Sanghyuk already had a pretty good name within the criminal underbelly, so Jisung didn’t have it too hard when he started joining his brother on jobs. Most people saw his own blue fire and smiled, trusting that he was competent enough to do the work. Plus, if Sanghyuk had decided to work with him, he had to be good, right? The only problem was that Jisung didn’t really want to kill.

“It’s alright,” Sanghyuk had smiled when Jisung confessed his problem, “I can handle that part on my own. You just do what you can to make sure that the target doesn’t get away, alright?”

Jisung had agreed, more than happy to take the easy out that Sanghyuk had provided. But that out didn’t last forever. Eventually, Sanghyuk’s plans left the brothers in a position where Jisung had to take the life of another. The fake hero that they were hunting came from a rich and powerful family, a family that had easily paid people to cover up the fake forcing himself on some poor girl. He’d told her that she owned it to him for saving her from a house fire. Sanghyuk couldn’t be sure, but from what he’d found on the guy he suspected that this girl wasn’t his first victim.

So, the brothers started following the fake hero around. They figured out his habits and his work schedule, then the planned out how they would take him down. It was a pretty simple plan, basically just a copy of what they’d done to the dozens of villains before. They’d trick him into a secluded area, Jisung would cut off the exits with his fire, and Sanghyuk would go for the kill. Simple. Unfortunately, things didn’t go exactly as planned.

The hero tried to fight back, but unlike all those before him he could fight pretty well. Sanghyuk wasn’t that great a fighting, he relied too heavily on quickly burning his enemies, so it wasn’t long before the hero was cornering him. That was when Jisung stepped in. He knew the hero was going to hurt his brother, was going to drag him to the police and have him locked away forever. He couldn’t let that happen, so he burned the hero. He’d planned to just distract the hero, but then he turned to face Jisung and……and all he could see was the hero who’d killed his mother, the hero who killed his friend.

Afterwards, he cried into his brother’s arms, mourning the loss of human life. Sanghyuk didn’t say anything, didn’t try to tell him that he did the right thing or anything like that, he just let him cry. Killing slowly got easier after that and sometimes Jisung wondered if that was a good thing or not. The news said that it wasn’t, but…….but they were protecting people. That was the reality of the situation; every dead fake hero was another civilian life saved. Maybe Jisung was wrong, maybe he wasn’t doing good, but……but he honestly didn’t care. Not anymore.

--

“Wow,” Jisung gasped as he stared at the screen of his lap top, “Hyuk, you gotta come see this?”

“What’s up?” Sanghyuk asked around the toothbrush in his mouth, taking a seat beside Jisung on the couch.

Their father had passed away shortly after Jisung had turned seventeen. Honestly, as sad as the brothers were over their father’s death, they were kind of relived. He could be with their mother now, he could be happy again. Her loss was hard on them all, but especially their father. He might have thought he’d lost Sanghyuk along with his wife, but the truth was that the boys had lost him along with their mother.

After the funeral, Jisung had moved in with Sanghyuk. He’d tried to drop out of school so that he could help Sanghyuk full time, but Sanghyuk had insisted on him at least finishing high school before doing that. Still, Jisung ended up skipping a lot of class in order to help Sanghyuk. He’d graduate, but just barely.

“We’ve got a fansite,” Jisung explained, turning the laptop so that he brother could see easier, “and it’s got a bunch of hits.”

“Really now?” Sanghyuk asked, more than a little interested, “what are the comments saying?”

“There’s a few people trashing the site,” Jisung reported, “they think we’re just some mindless killers. But most people don’t agree.”

“I see,” Sanghyuk nodded, smiling slightly.

“There was one comment I read,” Jisung said, “They were saying that heroes tend to have powerful, intimidating powers. That people don’t stand up to heroes, let them do as they wish, because they’re scared. Do you think that’s why the news never talks about the truth? Because most of them have weaker powers and they’re scared?”

“Maybe,” Sanghyuk hummed as he read, “I remember reading once about this reporter from another country that put out an article criticizing a bigger name hero about….ten or so years ago. That reporter was in a car crash not too long after. No one ever said that the hero was to blame, but…….the timing was pretty convenient, right?”

“Hmm,” Jisung nodded.

The brothers spent the rest of the night reading over the site, saving any comments that they found interesting. The next day, while Jisung was at school, Sanghyuk went looking for any other fansites. He didn’t find many, but the handful that he did fine made him feel all warm inside. It was one thing for him to know he was doing the right thing, it was another for other people to tell him that he was right. He’d never admit it, but…..sometime he doubted what he was doing, how he was doing it. Sometime he wondered if he should have let it go, moved on and pretended he hadn’t seen what he’d seen.

This……this was exactly what he needed to hear.

The brothers took no small amount of pride in the fact that they were helping people see the truth. Every time someone credited them with showing them the light…….it made them feel good. But there was a down side to the sites, one neither had really thought about until they say it. Well, there were two down sides, one was just annoying and the other…….it was worrisome to say the least.

--

“I can’t believe it,” Jisung said, eyes wide as he read over the post for the tenth time, “I really can’t.”

“Damn it,” Sanghyuk cursed, pacing the floor, “damn it, damn it, damn it!”

As much as the brother’s didn’t like seeing posts praising their looks and ignoring their message, they’d take that over……whatever the hell you called this.

“This can’t be good for our message, can it?” Jisung sighed, closing the laptop and pulling his knees up to his chin, “the news are gonna love this. Claim that we’re inspiring more murders to kill.”

“You’re right,” Sanghyuk hissed, “We need to put a stop to it. Make an example of some of these lunatics. Make it clear to everyone that we don’t support killing innocent people.”

“We can’t do anything if it’s just words,” Jisung pointed out, “we’d have to find the people acting out the words and……what? Are we gonna question every killer we find? Get their usernames and, like, leave messages saying ‘we killed them because they killed innocent people in our name.’ We….we can’t do something like that.”

“No,” Sanghyuk huffed, “you’re right. We can’t. but…..but maybe we can make these people killing in our name come to us?”

“Like,” the younger frowned, “message them, make them meet us and kill them there? But how do we know who’s killing and who isn’t? The cops check these sites too, no one would be stupid enough to post about their crimes here. And even if we could track them down, why would they believe that we are who we say we are?”

“I know,” Sanghyuk sighed, dropping down onto the couch beside his brother, “I know. I……I have no plan for this.”

“You’ll think of something,” Jisung assured his brother, “you always do.”

Sanghyuk smiled slightly at the younger, grateful that his brother was so confident in him.

As it turned out, they didn’t need a plan to draw those people to them. They always came searching for the brothers, looking for people who they thought could feed their twisted world view. The brothers were more than happy to end their killing streaks. Sometimes the psychos cursed them in their final moments, sometimes they seemed down right giddy at the idea of dying by their idols’ hands. That second reaction…..it never failed to leave the brothers’ skin crawling.

Those weren’t the only people who searched them out though. No, these people came offering aid. At first the brothers turned them down, they didn’t need help, but then……then the heroes found their place. Sanghyuk and Jisung had already been prepared for something like that to happen, had expected it to be honest, so all they needed to do was grab a couple of bags and run.

They took to living in an old, abandoned factory for a while before realizing that it didn’t make the best home. That was when the offers of aid became necessary. A place to stay for the night, food to eat, medical supplies when needed. Sanghyuk and Jisung made sure that the people helping them knew how thankful they were and each time the people responded by thanking them instead. Thanking them for opening their eyes.

These offers to help…….they were how the brothers met their friends, their family, as well.

A/N: when talking about the ‘fans’ who only see the killing and not the message, I couldn’t help but think of Toga from My Hero Academia. Like, Spinner totally got what Stain was trying to be about, that’s why *little spoiler* he kept Big Sis Mag from killing Deku during the summer training camp arc. Stain wanted to spare Deku, even went as far as saving him from the flying Nomu, thus Deku has to be a true hero and thus needs to live. But Toga……yeah.

Also! I’m gonna put a timeline for joining as the following “chapter”. I’ll add to it as each member of the group is added. It will also include notes about who has what power and how old everyone is in relation to everyone else.