Leadership without All For One's shadow meant facing the jagged reality of logistics. Shelter, hiding places, and moving pieces on the other end. And they didn't have another end yet.
No one who knew how to set up life-support infrastructure from scratch in a location that didn't already have it running. 'Kurogiri would have had three locations already identified.'
Bzzzt.
The sound of the faint vibration brought him out of his thoughts. Shigaraki frowned, realising it came from his pocket. Everyone glanced toward him. Tomura pulled out the cheap cellphone Giran had given him days ago. The screen displayed an unknown number.
"...Who is this." There was a moment of silence. Then a voice came through that he recognized immediately despite not having heard it in nearly two weeks.
"My, my. Still so crude, Tomura. And quite careless with your resource management."
Shigaraki went very still. "Doctor."
Across the warehouse, Dabi stopped walking. Compress paused with one gloved hand resting on the nearest tank.
"It has been some time. I hope you'll forgive the delay in contact. There were matters requiring my personal attention before reaching out. You understand, I'm sure."
The voice came through, reedy. "Now, it seems you have a problem, don't you?"
Shigaraki's eyes narrowed. "You're watching me?'
"Is it a suprise? The facility you stand in, is one of All For One's backup production lines. As the creator of the Nomu's, I of course have surveillance on these sites to prevent master's work from getting stolen."
"Of course, as I said, I have been busy. Only recently did I realize there was a break in for one of them." The Doctor chuckled softly over the line. "Imagine my surprise when I checked the surveillance records and found you of all people squatting in one of Master's facilities."
Shigaraki didn't laugh. His fingers instinctively rose toward his neck. "You knew I was here this whole time and only now decided to call?"
"My dear boy, do you think I spend my days staring at security feeds?" The old man sounded almost offended. "I have research to conduct. Preparations to make. And besides... I wished to see what sort of man Master's successor would become when left alone."
Shigaraki's eye narrowed. "And?"
"Hehehe..." The Doctor's laugh echoed faintly through the speaker. "You're still alive."
Dabi scoffed from the side. "Such low standards."
The Doctor ignored him. "Though admittedly, your current situation is rather unfortunate. I suppose it was expected. After all, just watching you stand on your own feet after being kicked out of the nest is a remarkable achievement on its own."
"However, I believe I have seen enough. Circumstances are special after all, so I won't waste your time with pleasantries." The speaker hissed with static, the frequency shifting as the Doctor began to upload a sequence of encrypted coordinates directly into the burner's internal memory.
"The heroes will be swarming that sector within forty-eight hours at maximum. Leave the broken glass. Have the magician pack up the viable specimens, and come to the designated coordinates. Then we can have a good chat face to face after that. Don't forget to gather your league together as well. Do make sure there aren't any problems with this."
Those were the last words before the line went dead. Silence lasted for several seconds as Shigaraki examined the phone with furrowed brows. Finally, he turned to the other two.
"Tell Magne and Spinner to come back. We have work to do."
_
Enjoying the story? Want to read ahead?
Support the novel and unlock early access to unreleased chapters by joining my Patreon!
💧 WATER TIER (5$) – Read 3 chapters ahead of public releases
🌍 EARTH TIER ($7) – Read 5 chapters ahead, with bonus lore, author notes, and behind-the-scenes content
🔥 FIRE TIER ($10) – Read 8 chapters ahead, get full access to all extras, and vote in exclusive polls for bonus content
📎 Patreon.com/Future805
Even a small pledge makes a huge difference — thank you for reading