Onaka struggled to keep up with the rapid pace of the others as they sprinted through the forest. The wild wild pussycats were all pros and in significantly better shape than her due to them being adults and having trained for much longer, and Tora was naturally fast due to her tiger mutation. Onaka had no such advantages and was forced to repeatedly use her quirk to propel herself forward by embedding her quills into the ground and using them to throw herself forward. After a while she found she was developing a good rhythm for it, flowing from one jump to the next with increasing ease. It was an unorthodox way to have practiced a new skill for herself, but necessity was the mother of invention.
Mandalay sent out periodic messages to other pro-heroes with her telepathy, it's range was long, but not limitless, so she needed to send out a message repeatedly to ensure others heard it and responded appropriately. Since her quirk only allowed for a one-way communication, it was impossible to tell if her message was getting through to any individual group. They could only hope for the best and handle the situation themselves as best as they could manage.
"Everyone stop!" Tora shouted, skidding to a halt, she'd been running on all fours to both maximize her speed and also keeping her nose close to the ground in case she could pick up the scent of the villain.
Mandalay, Pixie-bob, and Tiger all stopped quickly, but Onaka ended up shooting past them and crashing into a tree, her rhythm broken by the sudden change of pace and finding herself unable to change her momentum in time.
Tora winced as Onaka fell from the tree and hit the ground, but as the girl got up and dusted herself off she moved on. "I can smell him, he was here not too long ago, I smell sweat, dirt, freshly broken rock… and blood." She said, sniffing the ground and moving her head around slowly to determine where the scent was leading her.
"Alright, we'll follow your lead then" Mandalay said "we still need to move quickly though, can we go at a normal pace while still tracking him?"
Tora nodded "just give me a minute," she said, sniffing the ground some more and slowly beginning to crawl in a direction "once I pick up the trail's direction it should be easy to keep track of it while moving."
It was a minute more before Tora's investigation concluded and she set off at a brisk pace into the woods, with the others close behind her. They were moving carefully now, at around their normal walking speed. They didn't want to be out of breath when they encountered the enemy; and needed to give Tora enough time to follow the trail as they moved.
"When we find him, don't do anything rash" Mandalay warned "ideally we want to avoid fighting him until the other pros arrive. So long as we're actively tracking him, he can't slip away, so finding him is enough."
"Right, that makes sense" Onaka said "no reason to fight him early if we can just wait until everyone is here and overwhelm him. What if he spots us though?"
"If it comes down to it, you and Tigress are both authorized to fight with us" Pixie-Bob said "to be honest, it might be tough to beat him on our own if you didn't."
Onaka nodded, then looked to Tora as she moved through the underbrush. Her heart was racing with excitement and fear. She could feel herself breaking out in a cold sweat as they drew ever closer to their target. From the reports they'd read on this villain, he was a true monster, a mutant type responsible for several dozen murders, and hundreds of cases of assault, as well as inflicting crippling injuries on multiple pros who'd faced him. He was classified as a B-rank target, but allegedly his physical prowess was beyond that, only being ranked as such due to having a below-human intelligence.
Onaka's quills bristled as her body grew more and more tense. Her breathing began to quicken as she imagined fighting such a fearsome opponent. She was usually headstrong and reckless, but the thought of fighting someone so powerful was enough to overcome even her usual fearlessness. She began to worry about all the things that could go wrong. This villain's physical abilities were A-rank. Could her quills protect her from that? What if he got a hit on her torso's front end? Her armor couldn't protect her from something like that? Or what about Tora? Tora had no defensive aspect to her quirk at all, and while her outfit was designed to serve as great armor it wasn't likely to hold up either. They were just heroes in training, first years, not even provisional heroes yet! Could they really handle this?
"It's ok to be afraid" Mandalay said to Onaka telepathically "we're all scared too… fear is natural. Pros may look like they aren't afraid, but we just do well at hiding it. Don't worry, if things go wrong we'll make sure you two girls escape first."
Onaka glanced over to Mandalay and met her gaze. Mandalay was looking over at her, and gave a reassuring nod. Onaka nodded back, looking forward again at the dense foliage. Even she was starting to see the signs of the villain passing through now. His movements must have been getting more desperate, and he was taking less time to cover his tracks. She could see broken trees and the occasional bit of trampled plants. One tree was even snapped in half, a sight which did little to calm her nerves, but Mandalay's reassurance did help her keep calm.
Soon they reached the edge of a cliff, and Tora stopped. "The scent goes to the edge and stops there, he must've gone down. It's strong here, he was here very recently." She said as she looked over the edge.
"We caught up quicker than I had expected" Mandalay said, "he must've spent a lot of time trying to hide his tracks at first, he may be dumb, but he's a cunning animal, must've known we'd have trackers."
"He'd have likely made it to the river if not for Tora noticing the last campsite he made, it's not far from here at all now" Pixie-Bob said as she placed her hands on the ground and activated her quirk to liquify it and begin carrying them down the cliff at a controlled pace. Tora blushed a bit at being given the credit for their success but puffed out her chest proudly.
They descended slowly, then Tora's ears perked up and her body stiffened, hair rising on end. Pixie-Bob noticed this reaction and stopped their descent immediately. "He's here" Tora hissed quietly "at the base of the cliff… he's breathing heavily, he might be asleep."
"I see… he must've figured he covered his tracks enough and had enough of a lead that he was in the clear" Mandalay mused "so he made another campsite for himself to rest up. Pixie-Bob, take us off to the side, I'm going to message any hero I can now. With any luck he won't notice we're here."
"He's awake…" Tora hissed, her claws extended, and her fur began to grow in as she bared her fangs and became more feral. It was a subtler change in her costume, since she was entirely covered in fur anyway, but when she fully activated her mutation fur would grow along her upper arms, upper legs, and back, instead of just her forearms and shins. The transformation always made her seem more ferocious and threatening, so she replicated it in her suit by making the fur on those parts of her body grow longer and thicker, making her seem bulkier and more intimidating.
"Do you think he knows we're here?" Mandalay asked telepathically, not wanting to make any more noise
Tora hesitated, then nodded "I smell fear and anger… he's aware someone's here." She said as quietly as she could, using the headset in her helmet to transmit the message instead of speaking to them normally.
Mandalay nodded, then looked to Pixie-Bob "Do it, while we have the element of surprise." She said
Pixie-Bob nodded and expanded the use of her quirk, turning more of the cliff face into a liquid form and making it crash down below them, carrying them down with it as she buried the villain below them in rocks and dirt, letting it solidify around him.
Mandalay pulled a flare gun from her utility belt and fired it into the air, there was no use for subtlety now, the battle was on. The flare shot up into the sky and exploded in a flash of red light, hanging in the air as a beacon to their location. Onaka remembered from the mission briefing that red meant "emergency, come help." Mandalay loaded a second flare and fired it, sending up a green flare to go alongside the red that mean "target found."
Onaka turned her attention to the mound of dirt that had buried the villain. Cracks were forming in the mound as the villain struggled to break free, it wouldn't hold for much longer. Pixie-Bob focused on moving more and more dirt onto the mound to strengthen it, filling in the cracks and reinforcing the structure as best she could.
"Listen close everyone, if he breaks free of this mound here, it's likely we won't be able to restrain him on our own." Mandalay said "if that's the case, our priority will need to be buying time for reinforcements to arrive. Focus on evasion and harassing him to wear him down. Hit him hard when he comes out and is wide open, then go all in on evasion and stalling."
Onaka and Tora nodded as they spread out and prepared for battle. Tora climbed up the cliff-side using the improved claws her gloves gave her, turning around while on the wall and preparing to pounce on the villain from behind. Onaka got down on all fours and grew quills from her back, aiming them at the mound and preparing to fire a full volley the moment the chance presented itself. Then she also grew quills embedded in the ground to propel herself into a dodge the moment the villain turned his attention to her.
Mandalay positioned herself away from the others, preparing to distract the villain with a telepathic message to draw his attention to her, while Tiger positioned himself opposite her to attack from behind once she did so. Pixie-Bob continued buying time while hanging in the back, out of all of them her quirk was most suited for buying time, so she was kept in a position as far from the villain as possible.
The cracks in the mound multiplied, forming faster than they could be filled in. Onaka began to grow uneasy again, this amount of dirt and rock could restrain even someone like Serena at full power, and yet it seemed to only be slowing this guy down. His raw strength was terrifying, part of her wanted to run for it, but she knew she couldn't. She was a hero, if she ran from a villain now she'd never be able to live with herself.
A deafening roar erupted from the mound as it exploded outwards, revealing the massive form of the villain. He was entirely covered in black fur and was easily over twelve feet tall. His head was that of a bull, with large horns on either side pointing forwards and glowing red eyes. Every inch of his body was absolutely ripped, bulging muscles rippled as he ripped his way out of the mound of earth. There were bloodstains around his mouth, whether they were remnants from human or animal victims wasn't certain, but it certainly contributed to making him a more terrifying sight to behold.
"Villain name, Mad Bull, quirk, Minotaur" the report had said. Reportedly the horns were stronger than hardened steel, and his skin and muscles were extraordinarily resilient, making most weapons have limited effectiveness at best. At one point they'd even resisted a shot from a tank's main cannon multiple times. The fur covering him was flammable when dry, but the man's huge body sweat a lot, keeping it damp and resilient. The fur itself was insulated even when wet, making him resistant to shock weapons as well. His muscles weren't just for show either, as he'd just demonstrated he packed enough physical strength to overpower even most strength-type quirks. He was virtually unstoppable in every sense of the word.
Onaka wasted no time, while the villain threw his head back and roared at them in challenge, she unleashed a full volley of dozens of several-foot long quills into its chest. Some of them managed to pierce through its skin on a direct hit, but many of them glanced off while only inflicting minor grazes and scrapes. Even the ones that pierced through didn't penetrate far, only barely getting through the muscle.
"Tsk, the reports weren't kidding about how tough he is." Onaka grunted as she hurled herself away. The villain's fist crashing into the ground behind her and gouging a crater out of the dirt. Pixie-Bob quickly covered the fist and arm in dirt to restrain it for a few seconds. Tora took that opening to spring from the cliff and land on the back of his neck, tearing at it with her claws and teeth. Even with her enhanced claws she didn't get too far before having to jump off to avoid being grabbed by the man's free hand.
Tiger jumped in and unleashed a flurry of punches into the man's kidney area, his muscular body packed a serious punch with each hit, but the villain seemed utterly unfazed by it.
"Over here ugly!" Mandalay said telepathically, making the villain turn to face her and roar in anger.
"Tsk, none of us are even damaging him" Onaka said as she landed on the ground and aimed, focusing on quality over quantity now. Her first volley had shown her that just firing a bunch of quills wouldn't work, they needed to strike forcefully and score direct hits, anything else would just be wasting her calcium reserves. Now that she knew she had a limit to how many quills she could fire in a short period of time, she had to be more mindful about when she used her full volleys and not waste shots. "Think… what would Ayane do in this situation…" she thought as she fired several large quills into the man's thigh, hoping to hobble him, the quills pierced deeper, hitting with more force since she was focusing on firing just a few. The villain grunted in pain from the hit, but it didn't slow him down as he threw punches at Mandalay to try and crush the woman transmitting continuous insults into his mind.
Tora dashed in, slashing at the inside of his other leg as she passed under him, her claws ripped through the muscles of the leg, drawing blood successfully. She ran out from under him on all fours, springing onto his arm as he drew it back from his last punch, then using it to spring at his face. The villain tried to bring his other arm up to intercept, but it was snagged by several streams of earth wrapping around it and pulling his arm back.
Tora slashed at the man's face, going for the eyes to blind him, but he turned his head and blocked her slash with his horn. Her claws clashed with the horn with a flash of sparks, but didn't so much as nick the hard bone. His arm wasn't restrained by the bindings for long, so she couldn't stick around for a follow-up attack, using her claw to grab the horn and throw herself past him just in time for her to dodge being grabbed by his meaty fist. He turned and flailed wildly at her in the air, trying to hit her before she got away, but she twisted away from his swing and used his arm as a springboard to finish jumping back to the cliff wall.
Pixie-Bob liquefied the ground beneath the villain's leg, causing it to sink underground, then solidified it again, temporarily trapping him. He lost his balance due to the sudden loss of footing, roaring in anger as he placed both hands on the ground and strained to free his leg.
Onaka looked for a weak point, there had to be somewhere this villain was more vulnerable than the rest. There were vital areas like the neck or stomach, but the goal was to capture him, not execute him. In a pinch that was an option but doing it before reinforcements arrived would surely reflect poorly on them. There had to be another option, she thought back to all the things she'd learned in class so far, the fights she'd observed and taken part in, the lessons taught, all of it. Then she remembered Tanzo's approach to overpowering Shuko's defensive aura.
Onaka's eyes darted to the straining leg of the villain, its muscles were tense meaning they'd be tougher, but they wouldn't have as much flexibility and would be easier to score a solid hit on. With a grunt she fired an large quill into his calf, piercing several inches, it was enough to cause pain and draw blood, but not enough to hamper the leg at all. But she had a plan to fix that while the villain was focused on freeing itself.
"Pixie-Bob! Wrap dirt around that last quill to keep it steady! Tiger! Hammer it in like a nail!" Onaka shouted, then used a quill vault over the huge man getting above him and raining down quills at his face to distract him. The man had no choice but to divert one of his arms from pulling his leg out to shielding his face, buying a few extra moments.
"Not bad kid!" Tiger shouted back as he and Pixie-Bob leapt into action. The moment the quill was anchored properly so it would be driven in straight, Tiger threw punches at the blunt end of it, driving it deeper with each strike until it finally pierced the tendon.
The man howled in pain as he finally ripped his other leg free and tried to stand up properly, sinking to one knee as his now injured leg gave out under his weight. His hand lowered to the ground to steady himself as he crashed down, exposing his face once more. Tora didn't waste the opportunity, springing down from her perch and clawing at one of his eyes, the relatively soft flesh around the socket was easy to tear through for her, and the eye was soon bloodied and blinded completely as she sprung away.
The group of heroes and students backed away while Pixie-Bob worked to trap the villain's good leg again. With one leg crippled and the other continuously being buried in dirt, and the man clawing at his face from the pain from losing an eye, he was effectively immobilized for the time being.
"That won't hold him long, he'll be back on the assault soon enough" Mandalay said "but with an injury like that we have a huge advantage, good thinking Quillion."
Onaka nodded and smiled "still, he's tough enough that if we let up now he'll be able to just rip the quill out and limp away, it might be enough to stop him wile it's still embedded in the tendon, but it's not like we severed it." She said, still eying the monstrosity before them with caution.
"Not if he can't get a good grip on it" Tora said, "those large hands of his can't be great at delicate work… so…"
Tora dashed in before anyone could protest, charging the injured leg on all fours and springing at it. The villain heard her approaching and turned to howl at her in anger for what she'd done to his eye, but she reached the leg before he could attack. "He won't be able to extract it if its just a stump!" she yelled as she slashed at the quill, cutting off the end and leaving only an inch or so of it poking out of the leg. With so little to grab onto, the huge man would have a very difficult time actually extracting the splinter from his leg even if he tried.
Tora turned to retreat, having accomplished what she set out to do, but the villain was too quick this time, sweeping his arm down and snatching her out of the air as she sprung away. The massive hand closing around her comparatively tiny body and squeezing tight. "GAh!" Tora cried out as she felt herself being crushed, she screamed in pain as the grip continued to tighten, until eventually the air had been squeezed out of her lungs and she couldn't scream any longer.
"TORA!" Onaka cried out firing quills into the villain's face, but getting them blocked by his free hand. "Damn it! Ranged attacks won't work!" she cursed as she ran in.
"No Quillion you'll get caught too!" Mandalay shouted, with Tiger charging in after her to try and stop her.
Onaka vaulted onto the hand holding Tora, growing a quill and detaching it to hold like a spear that she drove into one of the fingers. The pain made the hand loosen its grip slightly, though not enough to release its victim. The remaining good eye peered through the hand shielding it at Onaka as she ran up the arm, firing volleys of rapid fire quills to keep it on the defensive.
"In this situation, I know Ayane or Serena would certainly charge in to save the day." Onaka thought as she grew two more spear quills and rammed them into the shoulder of the minotaur man, jamming them between the muscle and shoulder blade to try and restrict the arm's movement. "They'd use their abilities to do something clever or cool, Serena'd probably freeze the hand, and Ayane would probably have some crazy invention to stun it and make it let go."
Onaka ran along the shoulder of the man, letting up her assault for a moment as she let him switch to trying to grab her and got on all fours, growing out the quills in her back as the hand closed in. "I can't do those things, I'm not special like them, my quirk is simple and straightforward. I know that." She thought as the hand closed in "so then, I just need to become a hero doing what I can do! I don't have a magic trick or special application of my power to save the day. I just need to take all the abilities I do have… and use them together to find a way to win!"
The hand began to close its grip around her, making the pussycats cry out for her in concern. But Onaka was ready for it, quills shot out from her back in all directions, still attached to her as she formed a spiky dome around herself, piercing the hand dozens of times and preventing it from closing around her completely. The man tried to clench his fist around her, but wasn't able to do so without impaling his own hand in every location she'd pierced, he had the strength to overpower her for certain once he took his time to adjust his grip, but she only needed that instant. "I've got you!" Onaka shouted as she fired a quill from one wrist through the gap between two of the fingers that had been closing in on her, striking the villain in his other eye and blinding it.
The villain howled in pain, releasing both Tora and Onaka as it brought its hands to its face to try and remove the quill from its eyeball. Tiger dashed in, catching Tora before she hit the ground and running back to safety with her while Onaka detached her quills from her back and jumped down, running back soon after them.
"That was incredibly reckless of both of you!" Tiger shouted at the girls as he laid Tora against a tree "charging in on your own like that! You're lucky neither of you were killed!"
"It… nngh… worked though…" Tora wheezed, clutching her sides and grimacing in pain "his leg is… gah! Going to stay crippled…"
"And with both eyes blinded and a leg crippled, the odds of him escaping are basically zero." Onaka said, panting from the exertion of having held off the villain's hand like she had.
"Even so, it was incredibly risky, and it almost ended in disaster" Mandalay scolded "you risked your lives for plans that might not have even worked."
"A hero's job is to risk their lives and save the day from villains" Onaka said "we might just be in training, but it's still our job to stop guys like this, and now we have."
The villain ripped his good leg free from the ground again and began to stagger off towards the woods, shaking off any attempts Pixie-Bob made to restrain him, but he didn't get far before several rockets shot down from the cliff above and exploded against his back, making him stumble and fall back to one knee. Onaka looked up and saw another team of heroes descending to join the battle. And not long after another team emerged from the woods to join as well.
With a crippled leg, blinded eyes, and three teams of heroes on the scene, the villain Mad Bull was soon overwhelmed and incapacitated, then restrained with heavy steel cuffs covering his entire arms and legs, binding them all together with thick chains and a few tons of solid steel encasing each limb. Even a monster like him wouldn't be able to overpower his restraints now. The mission was complete.
- the next morning, back at base camp -
"Well we scolded you both thoroughly yesterday, so we'll skip that for now" Mandalay said to Onaka and Tora as they lay in their beds in the infirmary. Tora had a variety of broken ribs and internal bleeding from being crushed. And while Onaka hadn't been crushed, the pressure Mad Bull's hand had put on her back as it pressed into her quills had cracked a few bones as well, forcing her to take time and recover too.
"Thanks to our team's efforts, we prevented Mad Bull from escaping, and single-handedly weakened him enough that the other teams were able to quickly and easily subdue him" Pixie-Bob said as she sat on a nearby desk, swinging her feet back and forth nonchalantly "so most of the credit for his capture is being given to our agency."
"That's great to hear" Tora said, smiling weakly, then wincing in pain as even that short sentence had hurt to speak aloud.
"To be perfectly honest though, we couldn't have done this without you both" Mandalay said, "as reckless as your actions were, it was due to your sound judgement and efforts that we succeeded."
"The media is already trying to swarm this place to get interviews and statements for the headlines" Tiger said "this operation was meant to be kept on the down low… but seems somehow they caught wind of it anyway. Since we succeeded in the operation it's not a major issue, but we're probably going to be a bit tied up for a few days by their meddling. Your internships will be mostly over by the time we get out of here now."
Onaka sighed "that's alright, we may not have gotten to do much training, but even so, the experience of besting a B-rank villain is nothing the sneeze at."
"Even so, we felt guilty about your internships being blown on this mission and the media pandering" Mandalay said, "and it was only because of your efforts that we succeeded, so we have good news for you both."
"Good… news?" Tora asked in a raspy voice, tilting her head slightly and looking a the three pro-heroes before her.
"You two are going to get the glory for this one." Pixie-Bob said, hopping down from her seat "legally speaking you're not even provisional heroes so you're not allowed to reap the financial benefits here, but you were acting under official authorization to do hero work and were using your hero costumes and names. Meaning while we can't give you a cut of the reward, we CAN give you a lot of the fame."
Onaka's eyes widened, she could practically see the headlines now. "First year interns from UA capture major villain!" they would say, followed by articles talking about the amazing potential of the up and coming heroes Tigress and Quillion. If they were talked up by famous pros like the Wild Wild Pussycats who they'd been interning with, it would do even more to boost their fame. Even this early in their careers, vying for attention and fame was important, and this would certainly make sure the public had their eyes on them in the coming years. They might even get the start of a fanbase before they even got licensed! For them to make such a huge debut this early on, it was an incredible stroke of good fortune.
"I… I don't know what to say…" Onaka said excitedly "thank you so much!"
"Well you in particular had better think of some things to say" Tiger said "we've kept the media at bay for now so the two of you can heal, but I'm sure some of them are going to pressure us into giving them exclusives with you once you're well enough to leave this room. Those news sharks out there aren't going to pass up the chance to interview promising young heroes with such a big accomplishment under their belts. You'd better prepare yourselves for their feeding frenzy."
Onaka gulped, if they blew it on the interviews, the embarrassment would live on forever as part of their legacy. With such a big achievement kicking things off, it would be remembered for all time as their debut, which meant their mistakes with the media would be too. She glanced to Tora, who seemed equally horrified by the prospect.
"I'll be taking a few days to coach you on how to handle them while you recover" Mandalay chuckled as she looked at Onaka and Tora's pale faces and horrified expressions. "We're not sending you out there to be devoured, I'll coach you with telepathy during your interviews too, you'll be fine." She added.
Onaka and Tora sighed with relief, the latter of them grimacing in pain after doing so. If they were given enough coaching before and during their interviews, they could hopefully avoid any major blunders that would humiliate them for all of time.
"For now, get some more rest, someone with a healing quirk should be in to help you this afternoon" Mandalay said, "once Tigress is healed enough that talking isn't a task that causes her face to twist itself into a pretzel from the pain, we'll begin your coaching."
The two girls nodded in agreement, and the pro-heroes left them to their rest. Onaka laid back in her bed and sighed. This hadn't been what she expected from her internship, but all things considered, it was turning out pretty great. "I hope everyone else is enjoying their internships as much as this." She thought to herself as she drifted off to sleep.