Chapter 37: Epilogue

In the loose foothills beneath the Akaishi Mountains far from Musutafu, a lone man made his way up the middle of a dusty gravel road. Beneath the glare of the hot sun, his pale skin had begun to burn and he was sweating profusely. Flies buzzed around him incessantly, attracted to his bloody, dirt covered clothes and his shoeless feet were bruised and blistered. From the look of him, he seemed like an especially down on his luck vagrant.

However, despite his haggard appearance there was a bounce to his step. Whistling merrily, he swung his arms out and marched forward. Every few steps he would stop and skip, kicking a loose stone in front of him. He didn't know where he was going or what might lie ahead. The possibilities were endless and life had never been better.

Coming to the top of a small hill, the valley suddenly opened up around him. Brushing a lock of red hair from his face, his bright blue eyes lit up at what he saw. Perhaps a kilometre away, there was a small, brightly painted farmhouse. A red pickup truck was parked in front of the porch and he could make out the distant shapes of children moving around the backyard. Craning his neck skyward, he stretched, hands reaching towards the clouds.

Sighing contentedly, he dropped his arms back to his sides and resumed his jaunty pace.

Hours later the hero pursuit team assigned to the tracking and apprehension of Cletus Kasady would stumble upon the farm. The grisly scene of carnage would later be described as the most shocking mass murder that Japan had seen in decades. This senseless act of wanton barbarity would galvanize the public who demanded action. In response, professional heroes from across the country would widen their search to a Japan wide manhunt, but Kasady would remain at large. Unbeknownst to everyone, perhaps even including Kasady himself, he was slowly working his way around back to Musutafu. Why none could say. But there was an energy to Musutafu. A pulse like a heartbeat that seemed to attract the exceptional. And in a society where heroes were common, the exceptional were terrifying indeed.

The End

Well that's another story finished. Thanks for reading and as always, I'm sure this story is filled with bad grammar, structure, and plot holes. Please, reduce my self esteem and leave a scathing review. They're fun to write, and I like reading them.

Anyway, here are some fun facts and random observations!

-Originally this story was supposed to be 150,000 words. Yeah…

-While I was writing this, I had the word "surreptitiously" typed up beneath my document for almost the entire length of the story. I really wanted to work it into a sentence somewhere but the opportunity never presented itself. That's probably for the best, "surreptitiously" is a pretty pretentious word.

-Almost all of the Japanese names in this story are just google translated words. "Tamanegi" for example is a type of onion. Dr. Akatani is different though. During my research of the My Hero Academia world I found out that "Mikumo Akatani" was originally supposed to be the name of the protagonist until it was changed to Izuku Midoriya.

-If you've read my previous story then you have my sympathies, but also you've probably picked up on a lot of similarities between that story and this one. Both feature a sort of renegade hero who's working in secret for the greater good, not trusting the authorities with his burden etc., etc.. All I can say is, I love characters like that. I read Gordon Korman books a lot when I was younger and his style of rascally protagonist really stuck with me.

-I am fully aware that the characterization of Izuku's mom, Inko Midoriya, is weak. I wanted her to be an Aunt May type character but this story was getting bogged down with characters as it was. Plus, in the comics Aunt May is often just a plot device to get Peter to a location or is someone for him to rescue and I didn't want to bore everyone with a damsel in distress.

-I wish I could have found a way to fit more All Might in this story, but a lot of his and Izuku's interactions were ultimately inconsequential to the story I was telling and got cut.

-Peter Parker and Izuku Midoriya are very different personality wise. Izuku is extremely meek to the point of a fault in his normal life, yet becomes bold when he needs to be. As far as I can tell, he has always been this way. Compare that to Peter who upon getting his powers used them to shoplift and beat up his bullies and you can see how different the two are. A big problem with this story is that my Spider-Man never got his wake up call moment to be a hero. There was no Uncle Ben. I tried to make Izuku's fight with Bakugo and how he almost killed him his moment, but I don't know. It feels pretty weak to me.

-Trying to put a day by day timeline to the events of the My Hero Academia show was pretty interesting. To say that things are fast paced is an understatement. Did you know that within their first week class 1-A was doing hostage rescue exercises? Sheesh, my first month of high school was spent trying to relearn algebra.

-Writing this story was torturous! I'm not a giant fan of My Hero Academia (it's good, just not for me) but I used to be one of Spider-Man and in the end, I don't feel as though I did either universe justice. As it happens, writing a crossover story on two properties whose primary means of plot progression is visual storytelling is hard. Who knew?

-Many a time during this story I wanted to just scrap everything and start over. Not just because I found out that there were several other Spider-Man/My Hero Academia crossover stories already, but I also started getting bored. "Wouldn't it be cool if instead of getting bit by a spider, Izuku found the Crimson Gem of Cyttorak?" or "Hey, green hair seems to run in the Midoriya family. Izuku's mom has telekinesis. Tatsumaki from One Punch Man also has telekinesis and green hair. Maybe I should make a One Punch Man/My Hero Academia crossover!" In the end, I decided to stick with it because I hate leaving stuff unfinished. It's a good thing too, because looking back on it those stories would have quickly run into an even worse problem. Namely having a way too powerful protagonist. Juggernaut Izuku would just kill everybody and Mob Izuku would be invincible too. I'm not a good enough writer to make an overwhelmingly powerful protagonist interesting.

-When it comes to fanfiction, I hate OCs and I'm sure you do too (unless they're hilariously bad, then I love them). Unfortunately, I had to make quite a few OCs in this story just to make things work. Again, I'm sure a better writer could have found a way, but I needed to finish up this nonsense and I couldn't take the time to reformat everything. It's lazy, I know. Sorry about that.

-I've always wished that Doppelganger got more love in the Spider-Man mythos, but Venom (and to a lesser degree Carnage) is always stealing the show. It's a shame. He's much more of a man/spider hybrid than Peter Parker that's for sure.

-I spent more time making the terrible thumbnail for this story than I did writing the epilogue. Now that's a true mark of quality.

-As usual I set things up for a sequel, but I don't know if I have it in me to slog out another one of these. The problem with comic books is they never end. I think my next story will be about something silly and stupid, like what if the scum from It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia played Jumanji or the Trailer Park Boys go to Jurassic Park or something. Alternatively, I'd love to write a Mass Effect/Bas-Lag crossover but China Miéville's writing style is hard for me to emulate (plus no one would read the damn thing).

-I only post stories that are complete and edited. I do not write stories chapter to chapter, updating as I go. If I did, I'd go crazy trying to edit it. Consequentially, I don't upload much so you might not hear from me for a while only for a new story to show up out of the blue.

-Statistically speaking, this story had about 400 readers (if my previous story is anything to go by). Of that 400 people, I assume around 75-85% listened to their better judgement and quit reading to do something productive with their spare time. By my estimate, 100 to 160 of you actually read the whole thing. You could have spent your time procrastinating in many ways but you decided to waste it reading my trash. Sincerely, thank you, and may God have mercy on your soul.