**Age 18**
Crane's Wings, the name Suguro chose for his organization
His first recruitment happened three months after he left Freeze. He'd been looking in an abandoned factory for a potential warehouse when he encountered a man, likely a few years older than him, conducting what could crudely be called surgery in the building's basement. The man had been working on a kidnapped victim, using a Quirk that allowed impossibly precise medical procedures to modify the subject's body in disturbing ways.
Suguro had observed from the shadows, analyzing the work with professional interest. The surgical skill was exceptional, the modifications were sophisticated, but the application was crude, torture for its the mans own entertainment rather than purposeful experimentation.
"Impressive technique," Suguro had said, stepping into the light. "Wasted on pointless cruelty."
The young surgeon, William, he'd later learn, had spun around, scalpel raised defensively.
"I'm not here to stop you," Suguro continued. "I'm here to offer you something more, something that would come with protection, purpose, and all the "resources" (people) you would need. The police are three blocks away and it seems like someone heard all the screaming. You can run now and continue operating as a fugitive, constantly looking over your shoulder. Or you can join me, work in a proper facility with proper equipment, and apply your skills to something that actually matters."
William had looked at his half-finished work, at the approaching sirens, at the Scarecrow standing there offering impossible things. "What kind of something?"
"Biological enhancement, psychological modification, creating subjects that serve specific functions, and the monsters you crave to make (gesturing at the now deformed victim). As I said, I can provide everything you need victims, equipment, and protection. In exchange, your skills become part of my vision"
The surgical procedure William had been performing was a nightmare of body modification, transforming a human into something barely recognizable.
"You can finish this one in my laboratory," Suguro said. "Bring your subject, your tools, everything you need."
William had agreed, and became Crane's Wings first formal member beyond Crane himself. His "Surgical Perfection" Quirk, combined with Suguro's chemical expertise, opened entirely new avenues of research. They could modify subjects not just psychologically through fear toxin but physically through surgical intervention, creating living weapons, mindless drones, and use new subjects that pushed boundaries of what was possible.
The second recruitment was accidental but equally valuable.
Suguro had been on the outskirts of Gotham with William, releasing a man they abducted and twisted into a monstrous lanky, mindless creature on a campsite, wanting to study its effectiveness, when he'd encountered a massive figure living in the swamp near the site. The man, Solomon Grundy, though Suguro didn't know that name yet, was nearly twenty feet tall, with grey-green skin and tremendous strength, but with the mind of a child.
Grundy had been living in the swamp for years, forgotten by everyone, surviving on rats and garbage. When he'd spotted Suguro, he'd approached not with aggression but with heartbreaking hope.
"Are you friend?" the giant had asked, his voice rumbling and uncertain.
Suguro had studied the man carefully. He could tell just from a look that Grundy's physical power was extraordinary, and he could see marks on him... bullet marks he could see that he had been shot at, but whatever his quirk was, they had no effect, all the marks indicated that bullets would bounce off. He realized he could serve as unstoppable muscle, capable of fighting entire hero teams. But his childlike mind made him vulnerable to manipulation.
The only logical calculation was simple: use Grundy's desperate need for connection to secure his loyalty, providing kindness as payment for service. It was exploitative, but Suguro had long ago accepted that exploitation was simply how the world worked.
"I can be your friend," Suguro had said, . "What is your name?"
The giant had nodded eagerly and replied that his name was "Solomon Grundy", while William watched, unsure of the scene in front of him.
"Then I'll be your friend. I'll bring you food, better than rats, and when I need help, you'll help me. Can you do that?"
Grundy nodded and followed
It had been that simple.
Grundy became Crane's Wings first enforcer. When Suguro needed someone to fight heroes, intimidate others, or demolish obstacles, Grundy did it happily, believing he was helping his friend.
The manipulation was absolutely cynical, but Suguro recognized that different assets required different maintenance. Grundy needed positive reinforcement and simple tasks. Others would need different approaches.
Langstrom, also known as the Manbat, was next, and he came to Suguro willingly a few months later.
The young man with a bat-mutation Quirk had been living in an old clock tower, ostracized by society for his appearance. When Crane's operations started making headlines, Langstrom had sought him out deliberately.
"I want to join you," he'd said during their first meeting, his bat-like features making his expression difficult to read, but his voice conveying desperate hope. "I've seen what you're building, an organization that values capability over appearance, that doesn't care what people look like as long as they're useful. I want that. I want to belong somewhere."
Suguro had studied him carefully. Langstrom's aerial capabilities were valuable, his appearance was naturally terrifying, and his desperation for acceptance made him controllable. But unlike Grundy, Langstrom was intelligent enough to recognize manipulation if Suguro was too obvious about it.
"This isn't a support group," Suguro had said bluntly. "This is a criminal organization engaged in research that most people would call monstrous. We hurt people. We kill people. We conduct experiments that violate every ethical standard. If you're looking for found family and moral redemption, you're in the wrong place."
"I don't want redemption. I want revenge. Society rejected me for something I can't control, treated me like a monster for existing. Fine. I'll be the monster they decided I was. But I'll be a monster with purpose, with allies, with power."
Suguro had recognized that sentiment personally, he'd felt something similar when his grandmother had called him a freak. The decision to become what others feared, to weaponize their rejection.
"Then you're welcome here, your appearance combined with my fear toxin makes you particularly effective with my plans. Can you accept that?"
"Gladly."
Manbat joined Crane's Wings, and brought with him both capability and genuine loyalty born from finding the first place that accepted what he was.
Perhaps Langstrom inspired another, perhaps it was pure coincidence. Cameron van Cleer also found Suguro rather than the other way around. At twenty-three, Cameron had spent years drifting through Gotham's criminal underworld, working as muscle-for-hire for various operations, never finding anything that felt like *purpose*. His Quirk gave him moth-like characteristics, large wings capable of sustained flight, pitch black eyes that had enhanced night vision that let him operate in complete darkness, and the ability to produce a silk-like substance from specialized glands that was incredibly strong and fire-resistant. (normal human look besides that though)
The wings were beautiful in an unsettling way, patterned in browns and grays that seemed to shift in different lights, with a span of nearly twelve feet when fully extended. But they also marked him as a heteromorph, making civilian life complicated. He'd tried the normal route, but the constant stares, the children who cried when they saw him, the way people instinctively moved away in crowds, had slowly poisoned any desire for acceptance.
Cameron had been in the crowd during one of Crane's early public attacks, the city council massacre that had established the villain's reputation. While others panicked, fled, or collapsed under the fear toxin's effects, Cameron had watched once at a safe distance.
He'd followed the unknown operations obsessively after that, tracking news reports, monitoring police scanners, analyzing patterns. When he finally approached what he thought was one of Crane's Wings safe houses, he came prepared to ask to join but also ready for a fight but suddenly lost consciousness and woke up tied to a chair...
Twenty minutes later, Cameron was face-to-face with the masked villain himself in a basement laboratory that smelled of chemicals and fear. The villain was younger than Cameron had expected, maybe five years younger than him but the *presence* was overwhelming. There was something fundamentally *wrong* about him that triggered every instinct to flee.
"You've been following my operations,"
"Yes." he saw no point denying it. "For months. Since the council attack."
"Why? You don't look like some hero?"
Cameron had prepared for this question, knew that honesty was the only approach that would work.
he tilted his head in that disturbing way he had, studying Cameron like a specimen under a microscope. "What do you expect to gain?"
"Purpose," Cameron answered immediately.
"I don't need believers," he said, but there was something in his tone that suggested curiosity rather than dismissal. "I need competent operatives who can execute assignments without requiring emotional management. I dont want to rely on more of that..."
"Then test me," Cameron said. "Give me an assignment. If I fail or if I'm not what you need, you can kill me. I'd rather die doing something that matters than spend another decade pretending to be normal."
The man was quiet for a long moment, then sketched something quickly in a notebook. "There's a hero, who calls himself Nightwing, one of Batman's proteges, who's been investigating one of my secondary laboratories. I need him distracted for forty-eight hours while I relocate sensitive materials. Not killed, just kept busy chasing false leads."
Over the next two days
Cameron executed the assignment flawlessly. Using his silk, he created false crime scenes across three districts, each one suggesting Cranes presence but containing no actual toxin. He flew between locations faster than any ground pursuit could follow, staying ahead of Nightwing's investigations while leaving just enough evidence to keep the hero engaged.
"Adequate," Crane had said when Cameron reported back, which from him was apparently high praise. "Join me there is no going back now"
Cameron had joined that night and never looked back. Over the following months, he proved himself invaluable. Cameron brought dedication. He approached work with religious intensity, volunteering for the most dangerous assignments, spending his own time looking for improvement, and treating Cranes instructions like sacred doctrine. He never questioned orders, never hesitated when assignments turned dark.
He took the villain name Killer Moth, reclaiming the insults people had thrown at him his entire life.
Jaina Hudson was twenty-two when she approached Crane's Wings, and unlike most recruits, she came from a position of strength rather than desperation. Her Quirk, "Multitude," allowed her to create perfect duplicates of herself, each one controlled by her consciousness in a hive-mind configuration where she experienced everything every instance experienced simultaneously. Through years of training, she'd pushed her limit to one hundred simultaneous duplicates, each lasting a full twenty-four hours before dissolving into fine powder.
She was beautiful in a striking way, albinism had given her snow-white hair, pale skin, and light blue eyes that seemed to look through people. She always wore black clothing patterned with red roses, her signature look that made her instantly recognizable. Her Quirk compensated for that, when one hundred versions of her could operate simultaneously across the city, individual recognition became meaningless.
Jaina had grown up in Gotham's outer suburbs, pushed by her parents toward hero training. They'd seen dollar signs in her duplication ability, imagine the rescue operations, the overwhelming heroic victories. She hated every moment of it. The fake morality, the pretense that heroes were fundamentally better people, the constant pressure to suppress individual identity in favor of bland marketability.
Her initial criminal career had been sophisticated,using her duplicates to execute simultaneous burglaries across the city, creating uncrackable alibis. She'd stolen millions before heroes even realized they were dealing with a single perpetrator rather than a coordinated organization.
But being solo had limitations. When Batman had started specifically targeting her operations, she'd recognized the need for support.
She'd researched Gotham's criminal factions methodically. Crane's Wings was exactly what she needed: organized, growing, disciplined, and led by someone who valued competence over loyalty or ideology. And her Quirk synergized perfectly with fear toxin operations, imagine one hundred instances deploying gas simultaneously across a district.
She'd arranged a meeting, showing up with twenty duplicates as a demonstration of capability. The masked villian had been there alone, studying her with that unsettling stillness he had.
"One hundred maximum,". "Each lasts twenty-four hours. I experience everything they experience simultaneously. I can coordinate complex operations across multiple locations, maintain constant surveillance, and execute strategies that would require dozens of normal operatives. I'm offering my services."
"Why?" Scarecrow asked.
"Because running solo has a ceiling and I've reached it. Batman's targeting me specifically. You offer resources, protection. Also, your reputation suggests you don't waste assets on emotional decision-making, which I appreciate."
"Your Quirk presents unique challenges. One hundred instances means one hundred potential security breaches if you're captured. How do I trust that you won't sell faction intelligence when convenient?"
Jaina smiled. "Because betrayal would destroy the value I bring. If I sell intelligence once, no criminal organization would ever trust me again. My Quirk makes me exponentially more valuable as a long-term asset than as a one-time informant. Loyalty, in this case, serves my self-interest."
"What compensation do you require?"
They negotiated quickly, both of them too practical to waste time on posturing.
Over the following months, she became indispensable. Her duplicates handled logistics, maintained surveillance networks, executed courier operations, served as guards, and conducted simultaneous raids that kept heroes completely overwhelmed. If a Jaina was captured it would dissolve into dust while the others adjusted instantly,as she had little need to get directly involved with her primary body.
She took no villain name, insisting that "Jaina" was sufficient. Unlike most criminals who adopted theatrical personas, she viewed villainy as a profession rather than an identity.
With Crane, she maintained careful professionalism. She'd recognized that he was dangerous in ways that went beyond physical threat. The cold intelligence, the absolute lack of empathy, the willingness to sacrifice anyone for research, she respected it but also knew that staying valuable was her only protection.
She never tried to befriend him, never sought approval beyond professional recognition. When he assigned missions, she executed them efficiently. When payment occurred, she accepted it and moved on.
But she did take satisfaction in being the faction's most valuable operative beyond Scarecrow himself. One hundred duplicates made her effectively irreplaceable, losing her would cripple Crane's Wings operational capacity.