Without the protective buffer of U.A. and officially licensed heroes, Vigilantes is closer to the worst of an empowered society. As a result it's Darker and Edgier than the main series and moments like this show it.
Volume 1
- In the very first chapter a group of thugs pin Pop☆Step to a wall while expressing their intentions to sexually assault and rape her before posting the whole thing online. At the same time, one of their number stands over a wounded and bleeding Koichi planning to beat and stab him to death before destroying the store he works at. Keep in mind that neither of these characters are hardened heroes who manages to fight back or think of a way out, they're both clearly terrified, screaming for help and begging for mercy. If it wasn't for Knuckleduster, things would have gotten much worse.
- Everything about Trigger. A single dose amps up a Quirk to monstrously powerful proportions, complete with literally monstrous mutations. At the same time it affects the user's mind, impairing their cognitive functions until only a few impulses remain. In the best cases the subject retains their ordinary desires but warped and uninhibited until they'll lash out violently to get them. In the worst the subject is reduced to little more than a slavering animal that lashes out any anything around them.
- In chapter 5, Kuin uses her syringe bees to dose an entire crowd with Trigger. In an instant an ordinary crowd of people turns into a horde of monsters with out-of-control powers without understanding what's happening to them or why. It's a terrifying look at what terrorism might look like in a world where everyone has superpowers.
Volume 2
- One of the people Kuin gives Trigger to is an aggressive, unkempt man who she implies to be suffering hallucinations that already drive him to attack people. Sure enough, he immediately takes multiple doses and proceeds to attack a crowd of civilians. Previous impromptu villains either targeted people they already had grudges against or lash out at random, but he's the first that's still stable enough to speak and aggressive enough to want to attack people.
- Enigma may be heroic, but she's still quite creepy with the way she grows to be a pitch-black mass the size of a building with an inhuman face and budding-off pieces of itself.
- Stendhal showing his true colors. At first he seems heroic, appearing to help the Crawler out of a tight spot and saying he's just another guy who sticks his nose where it doesn't belong. But then he hunts down the villain that got away, stabbing him in the eye to make him relax his toughening Quirk, stabs him twice more in the back to keep him off balance, then cleaves him apart right down the middle while ranting about conviction. He doesn't even bother wiping off the blood, he just leaves the corpse in an alley and walks off while muttering about his next target.
- A conversation he has with Kuin reveals that the man considers "Stendhal" to be something beyond human, a judicator of life and death that is separate from himself. Combined with his general ravings about the very life of someone without conviction being a sin, as well as a few comments that indicate he may actually view himself as some sort of divine messenger, it paints the picture of someone missing more than a few marbles.
Stendhal: He deserves naught but to die a dog's death, crawling alone in the darkness.- Later on he thinks nothing of attempting to kill Soga in front of the Crawler, who up until then had considered Stendhal to be an ally. When the Crawler attempts to interfere, Stendhal incapacitates both of them by tasting their blood, revealing his identity as Chizome Akaguro, the man who would one day become the Hero Killer Stain.
- After taking a beating from Knuckleduster and getting a lecture about how those who take on a persona and hide behind a mask lack resolve, he manages to become even more unhinged. Deciding that hiding behind a persona represents a greater sin than even villainy, he decides that it's false heroes who must truly be eliminated and cuts off his own broken nose to ensure he cannot fall into the same trap, fully becoming Stain.
- Kuin's mouth finally gets her in trouble when she bugs Stendhal and he proceeds to embed a knife into her eye socket. Luckily for her it was the hive eye and not lethal, but seeing her pull a knife covered in bees and... fluid out of her eye isn't a pretty sight.
Volume 4
- When Soga is looking for Kuin he follows a girl who seems like she knows something, then like she just likes the look of him for a quick screw... at least until the swarm of bees that had been controlling her comes pouring out of her nether regions to attack him. Disgusting and horrifying all at once.
- Kuin's "home". From the outside it seems like an ordinary suburban home, and it was probably exactly that once. Now it's a bee-ridden building with the withered corpses of its former owners being used as food and hives. Kuin thinks nothing of casually sitting on the couch between two corpses and addressing them as Mom and Dad even though it's very clear these are not her parents, and her dialogue clearly indicates that she's done this before and will surely do it again.
- Teruo returns, but not as the kid he once was. Now he's a hulking monster even more mutated than his Trigger form, an eel-like creature with rows of eyes, bulky limbs, and a Lamprey Mouth. Before he was infatuated with Pop☆Step and rampaged trying to get a handshake from her, but now he electrocutes an entire crowd trying to get at her.
- Kuin managed to avoid getting into fights before, but chapter 24 shows she can be pretty scary when she's backed into a corner. She uses her syringe bees to pump herself full of strength boosters and other chemicals, warping her fingers into claws and changing her skin color to a greyish tone. She then takes it a step further by using a mix of Trigger and blood infusions to give herself someone else's Quirk and turn two of her fingers into a lethal weapon that can stop a heart in one hit. And when that isn't enough, she proves willing to send out a massive swarm of bomb bees while attacking with enough voltage to fry herself, fully intending to destroy her own host body if it means killing her opponent.
- After Kuin is defeated, it is seen that at least one of her insects has survived and been retrieved, which becomes important much later.
Volume 5
- The reveal of the Next-Level villains. Like Teruo, they're massively mutated and pumped with enough Trigger to kill a normal person. But unlike normal Trigger users, their transformations are permanent and the result of extensive experimentation. At least one of them went into the process unwillingly, and most of them come out of it so unhinged that for hours or even days they're little more than animals.
- Kuin's replacement in the Villain Factory is a scarred speedster who thinks nothing of shooting a dozen cops at point blank range, all while he's moving to fast for them to defend themselves. Sure he was using their own rubber bullets and shooting them in their bullet proof vests, but at such close range and with multiple shots to each cop, it's still possible to severely injure or even kill someone. He acknowledges this possibility, but with a grin that shows he won't loose any sleep if not all of them get to walk away.
- He also has no problem using loading mechs to attack cops while the workers are still trapped in them. These mechs are also rigged to explode if they're destroyed or even if they stop moving, making it difficult to stop them without harming the hostages. Oh, and one of those mechs was being used as a demonstration in the middle of a crowded mall.
Other Chapters
- The Octoid comes extremely close (as in winding up to throw its final blow) to killing Eraser Head after battering him to the point he couldn't move.
- The Villain Factory speedster apparently got the scar on his face from himself in order to mimic someone he admires. It's a special kind of crazy that makes someone carve their own face open as a homage, and the fact that he reveals this while brutally beating Octoid to death doesn't make it any better.
- On top of that, he cherishes such scar but if he gets any other injury, even just a scratch, he goes apeshit, making him even more deadly.
- The latest monstrosities from the Villain Factory are Bombers: flying creatures that can self-destruct by exploding, and the speedster can detonate them at his leisure. He has no qualms "testing" one of them against the Little Sisters of St. Lila's Academy (who would be dead if it wasn't for Captain Celebrity); next, he unleashes a whole group against the Sky Egg, a place with tens of thousands of people.
- Not to mention that the Bombers are the first villains shown to seriously injure Captain Celebrity to the point of budding unconsciousness and show no signs of fatigue after giving the pro-hero an immense beatdown, ready to keep going.
- Chapter 53 ends on a cliffhanger that cements the speedster, aka Number 6, as one of the most terrifying villains in the franchise. Seeing the Pro Heroes managing to get out of the Sky Egg and repel his Bombers while securing the building, he gets angry and has the big creature self-destruct, completely destroying part of the supporting tower as the Sky Egg begins to fall down. This is a man who's trying to kill thousands of people on a temper tantrum. After All Might comes and saves the day, he tries one last attack only for it to be thwarted by All Might again, only this time the speedster is amused, further exposing his lunacy.
- After a long period of peace for the characters (although Knuckleduster's whereabouts are currently still unknown), comes the reveal that the new manager of the Marufest, with whom Pop has established a good friendship, is in truth Number 6. Imagine it: a man you have known for months as an exceptionally nice and supportive guy, and befriended to the point you trust him even with discussing your inner feelings, is in truth a sociopath who is working to get revenge on you and all the people you care for. This comes to an head in Chapter 71 where with the excuse of showing her a "secret place", he throws Pop into a room full of corpses and... bees. The insect that survived way back in Chapter 26 has gone on to become a new queen and make a new hive, and Pop is the next host. The following chapter ends with the appearance of her turned into a villain.
