A pretty girl stared into a strange, shimmering veil before her.
She smiled slightly, almost amused.
Around her was pure darkness.
Black space that distorted the very concepts of perception and three-dimensionality seemed to reject the very idea of light while breaking several dozen laws of physics.
Take, for example, the fact that despite the impenetrable darkness, the girl’s body was clearly visible from any point in this mysterious space.
Even if you turned away and looked up, you could still see her, from multiple angles at once.
“Commendable bloodthirstiness,” the girl purred in a cheerful tone.
“I can feel your blood.”
The moment her last words sank into the boundless darkness, a man emerged from it.
Magnificent.
There was no other word for it.
It was as if all possible ideals of human beauty had intertwined, entered into symbiosis, and then amplified each other countless times over.
“You’re getting carried away, Kalli,” his voice boomed dully.
“Nice to know you haven’t forgotten about me,” the girl smirked, not bothering to tear her gaze away from the shimmering screen before her.
“You get more handsome every day, don’t you?” she said mockingly.
A grinding sound passed through the space.
An instant later, almost right next to Kalli, lightning struck with a thunderous explosion.
At that same moment, the man appeared at the spot of the strike.
“That’s your fault too,” he snarled in a charming voice.
“Ay-ay-ay, how uncivilized,” the girl waved her graceful hand in front of her face as if shooing away a mosquito.
The proximity of the element didn’t impress her at all.
“But I’m glad you’re finally starting to take me seriously.”
“Do you want war?”
“You old men can’t handle it,” Kalli snorted.
“Those times are over when cowardly little humans feared every rustle and fed you with their power.” This time, she finally deigned to turn to her interlocutor.
“How does it feel? People stopped being afraid of thunder. They explained the nature of your lightning.” Kalli hammered each word with palpable superiority in her voice.
“These days, people are much more afraid of lies and deceit.” The pretty girl bared all her teeth in a furious snarl.
“They are afraid of ME!”
On the last syllable, a wave of suffocating power radiated from the girl.
Sweat beaded on the man’s temple.
Oh yes, he was afraid.
Afraid of the one he had once despised and considered little more than an insect.
The little brat who played pranks and fraternized with humans.
A nonentity against the backdrop of HIM, a True God.
The man had played too long.
For hundreds of thousands of years, Kalli, the embodiment of all forms of cunning and deceit, had lived alongside humans.
And somehow, imperceptibly, people had changed.
Kalli had taught them knowledge.
The very quality whose absence had once given birth to the gods.
But gods are immortal.
The Goddess of Lies couldn’t have repaid their mockery with such tricks.
But she was cunning.
Not for nothing was she the goddess of cunning.
The image of the gods in the minds of people began to distort.
Fear of the elements took on humanized forms, and along with them, human weaknesses.
Still immortal, the gods, under the influence of legends and tales, began to squabble among themselves.
But Kalli wanted more.
The changeable image of the goddess of deceit could easily take any form people invented.
The era of turmoil, when gods fought among themselves, was remembered by people as a series of terrible catastrophes.
Whole continents sank, lands rose from the ocean floor, volcanoes erupted, and the hottest lands were covered in ice.
As soon as the divine nature settled down and came into balance a little, Kalli had people invent science.
Those who had once created omnipotent beings with their fears and fantasies now did everything in their power to weaken them.
Constantly swinging from one extreme to the other, the gods could never notice the one who was the cause of their troubles and suffering.
She who now went by the name Kalli continued her invisible war.
“I know better than anyone how you feel, Zeus,” the girl said softly, making the man wince.
“But admit it, in the end, it all turned out just hilarious. People love you, ‘God of Thunder’… ha-ha-ha!”
The best joke from the goddess of mischief.
Adoration.
In the current age, the god Kalli hated most was associated with a handsome, spandex-clad savior boy and was the wet dream of countless human fools.
This couldn’t help but affect the god’s nature.
But it didn’t add any strength to the one who, throughout his entire existence, had fed only on human fear.
“You think I’m alone?” the man snarled.
“Just let me whisper a word, and dozens of gods will gather to…”
“You can’t handle it,” the goddess of cunning smirked even brighter.
“You’ve grown too weak, while I’ve become too strong,” she shrugged.
“…Fine,” the man forced out.
“But why do you need HIM?” He pointed his finger at the indifferently floating screen.
“If you thought you could hurt me this way, you miscalculated.”
“Oh, come on. I wasn’t planning anything at all. I was just amusing myself on Earth, and this little mouse, can you believe it, found ME on his own!” The goddess’s voice carried a distinct delight.
“I was shocked myself,” she confided to the god, who was boiling again.
“But what potential.” She turned her gaze back to the screen, where a boy was calmly destroying attacking enemies.
“Just half an hour in a new world, and out of eight people he met, seven have tickets to the afterlife. Decisive, your son.”
“Grrr…” Lightning struck again.
“Our conversation isn’t over.”
A moment later, nothing suggested that there had been anyone else in the strange space besides Kalli.
The god of thunder and lightning, having lost the battle of words, fled in disgrace.
Not that he ever had a chance to win.
He had chosen the wrong opponent.
“There, there, convince yourself all you want, but you already know you’ve lost,” Kalli cooed, knowing her interlocutor would hear her.
“And you…” She refocused on the screen.
“I never would have thought that that brute’s eternal desire to stick his dick into mortal women could produce someone so interesting. I hope you’ll appreciate the humor of my harmless little joke.”
***
“There we go. Finally, something to talk about, my dear fellow,” Samuel smiled predatorily.
Honestly, he was mostly bluffing here.
What could a six-year-old child, whose body he now inhabited, possibly ask for?
And what could he offer in return?
The fact that the beast-like man was cautious enough to take the kid seriously was surprising enough.
It had caught Samuel off guard.
But he hadn’t abandoned his idea of studying his own “Quirk.” Essentially, that’s what he was going to ask for.
No, demand.
In an ultimatum form, with threats of violence and the firm intention to carry them out if the villains didn’t agree.
Samuel was more than ready to show everyone his seriousness.
He didn’t know if the remaining villains would believe in the danger of a child, so he planned to lay out his scenario in as much detail as possible.
But something went wrong.
The giant standing opposite suddenly became alert.
His wide nostrils flared, the fur on the back of his neck stood on end, and his eyes seemed to redden.
The man’s animal instincts had caught something that the boy’s human senses couldn’t detect.
“Leo, trolley on the rails!” a short, stocky man ran out from around the corner.
His clothes clearly hinted at his purpose in this complex.
“There’s a ton of them, rail on the track!”
“Where?” the man snarled.
“Everywhere, mole in his hole!”
Samuel didn’t fully understand the thread of the conversation.
He lacked information.
“What are you talking about?” he asked coldly, making the two men remember his presence.
“Herroooees!” The mutant growled naturally, looking at the boy with primal fury.
“And you too!”
The picture became clear.
Samuel’s furrowed brow smoothed out.
He surveyed the scene of the recent battle.
If a minute ago there were still groaning bodies here, now things weren’t so optimistic.
The chance for first aid had been lost.
The only thing that could save the villains now was a rare healing Quirk.
Only the guy who had accidentally been caught in the electrical blast from his comrade had a chance of survival.
But his melted skin and countless burns didn’t look very promising.
And, it seemed, the farce the local villains had initially created had become reality.
Heroes were indeed attacking the base.
“Oops?”
***
Senior Police Inspector Hanzo was worried.
Over sixteen months of extremely careful preparation had finally paid off.
They had managed to locate the base of the most unpleasant group of villains he had ever seen.
The main reason for their “unpleasantness” was their carefully selected team of Quirk users.
In particular, All-Hearing.
As if mocking the number one hero, All Might.
This villain had the ability to set up invisible, undetectable bugs.
With them, he could eavesdrop on anyone without any problems.
Before the police even understood what they were dealing with, this guy would find out all the details of the investigation and, at the most opportune moment, the whole group would move to a new location, simply abandoning the old one.
And they had no problems with bases.
Having a Quirk that allowed them to dig kilometer-long tunnels gave the group simply unfair mobility.
Because of All-Hearing’s Quirk, all the details of the case had to be discussed in writing, then the notes completely destroyed.
The villains also had an invisibility Quirk.
A certain Chameleon, who couldn’t be detected by cameras or specialized Quirks, walked through the main police headquarters as if it were his own home.
So the operations command post constantly had to be moved to different departments, which also didn’t add to the convenience.
But finally, the villains’ base had been discovered.
Their excessive arrogance and inflated ego had been their undoing.
Soon, they would pay.
Hanzo couldn’t wait to lock those annoying criminals behind bars.
The heroes were storming the underground complex.