Chapter Text
Giran was happy, ecstatic even. He’d gotten a call from Shigaraki telling him to search for some fresh blood for the League. The job was a hell of a lot easier after their attack on Hosu and their perceived partnership with Stain, Giran wasn’t dumb enough to believe Stain actually teamed up with the League, but the villains practically throwing themselves at him to be part of the League wasn’t the best part.
Not even close.
The best part was he got an honest-to-god Dolosian that wanted to be part of the League. Keeping his composure after she expressed interest in joining was one of the hardest tasks he had to do.
Any villain worth anything knew that Dolosians were the best of the best since it took a special kind of villain to survive in the cutthroat hellscape that was villainy on the island of Dolos. There were only 300 top dogs on the island before Irontomb took it off the map, after that the Dolosians fled and scattered across the world with less than half moving to mainland Japan.
Villains claiming to be from Dolos were vetted harder than other villains and only the real Dolosians were capable of passing. Giran had vetted the Dolosian three times just to be safe and, sure enough, she was the real deal. He knew he’d have to negotiate for higher pay but, knowing the League’s true leader, he’d pay triple whatever Giran asked.
He opened the door to the League’s hideout and motioned for the Dolosian, the arsonist and the vampire to enter.
“In person, you’re super gross dude”, the arso- Dabi said, his hands in his pockets and giving Shigaraki a scrutinizing look.
“Whoa! This handsy guy’s your friend, Mr. Stainy?”, the vam- Toga said, barely containing her excitement.
“Everything either has no value or it’s bolted down. Such a shame.”, the Dolo- Cifera said, lazily scanning her surroundings.
“A brat, some guy with no manners and a thief.”, Shigaraki assessed, not even sparing them a glance, “Is that really the best you could do. Kurogiri, warp them away.”
“Come now. They’ve come all this way”, Kurogiri said, trying to change Shigaraki’s mind. “They’re being backed by our influential broker friend so they have to at least be capable fighters.”
“Either way, I’ll take my finder’s fee.”, Giran said, taking a drag from his cigarette, “Oh, and I’ll be charging triple for the Dolosian.”
He made sure to stress that last word and smirked to himself when it had the intended effect. Shigaraki looked over at the three possible recruits, no doubt trying to guess who the Dolosian was. Now that he had his attention.
“As for those introductions. Let’s start with this vampire. A serial killer with all her victims dying by exsanguination.”, Giran said, pointing to Toga.
“I’m Toga, Himiko Toga. I wanna be Mr. Stainy, I wanna kill Mr. Stainy! So lemme join you, Tomura!”, Toga all but squealed.
“Next up, this young arsonist is enamored with the Hero Killer’s ideals.”, Giran said, patting Dabi’s back.
“What a bunch of nutjobs. I go by Dabi, that’s all you need to know.”, Dabi said, still not letting up on his scrutinizing look.
Let it be known that Giran was a man with a flair for the dramatic. The best had to be saved for last after all.
“And what would be a good villain group without a Dolosian," he said, getting close to Cifera. Her eyes snapped to him when he moved and her lazy smile never fell but he could see how her tail stopped swaying naturally and its once natural movements were now being forced, he saw her claws slowly extend, ready to strike at a moment’s notice. He decided to play it safe and not get any closer, instead gesturing vaguely to her. “This cutie’s been lying low since the islands were wiped out.”
“What’s a good heist without a little misdirection? You gave Stain the perfect diversion for him to kill that fake in Hosu. You’ll be perfect.”, she said, claws now fully extended and her tail left inert. It was like she smelled danger in the air.
“Stain this, Stain that.”, Shigaraki said, flexing his fingers. “It’s always Stain. Stain. Stain.”
He lunged at them, moving to grab and decay them. But Cifera was faster.
She threw him on his back, kneeling on his forearms with her claws at his throat. Toga hadn’t even brought out her knife and Dabi’s hands hadn’t even flickered with embers.
Giran took a drag of his cigarette and smiled. That was the Dolosian flair villains were looking for. It was gonna be a big payday.
——————————————
Dabi didn’t survive this long by blindly trusting people. He sorted them into two categories: people who would betray him at the first available opportunity and liars. He knew the Dolosian, Cifera, wasn’t lying about her origins or her kleptomania, but he felt like something wasn’t adding up about her.
She seemed to be hitting it off with her fellow thief so he decided to shelf it for now. But he wouldn’t hesitate to torch her if she even thought about betraying him or the League. And from the way her claws extended whenever she looked at him, she knew it too.
Shigaraki had told him to assemble a vanguard for his first mission as part of the League. It was a simple mission: attack the training camp and kidnap two students as well as a hero in the chaos.
“Whoa, the winner of the sports festival and the Ice Princess.”, Cifera commented, looking over the capture list in one hand while playing with a novelty coin in the other, “The winner I can understand, but why the Ice Princess? The most she did was basic archery and exploding bunnies.”
Dabi let flames flicker on his hands in an attempt at intimidation. Judging from how her expression never fell and her ears never flattened, it didn’t work. They both knew she could claw out his throat before he could launch a wave of fire.
“That icy brat is the sister of a fake hero. It’s up to us to cull both of them.”, Dabi explained, eyes checking out other members of the vanguard, making sure they weren’t getting any ideas of questioning him.
Toga didn’t care about the why, she just wanted to make people bleed. Mustard wanted to fight back against the society that wronged him or whatever he wanted to believe. Muscular wanted to kill. The others either didn’t question the why or were spurred on by his answer.
Kurogiri then opened a portal to a cliff side overlooking the training camp. The hero brats were surrounded by trees in the middle of nowhere. It would be a perfect storm.
“Listen up,” he called to the gathered villains, “Grab the two brats on the list, they need to be alive for our mission to count as a success. No one else matters.”
Cifera walked up to Dabi and slowly slid her tail across the back of his neck. He tried swatting it away with a flaming hand but she pulled it away and cackled to herself.
“Oh, and by the way,” Cifera said, rolling her novelty coin between her fingers, “you said Ice Princess has a fake for a sister. What’s her name?”
“Nyxia, Oxyn, whatever her name is. It doesn’t matter.”, Dabi huffed out, wanting the thieving cat to leave him alone.
Cifera suddenly erupted in laughter, clutching her sides like she just heard the funniest joke ever told.
“Oronyx? Mindfuck? Her sister is Mindfuck and you want to kidnap her?”, she asked between laughing. Her eyes were scanning Dabi’s face looking for something. Dabi could see Compress reacting to the mention of this ‘Mindfuck’ person, he would have to look into whoever that was later.
She must have found it because she started laughing harder.
“Oh my god, you guys are serious.”, she laughed. Dabi scoffed at whatever Cifera was trying to pull and walked away, deliberately kicking up as much dust as he could in the hopes that Cifera would choke on some.
“Just like Hosu then!”, Cifera giggled while stretching. She looked at Dabi and Mustard “You two create a diversion while the rest of us pull off the heist. I’m gonna love grabbing some extra souvenirs.”
Dabi rolled his eyes. Something wasn’t adding up with Cifera and he would get to the bottom of it. But that would be sometime after they gained a new recruit.
——————————————
——————————————
Sleight of hand, and magic in general, needed the audience to be distracted. And with Dabi’s flames starting a wildfire, Twice’s clones causing confusion and Mustard’s gas obscuring most of the forest, Compress thought the heroes and the students would be thoroughly distracted. There was even some rumbling earlier from the mountain side, so Muscular seemed to be having fun.
His target, Ice Bunny as Cifera called her, should’ve been in or around Mustard’s gas and all he needed to do was marble her. She had left as one of the earlier groups, if their spy was to be believed.
He was waiting on a tree branch a little ways outside of Mustard’s gas field. The tree was on the main path so that he could get his target if she tried to flee.
“Ice Brat and her partner are out cold sir. Sending you the coordinates sir.” Mustard said over the comms.
Compress smiled to himself. Mustard reminded him of so many young villains back on Okhema, trying to be a big shot villain like the Dolosians but not knowing how. He’d show him the ropes when all this was said and done, good villains had to have each other’s back after all.
Compress pulled out his burner phone and saw a blinking red dot on the map, there was a blue arrow that indicated his position. They were practically overlapping.
Such a shame, she had barely managed to escape before the gas got to her. He jumped down and saw her with a pink skinned classmate on her back, they were both wearing melting gas mask ice sculptures. He reached for her but she twitched and lazily dragged herself away from him.
It was just so unfortunate that it was back into the gas.
Compress didn’t care to rush, he put on his gas mask and began slowly approaching his target. Slow walking towards one’s helpless victims may have been cliché, but audiences ate it up for a reason. At this point they were both in the gas and his target was fighting a losing fight to keep her eyes open. When her eyes were about to close, he reached down to marble her.
But she disappeared in a blur before his hand could touch her.
He turned to the side to see Cifera, outside the gas, rifling through his target’s pockets. She was cackling to herself at every small find she made. Now, Compress would have normally wanted to know the secret behind her little disappearing act, but his target looked like she was waking up so that would have to wait.
Compress dashed over before she could properly awaken and marbled her. He rolled the newly formed marble in his fingers and turned to Cifera.
“Weren’t you supposed to be tailing Bakugo?” he asked, stuffing it into his pocket.
“I was, but Moonfish seems to have it covered.” she said, switching to pickpocketing the pink skinned girl.
Compress grimaced. There was no way she was serious, Moonfish would be more likely to skewer Bakugo than restrain him long enough for Compress to marble. Cifera had to have known that.
“One of the villains’ targets has been identified! It’s the student known as Kacchan!”
They both clutched their heads. Cifera was rubbing circles around her ear and temple, that telepathic message must’ve affected her more than it affected him.
Telepathic? It must have been the quirk of one of the Pussycats, what were Spinner and Magne doing? They should have taken her out by now.
“That Bakugo kid. What was his first name again?” Cipher asked.
“Katsuki.” he answered effortlessly. It would be good for him to learn the names of his future comrades.
Katsuki, Kacchan, the Pussycat must’ve been talking about him. They wouldn’t have had to worry about the heroes catching on if Cifera had just stayed with Bakugo. Now they had no idea where he was and his classmates would guard him like a prized jewel.
Just then, an ear splitting explosion rang out behind them.
It sounded like it was far, it was also fighting with the sounds of fire and several blades for dominance but it was still unmistakable.
“And would you look at that? He just showed himself to us.” Cifera said, stretching and getting into a runner’s stance.
Compress jumped onto a tree branch and ran for the source of the explosion, he heard Cifera following him. When he arrived, he saw the Bakugo kid next to Endeavor’s kid, the kid that broke himself at the sports festival and a lot more of his classmates. The telepath had just sent out the message and the two villains were sprinting, so the classmates had to have been with Bakugo the entire time.
He waved to get Cifera’s attention and put a finger over his mouth, telling her that they’d be tailing them until he could marble Bakugo.
Cifera rolled her eyes in response and signed that he wouldn’t have to wait, telling him to be ready to use his quirk at a moment's notice. They were gathered around the bird head kid and Cifera ran down and snagged Bakugo, bringing him to Compress. Compress quickly marbled him before he could notice what happened and give the game away.
They talked amongst themselves and started walking back, before the kid with the decimated arms paled and frantically looked around. Looks like that was his cue.
“Looking for him?” he taunted, tossing two marbles in the air “I’ve taken him with my magic.”
“‘With my magic’? Of all the lines.” Cifera said.
Her fingers were texting on the burner phone, no doubt telling Dabi that they were ready to regroup.
“5 minutes, meeting place. Let’s go.” She said before jumping off in the direction of their meeting place.
He quickly followed while his audience was still stunned.
“You’re supposed to be a thief right?” Cipher asked, jumping from tree branch to tree branch, “what’s the point of bringing attention to yourself then? Just steal and get out before they notice.”
“It’s a shame you don’t understand, my dear Cifera. I am a magician, we performers live for the spotlight.” he said, dodging the students’ attacks.
“And that flashiness would’ve gotten you killed in Dolos. Same with your horrible situational awareness.” Cifera said before speeding up.
“My wh-?” he asked.
The words were barely out of his mouth before three students knocked him off balance and threw him to the ground. One of those students was standing on his back and the others were holding him down.
The six armed student stole two of his marbles and they celebrated that they had their classmates. Kurogiri opened a portal behind them and the students ran away. Compress smiled behind his mask and felt for the real marbles he hid in his mouth.
He couldn’t find them.
“You really wouldn’t have made it in Dolos.” Cifera mocked, showing off the two marbles between her fingers.
Her ears twitched and she palmed the marbles. Half a second later, a laser shot out from behind a bush and grazed her arm.
“Rude.” she scoffed, retreating into the portal.
Compress shook his head and followed, ignoring the screams of the students. He would have to improve his sleight of hand and perception skills if he wanted to keep up with her. But that would be after they got their new recruit.
——————————————
Evernight was angry. If it wasn’t for Cassie taking advantage of her quirk and beaming relaxing jellyfish videos into her mind then she would have most likely killed, if not maimed, Nezu for his negligence.
Aglaea had just heard that the League was going to attack the training camp through her thread and called Anaxa and Evernight in to discuss how to proceed.
Anaxa and Aglaea were there because they were the heads of the Flamechaser underground and limelight hero departments respectively. Evernight was there because she was the one who suggested Cipher go undercover after the League’s attack at Hosu and because trying to keep a secret while she was physically in the agency would have been a waste of everyone’s time.
“I say I go with her to the camp. That way I can immobilize any villain who tries getting her.”, she suggested.
Anaxa rubbed the bridge of his nose and muttered something under his breath.
“And how, pray tell, will you justify your presence to the heroes there. Or to Nezu.”, he retorted.
That was the problem. No one outside the agency knew they had a spy in the League so they couldn’t use the upcoming attack as justification. Nor could they inform Nezu about their spy, because then he would have to tell his staff and at that point there would be a leak and Cipher’s cover would be blown.
“How about the USJ?”, Aglaea offered.
“Ugh. If you’re gonna give a suggestion you might as well spit the whole thing out and not vaguely hint at it.”, Anaxa spat.
“Evernight’s presence would scare the students out of their minds,” Aglaea said, blind eyes stealing a faux glance at Evernight, “so we send Tribbie as a method of quick escape for when the League attacks.”
“Cool, very nice. How does the USJ factor into any of this though?”, Evernight asked.
“That’ll be our justification. We use UA’s failing at the USJ as why we would be sending her.”, Aglaea said, steepling her fingers.
“They know me as fiercely protective of March so I’ll write to them and get a meeting with Nezu proposing it.”, Evernight said.
“Good. And even if they don’t take Tribbie, they should at least bolster their security. Maybe they’ll bring in some extra heroes as backup.”, Anaxa said optimistically.
Evernight grit her teeth. UA did nothing, Nezu assured her that no villains could attack the camp because its location was kept secret and that the heroes there could protect all the students, including March.
And if Aglaea was to be believed, he would be going on a press conference later that day to apologize and talk about how he would have done more had he known more. He was so lucky she was on the other side of Musutafu or he’d be- Cubuzoa jellyfish have eyes as complex as a human’s and can see in the-.
She gave Cassie an unimpressed look. She didn’t look guilty in the slightest and gave her a mischievous smile, or the closest approximation of one that she could give.
“You looked like you were thinking about committing crimes again.”, Cassie said “remember what Lady Aglaea said?”
Evernight groaned, leaning her head on Cassie’s covered shoulder. They were outside the conference room where they had just finished discussing their strategy for raiding the League’s bases.
“‘This isn’t Janusopolis. You’re beholden to the same laws everyone else is.’ Yeah, I remember.”, she sulked.
Cassie ran a gloved hand through Evernight’s hair and beamed memories of her doing the exact thing countless times prior.
“Don’t worry Evey. Lady Cipher is with Miss March, she’ll be fine.”, Cassie soothed.
——————————————
March was not fine. She was in some dingy bar surrounded by villains and Bakugo. She was still overcoming the haziness in her head from being caught in that gas villain’s attack, there was some nausea from being compressed in a marble, the thick cuffs on her hands and legs were cutting into her skin, Bakugo’s yelling was making her ears ring and the villains had mentioned killing both her and Evey more times than she cared to count.
She would’ve been worried but she spotted Ciphy chatting with the top hat villain so there wasn’t any real threat of her dying any time soon. But Evey always said she should pretend not to know the undercover hero if she encountered one, so she was doing her best impression of a leaf in a hurricane.
“Let’s dust the brat and move on.”, Shigaraki spoke up, silencing the noise around him. He walked to March with an outstretched hand. “She makes me sick.”
March’s leaf impression became a lot more real.
Ciphy grabbed Shigaraki’s hand in a move that seemed carefree but March could see the subtle ways her other hand tensed and the slight glint in her eyes that promised violence.
“Yeesh. Clearly you’ve never had a hostage before,” Cipher said in a disapproving tone, “You’ve gotta take a video of your captive, promise your target their safety if they come alone, and when they do you kill the hostage in front of them. Then while your target is frozen in a state of shock, you kill them too.”
March’s flabbers were thoroughly gasted. What was she saying? Intellectually she knew Cipher was just buying time for the heroes to arrive but that didn’t make it sound any better.
“You know, Master always told me to destroy the things I hate.”, Shigaraki started, shifting his gaze from March to Cipher, “And I’m starting to really hate you. First, you question my choice in targets. Then you disobey direct orders to capture Blasty and instead go after the brat. Now, you’re stopping me from destroying what I hate.”
Shigaraki made a grab for Cipher’s face and she aimed a stab at Shigaraki’s throat with her claws.
Before any of their attacks landed though, there was a knock on the door.
March looked around and saw that everyone was frozen. The knocks didn’t stop. After the third round of knocks Bakugo grunted and glared at Shigaraki.
“Aren’t you gonna answer that Handsy?”, he asked.
Shigaraki tore his arm out of Cipher’s grip and ripped open the door, a sick grin split his face upon seeing who it was.
“Took you long enough”, he said.
When March first heard the knocks, she thought it might’ve been the heroes making a dramatic entrance or something of the sort. She would’ve been happy if the knocks were a distraction for the heroes to break in through the back door. She would’ve been overjoyed if heroes were involved in any way period.
She wasn’t happy to see two villains that Permansor had spoken at length about. One villain from his past and the one who picked her up.
——————————————
If you had asked Cipher a day ago if she thought the League would survive a week, she would’ve said no. After they kidnapped March? She wouldn’t have given them 12 hours.
She had seen it countless times before. A villain group gains new members and suddenly believes they can take on the world, they bite off way more than they could possibly chew and end up getting captured. At that point she was only there to steal their funds before their accounts got frozen.
She was ecstatic when she found the League was backed by someone with deep pockets, she was expecting a massive payday when they eventually fell.
Seeing the two newly entered villains threw a planet sized wrench in those plans.
Luocha wasn’t a problem. Tribbie could beat him with both arms tied behind her back and on three and a half minutes of sleep.
The problem was the blindfolded calamity that walked in behind him.
Seeing her walk in made Cipher realize that maybe her stay in the League wouldn’t be as short as she originally thought.
Quickly masking her surprise, something the villains in the room were also doing, she twirled her coin of whimsy in her hand.
“Luocha and Jingliu”, she said conversationally. She made sure to pull down the thread attached to the coin so that Goldweaver could hear that the walking natural disaster was in the room with her, and more importantly, the two UA students, and doubly importantly, March.
“What brings you here?”, she asked, still pulling down the thread.
Shigaraki flexed his fingers threateningly and glared at Cipher, not forgetting their earlier scuffle.
“That’s between him and Sensei.”, he growled.
Cipher did not like the implications of that, but before she could press further Kurogiri opened a portal and Luocha walked through.
Leaving them alone with Jingliu.
Cipher felt the temperature in the room slowly drop, frost creeped on every surface with Jingliu at the centre. Cipher couldn’t feel the tips of her fingers and she started to see her breath. Dabi started making flames to keep himself warm.
An ice sword slowly formed in Jingliu’s hand and she stabbed it into the ground, she leaned on it and leveled her blindfolded gaze at Kurogiri.
“What kind of bartender doesn’t give their guests something to drink?”, she asked.
The man in question stiffly grabbed a drink from the rack behind him and started the process of preparing a drink. If the cold bothered him, he didn’t let it show.
There was a knock at the door.
“Hello. Kamino Pizza Delivery.”
Cipher was unimpressed, even as All Might himself broke down the wall. She wasn’t moved when the League panicked around her or All Might’s declaration that they were surrounded. Not even Shigaraki crying for his Nomu could rouse her. Her mind was still focused on one thing.
“Really, Kamino Pizza?” she deadpanned.
She had searched for pizza places when she was waiting for Giran to start looking for League recruits and knew the name of every pizza place in Yokohama. They all had interesting names. He really just picked the most generic name he could think of.
However, the thing that did get a reaction out of her was puking up sludge. Especially when Jingliu was puking up the same sludge.
When she was done with whatever that was, she found herself in a crater surrounded by ruins. She saw a masked villain and Luocha standing next to him. Luocha had his hand outstretched to the masked villain and the pendant that was attached to it was crackling with electricity.
“Tomura. You failed again”, the masked villain said, projecting a thick aura of death that immobilized everyone, “There will be more chances to set things right. It’s why I brought along your little band and the boy you believe to be an important pawn.” He clenched his fist “So try again.”
Cipher paled. The masked villain only mentioned Bakugo. She whipped her head around, hoping to see a glimpse of pink hair.
Just then, two blobs of sludge materialized next to the masked villain. Out of one popped Jingliu and out of the other popped March. Jingliu quickly recovered and took her spot next to Luocha. Before March could recover, the masked villain grabbed her.
“But first.”, his palm flowed red and he moved to place it on her head.
Only for All Might to leap on him from the sky, forcing the masked villain to unhand her.
Jingliu ripped off her blindfold and the temperature plummeted. The surrounding crater was suddenly encased in a thick layer of ice.
Shigaraki saw that All Might was distracted and jumped at him with his hand outstretched. He grabbed All Might but instead of him crumbling to dust there was a gold aura under his hand.
Cipher smiled despite not being able to feel anything, Permansor must have found a way to quickly use his quirk on All Might before the fight started. Usually he didn’t like using his quirk on limelight heroes, but if any villain from his past was involved then he disregarded his self imposed rules.
While the others were either fighting Bakugo or All Might she ran towards March. March saw her coming and stuck out her tongue.
On her tongue was an ice sculpture of a coin of whimsy. Cipher smiled and grabbed the coin, immediately getting the message.
There was a boom to the side and a bunch of students were flying overhead and distracting everyone.
She saw it for the golden opportunity it was.
She grabbed March, flipped the coin and ran behind police lines to where Jellyfish was and ran back before anyone could tell she was gone.
She patted herself on the back for a job well done. At least, until she heard a portal open behind her and the members of the League were flying towards her.
She was thrown through the portal into an abandoned warehouse, the last thing she saw before the portal closed was a meteor falling towards the ground.