Viridian: The Green Guide

Chapter 6: Trigger

When Izuku rolled out of bed and immediately started his nightly stretches before getting dressed in his vigilante clothes. Was it weird that the middle of the night was turning into his favorite time of day? It probably was. Kacchan would probably think he was crazy for wanting to go out in the middle of the night to bother heroes.

Izuku snuck out to the front door but froze with his hand on the doorknob. Hadn't he decided yesterday that he really needed to take weapons with him? He hesitated another long moment while he debated the merits of just going out weaponless again. He could always just rely on what trash he could find, right? It had worked just fine last time.

But while he could do that, he probably shouldn't. Mom would kill him if she knew he was running into fights without any kind of weapon or plan of attack and while he wasn't planning on her finding out, it was the principle of the thing.

So something small and easy to hide, but also something he could grab quickly so he didn't cut too much into his vigilante time tonight. Hmmm...cut...maybe he should bring some sort of knife?

He turned on his phone's flashlight and went into the kitchen. Were there any knives that Mom wouldn't miss? He obviously couldn't take any from the knife block, they'd be missed immediately. He might be able to get away with taking a steak knife, but...it probably wouldn't be a good idea to put a knife in his pocket without any kind of sheaf, would it? He'd just end up cutting himself as he tried to run get heroes and that wouldn't do any good.

He needed a knife with some kind of protection already built-in. Izuku smiled as an idea occurred to him and he started to rummage as quietly as he could in the junk drawer. It took him a while to find what he was looking for since they used it so infrequently and he was starting to get scared that they'd actually lost it when his hand closed around the old box cutter. Izuku practiced extending and retracting the blade a few times to get a feel for it. Yeah, the cuts wouldn't be very deep, but they'd be enough to distract a villain in a pinch so Izuku could run away or find another opening. It was a good start.

Now onto a bludgeoning weapon. On a whim, Izuku went to the pantry and grabbed a can of soup. Running around with a can wouldn't be good in the long run, since it was heavy and hard to hold, but he could always replace it with something more streamlined later. Besides, it had worked so well last time that he knew it was reliable.

A can and a boxcutter didn't feel like enough, though. Izuku was going to be fighting quirkless against people with quirks, so he probably needed a few more weapons than most vigilantes did. He wished he had something like tonfa, but he didn't know how to use them and they were just a bit larger than he was comfortable carrying around in his hoodie pocket. Some kind of stick would work pretty well, though, if only...Izuku quickly went to the hall closet where Mom kept her old crafting supplies. Hadn't she done a project with wooden dowels a few months ago? If Izuku was lucky, there'd be a few left.

He grinned when he saw the dowels standing up against the wall. He grabbed two of the shorter pieces, each about twenty centimeters long and three around, but one was slightly shorter than the other. Izuku hoped that the difference wouldn't throw him too off balance if he had to use them in a fight.

Now that he finally felt armed enough, Izuku turned off his flashlight and walked out the front door. He was ready.

Izuku pressed himself against the wall to make sure he was completely hidden in the shadows while he watched the thugs. He had heard raised voices, so ran toward the side street and was currently hiding in an alley, but the thugs weren't actually doing anything. There were about ten of them and they were probably part of a gang or something, but they seemed to be joking around and roughhousing, not doing anything nefarious.