"Damn it! These doors are too sturdy" Onaka cursed as her quills snapped against the blast door sectioning off the part of the hallway she and Freya were in "Must be some sort of extra tough alloy or something"
"What would we do if you could punch through anyway?" Freya sighed "you couldn't make a hole large enough to travel through at any sort of decent pace. And there might be dozens of barriers in the way of actually accomplishing anything."
"Well I can't stand sitting around doing nothing!" Onaka fumed "these villains have us dancing to their beat and we can't do anything but sit here and wait for them to come to us. Or to let us go to the courtyard so they can gang up on us in one huge group."
"Our best bet is for one of the others who can break these doors down to come by our section and join up with them" Freya said, putting her hands on Onaka's shoulders and trying to sound more confident then she felt "j-just calm down."
Onaka sighed, she didn't want to calm down, she was frustrated and frightened and worried about the others, but she knew that Freya was right, and that Freya was probably far more scared than she was, and was hiding it for her sake. "Alright… I'll try" she said "we'll just have to trust that the others are in a better situation then. It'd be nice if we knew more of their quirks though, the only one whose power I know that could maybe break these doors is Serena, and that's only if she somehow got someone to hit her a bunch to build energy"
"Well if nothing else she'd be able to handle the turrets afterwards" Freya mused, preferring to think about possible hopes rather than focusing on how bad of a situation they were in. "So if she meets up with someone who can break the doors the two of them would be able to move freely"
Onaka sat down in a corner of their section of hallway, glaring at the security camera gazing down at her, it was clearly active, as it scanned the room, leaving few blind spots in the confined space. "Hm… they're watching us to make sure we don't move…" she mused, then got an idea and stood up. She turned to the wall of the hallway and fired a quill, successfully puncturing the steel wall. "The walls are weaker by comparison, I can break through those, and there's less walls between here and the courtyard then blast doors" she said, raising her voice to be unusually loud "we can break through to the last wall and wait for a fight to break out in the courtyard, then launch a surprise attack on them to turn the tides of that fight"
Freya looked at Onaka in confusion, the plan was a bit of a stretch, but now that she'd announced it to be overheard by the camera the villains would just send a few people to take them on indoors… then it dawned on her as Onaka made a show of noticing the camera had an audio recorder and used a quill to destroy the camera.
"They'll have to send a few people after us now" Onaka said with a smirk "it's not much, but if we can take out small teams sent to take us down we can chip away at their numbers so long as they think us escaping is a threat"
"This is… surprisingly well thought out for you" Freya commented
"heh, guess Serena and Ayane are rubbin off on me, I'll make up for it by being extra reckless and silly after this is over" Onaka chuckled, eliciting a sigh from Freya. The two of them waited for a team to come after them, with Onaka firing more quills into the wall to keep up the illusion that it was their actual plan. Sure enough, it wasn't long before one of the blast doors began to open and two men stepped in.
"Hello girls, boss says you two are mishbeavin yerselves" one man said, he was bald and wearing a white t-shirt and shorts, his skin glistening with some kind of moisture "we're here to tell ya to quit it"
"Oh yeah? And if we refuse?" Onaka sneered, her quills bristling
"heh heh, I hope ya do, cause you went and broke the camera in here, which means I can do whatever I want to you little ladies and nobody's gonna know" the man chuckled, leering at Freya.
Onaka noticed the gaze and gritted her teeth "get real, like you weren't planning on that anyway" she spat as she fired two quills at the man, only for the other villain to step in front of him and block them with his torso. The quills bounced off harmlessly, making the man chuckle. He didn't look particularly impressive apart from being rather tall, and there was no indication of how he'd deflected the quills so easily.
"tsk tsk, so hasty, you girls don't realize how much shit yer in here" the first man said "see we've been doing some recon on you and yer classmates for a bit now, we know yer quirks, and we were sent here cause they don't work on us. My buddy here's got skin that can't be cut or pierced, and I've got acid to burn through yer friend's regeneration. So you'd be wise not to piss us off, or we might get a bit rough"
The second man began approaching Onaka with a sick grin "ain't been any cute ones back in prison" he commented "but if you two play nice we won't be too harsh on ya"
"Ugh, disgusting" Onaka spat "you lowlifes aren't gonna lay a finger on either of us, Freya, show em who's boss"
"Eh? M-me? But why?" Freya stammered
"Just trust me, go ahead and punch the guy" Onaka said with a grin as she stepped back and pushed Freya forward
"Heh, sacrificing yer own friend so put off yer own fate" the first man laughed "some hero you are. Yer nothing but a stupid little coward hiding behind a human shield"
"U-um… I-I'm not… gonna let you talk about Onaka like that!" Freya said, clenching her fists and drawing her arm back.
The tall man smirked down at her "go ahead, I'll give ya a free… oomph…" he began, but got cut off as Freya rammed her fist into his stomach and knocked the wind out of him. He sank to his knees, wheezing for air, while Freya drew her fist back, as surprised as he was.
"Been trying to tell ya Freya, but you're a lot tougher than ya think, you just never took me seriously and thought I was teasing you all the time" Onaka chuckled "your quirk has got a bit of a side benefit, think about how exercise works, you push your muscles past the limit and they break apart, then heal over time even stronger than before. Your body does that last part at like… hundreds of times the speed of a normal person. Hell you probably don't even realize you've worked out half the time cause you heal so fast you aren't sore"
"Eh?" Freya said, looking between Onaka and the man on the ground, who was now doubled over in pain "you mean…?"
"Yup, you might not get to hit as hard as like, Serena at a full charge or someone with a straight strength enhancement type quirk, but you've got some pretty insane striking force compared to normal dudes like that one." Onaka said, then stepped forward and grinned at the bald man, who was looking a lot less confident now. "As for you… I think I'll teach ya a lesson about threatening to assault girls with such a lewd look on your face"
"I… don't know what ya mean… I wasn't implying I'd… er…" the man said, backing away slowly, glancing at his doubled over buddy on the ground and back at Onaka. "I simply meant… uh… bye" he said, then turned and bolted. The blast door starting to close behind him, but not before one of Onaka's quills struck him in the leg and made him fall over.
"That's two down, he ain't gonna be walking around with that injury, he's out of the fight." Onaka said "Freya, you can knock out that guy"
"Um… ok… sorry sir, I don't know how hard I can hit yet so… this might hurt" Freya said, politely putting her hands together and bowing apologetically before kicking the man in the face and knocking him over onto his back, completely unconscious.
"You don't need to apologize to the villains for kicking them in the face" Onaka said "now then, let's get back to work making ourselves a nuisance"
"What the heck are you doing? Uh… Kura right?" A girl said, looking at the boy as he climbed to the top left corner of the blast door in front of him in order to tap it.
The girl wasn't dressed in a normal UA uniform, it was similar in appearance, but made of an elastic material, which made it look unusual as it conformed to her body in awkward ways. Normally she wore an additional uniform on top of this one, but she couldn't effectively use her quirk with it on, so she had cast it aside when the villain attack began. She had long black hair tied back in a ponytail, and emerald green eyes.
"I'm setting things up for you" Kura said as he hopped down "you're the girl with the expansion ability right? Um… it was…"
"Seiya" the girl said "and what do you mean by set up?"
"Right, Seiya, sorry I'm usually better with names" Kura said, rubbing the back of his head awkwardly as he made a point of not looking at her "a-anyway… my quirk places marks on things that multiply the next impact on that point the thing receives. Normally these doors are meant to handle hits from giant flesh and blood creatures, so your expansion would probably not work… but with my marks in place"
"Oh I see" Seiya said "alright, get behind me then, you want me to go full force right?"
"Yeah, if you hit the whole door at once we can use it to destroy the turret in the next room, rinse and repeat… the only concern is we'll hit a classmate, but I was one of the supervisors, so I have a general sense of where people should be right now." Kura said, walking behind Seiya "if we head this way we should run into Tyra's group, she can probably break the doors too, especially if Serena or Mota is with her at the time, so she may have regrouped with more groups as well"
"Huh, you don't look it, but you're pretty smart" Seiya said as she drew back her fist and threw a punch. As her fist and arm traveled forward they expanded and grew until they were the size of the hallway, striking the door and the marks placed on it, creating multiple shockwaves as the force was amplified, and the door sent crashing through the next room and into the opposite door, knocking it off its hinges as well. Unfortunately, the second door didn't have quite enough force to destroy the turret in the room behind it, leaving them sitting ducks as it took aim and Seiya's arm shrunk
"Uh oh, I hit it too hard" Seiya said, her face paling
Kura jumped into action quickly ducking down and tapping the ground to place a mark, then stepping forward like a sprinter and kicking off the mark with his leg, propelling himself forward like a cannon ball and darting behind the turret, stopping himself from splattering against the wall by tapping one of his hands with the other and slamming it against the wall, using the shockwave of force to negate his momentum as he turned and slapped the turret on its side while it turned to try and aim at him. With a grunt he twisted in the air and punched the turret on the mark he just placed, smashing it.
"Phew, that was too close, I'm not great at that maneuver" Kura said, letting out a sigh of relief "more often than not I just slam into the wall like an idiot"
"Well I'm glad you didn't this time, contrary to what some people seem to think, my body isn't made of rubber and bullets work just fine on me" Seiya said "but regardless, it seems we have a bit of a problem with the plan if that's gonna happen every time."
"Not quite, we just need a bit more force, let me see your fist" Kura said, then tapped her fist with his hand, leaving a small black ring on it "I'm gonna set another, larger than usual mark on the next door, aim your punch so that this ring on your hand strikes where I put the mark on the door. It's a little trick I learned a couple years back, if one of my marks strikes another one of the marks… the result is impressive"
"If you say so, I'll have to make my punch smaller if I want to aim properly though" Seiya said as she got ready to punch.
"that's fine, just a moment though, I need to calculate this right" Kura said, pulling out a small calculator and punching in some numbers while muttering to himself. After a moment he went to the door and placed a mark in the center, followed by two smaller ones on either side of it. "There, that should be the right amount of force"
Seiya threw her punch as Kura moved aside, her arm slightly smaller this time, but this time the door flew back into the other door of the section, and that door flew off its hinges and hit the door on the opposite side of its section as well.
"Perfect!" Kura exclaimed, with a triumphant fist pump "let's keep going Seiya, we're not going to let these villains have their way"
"Damn right we aren't!" Seiya replied enthusiastically
-
"Thanks for the rescue" A boy with electric yellow hair said, another boy in a black cloak nodded in agreement as the two of them looked down at a puddle of liquid in front of them.
The liquid slowly rose up, forming the shape of a human and partially solidifying into another boy with blue hair, his lower half remained fluid however, as when the torso reformed it was shirtless, and presumably the same would be true of the lower half.
"No problem, obstacles like this are no issue for me, so I let my partner stay behind in safety and have been moving through the doors looking for other groups" the boy said, gesturing to the blast door behind him, which had a hole melted through it just large enough to crawl through "I'm going to keep moving ahead, to free others, you two should head back that way and meet up with him, the villains clearly don't want to face us in large groups, so the three of you ought to be safe"
"What about you though?" the cloaked boy asked
"Nothing to worry about, I'm difficult to injure and I can move really quick if I want, right now I'm a slow viscous acid to burn through the doors, but the properties of this body can change to something more free-flowing if needed. I'll retreat if I get in trouble"
"Alright, if you're sure" the yellow haired boy said, giving a thumbs up "name's Eneru by the way, cya around." With that the boy turned into a mass of electricity and flew through the gaps in the doorways to go regroup like he was told.
"Hey wait up!" The cloaked boy called, then sighed "well, good luck, I'm Kaya."
"And I'm Ryu, now you should go catch up" the liquid boy replied "we've got to work quickly"
Kaya nodded, and ducked through the hole in the door while Ryu set about melting through the next one.
-
Out in the courtyard the first group to have been selected to be forced out was locked in combat. Daiki was shielding a girl with glasses as she flipped through a book, holding up his left arm which he had grown into a shield he blocked a volley of bullets from a large man with Gatling-guns in place of his hands. "Is now really the time to be reading?" he grunted
"Just a minute" the girl said, then seemed to find what she was searching for and closed the book putting it in a harness on her back as her eyes flashed and changed color from blue to red as two large handguns made of blue lines of hardened light formed in her hands. "Emulation complete" she said, her voice sounding slightly deeper than it had a moment prior "step aside"
Daiki waited for there to be a break in the firing of the man attacking them, then did as he was told, allowing the girl to level her guns at the man and fire, bullets forming from hardened light like the guns and striking the man in both shoulders, then exploding in what looked like blue fire, but it produced no smoke. The man fell backwards, now incapacitated, and another villain dragged him off as another man took his place, spiked tentacles shooting out from his back to attack.
Daiki lifted his arm to block, but the tentacles instead redirected themselves around his shield arm and instead wrapping around him, then yanking him to the side as the girl tried to fire her hand cannons again, making them strike him in the back.
"Gah! Watch it with those, they hurt!" Daiki protested as he struggled to break free of the tentacles holding him. Meanwhile another two tentacles shot past him to try and strike at the girl.
"Sorry" the girl said shortly as she dropped the guns and her eyes changed color again, becoming green as she began forming a blade of hardened light in her hand, which she used to knock away the incoming attacks "that persona is a bit reckless, I can't help it." Her voice was higher again, and her fighting stance had changed completely, as if she were a different person
Stepping forward and slashing with the blade she formed, the girl freed Daiki from the tentacles binding him, then took a ready position next to him. "We've got bigger issues though, we're lucky they aren't all attacking at once… but there's a bunch of them, we're going to get tired at this rate" the girl said
"I know, all we can do is hang in there and hope someone comes to back us up" Daiki said, forming his free hand into a blade and cutting a tentacle that shot at him "you seem to have enough tricks to keep us going though."
"Not really, my quirk lets me emulate the persona, skills, and equipment of fictional characters I've read about or seen in movies and stuff, but I can only store 3 at a time, that's why I had to read a moment ago, my book has a few good go-to characters for me" the girl said "they're going to figure out my bag of tricks soon enough and I don't think we're going to have time for me to change it up again."
"Lovely… well let's just hope the others have more luck than us then" Daiki said "and let's take down as many of these guys as we can. There's a lot of them, but they can't have an infinite number of guys to throw at us, or they wouldn't be so set on splitting us up to maintain an edge in numbers"
"You got it!" the girl said as the two charged towards their opponent. Between their two blades, the villain was overwhelmed almost instantly, with tendons in his legs soon getting cut to incapacitate him. This was the third consecutive villain they defeated, and the crowd of enemies was looking restless.
"Probably not going to be long before that 'no ganging up' promise of theirs breaks down" Daiki said "let's just hope the no killing rule still holds up"
"heh, you're one to talk Mr. Diamond boy" the girl said "I'm still just flesh and blood here, you've got nothing to worry about"
"My name is Daiki, not diamond boy" Daiki muttered "and it's not like I'm invincible Mrs Bookworm"
"the name's Mako" the girl said "if you want me to call you by your name you should use mine, fair's fair."
Daiki nodded "fair enough" he said as he knelt down and stabbed his sword hand into the ground "can you buy me a minute or two? I've got an idea to buy us some time."
"I'll get you one, work quick" Mako said as she switched back to her guns
"I'll do my best" Daiki said
Mako brandished her guns, and several villains charged towards her to stop her from taking any shots. "Alright boys, bring it!" She shouted in defiance as she began to fire
With a grunt, Serena kicked down a blast door "alright I'm out of energy, until we find an effective way to charge me up again you're going to have to break them down Tyra"
Tyra opened her mouth to respond when the blast door on the opposite side of the section fell over, having apparently been struck by another door.
"Finally, we're through" Kura said as he hopped into the room "I was hoping to run into you guys"
"Kura? Thank goodness we found someone" Tyra said "we've knocked down a few dozen doors without any luck.
"Well you're gonna love this, say hello to my motley crew of rescued classmates" Kura replied with a grin. After a moment Seiya, Onaka, Ayane, and Freya entered the room as well.
"Onaka! Freya! You two are alright?" Serena called out, running over to her friends immediately
"Yeah we're better than alright, I finally managed to get Freya to realize how strong she is, and the two of us tricked and beat up about ten villains before they caught on and stopped sending em to us" Onaka chuckled "individually these guys don't seem very tough, how bout you, you get to kick any villain butt?"
Serena chuckled sheepishly "well I uh… kinda was losing my fight before Tyra stepped in… they knew my quirk and sent someone who could counter it, and I got caught a bit off guard"
"You rely way too much on that quirk of yours" Freya scolded "how many times has it failed you this week? Come on Serena"
"Yes yes that's lovely that you're all buddies and chit-chatting, but we don't have time to dawdle" Kura interjected "two of our classmates are already fighting in the courtyard, and it seems the promise to not gang up on us didn't last long. We need to go help them asap."
"tsk, why didn't you say that sooner damnit! Alright just charge me up and let's go then!" Serena snapped
"Woah, calm down, I'm sorry" Kura said, holding up his hands and backing away "look we need to go help them, but that diamond kid, Daiki I think his name was, he made a barrier around them to buy a bit of time. We can't afford casual chit-chat though."
Serena sighed "sorry, I'm just on edge because of all of this, but we do need to move now, if their boss attacks Daiki's barrier it won't last long. I don't know how it works
exactly, but his punches can break almost anything."
"How do you know his quirk?" Seiya asked, then regretted it immediately as Serena's expression darkened
"It's a long story, just suffice it to say I know he's dangerous from experience, and I'm pretty sure he's able to break a diamond barrier, so if he gets involved Daiki is in trouble." Serena replied firmly "we should go there now and take down the small fry before he sees fit to come out."
"Between the eight of us we should be able to handle things" Tyra said, nodding in agreement "and there are probably others we haven't met up with yet, they can likely come to the courtyard to back us up at some point"
"Well if you both say so, let's go kick some butt and save some classmates!" Onaka said
"Just one thing first" Serena said as she began to walk down the hallway towards the nearest exit into the courtyard "this is a bit selfish to ask, but when their boss shows up, I want to fight him myself. For one thing, even if he does punch hard I can likely take his hits, that's the practical reason. But I have… a bit of a score to settle. I knew he was in jail already so I never gave it much thought, but with him being here… I want to take him down myself this time."
"And you want us to just sit back and twiddle our thumbs watching you fight him?" Kura asked "you're right, that is selfish, we should just work together and bring him down"
"We'll stay out of it" Tyra asserted "but tell me this, do you think you can win?"
"Tyra! What are you?" Kura protested
"Shush, I overheard what another villain was saying to Serena, and from what I can infer, this is important to her" Tyra interrupted "but I want to know Serena, are you going to fight him for the sake of it? Or do you intend to win? Or rather I should ask, are your emotions driving you to pick a fight you can't win?"
"If I said I was 100% confident I'd win that'd be a lie" Serena said "he's strong, and more experienced than me by far, but I'm not planning on losing. I know a lot of his tendencies, I have a general idea of his quirk, and I'm pretty sure I can bring him down if I can get a solid hit in. Emotion is part of it, but I do genuinely believe I can beat him"
"Very well then, we'll fight the small fry and stay nearby just in case, but we'll let you have first crack at him" Tyra said
"We're really going to indulge this? She's saying she thinks she can win but she's not sure, and that this guy's dangerous, and we're just going to let her possibly get killed by the guy over a personal grudge?" Kura said "look I've got no problem with settling personal grudges in theory, but we're talking an actual dangerous criminal here who, despite claiming he won't go that far, could KILL her, us, or anyone else who fights him. We should consolidate our strength, team up, and beat him with the minimal amount of risk."
"I know that, but I also know he won't kill me" Serena said as she clutched one hand in the other "his personality is a weakness, he'll want to torture me if he gets the chance, if it comes to that, he'll let his guard down and you'll actually have an easier time getting the drop on him"
"And you think I'd be ok with just letting you get tortured? I object to that on the same grounds as if he would kill you!" Kura snapped "and why am I the only one who seems to think this is a terrible idea?"
"I… I don't agree with Serena in the sense that I don't think this is a good plan… but…" Freya said "… I trust her… and if this is important to her then I want to support her. I'll put my faith in her claim that she can win."
"Personally, I think this idea is stupid and reckless, and that's coming from me" Onaka said "but frankly, Serena is stronger than I am, so I'm inclined to put my faith in her too."
"Me too" Ayane said "I know this is important, and while I think she should let us help her, I'm ok with hanging back and letting her try to do it herself, and stepping in if things go wrong."
"Tsk, I can't believe this, we're all just going to go along with this stupid request" Kura said "what kind of hero would even think of going along with this anyway?"
"I know it's stupid, and selfish, and not heroic, but this is something I need to do" Serena said as she turned and walked up to Kura, pulling off one of her gloves to show him her hand and the scar on it, then lowered her voice to a whisper, not wanting anyone else to hear, but wanting to get this out to settle the argument. "This is what that man did to my hands, him and one other man. They did it for fun, treated me like their personal toy as they did things like this to me every day" she said, then pulled the glove back on "I couldn't stand up to them then, I was young and weak, but I'm not anymore, and if I don't stand up to this man now, I'll probably never get another chance. I know this is a bad idea, you are completely correct… but… if I don't do this…"
Kura's face paled as he saw the scar on Serena's hand, when he had heard her say it was a personal grudge, he had thought she meant he had robbed her or some petty dispute. Looking at her now it was clear this ran deeper than that. More than that though, he knew how she felt right now from personal experience. Realizing this, his expression changed slightly, becoming harder, but not with an expression of anger, but of conviction. "Fine, on one condition, promise me this one thing, and I will make sure nobody interferes with your fight even if it kills me"
Serena was slightly taken aback by the sudden change in tone and increase in intensity from the boy in front of her "w…what is it?"
"If you start losing, don't you dare give in and revert to your old weak self" Kura said, grabbing Serena by the collar and locking eyes with her "if I hear you beg for mercy or see you give up on the fight, I'm stepping in right then and kicking both of your asses. You wanna fight to prove you're different and stronger now, you stick to it, win or lose, don't give him the satisfaction of breaking your spirit."
Serena looked back at Kura, she barely knew the boy at all, she'd met him mere days ago, but from his words and that intense glare, she could feel that he must've gone through something like this himself. There was a defiant fire in his eyes that she knew all too well, because it was the same fire she felt. She met his gaze with her own, matching his fire and resolve without hesitation as she answered his conviction "I was never planning on giving the bastard that satisfaction from the start. I'd die before I let him see me like that again."
Kura let go of Serena and stepped back "fine, we'll do it your way then. I still think this is a damn stupid idea, but we'll do it, don't make me regret it."
"The only one who is going to regret anything is him" Serena said, then turned to lead the way "come on, we've got some villains to send back to jail"