The Hero This City Needs

[All Might]

All Might walked through the gate, and after a brief moment of disorientation, he found himself in front of the most beautiful city he had ever seen. The storm troopers he had helped were already transferring the wounded to a more mobile, flying vehicle. Soon they were off, with nothing more for him but a polite wave. 

As he admired the scenery, he couldn't help but notice that there were a lot of the soldiers around. It was quite rare that he could turn his head and not notice the presence of white plastic armor. 

What he really wanted to do was test out the differences in his body, but he couldn't help but feel if he started leaping from sky scraper to sky scraper, the military police presence wouldn't take kindly to it. He wasn't quite sure how actually evil this version of the Empire was, but in any case, the Emperor set the laws in the city. If he was going to continue being a hero, he would have to keep those laws.

So for now, he held back. 

He meandered his way through the massive city, trying to get his head around all of it. He had spent nearly forty minutes wandering Coruscant when something finally got his attention. 

"Thief!" someone cried, and All Might sprung into action. 

"Stop right there!" he shouted, leaping over the street, and catching himself on the opposite sidewalk. He saw the thief, a child, practically, clutching at the purse as she ran as fast as she could carry herself. 

He took another leap, at a running start, and practically shot over the heads of the others on the street- none of whom seemed particularly worried about the child running with the stolen bag. 

"Ah! Ah!" she shouted, turning a corner down an alley- if one could even call it that. Even the thin space between buildings on Coruscant were well-lit and extravagantly decorated. 

"Stop!" All Might commanded, and with a few speedy steps, he was in front of her. She couldn't stop herself in time, and bounced off his leg, dropping the purse in the process. All Might's hand darted out to catch her before she could fall. 

"Don't hurt me! It was a dare! I had to, or they wouldn't... they wouldn't..."

"Look, if your friends are making you steal, you might want to consider hanging out with a different crowd!" All Might said, letting go of her once he was sure she wouldn't flop over, as he reached down to pick up the wallet. 

"No, just- give that back, and let me go! I need to get to a lower tier!"

"Lower tier?"

"Halt." All Might turned around, and noticed three storm troopers, guns lowered. 

"Ah, there's no problem officers." All Might said, putting his hand on the girl's shoulder, "The wallet is right here. No harm, no foul?" he asked hopefully, but something about the souless black gaze of their helmets told him it wouldn't be that simple, "She is just a child after all."

"She broke the law." one of them said, "She's coming with us."

"..." All Might glanced down at the girl, who was practically shivering in her boots, now, "Prison seems a bit much for a child, doesn't it?"

"This is Tier One. Criminal activity of any kind is not tolerated. Including vigilantism." the trooper warned, "Because you were acting in Coruscant's interests as you understood them, we'll let you off once. You're a new Prime, after all."

"How do you know I'm new?"

"Irrelevant." the trooper said. He turned to his two comrades, "Get the criminal."

"Isn't this a bit hasty?" All Might tried. The two troopers advanced regardless of his complaints, though he could tell their eyes were on him, beneath their helmets. They weren't stupid, after all. They knew he was something called a 'Prime' someone that could create things from Ominilium, that he was potentially dangerous. It was almost brave of them, to push him to choose between the law, and- not exactly an innocent, but a child all the same. 

"If you continue to interfere in police business, we will consider you to be a criminal yourself. Back away, Prime." 

All Might sighed, "I'm afraid I can't do that." he tossed the wallet forwards, towards the stormtroopers, before grabbing the girl and launching himself into the air. He dug his feet into the side of the building, and then made another jump, and then another. The girl began to scream, "Now then, my girl! It seems like we have need to leave the first Tier!"

"I- I uh, I..."

"Take your time!" All Might said, the sound of sirens however alerted him that there was at least one vehicle in pursuit. 

"Uh, there's tunnels, and things. Little secret passages. And there are the elevators- but they have cameras."

"We'll have to risk it! Which way?"

The girl pointed, and he was off like a shot. 

After this little bit of testing, he knew that he was definitely weaker than his 100% form... but considering it was without strain, and he didn't have to revert to his emaciated form at all, it was almost a fair trade... almost. Hopefully nothing in the Omniverse would be dangerous enough to warrant his old strength.

The girl ordered directions at him, and he followed, soon enough, they were before an elevator, already filling with people heading to the lower tiers. 

Storm troopers appeared in view just as the elevator doors began to close, and All Might silently regretted that the Star Wars franchise had ever been made.

933 words 5,219 characters, according to wordcounter.net

[All Might]

The girl, a young twilek named Jel, was something called a Secondary. She couldn't summon things from Omnilium, nor produce it, like Primes, like All Might could.

As the elevator descended further and further into the depths of Coruscant, Jel began to quietly explain her situation. The first few Tiers of Coruscant were mostly safe- crimes still happened, but the stormtroopers were never far behind. But in Tier Five and below, that guarantee didn't exist. Children found themselves joining gangs to survive, forcing each other to risk upper tiers in order to steal from richer Secondaries than themselves.

It made All Might sick. But... there wasn't too much that he could do to effectively fix the problem. If the Empire didn't care enough about the lower tiers to provide police- even the hyper-vigilant and too-strict police that he had seen in Tier One -No matter how many gangs he dismantled, or children he saved, the overall condition of the lower Tiers would remain nightmarish.

There wasn't much to it. But at least he could help this girl, right now. When he had better bearings on the Omniverse as a whole, he told himself, he would come back and take on the problem with a plan. He had seen Japan almost under Sensei's grip, and he had seen it get better, due, in good part, to his own actions. It wasn't ego, he knew, factually, that the Symbol of Peace All Might helped save Japan.

If he was going to be stuck here, he could work to save Coruscant next.

The doors on Tier Five opened, and All Might blinked at the stark change in aesthetics to Tier One. Tier One was something out of Sci-Fi; Coruscant, Krypton, the Jetsons. But Tier Five seemed to have been downgraded a few centuries. This looked like an American city, an ordinary one, maybe a hundred years before All Might's time. "So, where do you live?"

"I..."

"It's fine, I promise, I'll help you find somewhere safe. Do you have parents?"

"Yeah." she said quietly, "Come on, I'll show you." All Might allowed himself to be led by the hand to one of the countless rotten buildings. They walked into the lobby, and moved upwards, "My parents... they don't have much money. If we need more food, we have to find it. Dad says it's most important to keep the apartment. If we lose the roof over our heads, we've lost everything. But I know that isn't true. On Tier Six, most people don't even have roofs."

"I see." All Might said. He knocked on the door, and soon enough a woman opened it, looking out suspiciously.

"Jel!" the woman said, surprised, when she noticed her daughter, "Where... have you..." she trailed up as her gaze drifted upwards, and upwards, and upwards- "oh my god you could grind meat on those- gah!" the woman tore her eyes away from All Might's abs, and grabbed her daughter, pulling her into the room, and shut the door behind her. All Might sighed, but decided to look on the bright side in this case. The child had family who cared for her. Keeping his winning smile, he knocked on the door again.

He waited patiently for it to open, and the woman peered out at him, "Thank you for what you did for Jel, but she's home now. You can move along."

"I just want to know if there's anything I can do. Jel said she had been dared to go up to Tier One-" he decided to not mention the stealing, "That's... dangerous. I'd like to know what gang in particular thought it was a good idea, and see if I can't-"

"Please don't. You'll just make things worse for us... just leave us alone. Please."

"I'm a Prime. If there's anything-"

"No." she said, and shut the door.

He sighed, and simply pulled out a small globe of pure Omnilium. Flattening it in his hands, he kicked it under the door, and made his way down the steps, and out of the building.

He took to wandering the New York-esque tier, debating his options. He supposed information was key. He still had very little idea where he was, what he was, or the why of anything in this place. He remembered Omni's brief introduction, explaining the use of Omnilium, but beside that... he needed to know more. He stopped at a street lamp, and leaned against it, thinking. The police might be looking for him, so he wouldn't be going to them any time soon. The low technology level of the city was appalling as well, if he went to a higher Tier, he was sure there would be computers aplenty for him to use, but higher tiers also equaled more cops.

He did not want to start his career in the Omniverse with assaulting a police officer, storm trooper or not.

As a hover car covered in less dents than any other he had seen noisily puttered by, he backed out of the light, and almost turned in the opposite direction. But then he heard the car make an awful electronic sound as it came to a stop, followed immediately by the sound of two large metal things hitting tar. He turned around, and saw that two large trash bins, each big enough to be almost the size of the car they had just barricaded, had been dropped onto the road, pushed from the alleys on either side.

Young men, wearing dirty clothes, of various species and carrying weapons that stretched between simple chains, to glowing crystalline blasters, began to appear from the alleys. The road was suddenly dotted with them.

"Get out of the car, empty your pockets!" one of the young men cried, "Right now!"

All Might put his other thoughts from his mind, and took a massive leap towards the scene.

980 words, 5,383 characters. Encountered a violent crime.

[All Might]

As he approached, the gang members immediately took notice. Almost anyone would, at the sight of a huge man in bright red white gold and blue rocketing towards you from the sky like an extremely patriotic meteor.

"Do not worry!" he crashed into the tar nearby the victim of the gangster's ambush, and quickly got back to his feet, fists held in front of him proudly, "For I am here!"

"Who the hell are you supposed to be?" one of the gangsters growled, pointing a futuristic-looking blaster at the superhero.

"I am All Might! The living symbol of peace!"

"Oh god, this guy's a prime." one of the members muttered, putting away his weapon, raising his arms.

"So you're going to just surrender like that?" another of them turned on his friend, "Besides, how do we even know he's a Prime?"

"Because he's definitely not from around here. And it's not too often other Secondaries can just... drop out of nowhere like that. Or walk into a group of a dozen armed badasses like ourselves wearing a smile like that."

"Whatever! We can still kill him." the man holding the gun said.

All Might grabbed the victim of the ambush, and leaped once more, clearing over the heads of the gangsters. His now-screaming passenger began to panic as they were very suddenly over a hundred and fifty feet in the air. All Might landed on the roof of the building without an issue, and let the man down. "Just stay up here until this blows over!" he said, "Don't worry! I'll handle these criminals in a few moments.”

With that, he took a leap downwards, and landed among the gang members… now, this was his heroic debut in this city- not counting Jel’s failed theft, and he didn’t -he had to handle them with something special, didn’t he?

Squaring his feet, he turned his glare, empowered by his smile, at each of them in turn, “If you want to surrender, drop your weapons and come stand behind me!”

The gangster to first realize he was a prime immediately dropped his crowbar and rushed behind him, “No one else? Fine by me!”

He reared both fists back, and then suddenly they were outstretched in front of him. “DETROIT SMAAAAAASH!”

The shockwave spread out through the air, radiating from each fist, and sending two of the gang members flying backwards. The one with the blaster fired, but a quick dash to the side let him dodge it easily enough. He darted forward, and wrapped his massive hand around the gangster with the blaster’s wrist. As easily as lifting a brick, the young man was suddenly in the air. Reaching across with his other hand, he pulled the gun away, and attempted to crush it in his fist.

To his crushing disappointment, it barely crumpled.

Sure, the gun was basically scrap at this point, but it was still mostly-gun shaped! His speed was barely half of what it used to be, his vertical jump not even a third. But his strength… it was only a bare fraction of what he used to have.

But it would have to do!

He threw the debris at another gangster, and went full-on into the fray, grabbing men, tossing them, dodging back and forth between gunshots, stabs, and punches.

In the end, the gang was nearly completely put down. Each of the men lying prone on the street. He turned to glare at the last of them, the one who surrendered.

“Now… get a move on.” All Might ordered, “And if I see you trying things like this somewhere else, I won’t be pleased let me tell you!” he chided, wagging a finger at the man.

“Y-yes.” and with that, he was off running.

“I hope he makes a change.” All Might said, before walking over to the two dumpsters, and pushing each one back into its original position.

He made another jump, and found the man he had saved watching at the edge of the roof, “That, that was incredible!” the man murmured, “Really, honestly, I haven’t seen anything like it, except in Dante’s Abyss.”

“Dante’s Abyss?”

“It’s a tournament that airs online and on television, Primes vs Primes, for the most part. Bloodsport. I don’t follow it exactly, but the contestants who do well tend to become celebrities.”

All Might sighed, “This world has a lot of cleaning up to do, doesn’t it?”

“Well you made it one part cleaner. With those fools dead-”

“Dead?” All Might asked, surprised, “Nonsense. More than a few of them will be feeling out of it for a few days to come, but I’m a professional! They’ll all be fine, I assure you.”

“Wh-Why?!”

“I’m not judge or jury, and I’m definitely not executioner. I am a Hero.” All Might said definitively, “Now, if you could just call the police on my behalf for me, that would be very kind!”

“Why can’t you do that?” the man asked, confused.

“I interfered in police procedures, and then became a vigilante!” All Might said proudly, “It was a misunderstanding, but all the same.”

“I… I can do that, yeah.”

“Good! Now then, I’ll be off! Er, unless you wanted me to carry you back down?”

“I’ll… take the stairs.”

878 words, 4857 characters, according to wordcounter.net

Must encounter a violent crime in progress: DONE and try to prevent it: DONE Must physically fight a criminal street gang and win: DONE  May arrest but not kill the criminals: DONE

2791 words total. 

It's practically a given that All Might's first quest must be this one. I'm not sure I'm into the rhythm of writing him yet, but it's coming along.