The LOV had migrated somewhere else once the Pros were gone, taking zero chances.

But they were kind of worried about Dabi.

"You know, I think he wanted to go, though," Spinner said, "He's been so chummy with that woman."

"Indeed, well, he does owe her," Compress said, stretching out his arm, "But to work with Pros? I never thought I'd see that."

"It's not gonna be a regular thing," Shigaraki said, "It's just because of Kurogiri... We can't let that gang take him..."

"I'm concerned about that too, though," Compress said, "I didn't know him all that well, but he seemed pretty loyal."

"It doesn't make sense," Shigaraki mused to himself, "Master would know why..."

"Eh, it's too bad he didn't break out too," Spinner said, "and Stain... Selfish pricks probably didn't break them out out of spite."

No one answered that.

"Well, I'm sure Dabi will be fine," Compress said at length, "He's one of the more...uh...conscientious ones of us. He'll watch his back."

* * *

"Yaoyurozu?" Shoto yelled, after checking all the hallways and not seeing her.

"Give it up. She's gone." Dabi was not in a great mood. "Probably one of the goons... Well, I can't say I'll miss her, but that's not the best sign either."

"Shut up, you b-----d!" Shoto turned to snap at him. "You let this happen! Did you see her go?"

"Hey, all I saw was her move off to check the hall. That's it. I didn't see no one else." Dabi was mad. "And wasn't it your job to take care of your own classmate? Don't put it on me."

"You distracted me on purpose with all that bs about... I bet you wanted her to get caught!" Shoto accused him.

"Oh, wow, how clever of me. You figured it out." Dabi put his hands up sarcastically. "And just how does it help me, genius? If we get caught, I lose too... And shut up. If they didn't know we were here, they definitely do now, with all your yowling."

"Don't tell me to shut up." Shoto lowered his voice anyway. "If it's not your fault, then why didn't you stop her?"

"Why would I? Am I in charge here?" Dabi said tightly, "Now if you'd stop losing your cool you might have stopped to notice there's a really sus elevator in that wall there," jerking his head toward the last hallway, "and it looks operational. I'd bet 2,000 yen that she went in there, like a moron, and didn't come back out."

Shoto looked at the elevator warily. "Fine, I'll go in after her, then." He went up and pushed the button on it. "Stay or come, I don't care which."

Dabi followed because he didn't want to be alone in this creepy as frick compound, even if it meant sticking around his stupid ex-brother. Anyway, the ponytailed chick getting caught could be a problem if they tortured her for information.

The elevator door opened, and no one was in there.

Shoto pressed his communicator wire. "Is anyone there? We lost Yaoyurozu... We're going in an elevator."

"Wait just a minute." Dabi grabbed him by his collar and yanked him back. "This is just a little too convenient, isn't it? We're trying to get underground, an elevator just happens to be here? And someone already disappeared? It sounds like a trap to me."

"It's an elevator." Shoto pulled away haughtily. "And if she's not anywhere else, then she must have gone in."

"Are you really this stupid? That's just what they want us to think," Dabi said.

"They?" Shoto said. 

"Yeah, I bet there's some b-----ds spying on us right now." Dabi eyed the hall hostiley. "So I'm thinking, we give this a little test first. Why don't you drop a chunk of ice in there or something and see what happens?"

"And what would happen other than it would melt all over the floor?" Shoto said.

"Oh, for the love of--- just do it," Dabi said.

Well, since it didn't seem that dangerous, Shoto complied, though resentfully.

He froze a person sized piece of ice into the elevator.

The doors shut.

At first it didn't seem anything was going to happen. But then the elevator shuddered in a weird way and disappeared into the wall. Leaving the ice.

Shoto blinked. "What the---?"

Dabi blew off his knuckles. "Boom," he muttered.

"But then where is...?" Shoto sputtered.

"Duh, she walked in or something, and it swallowed her into the wall, I bet," Dabi said, "So she's dead, likely as not...or else captured. Well, we should get out of here."

"Are you crazy? We have to help her," Shoto said.

"Oh, please, and what would you do, set it on fire?" Dabi walked away. "If she's still alive, she's got a better chance of busting out herself than we do of helping her get out. We should just try not to get captured." He eyed the door at the end of this hall.

"Well, that's also convenient...almost like we were supposed to pick this hallway."

Shoto would never have thought of any of this, but Dabi was the type to sleep with a knife under his pillow-- consequently, everything made him suspicious. In this case that made him more aware of his surroundings.

Shoto had no intention of leaving Momo in danger though, but he couldn't make the elevator reappear...or even explain the kind of quirk that would allow for it. He followed Dabi.

"Come back. We have to do something. Even if you don't care, I do, and I'm not leaving her behind."

"Knock yourself out, then," Dabi said, "You're an idiot."

He walked up to the door and eyed it. "Well, in for a penny." He shot blue flames at the door.

Shoto caught up. "What was that for? You're just going to melt out the only exit!---" He stopped.

The door shimmered and vanished into the wall, and then someone appeared who was barely an outline against it, but it was clearly a person. They were recoiling from the burst of heat.

Dabi leered. "Gotcha."

The person yelped and ran for it past Shoto, shoving him aside with surprising force.

Dabi looked up. "I bet this whole hallway's like that. D--- it! Walked right into it." He shot some fire at the ceiling, and it seemed to peel away like fabric.

Shoto shot ice after the running person, and it slammed into them and froze them in place.

"Who are you?" he yelled at them. 

The person came into full color. It was a wiry, little woman, who didn't look like much of a threat. "Code name Silk."

[Title Image and above image design by Onerose]

She had a light Russian accent and a softer voice than most villains, but her tone was cold.

"I got it." Dabi snapped fire into his fingers. "You make illusions like that other stupid blonde. Only I bet yours are a little different... Use paper, maybe?"

"Close." Silk seemed flattered that he guessed at all. "Most people don't realize they are illusions, actually. They think it's just art, but that's such a basic way to look at it. I mean, silk-screening is an ancient art---"

"Okay, bored now. How do we get out of here?" Dabi let his flames blaze up more. "Talk fast. I tend to get impatient about burning trash."

Shoto glared at him. "Where's Yaoyurozu?"

Silk leaned away from Dabi. "The girl? Wouldn't you like to know?" She vanished into ice...or perhaps it was just an illusion and she was still there.

"Don't melt that," Dabi said, rather unnecessarily, "It's just a trick... Well, fine, guess I'll set the whole place on fire."

"Don't do anything dumb!" Shoto snapped at him, "We need her to tell us where Momo is."

"First rule of interrogating someone-- never tell them what you really want!" Dabi was mad. "Now they have leverage. Anyway, why should I care? She got herself captured. You go look for her if you want. I'll take care of this pest myself."

"You can't just kill her!" Shoto blocked his path. "Even if they're a villain, that's not right!"

"Look at who you're talking to." Dabi was unimpressed. "You're just sore because you want to know where your little girlfriend is."

"Momo is not my girlfriend, and that's not true," Shoto said, "I'm saying it because that is what heroes do."

Dabi's gaze got colder. "Right. Heroes. Sure... Get out of my way or you can join her."

Shoto's eyes widened, then he said, "I knew it was a lie."

That made Dabi mad. "Listen, you little punk, you think you know everything, huh? You could never navigate this place on your own. Why would I want to be like you? You're useless. So step aside, hero, and let me actually do something useful."

"Killing someone is not useful," Shoto argued.

Dabi lost his patience, if he had any, and yanked Shoto aside by force.

Well, that did it for Silk, who was scared after hearing all that. She reappeared.

"Wait, wait!" holding up her hands, "Look, I'm a new recruit, okay? I don't really want to die or anything over this. How about I remove the screen and let you two go on your merry way, and we call it even?"

"Sure," Dabi said, "If you hurry up... No tricks though. I have no problem burning this dump down with us in it. I'm pretty immune to fire. Are you?"

Silk swallowed. "Right." She snapped her fingers. 

Fabric seemed to peel off the hall and fold into pieces. The hall changed into a narrow corridor that was just a dead end.

The other halls changed to be darker and more rundown.

The whole place was just a trap.

"I get it now. You're the guard," Dabi said, "Just a low level grunt with a lame quirk only suited to stopping people from getting in any closer than this. Couldn't even finish the job."

Silk sniffed. "It would have worked just fine on anyone else. If my illusions weren't so flammable... It's just bad luck it was you who walked in here."

"Right. So where's the right path?" Dabi didn't care.

Silk smirked. "Little tip. When working with someone who makes illusions, don't watch the illusions, watch the source." She vanished.

"My ice..." Shoto noticed it had melted around her. The heat of the fire? Or just her body heat? Who knew?

"Should have seen that one coming," Dabi grumbled, "Run." He raced out of the corridor. Shoto followed uncertainly. 

"But Momo--"

But even before he was done speaking, they saw something flash out of the corner of their eyes. Turning their heads, they saw Silk fall forward off the side of the wall they were turning the corner of.

Momo stood behind her, panting and holding a taser. Seeing them, she pushed the hair out of her face. 

"Sorry, it took a while for me to cut through the cloth bindings she used and find you... Are you okay?"

Dabi snickered. "A taser? Really?"

"Well, Shine suggested it after our joint training, so I learned how to make one. I just haven't used it before," Momo said apologetically.

"No, it was a good idea," Shoto said, "Are you okay?" He grabbed her arms.

"I'm fine. She didn't hurt me, just jumped me out of that silkscreen," Momo nodded, "but I wasn't sure where you were, then I saw it peel away... It was clever, burning it. That's not something I would have thought of."

"Well, don't give him the credit. He's an idiot," Dabi said, "If you're done hugging and stuff, let's get out of here...though maybe I should take care of the garbage first..." Eyeing Silk.

"You are not going to kill her!" Shoto said, "We won't allow it."

"But you'll allow her to follow us and try this whole thing again?" Dabi shot back.

"No...we can restrain her or something," Shoto said.

Momo pulled out handcuffs. "I'm on it." She hooked Silk's hands and feet together.

"Weak," Dabi said, though he didn't really want to kill the b---- that much. He just was being scary on purpose. He didn't really enjoy killing any more than anything else.

He started walking off down the only remaining corridor that had appeared, now that Silk was unconscious. A lot of peeling fabric lay all over.

"Like a spider, almost..." Shoto commented, "with a trap..."

"Are we the flies, then? " Momo said nervously.

Then in a low voice, "Uh...Todoroki-san, I think it's only fair if I tell you, I heard a lot of your argument... I didn't mean to, but we weren't that far away."

"So, then she heard it too." Shoto glared at Silk.

"Actually...uh, she was pretty interested for a bit there..." Momo said nervously, "I think she was waiting to attack... Gave me more time to get free, actually, so maybe it was a good thing, but...yeah..."

"It doesn't matter. It's just a pack of lies," Shoto said darkly, "I don't know why he'd make up some s--- like that, but I'll find out."

Momo bit her lip. "Oh...you're sure?"

"Yeah, I'm sure... Why wouldn't I be?" Shoto wasn't actually sure, but he thought he was. He mistook horror at the idea for certainty that it wasn't true.

"Oh...well I don't know your family, so I can't really say, but I had just thought, from my perspective, he seemed to be sincere..." Momo said, "And...uh, I was thinking about those pictures Shine and we went through at your house, and how similar he looks to them, if you imagine him without scars. And his hair is dyed, I think... I mean it's not a natural black anyway. And...then I thought, your eyes are alike too...but, if you think it's a lie, then I'm sure you know better."

Shoto felt a sinking feeling in his stomach. "You think we look alike?"

"Uh...just a little." Momo actually thought it was a lot but didn't want to hurt his feelings.

Shoto glanced at Dabi's back. He tried to imagine him without scars and staples and black hair... Then he realized he did look a lot like his older sister and his mom, even...

But that had to be a coincidence.

"Just looking alike isn't proof. That could just happen," he said.

"He's about the same age..." Momo wasn't helping.

"Also coincidence." 

"He knew your full name..."

"He could have found that out." Shoto felt sicker. 

"He hates your father though...and he knew about your mom... I'm sorry, I shouldn't have said that." Momo shook herself. "We don't need to talk about this anymore if you don't want to."

"If he was really Touya..." Shoto didn't know what he wanted...some kind of assurance no one in his family would have stooped so low? Could he say a Todoroki would not be in the LOV?

But to think his own brother, who he dimly remembered seeing play with his other siblings, would turn out to be a bloodthirsty villain trying to kill his friend? No, it was unthinkable!

"He hasn't given any proof he couldn't have found out by digging into our secrets. Likstar knows all that too," Shoto said, "Maybe she mentioned it."

Dabi turned around. "FYI, I can hear you, and Likstar didn't tell me s---. She wouldn't do that. You know it. She's got that stupid loyalty code. She won't even turn us in."

"He's right about that. Shine wouldn't have told him about you," Momo said, "anymore than she'd have told us about him or the other LOV."

Wow, Dabi thought. Princess was right on the line of figuring out that Shine had known already. That wouldn't be great for Likstar. Luckily, the idiot boy was too dense to put that together.

Shoto scowled at Dabi. "Well, then there was some other way. My brother would not be a villain."

Dabi frowned.

Momo bit her lip. "I guess it's hard to know what to believe, then, but you knew him, so I'll take your word for it, Todoroki."

"Thanks," Shoto said.

"Oh, gag me with something." Dabi couldn't take this. "Would this convince you?" He lowered his voice. "'Ignore them, Shoto! They're not a part of the world I'm preparing you for.' Or some crap like that..."

His tone was unmistakably just like Endeavor's...

Shoto's eyes widened as he remembered his dad saying something almost exactly like that one time, as he was dragging him by all three of his siblings... Shoto had tried to break free...

No one else had been around except them at that time, not his mom, not a servant, no one...

He felt even more nauseous than before, and it must have showed.

"Todoroki?" Momo reached for his arm, but he jerked away, breathing a little too fast. "But... that... No one else was there..."

"Convinced?" Dabi smirked smugly. "Ugh, I want to puke for repeating any of that bulls---... Can't believe you made me do that. I hate you so much right now."

"Was that something...?" Momo was sure Dabi had hurt Shoto in some way. "Why did you say that? You scared him."

"Oh, I think he's just having a flashback or something." Dabi didn't care. "Give him a second or two."

"That's...callous..." Momo said.

"Hello, villain?" Dabi gestured to himself. "And we're wasting time. We should be moving. There'll be more goons to stop us soon. You want to get caught again?"

"Todoroki, can you-- I mean are you all right?" Momo asked.

Shoto straightened. "Yeah, fine... Let's go..." His tone sounded dead. 

It was eerie, Momo thought to herself, how much like Dabi's it was in that one moment.

[Well, crap....and on an unrelated note, was I the only one who thought Silk's power was just like the camouflage Jutsu Naruto uses in the first season of Shonen Jump Naruto?]

* * *

"Do you think he'll be able to pull it off alone, though?" Twice asked.

"He's been our most reliable solo mission member so far," Compress waved it off, "if I do say so myself."

"Mostly because he's not much of a team player..." Spinner said.

"Hey, don't say that. He worked with us at the camp thing," Twice said, "But you have a point."

Shigaraki wasn't listening to them very closely. He hadn't admitted it, but the whole team-up with the Pros thing had him kind of strung out too.

Likstar was one thing-- she'd not turned them in. But he didn't trust any of the others. What if they just accidentally let him get shot or something?

They couldn't afford to lose anyone right now...

Still, what was there to do about it? 

He put his fingers together. What would All For One say...? This situation had never exactly come up, actually.

Err.

"I don't know what it is," Compress was saying, "I think sometimes about what happened in the last month, and it seems surreal. Like it wasn't what we were planning."

"It wasn't," Spinner said.

"But does it seem like it changed more?" Compress said, "I don't know... I thought we were going to work with the Metas..."

"Well, we're mulling over our options," Spinner said, "Right, boss?"

Shigaraki made no reply.

"Something about them is a little weird, though," Spinner admitted, "Like they haven't told us everything."

"True," Compress said, "but you have to be higher up. That's how these groups work."

"But they had a plan," Spinner said.

"They have the power of numbers we don't have," Compress said.

"Yeah, sure," Spinner said.

"If there was a reason to turn them down, it would just be to retain control over our plans, wouldn't it?" Compress theorized.

"Yeah, well, there is something to be said for independence," Spinner muttered, "I don't know if Stain would approve them."

"We don't know for sure." Compress thought Spinner harped on about that too much. 

Shigaraki didn't act like it, but he had considered those same things. But, then again, there was the promise of more influence. They didn't have a whole lot of options for that. They would have to make some kind of decision.

[As you can tell in this timeline, their involvement was not as soon as in the OG show's. It fit better that way--also the OG is kind of confusing as to when exactly it all happened... A lot went down in a few months, and we're not sure as of yet how and why. So I had to change it.

I know people don't care because it's a fan fic, but since I refer to canon events, I think it's good to be clear where the changes are, so it doesn't get too convoluted.]

All of the sudden, Compress stopped talking. 

"What is it? Did you remember something?" Spinner asked weirdly.

Compress took off his mask. His eyes were huge. Then he held up his left hand.

Spinner didn't get it. "What's the problem?"

Compress moved his left hand.

Spinner suddenly almost choked on air. "What the actual h---?!!"

Twice looked up too. Toga woke up from where she'd been asleep in a corner.

Shigaraki turned to stare through his hand.

Compress began yelping and getting up and flailing his arms in panic. "I don't know what happened, I swear. I was just moving, and it wasn't there, and then it was!"

"Wow..." Spinner backed up a little. "That's cool... Huh, does that mean Overhaul's quirk isn't that permanent after all? Could he have have undone it from this far away? Is it sending a message, maybe?"

"I don't know..." Compress and Spinner kept on, with inserts from Twice that made no sense.

But Shigaraki stopped listening. He'd gone deep into his mind...

Remembering something.

"It's not like it's anything that can be helped," Compress dismissed it.

Shine smiled, then her eyes glinted gold. "Who knows? You might find it can be." [ Part 87, if you didn't read it.]

The gold!! Shigaraki realized. Her power!...but wait, why would it take so long to work? Unless... Something about this felt like a kind of omen.

He had to ponder it, get away from the others.

"I'm going out," he announced.

No one was listening that closely, but they were used to him just disappearing to go think, and they didn't say anything as he left the room.

"Can you use your quirk...?" Twice was asking.

"It looks like it..." Compress turned something into a marble. "Well, what do you know about that? I didn't know how much I missed left handed tricks..."

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