Universal Power System

Mako quickly turned around to confirm whether the voice was who he thought it was and low and behold it was Paul Czolgosz.

The light from the fireplace illuminated paul’s desk and beside him sitting on the chair was Jacob and his daughter.

“I still can’t believe that you were able to pull it off with such great execution.” Paul praised him as he slowly tried to stand up.

Paul took out a communication device from his pocket that didn’t resemble a Holophone at all and proceeded to talk through it,” Benson, Please fetch Mr. Johnson to my office at once.”

Mako slowly got up on his legs and walked over to the table. His mind was buzzing from all the unread notifications of the system but he had to ignore them for now. He proceeded to take a seat next to Jacob and he handed him a loose T-shirt that he could wear.

Mako accepted the shirt and proceeded to put it on the shirt while Paul continued to speak, “Jacob here told me all about what had happened. You really need to control your quirk, son. I honestly am still shocked that you awakened yours this quickly.”

Mako still couldn’t quite process words correctly but Paul’s words made something click in his mind.

“What are you talking about? How did I get here? And what is Quirk?” Mako rattled off several questions which showed his confusion.

There was a few seconds of awkward silence between them before Paul finally replied,” You were fighting the warden and the guards all by yourself, and you used that weird ability of yours again where you went up in flames and became significantly stronger to overwhelm them; the same you did when fighting Rhino.”

“And just like when fighting Rhino, you collapsed onto the floor after finishing off all of them. After getting all of the people to safety Jacob came back to assist but he arrived just as you finished off the last guard and collapsed.”

“He picked you up and escaped before the whole warehouse came down, brought you back to the warehouse, and instructed the other teams to rendezvous back here as well.” Paul finished his short narration.

Mako had thoughtful look on his face as he was focusing really hard on trying to remember the events that Paul had mentioned. While doing so, there was a knock on the door, and soon after the butler Benson and Bill came into the room.

Bill quickly walked toward Mako and gave him a good ol’ bear hug. 𝑏𝑒𝑑𝑛𝘰𝑣𝑒𝘭.𝑐𝑜𝑚

“Dude, you gotta stop passing out after every fight like that, you made me really worried again, when I heard you took on 30 guards all by yourself,” Bill said as he squeezed him tightly.

Mako couldn’t really respond due to how tightly Bill was hugging him, but he soon let go and Mako assured him that he won’t pass out again.

After Bill and Mako were done with their pleasantries, Jacob and Kiesha stood up as they prepared to leave the room.

Jacob proceeded to shake Mako’s hand as he thanked him one last time for allowing him to save his daughter and wished him good luck.

After Jacob did the handshake, Kiesha rushed over to Mako and gave him another hug while slowly beginning to tear up.

“Thank you for saving me.” She kept repeating several times before finally pulling apart from him and leaving the room with her father.

The people in the room didn’t think too much about that, but this was actually the first time Mako had a real interaction with a girl. Mako’s cheeks started to blush as he started feeling all different types of feelings.

Before these feelings could escalate further, Paul brought him back to reality by telling him and Bill to sit down and that they had lots to discuss.

*************

Operation Jailbird was a roaring success with all 4 warehouses taken down and the prisoners held within them being given their freedom back. Most of the prisoners had nowhere to go and were temporarily placed in shelter homes that Paul ran and managed.

It would seem quite absurd that a literal gang boss of the second-biggest gang in the city would do charity work, but this was exactly what Paul did. The Dark Raven was not like El Diablo’s gang as they neither took advantage of weak people nor robbed places. The Dark Raven made money by providing protection to the rich and powerful, escorting VIPs, and participating in tournaments.

The government was so corrupt that they barely gave funds to the police leaving them with weak people on the force that wouldn’t be able to do anything if a bigger force came to threaten something.

The Dark Raven took advantage of this and started giving out protection contracts that could provide people who could afford them ‘Real’ protection. Paul came from humble beginnings and believed in giving back to society which was why he privately funded many different schools, hospitals, shelter homes, etc.

It wasn’t that they were 100% pure in their practices but they were a whole lot better than what El Diablo made his gang members do. This was also the reason for the rivalry between the two gangs and El Diablo spreading miss information about how awful and cruel the Dark Raven gang was. This was also the reason why Bill reacted so wildly when Mako took out the Dark Raven card after the battle royal tournament.

Mako even asked Paul what did he mean by a quirk, but he simply said that he would come to learn about it soon enough and that he was an awful explainer and would up end up confusing him further.

*************

After getting up to date about everything that was going on, Mako took a sigh of relief as he finally did something that his grandmother would be proud of.

“Now that you are done with your, mission I believe it is time for you to keep up your end of the deal,” Paul said reminding the boys about the terms of their agreement.

“You won’t have to worry about Leon, This guy here was able to change me completely and I have not a sliver of doubt that he could do the same for Leon,” Bill said while pointing at Mako.

It was quite true indeed. Within a month, Bill’s attitude and demeanor had done a complete 180, and nobody, even his friends who accompanied him on the mission could believe this was the same bill, who like breaking bones just for fun.

Bill’s words put a smile on Paul’s face as Mako could see genuine happiness on the man’s face. After this Paul said that he would like to treat the two boys to dinner and told them to stay at the warehouse for a while.

It was Sunday, and Mako had to go back to school tomorrow, so he really didn’t want to end up staying the night at the warehouse because it was situated at the complete opposite end of the city from where his school was.

“Don’t worry about that at all, Benson can drive you both to school tomorrow, you can stay the night here.” Paul insisted.

“Both?” Bill asked as he looked toward Mako and then back at Paul.

“Why yes? Both of you have to go to school.” Paul replied.

The boys stared at Paul in confusion because they didn’t know why he was saying this. He very well knew that the school was within El Diablo’s territory and if Bill showed up to school, there was a possibility that someone might snitch on him.

Mako decided to explain to Paul again the reason why Bill couldn’t go to school, but Paul just smiled as he said,” I know your reason for why he can’t go to school, but tomorrow he has to go to school.”

The boys had nothing they could say now except to just plainly ask,”…and why is that?”

“Because tomorrow is the day that the Military will visit the schools and announce this year’s recruitment test,” Paul said.

Mako and Bill couldn’t believe that they had forgotten about the big day that they were preparing for so long. Time moved by so fast that they didn’t even realize that the day had finally arrived for them to join the military and pursue their dreams.

“Of course, you will be accompanied by Leon as well since he will also be applying for the recruitment test there, but we will talk more about that during dinner,” Paul said to which both boys nodded.

Benson opened the door for the two boys to leave the room, but before Mako could fully exit the room, he turned back towards Paul and asked him,” uh, Mr.Czolgosz? Could you invite one more person to the dinner?”

Paul was confused by this because he didn’t have any idea who else could Mako possibly want to talk to.

“…And who will that be?” Paul asked.

“Rhino,” Mako replied.