Drops of Crimson, Blues of Sirens. [INCIDENT]

It was his first chance to be a hero in too long. Boomer's pounding heart, echoing as it warmed up for battle and dealt with his own anxiety, was the giveaway of his impending arrival. Although he lacked his uniform, his jacket's resistance to the rain and his own expertise at sleeping in it from living on the street meant that this weather was nothing to him. The visor that granted him his hearing back wasn't so pathetic as to short out either. STANDFAST had received the information of a local murder on the police bandwidth and had sent him as soon as they heard; of all the heroes on the roster, his combat prowess meant that he was likely a good candidate. Unlike the younger heroes, facing murderers in life or death scenarios had been a part of his prior life. It was one of them who took his ability to hear.

Yet it was only now, when paired with this technology, that his disability was a weapon. Unlike most heroes, his visor allowed him to see color tints of sounds that he might only barely hear through the visor. Sounds like the shouts of officers in hot pursuit. Sounds like the rolling of a dumpster and the snapping of a door being busted through its frame when its lock was forced. He could see and hear crime simultaneously... as well as see the decrepit building ahead. Boomer leaped from yet another rooftop - thanks in part to Tatooin's lower height snazzy clubs and buildings - with a grin.

"Never fear," he chuckled and bent his knees, leaping higher and across the final gap toward the building the criminals footsteps had vanished into. "If you can hear my heart, then I am-"

He landed on the building and felt his heart race, echoing within the massive chamber of his chest. On a thunderous night like this, it was like the skies themselves were rumbling above. But unlike them, he didn't need lightning to strike. The decibels of his chest reached critical and he finally put on a smirk more befitting a young man than an older hero getting his second chance. His chest's sound cannon fired, blowing a hole in the decrepit building's roof and sending debris flying down while simultaneously letting him go into a free-fall toward Silence and the remnants of the second floor.

"Here!"

Though he had just used an attack to break through the roof, the recharge of his heart wouldn't need long to strike again. His massive size, however, made things problematic. He landed hard enough that the decrepit boards groaned and some even splintered, further adding more chaos to the entry as pieces both fell and flew upward. The beams beneath him crackled but held for now... leaving the rain-soaked man glaring at an equally waterlogged fellow. The STANDFAST information reported a suspect of similar build had been spotted but everything else wasn't corroborated. Yet him hiding and the sound pollution of breaking in... this person was going to be the suspect.

"Surrender!" The man raised his hands both for balance and to take a combat stance; the closest to true fighting training he had ever had was some high school wrestling. "Or else I'll show you what an old hero can do!"

If this guy is a villain, they seem rather inadequate. Are they even a guy? All the villains I've fought were muscular and sometimes far larger than even me. What kind of quirk does someone like this if they're dressing like some otaku or Akihabara regular?

The sudden rush of action from the villain set Ken's resolution to affirmed; he leaped up as the beam cracked, landing a few feet away. More of the boards cracked and shattered, straining the entirety for only a few seconds more before wood all began collapsing at once. Boomer kept his composure despite the fall, however, because he could see something that no one else could. A bubble of a void in the tint of sound, rapidly closing in on him.

This must be their quirk! If it's something to do with sound, I need to-

He lurched forward, yet not fast enough; with his ears already damaged to near deafness, the attack couldn't do anything. His visor's danger sensors shut off so he heard nothing... instead, in the short second of being without noise he grew dizzy. The visor clicked back on and his hearing with it only when it detected regular audio levels, yet Ken staggered back and forth coping with the irregular attack. It was someone else who fought using sound. The small room boomed with the man's enlarged heart beating with a mix of fear and adrenaline. Maki's echoing chamber banged louder and faster, his precision control immediately drawing out the staccato ticks to higher decibel levels. He didn't understand what this person's quirk was yet outside of going after him with noise. Ken needed to go aggressive.

"Not bad," he muttered. "But I doubt you have a heart like mine to do more than make me dizzy!"

Boomer's internal decibel readings reached the necessary levels to cause damage so he went back on the offensive; following the movement's audio trail to track the villain, Ken jutted his chest out and swung it in an arc along the guidance of his visor to rapidly close-in on Silence. The fast-heartbeat pumped and fired smaller pulses of sound than the one he had come in on, cracking stone and shattering wood as it trailed after Silence's movement. In a place with hiding spots like the remnants of the second floor, there was only one option to fight a skittish foe. He was going to force them down to his level and to fight him in the open of the old building. And if the little punk kept running, he'd simply fire pulses out that would feel a lot worse hitting a person. But there was another goal in this, too. Forcing Silence into an even-leveled fight would force him to use that quirk again; though he was still dizzy and using his attack was mostly to force the villain into a more conventional fight, seeing the quirk again would let Boomer finally devise some sort of counter.

As Silence's quirk surrounded him again, Boomer felt more and more on edge. The silence bubble that the villain cast being visible made him doubly alert... but he still had no idea of its function. It wasn't natural but most quirks that relied on sound never were; his heart control normally worked as sound but being able to control one's heartbeat manifested many techniques, as his own father and grandfather demonstrated in their manifestations.

Yet he had no idea that it was his heart working against him, seeing the tint of deafness and void of sound suddenly collapse in on him. Dust and debris only added to the chaos and Boomer's older, less-refined senses made him slow. His opponent's tactics felt like they were one-step ahead of him, tracking ahead and dangerously running ahead. But it wasn't as if dust stopped his visor; he could see the sounds beyond it, the visor feeding him more information of what was going on around him.

His villainous opponent lunged into action, the veil pulling back as Boomer turned. The bubble collapsed in and his visor shut off again... yet this time, he felt a pinch in his ears. A reminder and a sudden realization of what his opponent had done the first time and now here. The sound echoed in his head... but it didn't have eardrums to blow out. The visor powered on when the noise in his ears faded, restoring his hearing and letting him hear the collection of noises in their passing.

He's able to store sound somehow and use it as a weapon? This attack... if he used it against anyone else, they might go deaf. Blowing someone's eardrums out when they already use a device that protect their ears, though? I guess you could say I'm the perfect match.

The blade was on track for all but a moment before Boomer's heart fired into a rapid roar, charging it up once more. He raised his hand and swung his fist down against the flat of the blade to deflect it; Silence's sword cut through the man's jacket and left a cut in his arm poorly angled to do anything more than sting and bleed. Ken had dodged it yet at some cost... and with how low Silence was, he threw a sloppy counter of a low kick. The booming of his own heart might be distracting but the decibel readings in his visor were tracking how dangerous it was getting. His own heart could generate louder and louder decibels and the entire room was starting to shake. Like thunder, it pumped and made his blood boil... and the blood of his wound bled faster with his heartbeat.

"Your choice!" Ken drew his arm back and the heart's beating stopped. All the echoes roaring stood out above his heart slowing into one, final beat. The rhythm of this bizarre heartbeat after all these years left him lightheaded but his visor tracked his sole Super Move activating. His entire body began vibrating when he drew his fist back and readied his own attack: a simple punch aimed center-massat the man.

Just try to block this... I dare you! Speak From The Heart is designed for fighting enemies who use sound, either the abundance or the lack! Even the deaf... can hear my heart calling for justice!

Ken's confidence had just started to trickle in when he connected his blow; even bleeding, hitting an opponent with his body vibrating in this state was a huge step toward winning any fight. Raw sound translated into physical might made vibrations into weapons greater compared to even iron knuckles. Blocking his attack with your body - save for one that resisted noise and vibration overloading - was a fast way to suffer unexpected damage. But unlike the attacks attempting to target his ears - which his visor could protect against - his opponent tried a different tactic that caught him off-guard. Yet another concussive force came and focused in front of him; Boomer drew his arm back ready to strike at it only for it to detonate between them.

Whilst Silence was sent flying, the concussive force blew against Boomer and he felt his massive chest groan. Rather than being flung back, his jacket bore a lot of the brunt and tore to shreds from the explosion whilst dark bruises formed along much of his torso. His visor's glass shattered and glass cut at his brow, thankfully none of them hitting his eyes before they snapped closed. Once again the visor went deaf and groaned back to life, yet as his eyes opened he saw nothing but a blurry warehouse as the concussive forces wracked his senses. Ken had remained standing and in a combat-readied stance, yet he couldn't see nor did his body feel too responsive as it dealt with the reality of such damage. His opponent had dived under boards but a grenade going off at such a range should have done far more than leaving the hero in a perilous state. It was a miracle that the grenade-like explosion of noise didn't cause all those boards to fragment and kill the villainous lout.

But as Boomer stood and his vision slowly came back, he saw him not just standing and alive... but no more than bruised with a limp. The massive hero hadn't had any sort of debris to fragment and turn the blast into anything more than what he'd learned from quirks that reflected his own sound back at him or villains who pummeled him long ago; despite that, Boomer was so sore and already bruising that it was impossible to deny that he'd barely withstood a kinetic explosion.

The hero took only a single step before his older body locked up and he dropped down to one knee. Glass clattered as more of his visor fell away, fully exposing his right eye's series of cuts over his brow. Though his heart had been quiet, the rattling of his power in his body still exhausted and drove him toward collapse with every moment. But as his vision began fading and his consciousness drained, his heart beating loudly as if to scare him: DUN-DUN. Despite the rain, his heart beat was louder than the sirens and footfalls of police finally arriving. The warehouse had not only been a place for their short battle but the explosion had dragged the net of searchers tighter. But Ken's big heart confirmed their information; they knew exactly who and what was going on in this place now. Escaping him was one thing but getting away from them was another. The older hero's right arm dropped and grabbed at the remnants of a floor, only to realize he wasn't on boards; he had fallen from the last parts of the upper floor in the aftermath and somehow hadn't even noticed from all the pain.

I can still control my heart... but if I fired now, it'd be indiscriminate; I can't aim a blast properly in this state. If that attack had any fragmentation, I'd be dead. I should be glad I still have my eye after it blew the glass out. I'm too old to chase him further; there's no way... he can get past all the authorities. They already know where we are and he looked like... he was limping, I think. If he gets away... I guess that-

Ken's mind stopped mid-thought and the hero finally went limp, crashing into the rubble of the floor unconscious. Although his heart was stable, remaining awake in his state this long had been a miracle. This could have and should have been a fight he could win but he underestimated the quirk. Now, all the hero could do was hope that the police could detain the villain in their wounded state.