Toxic Waste

Prologue

Three figures run out of the bank carrying bags of money, flames covering their tracks. Shattered glass and blood all over the floor. Under the rubble of the bank are countless citizens, all injured or worse.

Heroes have just arrived on the scene, doing all they could to help with the situation at the bank.

Well, the former bank. Now it's just a pile of debris, courtesy of a scarlet-eyed individual. He inflicted a good deal of damage to the bank and surrounding area, setting everything ablaze and shouting 'arson' as he went.

"Juke, shut the hell up! We get it, ya like fire, but ya don't needa shout in our ears every five seconds," the shorter of the two girls reprimanded, her hazel eyes holding an intense glare.

The only male, Juke laughs sheepishly, "sorry, Spiral."

The taller, dark-skinned girl rolls her eyes at the two of them. "You couldn't have yelled at him twelve minutes ago?"

"Hush, Oculus. I do what I want."

"Halt, villains!" A new voice called out. It was Kamui Woods, or as the three called him, Mr. Tree. "Put down those bags and surrender!"

Juke smirked. "Like you can even stop us! There's fire all around us."

That smirk dropped when Backdraft, the firefighter hero, showed up and started putting out the flames.

Oculus and Spiral punched him on each arm. "Whoops, spoke too soon. That's my bad, guys."

"Yeah, your bad!" Oculus grabs the money bags and drops them in a portal for safekeeping. "C'mon, I don't know the area well enough to take us somewhere else, we'll have to fight." She lunges toward Kamui, eyes glowing red as she uses her quirk to chuck pieces of debris at him.

Spiral sighs, muttering under her breath, "we'll be in and out, they said. It'll be easy, they said," as she goes to fight Backdraft.

While Juke is deciding who he should assist, Death Arms appears behind him. He barely misses a punch sent his way but manages to duck under it and aim a kick at the hero's ankle, which he manages to sidestep.

"Attacking from behind isn't very heroic, man. Then again, neither is your name," another avoided punch, "Seriously, why 'Death Arms'? There has to be a better choice than that. I'll help you!" he flips over a leg sweep, kicking the hero in the back of the head before landing.

"Let's see, what about 'Barrage' or 'Titan'?" Death Arms aims a punch at his stomach, but he manages to jump aside. "Fine, be that way. I was only tryna help."

He slips on his thought-activated headphones, upgraded courtesy of Oculus, and plays a song about being strong. Activating his quirk lets him channel the lyrics into a strength enhancer, making his attacks more effective.

Despite his efforts, Juke loses the battle.

"Jukebox!" Spiral yells, seeing her teammate fall. Her moment of distraction gives Backdraft enough time to knock her out with a blast of water. The hero was relieved. He was starting to get dizzy from all her spinning and jumping around.

He brings the girl over to her friend for Death Arms to watch while he puts out the remaining fires.

Oculus was dropping chunks of cement on Kamui Woods when her friends were defeated.

The fire was mostly put out and the civilians had been evacuated. She was the last obstacle between the heroes and victory.

"Surrender, villain!" Mr. Tree shouts. "You have no chance at winning."

Said villain scoffs, eyes glowing orange as she gets ready to use her quirk.

Before she can react, Kamui uses his special attack. "Lacquered Chain Prison!" Branches rapidly grow from his arm to bind her. She tries to rapidly heat the wood, but he deals out a blow that knocks her unconscious like the others.

As her vision fades, Oculus has one thought. "That Crusty Fucker owes me."

With the crisis averted, the three heroes take the villains to the police so they could report the incident.

"Many people were injured from debris and four people sustained varying levels of burns, but zero fatalities. Besides the obvious, everything else turned out well," Backdraft informs them. "We'll leave these three in your care."

Two of the officers put quirk-dampening cuffs on the teens and got them into the police car, while the third responded, "Thank all of you for your assistance! We had been trying to track them down since their first robbery a few weeks ago."

"Up in Yamanashi? It was reduced to rubble!"

"Yes. We realized they were the perpetrators when we saw the same 'calling card' on a news report." He shows the heroes two images of a biohazard symbol, one constructed out of rubble and the other formed from burn marks where the bank used to be.

"They've committed other petty crimes since then, evidenced by the symbol," he swipes through the camera roll, displaying various spray-painted biohazard symbols in places they aren't usually found. "But nothing quite on this scale since Yamanashi."

Kamui briefly studies all of the damage the teens have done while in Japan. Now that he thinks about it, he had seen the symbol in an article detailing an attack a year ago. Something having to do with a gold reserve.

Recognition splashes across his face as he glances at the unconscious villains. He didn't realize it before, but they occasionally pop up in World News. With this knowledge, he only has one question: "What are the Toxics doing in Japan?"