Chapter Text
Unfortunately, the fall isn’t high enough to guarantee an instant death.
All Nice is aware of after dropping off the building is pain. The impact to his head had compromised the rest of his senses, the searing pain of his broken arm blending with the dizzy swoop of blood gushing everywhere. The world is a fading blur of muted colors, the sounds getting farther and farther away from him as he feels his sense of self drop deeper and deeper into an ocean of pain until it was all he could feel.
He never realizes when the world goes dark and numb.
The next time Nice has a sense of self is when he realizes he could still feel the pain.
He can’t breathe. He can’t move. He can’t even open his eyes.
But the pain is still there. Oozing, ebbing. Only this time, it doesn’t feel like it is going away, not allowing him to drop into the gentle arms of death’s cold embrace. No, this pain’s freezing bite was cold. Sharp. Searing the insides of his skin with a frosty fire and overwhelming his senses. Nice could still feel. Could still sense worldly sensations as his body burned, burned, burned in the fires of hell.
Oh no, is what Nice’s first thought to himself was as he feels his mind succumb once again from the intensity of his pain.
Why am I not dead yet?
The next time Nice comes into consciousness, he regains his sense of touch and hearing. He hears the echoing sounds of bubbling liquid around him, loud in his ears. He feels the thick substance on his skin. Pushing. Pulling. Caressing. Filling every crevice in his body. Nice takes a small breath, but finds himself inhaling the substance surrounding him instead of air. It feels thick and gooey, traveling up his nostrils. Yet, his body doesn’t reject the matter, instead welcoming the substance greedily as it fills his sloshing lungs without question.
Where the hell was he?
“...Hm. He’s alert. That’s good.”
The vaguely familiar voice is disembodied, as if filtered through layers and layers of glass. Nice tries to frown, to concentrate on identifying the voice. But his facial muscles don’t respond to his wishes, his body unwilling to comply with his demands. All Nice can do is feel, feel, feel the cold bite of the liquid he’s supposedly floating in, feel it invade every nook and cranny of his body as it molds itself to him.
…What is happening to me?
Time passes. Nice’s awareness grows stronger by the day. But his control of his body seems to be severed. As if he no longer owned himself.
It terrifies him.
His sense of touch and hearing grows stronger. Nice can now identify the sounds of bubbling liquid around him, much louder than in his memories. It sickens him to understand where he is, but remain powerless to get out, out, out—
“We’re quite lucky that person was there when you fell,” Nice hears the disembodied voice say. The world outside was starting to regain more color these days, though very little. Nice suspects the slow return of his vision is due to his location already being a dimly lit space, only illuminated by the glow of power cables, computer screens…
…and Fear.
“He looks just like you,” Mr. Shang’s blurry figure speaks beyond the glass. Nice’s dim eyes track his fuzzy movements, unable to do much else but listen to the CEO talk. “And plays your role very well. You should thank him once you’re fully revived. He’s keeping your Trust alive long enough for you to still maintain your sanity.”
Nice’s gaze drops to the flickering numbers on his wrist. His Trust Value is still a bright holographic blue, a stark contrast to the Fear his body is submerged in. The number on his wrist seems to repel the evil substance, fighting vainly as it drops, drops, drops. The numbers slowly tick down like a dreadfully delayed timer.
Struggling. Fighting.
“We’ll have to kill him after you’re fixed,” Mr. Shang muses. “Having two of you is impractical. And the brat is too morally conscious to serve as a weapon. The full return of your Trust could stabilize you as well. Though, I’m sure housing two opposing forces within your body will be…uncomfortable.”
Nice doesn’t respond.
Mr. Shang eventually finishes his tasks and leaves without a goodbye, clicking off the lights in the warehouse and plunging Nice into the darkness. Nice is left alone, surrounded by lab equipment as his body slowly absorbs and succumbs to the effect of the Fear in the chamber he’s been locked in.
Nice recalls the man on the roof. His angry outburst. His confusion. The shock and fear that crossed his face as Nice disappeared from view. He looked like an ordinary civilian, on the roof with a box of his scattered belongings, yelling obscenities at the world and taking his anger out on others for his misfortune.
The typical, selfish, good-for-nothing lowlife.
Tch, thank him? Nice thinks to himself as he closes his eyes and drifts to sleep. I’d rather kill him myself.
A few months pass. No matter how much Mr. Shang tries to alter the formula and concentration, Nice remains unable to control his own body. He stays a lifeless puppet. Strings cut. Muscles lax. Body unresponsive.
“Hm,” Mr. Shang mutters to himself as he swirls a vial of black, black Fear. Nice lays on the ground at his feet, conscious but not moving. His muscles seize from neurons firing at his pain receptors, instinctual jolts of energy that give the illusion of a living being on the floor. But Nice doesn’t breathe or blink.
He merely stares at the ground in swaths of pain, pain, pain.
“...This is going nowhere,” the CEO sighs. He slots the vial into a holding brick before picking Nice up with a grunt. Dragging the hero’s limp body to the bubbling Fear Chamber, Mr. Shang utilizes a rusty scissor lift to elevate them to the top before sliding Nice’s limp body back into the liquid. “Perhaps I need a different approach.”
Mr. Shang walks out, coat in hand. Nice doesn’t bother watching him go, mind going hazy from the extreme pain the last experiment had put on his body.
His Trust Value suddenly surges one day.
Nice feels the effect on the Fear around him as the liquid suddenly grows agitated, swinging painfully against him and the glass walls. His eyes shoot open. The warehouse is dark and unattended, shutters barely letting in the daylight outside. But the glow on his wrist is growing brighter, the numbers climbing higher, the Trust repelling the Fear that fights to hold him, eat him, consume until his humanity is nothing but a memory—
Nice’s Trust suddenly slams back into his body and repels the Fear with such force that it breaks the glass of the chamber open. Fear surges outwards, hauling Nice out in the wave of chaos and slamming him against broken glass and displaced lab equipment. Nice’s body slides to a slimy stop on the wet floor, the lab all but ruined as Nice’s Trust Value ebbs and flickers, numbers fluctuating wildly as if confused.
Nice suddenly realizes he was raising his own wrist to look at the number.
The naked hero gingerly sits up, slow. His body still feels as if it isn’t his own, but it’s finally responding to his cues. Like a puppet on loose strings. Nice takes a moment to catalogue his injuries, eyes roving over his form before he realizes something.
He’s not breathing.
Nice’s hands go up to feel his chest. Strangely, he doesn’t feel as if he’s suffocating. But as Nice’s fingers come into contact with his own skin, all he feels is cold, wet flesh. Not even an ounce of warmth from his blood or body heat. Nice also discovers something else.
His heart isn’t beating.
The hero lets his hand fall to his side. Nice sits there, unmoving, brain processes maddeningly slow as the hero tries to piece together what has happened to him.
I’m dead. But alive?
Nice’s eyes finally catch a glimpse of something. An injury on his torso. Instead of red blood, a slow leak of bright purple liquid was oozing out of him. Sparkling. Dangerous. Deadly.
He’s alive. Because Fear pumps in his veins.
Nice drags his gaze to look at the number on his wrist. The number is still flickering, fluctuating wildly. Nice considers the Trust Value for a moment, thinking of all the possibilities that could have caused its return.
Something must’ve happened to the rooftop guy.
The Trust Value flickers wildly as the thought crosses his mind, as if confirming it. Nice stares at it for a while longer before moving his gaze to the wall to stare despondently at it. Waiting.
He didn’t look like the kind of guy who’d put up much of a fight, anyway.
Nice is wrong. The guy does put up a fight.
A very, very horrid excuse of a fight.
“Unexpected, but this works,” Mr. Shang muses to himself in his office. The CEO had dropped by to pick him up from the warehouse at night. He had already predicted something happened to Nice and knew about the return of his Trust Value, though the sight of Nice sitting on the floor by his own will was a welcome surprise. Nice had clumsily gotten into his car and found himself standing in the executive’s office, lurking in the shadows of the bookcases as Mr. Shang scrolled through various articles and news stories of the events earlier in the day.
The rooftop guy has a name.
Lin Ling.
The rooftop guy had a nemesis.
God Eye.
The rooftop guy has become a hero.
The Commoner.
Nice watches the various headlines and video clips play on the holographic screens. He’s still adjusting to moving on his feet, being in control of his own body. The patient gown Mr. Shang had dressed him in was cheap and crinkled, yet strangely his OCD compulsions were muted. Silent. As if they were okay with imperfection.
Nice knows the Fear isn’t a miracle cure, however, as the disgust he feels from watching Lin Ling throw sloppy punches and take avoidable hits with his heavy, untrained body rakes against his skin like needles on a chalkboard.
Disgusting.
How could the people look at that and call it a hero?
“We can keep your Trust Value high if we use Lin Ling to carry your memory further,” Mr. Shang speaks to himself, almost using Nice as a rubber duck for his brainstorming. The man hums to himself, thinking. “His hero suit would be a good reminder. A homage to the fallen hero, Nice, whose memory Lin Ling tried to keep alive before eventually taking on his own hero name. He can stall for time. You’re not fully ready to return, after all.”
Nice stares at Lin Ling’s face swearing obscenities at God Eye as he berates the villain for fooling him with a holographic mannequin.
Damn you, Lin Ling.
Time flies quickly after Nice regains a semblance of control over his body. Mr. Shang maintains a frequent schedule of check-ins, drawing “blood” from Nice and pumping fresh Fear into him almost 5 times a day. Nice is kept in a secret room of his office, hidden behind the bookshelves and locked away from the world outside.
Nice prefers it that way.
After all, he still needs time to accept the fact that he’s back.
Right back into the hell he tried so desperately to escape from on the roof that day.
He’s nursing a grudge for Lin Ling. His damned savior, oblivious as he is. The man is hospitalized for a while from the injuries, body still not fully adjusted to the effects of Trust. Miss J handles the public fallout of the truths Lin Ling hid for months — Nice is dead, Moon is alive, Lin Ling was a fake. But the public doesn’t care for the misdirection or the lies. All they care for is the heart and passion Lin Ling displayed at his worst. The character he showed to the world as he confronts scheming agendas head on and blasts them all away with the carelessness of an idealistic child who still reads stories about good triumphing over evil.
The one good thing Nice gains from it all is the grim satisfaction of Lin Ling defying Treeman. Nice felt a glimmer of triumph watching Mr. Shang crash out over Lin Ling considering FOMO’s contract over Treeman’s. Nice knows his survival depends on Lin Ling staying with Treeman, but in reality only Mr. Shang cares about his condition. Nice would’ve been perfectly fine with dropping dead eventually without Lin Ling to maintain his memory. He’d welcome it, actually.
Then, E-Soul kills Moon.
Public sentiment changes. Lin Ling’s goals sway.
And Nice is once again locked into the role of a weapon at Mr. Shang’s fingertips.
Nice stands quietly at the top of Hero Tower, looking down at the dizzying drop below him.
He managed to slip away from Mr. Shang's radar, the CEO too consumed with wrestling the defiant Commoner into submission. From the various arguments he's heard beyond the world of the bookcase room, Lin Ling was far from enthused with working with Treeman, already aware of the exacting demands of hero marketing the company was known for. Mr. Shang was a bomb ready to go off as he left the office that night, shouting angrily at Miss J over the phone without a second glance at the forgotten room Nice was in.
Nice slips out and flies to the top of the Hero Tower under the cover of the foggy night.
Now, he stands at the edge of the majestic building, looking down at the ground far, far below his feet as the wind whistles in his ears. The city lights blink lazily at him, familiar to the hero. Nice takes a deep breath, closes his eyes—
—and fails to step off.
Nice opens his eyes. His body is frozen, unwilling to listen to his demands again. Nice gasps as the cold burn of Fear pulsing through his veins sinks its teeth into his muscles, preventing his movement forward.
Your story will not end here, it tells him sternly, forcing him away from the edge. Nice staggers against a foreign will, gasping as the Fear chokes his breaths and forces him to his knees. Your arc has barely begun.
Nice struggles to breathe, wrestling for control of himself with the dark energies fighting inside him. He's unaware of a pair of eyes behind him, watching silently before slipping away.
“Remember, allow Lin Ling to win your first match,” Mr. Shang repeats to him. Nice is being dressed, going through the preparations to step into the arena with nine other heroes to battle for the title of X. “You’ve knocked E-Soul out of the ranks, so all that’s left is Dragon Boy and Ghostblade. Regardless if he resigned from MG.”
“Mr. Shang, will Nice…really be okay?” Miss J asks. The manager had been shocked when Mr. Shang summoned her to his airship, revealing Nice’s existence with an order to ensure Nice’s return to the hero world would start with a pristine hero suit and a public explanation ready to go. “He seems…”
“Broken, yes.” Mr. Shang looks over at Nice. Nice’s blank eyes don’t respond to him. “He’s not ready. But this is as good a time as any. The Commission confronted me about Nice’s Trust Value still existing in their databases and demanded I have him participate in the hero tournament. X has been quite the predicament to take down, so they’re expecting the agencies to put in all the resources they have at their disposal to dethrone him in the matches.”
Mr. Shang smiles quietly to himself.
“Even a hero revived by Fear.”
Miss J’s hands freeze. Nice’s eyes flick down to the woman, where she had been readjusting the ornamental gem. Her eyes were fixed straight onto Nice’s chest, not meeting his gaze as her body belied her shock with the tremor in her fingers. Nice suddenly feels the Fear inside him swell with power, pulsing with a fervent warmth as if excited. Yearning for something.
Hm. Interesting.
“...Fear?” Miss J prods after a while. She returns to adjusting Nice’s cape, but her hands shake minisculely. Unmistakable. “I…don’t understand.”
Mr. Shang eventually notices Miss J’s reaction. He sighs, closing his eyes as he turns back to his tablet.
“You needn’t worry about infection,” Mr. Shang tells her. Miss J flinches. “Simply avoid the cracks on his person. And you’ll be fine.”
Miss J looks up at him. Nice gazes back at her, dark hostility dancing in his eyes. The manager hurriedly finishes the last of her adjustments, stepping away from him as quickly as she can as she snatches up her tablet.
“W-We’ll be off, then.” Miss J heads for the door, glancing back for a second.
“...Nice, come along.”
Nice obeys. Miss J eyes him warily before continuing on the path to the arena’s side entrance, disappearing into the cold halls of heroes’ battles. Nice’s eyes glow eerily in the dark as he follows behind. Silent. Watching.
Waiting.
The distant roar of the crowds echo around the concrete structure as Nice’s platform floats to the middle of the stadium to meet the other heroes in the center. The energy is lively. Vibrant. Powerful. Nice’s face doesn’t show any emotion, but the revelry of the crowds stirs something in his chest.
It’s uncomfortable. A heavy pressure against the Fear filling him up inside. The swirling energies of Trust ebb and flow among the heroes on the world stage, but it stirs deep discomfort in the inner workings of Nice’s broken body.
He would have to fight like this. Nice finds himself suppressing a sigh at the thought.
The other heroes do a double take once they notice him standing on the platform instead of E-Soul. Loli, the blasted little mecha engineer from the Ruins Incident, is glowering at him menacingly, gritting her teeth with dark, dark eyes. Queen only glances at him for a second, disinterest in her eyes, before she trains her gaze forward once again. Dragon Boy, the lunatic, catches sight of him and stops, eyes wide and shocked before cracking up into a laugh.
“Looks like someone’s risen from the dead for a fight!” Dragon Boy sneers.
Nice feels his Fear bubbling inside him. Enraged.
He remembers what he did to Smile.
Lin Ling is on the platform directly across from him. His eyes widen a little when he first catches sight of Nice’s familiar form. But other than that, the hero doesn’t react much. Nice can still sense a bit of hostility from the other. Likely misdirected, since E-Soul was initially expected in his place.
It doesn't matter. Anger is a mutual sentiment between them.
There’s a snap of fingers. A civilian suddenly appears on the center platform. All the heroes flinch in surprise this time, shocked. Nice doesn’t react at all, simply observing the regular salaryman in the center with a detached curiosity.
Who is that? Nice thinks to himself.
Dialogue is exchanged among the heroes. Nice tunes them all out, already unwilling to be involved in anything but a fight. There’s another snap. The silence that falls draws Nice’s attention.
In the civilian’s place stands X. The current X.
Nice’s memory suddenly comes flying back to him. Of his fight with Dragon Boy. Of nearly tasting death through Dragon Boy’s punch. Of feeling nothing but the solid structure of the metal bridge under his body.
Of X saving him with god-like powers.
And mourning his fallen idol beside him.
A sharp pain permeates his head. Nice flinches and stumbles, unsteady on the platform. He senses X’s eyes flicker to his position. Along with Lin Ling’s.
“Nice–?”
A snap, and the platforms are gone. Nice finds himself falling through the air, body unbalanced and ragdolling. He can tell someone else is falling next to him. The other heroes are gone, however, so when Nice hits the ground with a painfully disgraceful crack! he only hears one set of feet land nimbly across from him.
It’s Lin Ling.
“Our first match, ladies and gentlemen, is one you may not have expected to see!” The announcer’s voice echoes through the arena, almost heavenly in its strength. Nice picks himself up with difficulty, wincing at the pain in his limbs as the Fear tries to stitch his aggravated cracks together rapidly.
It’s so, so painful.
“Returning from the dead, much to the delight and despair of fans and foes, Perfect Hero Nice takes the stage against his former doppelganger, the Commoner!”
Lin Ling shifts into position, dark eyes wary and calculating. Nice mimics him, repeating Mr. Shang’s orders in his head as they wait for the roar of the crowds to die and the buzzer to start their show.
Let Lin Ling focus on dethroning X. All Nice had to do was save his strength for Dragon Boy and Ghostblade.
The buzzer sounds. Nice and Lin Ling fly at each other, the people's cheers in their ears as they exchange fists instead of words for their first meeting after Nice’s resurrection.
I wish you let me die, Lin Ling.
Strangely, Nice manages to do well in the matches. He can’t remember much of it, too disoriented by the intensified clash of Fear and Trust inside him. But he suspects his rather zombie-like movements followed by swift execution of perfect, almost-lethal blows was the main factor of his success.
His hands however…are soaked in blood after the matches.
Apparently, he had just fought Ghostblade and the hero was forced to withdraw from further matches. Same with Loli. Nice vaguely remembers the distant echo of sirens through the halls of the arena as he walked away from a fallen Loli, beaten quite badly by her bat but leaving her a bloody mess in the collapsed walls.
Fear, at the moment, is growing stronger inside him. Pushing Trust against the walls as it forces his body to go, go, go.
It settles him a little.
“The final match for these two heroes starts here!” the announcer bellows as Nice walks back into the newly repaired arena. His body is aching, his limbs screaming, his senses overwhelmed. But it’s the last match. Once it’s over, Nice can disappear from this whole mess and recuperate in Mr. Shang’s lab, surrounded by peace and quiet with no humans in sight.
“On the right, the rough and tough delinquent who protected our city when Smile lost his radiance and succumbed to the clutches of Fear! Fresh from arbitration only to hit loss after loss — Dragon Boy!”
Nice’s ears ring. The sound of the crowds fades into the background, the fading rays of the sun dimming in his vision as Nice’s breaths grow heavy and his vision tunnels onto his last opponent on the field.
Dragon Boy.
Smile’s killer.
Dragon Boy gives him a little wave. He has an irked expression on his face. As if he didn’t want to be there. Nice feels the Fear inside him rouse, angry and violent, responding to something other than the shock and disgust of the crowds watching the livestream outside.
It’s responding to Nice’s endless fury.
The power of Trust inside him is overwhelmed. Silenced.
“On the left! The resurrected Perfect Hero who’s not so perfect anymore! With a newly adopted fighting style leaving his opponents bewildered before delivering a final, precise strike, he comes back to the land of the living with a vengeance! Back for round two against Dragon Boy— Nice!”
The answering screams are a mixed wonder.
Delight. Confusion. Glee. Wariness. Excitement. Disinterest.
Trust and Fear.
Make him pay for his arrogance. Vengeance for your idol.
Nice’s vision goes red.
“Hey, man, I was wondering,” Dragon Boy says to him. He’s got a relaxed pose, but the stiffness of his face betrays his uncertainty as he tries to speak with a convincing tone. “How about I just forfeit? Honestly, this whole day has been a real letdown—”
The buzzer sounds.
“—and I just—”
Dragon Boy doesn’t get a second to finish his thought as Nice slams him into the walls of the arena. The walls collapse onto them, hiding the pair from view as he strikes.
“Oh! Wow! That’s…a lot of dust,” the announcer comments, laughing in amusement. “Sorry ladies and gentlemen, we’ll clear up the scene shortly—”
Dragon Boy’s pained screams drown out the announcer’s voice. The crowds outside fall silent as the hero’s screams echo against the arena’s walls, accompanied by an unsettling squelch, squelch, squelch with the rise and pitch of Dragon Boy’s breaths.
“Ow! Ow, stop! Nice! It hurts!” Dragon Boy screams at him, sobbing as he tries to stop Nice from lunging again and again. Nice’s eyes are dark and cold, a gleaming purple in the cover of the smoke as he rips into Dragon Boy’s bloodied body in an attempt to destroy his organs, heedless of the mess he’s already made of his collapsed abdomen. “Fuck! Nice! I forfeit! Nice, I forfeit–!”
Dragon Boy suddenly vomits blood. He gasps for breath, only finding himself choking on his own blood. The smoke finally clears, allowing the Commission’s drones to get a handle on the situation.
“Emergency. Emergency,” the arena’s alarms suddenly bellow, wailing a warning tone to everyone in the vicinity. “Lockdown engaged. Current match suspended.”
“All heroes are advised—Fear measurements are rising rapidly. All on-site heroes are hereby ordered to neutralize the threat.”
“Would you like to know what’s so great about Fear?” Nice asks Dragon Boy with a smile. His gaze is bloodthirsty, calm, eyes shining an alarming, alarming purple as his hands are poised to strike a final lethal blow. Dragon Boy looks up at him with terror. Nice relishes the disgusting scent of fear from the mangled hero below him. He leans in close, whispering delightedly in the younger’s ear as the boy flinches from his proximity.
“It’s quite malleable. Tame when I want peace. Powerful when I ask for revenge.” Nice’s smile drops as he leans back, adjusting his aim for Dragon Boy’s heart. His gauntlets automatically sharpen, sensing his killing intent. His eyes are cold and blank. Lifeless with nothing but the fury of a memory.
“Try tossing this one back at me. Fucker.”
Nice swings for the kill.
There’s a familiar snap. Nice is plunged into darkness, inches away from taking his anger out on someone’s life.
I’m so sorry, Smile.