Satori walked along the side of the building. The lab itself had very few windows. Which for a research building seemed an odd choice and to Satori’s observant eyes, the inside of the lab had been significantly deeper than the outside seemed to give credit to. Which was strange as it was built into the side of a sort of ‘hillock’ with the mass of dirt rising up behind the building. The hill itself seemed inconspicuous enough save for the lone utility encompassed by a fence. It looked like one of those backup generators with a little shed next to it for maintenance and wire housings to be maintained.

“Except the wires don’t run back towards the lab…” Satori’s eyes followed the metal encased wiring which ran opposite of the lab and dove into the ground towards the hill. Unless it went down and back under the backup generator, they were powering something else.

Walking across the open lawn, Satori cast a glance up to the main lab building, camera’s were clearly following his progress, but that didn’t stop him. He moved up to the fence surrounding the generator, running a finger along the fence. He could feel the hum from the machine in his chest as it pumped out energy.

“If it’s a backup. Why is it running?”

————————————————————

Back inside, a security guard watched the screens as Satori approached the backup generators. Behind him stood the frail woman, cloaked in thick black robes, “Your orders Ma’am?”

The woman didn’t answer immediately, hollow eyes watching the screen for a moment before she leaned down and pressed a button, “Let him in. I will deal with him inside. Can’t have him calling the other pro’s in.”

The security guard nodded.

———————————————————

Satori heard a click and turned his gaze immediately to the little shed door which popped open suddenly. He expected a maintenance panel, maybe some tools. But what he saw or better yet, smelled. Was not what you’d expect. The scent of decay, and a set of stone stairs that looked like they’d been painted in blood. Satori felt an unnatural chill run up his spine.

“This doesn’t bode well.”

He felt his phone buzz in his pocket.

[Midori: I’ll do what I can. Don’t do anything reckless sugar-cube.]

Satori chuckled. He needed to remember to take Midori out on a date again one of these days. But for now, he had bigger fish to fry. He used a small shockwave from the tip of his finger to blast apart the lock on the fence and without any hesitation stepped into the shed, the staircase was narrow and seemed like it went down forever, again, in the opposite direction of the lab.

And the smell. The smell was awful. A mix of decay and antiseptic. But Satori wasn’t a hero because he was a coward, he stepped into the stairwell without fear and walked down into it’s depths. The lower he went, the stronger the smell. The stairway lit with the same decaying, flickering fluorescent lights as the rest of the place.

The staircase seemed to stretch on forever but eventually Satori reached the bottom. He stood in the doorway leading into a circular room, with a reception desk very much reminiscent of the one in the lab on the surface. Except at this desk sat what looked like the ghost of a woman. Sickly and weak in her chair. Sunken eyes looked up at Satori.

“Welcome, hero.” She said in a raspy voice.

He felt the flutter in his stomach, he could feel his senses firing on all cylinders, trying to warn him of the dangers around him. He stopped halfway to the desk and stared at the woman for a long moment, “I hardly feel this is a welcoming place. Now, where is the young woman who was taken from the hospital?” He asked sharply, his voice giving no room for argument.

The woman tilted her head to the side, it gave off audible cracks as if the bones were broken, “Young woman taken from a hospital? I’d have to check our records. We take in many from such places.”

Satori ground his teeth gently, “Don’t jerk me around you…whatever you are. She’s either here, or someone from your lab has laid hands upon her. A young woman with pink hair, kind of hard to miss.”

The woman stood up suddenly, an evil grin spreading across her lips and showing decaying teeth, “Oh. You mean the young student. May Twenty-First as she likes to call herself? Uses her quirk to kill herself and save others?”

There it was. This was the right place. She was here. Satori narrowed his eyes, “Yes. That one. My niece, you’ve taken the wrong person. Villain.”

Laughter echoed through the chamber, layers of it. But the woman’s mouth never moved, not even as she spoke again, “Never heard of her. But then, even if I had…I wouldn’t be turning her over to you. You’ve walked into an early grave, Hero.”

The walls, covered in what looked like flesh seemed to bubble before a torrent of semi-solid black goo exploded out of it’s surface, launching at Satori. He threw up a hand in front of himself, letting loose a forwards shockwave just as the stuff touched his hand. The column of black ooze exploded, plastering the left and right sides of the room with the stuff. Satori stared at his hand, it trembled as the flesh grew red and hot, like it was infected.

From directly over his shoulder came a voice, “Do be careful. You could pick up an infection in a place like this…”

He spun and launched another shockwave in front of him immediately…at nothing but air. The woman was gone. But the black ooze coating the walls had covered every inch of it’s surface. Covering over the exits, slowly creeping along the floor towards him, “Rest well Hero. Know that your body will be used for science. And that your niece too, will contribute to the reshaping of society.”

Then the woman disappeared from behind the reception desk as the ooze crept towards him.

Now, he couldn’t have known how the place was built. But it was this lack of knowledge that saved him in that moment. He lifted a hand and plunged it downwards against the floor, letting loose a huge shockwave. One that sent huge cracks along the floor, that shattered the walls and several floors below him. As he did the ooze launched from the surfaces as they tumbled down into the chasm he’d just created in the underground facility.

A mid-air struggle as he launched shockwave after shockwave at each column of black that rushed at him. He wasn’t a pro for nothing. But he wasn’t invincible and the floor on the ground below was quickly rushing up to greet him and the strange ooze.

Clearly, he’d found the right place. But the question was, would he make it out?