A bunch of stuff happened in life that took away my motivation, and just when I was getting motivated, the Smash Bros. Direct happened, which made me so excited that I couldn't concentrate on the story...
And that is why it took so long for this chapter to come out... Sorry for the wait...
Chapter 12
Prodigal Son
After the discussion with Superman and Batman, the young heroes decided to rescue Red Tornado themselves, and the adults gave them their blessing.
As for the students of U.A., most of them were up and in good condition. The only ones who were still in bed were Tsuyu, Tenya, Eijiro, and Momo, as they were the most injured during their fight with the androids. Everyone else was at the computer room, where Nightwing explained to them all about their plan. They were also introduced to Aqualad, who they haven't met previously. According to Nightwing, Aqualad is half-human half-Atlantean, and he was a part of their team since day one. It just happened that he was at Atlantis on the day those students came.
After the information briefing, Fumikage raised his hand and asked, "Wouldn't it be better if we leave this to the pros?"
"Hey, are you forgetting that we are the pros here?" Kid Flash told him while pointing at himself with his thumb.
"We've gotten permission from the League to do this," Nightwing told the students. "We are in debt of Red Tornado, for he looked after us while our team was still new, so we believe that we should be the ones to rescue him as an act of repayment."
"Yeah, where's the fun if we sit back and let the adults do everything? I wanna go and get those bastards for making a joke out of me!" said Katsuki in anger and also enthusiasm.
"Oh boy! Our first mission in this world!" said Denki, also sounding enthusiastic. "This isn't something you get to experience everyday back in our own world!"
"You do realize that it's gonna be dangerous for us, right?" Mina reminded him.
"Bring on the danger! I can handle them!" said Denki with confidence.
"But how are we going to change Red Tornado back to normal?" asked Ochako.
"That... Honestly, we haven't thought of it yet..." said Nightwing. "I'm sure there's something at T.O. Morrow's lab that can help us."
"Maybe I can come up with something, but I'll have to have another look at the security footage showing how he got brainwashed first," said Mei.
Everyone turned to her in interest, and Miss Martian asked, "What are you going to do?"
"I'm an expert when it comes to anything related to machines, so if I get a good look at what exactly happened that time, I'm sure I can figure something out! You can trust me on this!" said Mei with confidence while winking. "And I'll have to gain access to wherever you do tinkering on gizmos and such in this place. I'll need to whip up some babies for this job."
"Babies...?" asked a confused Superboy.
"That's what she calls her inventions," Izuku told him.
"I just remember that we have the schematics of Red Tornado," said Nightwing before typing away on the computer. He eventually brought up a picture of a blueprint for Red Tornado, showing various parts of him, both inside and out.
Mei approached the computer with interest and said, "Wow! This is just what I need!"
"Um... Why do we have a blueprint of Red Tornado?" asked Superboy.
"Batman somehow got his hands on it," Nightwing told him. "You know, in case Red Tornado goes rogue and needs to be stopped..."
"Typical of him..." commented Kid Flash.
"How are we going to find Red Tornado?" asked Ochako. "Do you know where T.O. Morrow lives?"
"That can be solved," Nightwing told her. "Batman told me he had a tracker secretly installed inside Red Tornado so that he can keep an eye on him. Apparently, even Red Tornado himself doesn't know this."
Shouto raised an eyebrow and asked, "Is that really necessary...?"
"Trust me when I say Batman is the most paranoid and well-prepared person in the universe you've ever met... Seriously..." Nightwing told him.
Within T.O. Morrow's lab, Red Tornado was lying down on a table and strapped to it, while T.O. Morrow was standing next to him. Within the same room, the other two androids were locked away inside capsules. There was also a third and larger capsule placed closed to them, and if one looked through its glass window, another robot with a similar design could be seen inside.
Approaching Red Tornado, T.O. Morrow said to him, "In case you haven't forgotten, you were my greatest creation. You are the first robot I've created to possess his own free will. I created you with this and trusted that you would make your own decisions on how to take down the Justice League, but..."
That was when his temper increased. "...instead, you chose to turn against your own father and join the very heroes I sent you to destroy! Do you realize how much it hurts me to know that my child turned against me and refused to come home? I thought that by creating a robot who can make his own decisions and be as human as possible, I would feel like the greatest and proudest man ever, yet instead, I felt nothing but regret and sadness!
"And this is why, I have learned from my mistake. It seems that machines are never meant to behave like humans. They are made by humans, so it only makes sense that they serve humans to the end of their life span! Therefore, when I created your brothers and sister, I made sure to rectify my mistake so that they would never turn against me!" As he said this, he pointed his hand at the capsules containing those three robots. "This time, I will make sure that you obey me. Do not feel bad, Red Tornado. In fact, you should feel glad that your father still remembers you all these years and is willing to forgive you!"
When the young heroes were ready, they set off for T.O. Morrow's hideout using Miss Martian's bioship. It was a red spaceship with a somewhat organic design. It lacked a door at first, but when one appeared on its side, much to the surprise of the students, Miss Martian explained that she could control the ship using her mind. This amazed Mei to no end, and she even asked for the blueprints and details of the ship, as she wanted to learn more about its inner workings. Unfortunately for her, the Martian didn't have any blueprints.
It was gradually becoming evening as the bioship entered a mountainous region. Due to the aforementioned tracker on Red Tornado, they knew where to find him. In fact, they were closing in on T.O. Morrow's hideout, which was visible in the distance.
"All right, we're closing in on enemy location," Miss Martian told everyone. "I'm not sure if T.O. Morrow is anticipating us, but we have to be careful." Then she looked at the radar and noticed three objects approaching. "Okay, I think they found us already..."
A few minutes earlier, T.O. Morrow was warned by a siren that intruders were approaching his place. He had apparently installed cameras that were hidden in some of the mountains and rocks, and when they caught the bioship approaching, a warning was sent all the way to his hideout.
Inside his hideout, T.O. Morrow was looking at several monitors on a wall that showed the bioship approaching his place from various angles. "How did they know I was here?!" he asked in surprise. "And so soon too! Well, if that's the case, I have no choice but to send my children after them!" He then turned to Red Tornado. "But not you. I still have some things I need to deal with regarding you first!"
The heroes looked out the cockpit and saw three objects approaching them. Thanks to Mei's Quirk, the pink-haired girl was able to tell that they were the same androids that broke into the tower, though there was an additional one she never saw before.
"What's the plan here, Nightwing?" Miss Martian asked him.
"Land us," he told her. "We'll fight them out there, but you head over to T.O. Morrow's place with Mei and Mina."
"Who me?" asked Mei.
"Yes," Nightwing replied with a nod. "Don't you want to test your invention on Red Tornado? If T.O. Morrow knows we are here and Red Tornado isn't among those androids, then the former would definitely try to keep us from retrieving Red Tornado, so we someone must head over there was soon as possible."
Miss Martian landed the bioship, and when the androids saw this, they landed as well. A door appeared at the side of ship for the heroes to come out of. After that, the bioship took off into the air again, though the androids didn't give chase.
The heroes got into fighting stance as Red Torpedo, the masculine one, and Red Inferno, the feminine one, approached them. "Time for payback!" said Katsuki in anger as he punched his palm.
"Right! They'll pay for hurting our classmates!" said Denki as electricity sparkled around him.
"I know some of you are angry about losing to them the first time, but don't let anger get the best of you and make you perform reckless things," Nightwing warned them. "Fight with a clear mind and work with each other, and we will be able to beat them!"
Superboy then ran towards Red Inferno while letting out a cry, and the latter released a burst of fire from her hand at him. The blast of fire struck Superboy and exploded, but he emerged from the other side unharmed with his fist pulled back, and he threw a powerful punch at Red Inferno's chest to push her back. He ran up to her again and unleashed another punch to push her back even further.
Kid Flash then dashed past her at a fast speed, swiping her across the body while doing so. He did this over and over, attacking her with a hit and run tactic that left her with no chance to fight back.
After Kid Flash stopped doing this, Katsuki charged at Red Inferno with both arms pulled back. "Payback time!" he shouted before thrusting his hands forward to unleash a pair of explosions that struck the android, blowing her backwards, but she was able to remain standing, albeit in a crouched position. Katsuki let out a cry as he closed in on her and attacked nonstop with exploding punches that she defended against by crossing her arms in front of herself.
Eventually, Red Inferno swung her arms out to the side to make fire burst out around herself, blowing Katsuki backwards. The exploding teen watched as Red Inferno flew into the air with her whole body on fire, and then she fired streams of fire from her hands at him, so he ran around to avoid them. "Get down here and fight me!" he shouted at her.
Superboy performed an incredible leap through the air and in Red Inferno's direction. The android attacked him with fire, but he plowed through it unharmed and slammed his hands like a hammer onto her, head knocking her back onto the ground with such a powerful slam that her fire was put out. Red Inferno was down on the ground, twitching slowly and showing signs of heavy damage.
Red Torpedo released water streams from his hands at Aqualad, who countered by pointing his water blades at them. The water blades reconstructed themselves into shields that managed to block the streams of water, and then electricity was generated from the hilts. Aqualad was expecting the electricity to travel down the streams of water and into Red Torpedo, shocking him, but to his confusion the electricity remained more or less within his water shield construct and did not get passed down Red Torpedo's water at all.
While the android kept up his attack, Denki ran towards him from the side and grabbed one of his arms with his electrifying hands. "Gotcha!" He released powerful electricity in hope of zapping the android, but to his surprise, the android suffered seemingly no harm at all. Red Torpedo stopped his attack before swatting Denki away.
The fact that he halted his attack gave Aqualad the chance to run up to him with water constructs in the form of maces in hands. He slammed them against the android multiple times, knocking him back with each hit. When the android swung his arm at him, he ducked underneath it and then changed his water maces into water ropes that wrapped themselves around his legs. Using all his strength as an Atlantean, Aqualad lifted Red Torpedo into the air and flung him away quite a distance. The android fell with quite a crash.
Denki, who had gotten back up, approached Aqualad and said to him, "Wow! What a throw! Didn't know you're this strong!"
"Atlanteans naturally have greater strengths than humans," Aqualad told him.
"Super strength sure is handiest superpower if you think about it!" said Denki. "By the way, this is my second attempt at shocking him, but it doesn't seem to be doing any good to him... I thought that since he uses water, electricity would be his biggest weakness."
"My electricity didn't pass down his water streams as well, but I have a theory to this," said Aqualad. "He's releasing pure water. Water in its purest form does not conduct electricity, whereas the ones that do so are contaminated with other particles."
Denki was surprised to hear this. "Really? Never knew this... Guess I should've paid more attention in science class..."
Red Torpedo stood back up and fired a stream of water in their direction. Shouto appeared in between them and pointed his hands at the incoming attack and at the same time generated ice. The ice froze the column of water all the way to Red Torpedo, freezing his arm. Shouto then sped towards the partially frozen android by producing ice from his feet so that he could slide along the rocky surface. Creating a spiky ice staff, he gave the android a powerful swing to the head when close to him.
The bioship landed out the hideout, and the three girls got out of it and headed for the main entrance. When Miss Martian pushed it, it wouldn't open. She thought of phasing through it and try to open it from the inside, but Mei said she had a better idea. She took out a circular device with a couple of buttons on it, and after pressing some of them, she placed it on the door and then told the other two to move back.
They all did so, and a few seconds later, the device exploded, blowing the door apart. "You made a bomb?!" asked Mina in shock.
Mei gave a thumb up and said, "Yep! And it's my first time too! I'm honestly surprised that it worked!"
"Not sure if making a noisy entrance is the best idea... Anyway, let's go inside!" said Miss Martian.
TO BE CONTINUED
Can't say this is an improvement over the previous one either. It seems that the longer I take to update, the worse the quality becomes... Let's hope I can be more motivated and excited to work on the next chapter!
