Chapter 196: Meteoric Stone
__________ POV Narration__________
Beru soon realized that moving his limbs wasn't quite as difficult as he had assumed it would be.
He started using Muscle Augmentation, one of AFO's quirks, in combination with a few others to regain motion in both his arm and leg.
Keeping it up would be a constant drain on his energy though. But it wasn't large enough to be called 'noticeable'... At least it wouldn't have been had Beru made a complete recovery already.
In all honesty, Beru could feel his stamina slowly coming back, but he soon realized that forcing himself to use too many quirks at this point was really tiring.
The insectoid had some trouble understanding why such a thing was happening, so he went to the only person that could have the answers to his worries.
And that person was Goda Yori, one of the few people that knew more about quirks than Beru.
The scientist was studying with a strange-looking rock when Beru arrived in his hidden laboratory.
Yori was wearing thick gloves, and a face mask while handling the object of his study with caution and care.
"What are you doing there?~" Beru didn't usually ask Yori about his business, but this time
The scientist was startled to hear that voice behind him, he threw his tools above his head and turned around with a scowl on his face.
"... Beru. We've talked about this..." Yori spoke in a tired tone.
"Yeah~ Yeah~ 'Stop sneaking up on me' And all that~ You make it really easy for me though~ You're awfully concentrated there~" Beru simply shrugged with one shoulder and walked over to the table of the scientist.
"What's this rock?~" Beru asked while poking the stone in question with his claw.
Yori proceeded to push his hand away in a hurried manner and glared at Beru with frustration.
"Can you like, not touch potentially dangerous research subjects randomly?" Yori spoke with a scowl on his face.
"How am I supposed to know it's dangerous~"
"EXACTLY!! You don't know, so you shouldn't RANDOMLY TOUCH IT!"
"Damn~ Calm your glasses nerd~ No reason to get so worked up~ Health and safety regulations aren't all that interesting to read~"
Yori ended up just rubbing his eyelids and looking up at the ceiling in frustration.
"Ok, Ok~ I won't be touching the rock~ What's it supposed to do though?~," Beru asked as he teleported a chair behind him and sat down right beside Yori.
"Well, I'm glad you asked..." Yori sighed as he fixed his gaze towards the strange stone in front of him.
"This was recovered from what is believed to be the core of the largest meteor that you first stopped. It's the only one of its kind."
Beru just nodded as he wondered why such a thing mattered to anyone.
"There is something quite strange about it, such as the fact that our Quirks seem to react in strange ways when in contact with the surface of this rock."
"Strange how?~ What exactly do we classify as strange in this laboratory?~" Beru asked the first pertinent question that came to mind.
"Well... Strange as in, our quirks seem to stop working altogether when coming in contact with it. And I mean permanently. The people that first found it became quirkless. Even after tests, their quirks aren't resurfacing, it's almost as if they were wiped from their DNA."
Beru looked a bit bemused at the reveal. He tilted his head as he stared at the rock with a confused gaze.
"How? How does a piece of rock completely erase someone's quirk?~" He asked as he turned his head to Yori.
"It's made out of a material that humanity has never seen before. We don't know how it works yet, pieces of it have been sent to different laboratories all over the world. But no answers have been found as of right now..."
Yori spoke in a tired tone as he slowly turned his gaze towards the mystery rock.
"... You do realize that this can end our upcoming apocalypse in an instant, right?~" Beru said as he thought about the possibilities that the stone in front of him revealed.
"That's... A possibility. But we don't have a way to replicate this. It's also a bit dangerous to start getting rid of everyone's quirk at random. I'm afraid this one might be a dud when it comes to fixing up Quirk Singularity." Yori said in a disappointed tone.
"... So it's just a rock that turns off quirks? Great and useless at the same time~" Beru said as he turned his chair around and sat back up.
"But this isn't the reason I came here~ I originally wanted to drop by and get some tests done since I'm feeling a bit drained~ I want to make sure that nothing's wrong with me~"
Yori widened his eyes for a bit as he heard Beru's words...
"You? Drained?..." Beru just nodded a few times as he went over to another table and picked up a vial.
With a sharp claw, he slashed through his palm and filled the vial with his blood.
"I'll get to testing this..." Yori walked up to Beru and grabbed the vial. "We'll also need you to use your quirks, to see if anything else has changed within your body."
"Besides the fact that I can no longer use an arm and a leg, nothing else feels different, but I've yet to use most of my offensive quirks~" Beru stared at the slowly healing cut on his palm as he pondered what had caused his body to change to that extent.
Yori nodded as he also took notice of Beru's lacklustre healing speed. 'This isn't a good sign...' The scientist thought to himself as he stared back at the meteorite core that was on his table...
"I've yet to test this hypothesis... But the most obvious response is that you came into contact with the core of the first meteor when you stopped it..."
Beru just nodded, he had somewhat expected this answer after learning of the stone's existence.
"It's hard to tell how your quirk is reacting to this though... We'll have to do some more thorough tests just to make sure."
"... Damn~ It's just one problem after another lately~" Beru said as he sighed in frustration.
"Well... Quirk singularity is still a problem... So it's actually much closer to 'All at once' than 'one after another'..." Yori stated in a confident tone.
Beru just stared at him for a few seconds. "Well... Fuck me then... At least my performance in bed was unaffected~"
Yori rubbed his forehead for a bit. "Of course, you'd check that first..." He said while looking at the ceiling of his laboratory with an empty gaze.
"I have my priorities straight~ Now let's get to work~ I don't have all week~" Beru walked towards an underground training room to test his quirks and Yori got to testing Beru's blood.
Just before he left, Beru took one last glance at the meteorite rock inside Yori's laboratory...
He squinted his eye as he thought he had seen it shine in dimly red light... But that couldn't be right... Could it?
Beru blinked a few times and looked at the rock once more. There was no light this time, it was just a rock being a rock.
Beru shook his head as he pondered if he had taken any drugs beforehand...
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