"We're going to destroy the Warhound."
The reaction to Izuku's declaration was fairly uniform; unease. Just about everybody besides Bakugou shifted uncomfortably or looked downright defeated. Sero just rubbed his shoulder, while Todoroki frowned. Izuku wasn't concerned, however; he knew something like this was inevitable. He also knew he could handle it. He was, after all, the one who had broken a Zero-Pointer in two on his first day with a Quirk. Everybody else, meanwhile...
All eyes were on him, which was becoming an increasingly familiar sensation. He wasn't sure exactly how it had happened, but most of class 2-A looked to him as a guiding figure now, or even a leader. Ochaco and Tenya swore by his plans, Tokoyami followed along with only the faintest criticisms when they were needed and even Bakugou would typically stop and listen to him speak when he presented an idea. That was truly something to behold, he was told.
"We'll need to work together," he continued. "And we'll have to play our parts well. But the Warhound can be beaten. Yaoyorozu?"
He watched as the class VP stepped up beside him, hands folded behind her back, footsteps on the cement floor clicking softly in the quiet. She looked nervous as well; she couldn't stand still, and while her fiddling thumbs were hidden from the class Izuku could see them. She took a deep breath before speaking, setting her expression to be just a little more stern and neutral.
"Having analyzed the Warhound with some monitoring equipment," she began. "Midoriya and I have determined two potential weaknesses in the machine's superstructure."
"Whoa whoa whoa…" Kuroiro raised a finger in interjection, leaning forward from where he stood leaned against a pillar near the far corner. "Potential? You guys don't even know if this thing has any confirmed weak spots?"
The rest of the class reacted appropriately; people began looking to each other, to Izuku and to Yaoyorozu, who seemed to have been caught off guard by the spontaneous critique. Then there was a harsh sound as somebody cleared their throat, and all eyes went instead to Iida. His grey armour was battered and dented, having clearly taken more than a few shots from the Warhound's cannon, but his helmet was at his hip and his expression was one of calm, almost clinical detachment.
For a split second Izuku remembered Sir Nighteye, who had once looked at the world with similarly cold eyes, and he worried for his friend.
"Your concern is appreciated, Kuroiro," the class president retorted, his voice devoid of any emotion bar a single note of displeasure. "But I believe we are all aware that the Warhound is a new foe. It stands to reason we would not be able to discern its weaknesses after a series of short engagements."
The tension was partially defused with that, Kirishima muttering under his breath about manliness while everybody else seemed to relax a little, though the general sense of unease remained. Yaoyorozu looked truly thankful, while Iida just stared down a surprised Kuroiro with a cold stare.
"Thank you, Iida," Yaoyorozu said, before looking at Kuroiro with a smile. "I know this is far from ideal, but as was just said, the Warhound is a new enemy. These two, ahem, potential weaknesses are all we have to work off at the moment."
Kuroiro leaned back, clearly skeptical, but Izuku could see the way Yaoyorozu shrugged it off, turning to face the rest of the class again.
"These two weakness are its chest-mounted weapons battery, and the sensor array built into its head." she said. "Of these two, we believe the head would be the easier of the two to nullify. Midoriya?"
Izuku stepped forward again, glancing around the room at the class. Everybody was waiting with baited breath as he took that single step, watching him like hawks. They needed to know his plan, to know they could win this exercise. He closed his eyes for a moment, before pointing to Kaminari.
"Lightning."
Kaminari jolted, looking to the left and right before meeting Izuku's gaze and cocking his head to one side, confused. Izuku paused and flushed bright red.
"Uh, that is to say…" he shook his head. "Kaminari, your electricity will be vital to taking down the Warhound. If the sensory array is more complicated, which we know it is, that means there are more systems to be overloaded. To do that, we need electricity… and a lot of it."
Kaminari smiled.
"Well, I know a guy…" he said, before looking at Izuku. "But uh… how am I gonna get up there?"
"You won't." Izuku replied, shaking his head. "I will. With Uraraka's help. And probably Shoji's. I'm also going to need Yaoyorozu, Kacchan and Yanagi."
The named students all looked up, and Izuku grinned a very fearsome grin.
"We need to nullify those guns," he declared. "And once they're off, I need Shoji to throw me at the Warhound. Kaminari, I need you to charge my arm with as much electricity as you can muster without hurting yourself."
Kaminari stared. As a matter of fact, everybody in attendance not named Katsuki Bakugou (who had likely predicted something to this effect based purely on his knowledge of Izuku as a person) stared. Silently, probably in shock, before Kaminari shrugged and cracked his knuckles.
"I've done dumber things with my Quirk," he admitted, before rubbing his palms together and generating a small static charge. "Come here, Deku; let's get you all amped up."
While Kaminari charged up Izuku's arm with enough electricity to blackout a small city district, the rest of the class went about their own preparations under Yaoyorozu's instruction. Bakugou and Sero headed for a nearby tower two blocks away, where a rooftop with a commanding view jutted high above the surrounding buildings. Uraraka, Yanagi and Shouji all made for the roof of the building they were in, while Yaoyorozu herself took a slightly confused Todoroki and made for another tower also a few blocks away.
From the highest tower in the city, Snipe watched with the aid of a few camouflaged cameras and drones as his class began to split up, putting Midoriya's scheme into action. The teacher whistled quietly in amusement, observing the groups make their way to their designated ambush points.
"Power Loader sure ain't gonna be pleased by this one," he muttered in amusement. "That poor bastard. All this effort on his new toy for nothin'..."
The first to set up were Yaoyorozu and Todoroki, and Snipe watched with intrigue slowly turning to awe as his top-scoring student pressed a hand to her stomach, which began to glow, and slowly generated an oddly familiar shape.
'Ho-lee shit…" he cursed, before chuckling. "Nezu, you seein' this?"
"Indeed!" the principal declared, his own mirth clear. "I trust you taught her this?"
"Nope." Snipe shook his head. "I don't know where she figured this one out. Damn impressive sight regardless, I gotta admit."
Yaoyorozu took a moment to finish off the creation of her new weapon, the unusually large gun Snipe had already tagged as the notorious Barret M82A1 anti-materiel rifle, before dropping down onto her stomach and flipping out the bipod. She settled and sighted down the scope, clearly watching the Warhound, before raising a hand to her ear and speaking a few short words.
"Now this I gotta see." Snipe declared, relaxing and keeping one drone centered on that sight, before checking on the others.
Midoriya was speaking to Kaminari even as the blonde charged up his arm with an increasingly worrisome amount of electricity. Midoriya's hair was standing up on end from the static, the Crescendo twitching intermittently with little arcs of yellow lightning leaping between his fingertips and along the plates. His jaw was clenched and teeth were gritted, eyes narrowed. It didn't look like pain, more like intense focus.
Bakugou was on his own designated rooftop, Sero helping him strip off his grenade bracers and sliding one onto his own arm. Bakugou pantomimed the motion of activating the weapon, which Sero mimicked with the actual bracer, earning a slap on the wrist and a bout of angry yelling Snipe could faintly hear from his own distant perch.
The last team of Uraraka, Yanagi and Shouji had reached the top of their own building, the former carrying another curious sight. Snipe focused on it, then started to laugh again as he recognized it.
"And now she's makin' HEAT shells." he declared, feeling his sanity slip a little as the laughter carried it away. "Mercy, is there anything that girl isn't gonna pull out today?"
Uraraka was indeed hauling a high-explosive-anti-tank shell in her arms; not a particularly enormous one, but large enough to make him pause in worry when the brunette stumbled. Shouji caught her, however, before taking the shell from her and cradling it in four arms, a sight that was far more reassuring. Yanagi just watched the two, expression blank as ever.
"What in the hell are they up to?" Snipe wondered aloud, checking all three cameras again.
Yaoyorozu was loading a very large bullet into her very large gun, while Todoroki used his Quirk to barricade the rooftop doorway behind a good three feet of solid ice.
Bakugou was rolling his shoulders and stretching his arms, rubbing his palms together and generally looking as though he were preparing for something big.
Uraraka had touched the HEAT shell to apply her Quirk to it, and Yanagi had lifted it with her own telekinetic Quirk, slowly rotating it around herself with eyes narrowed and hands outstretched to her sides.
Midoriya walked up the steps behind them, his mechanical arm outstretched to one side practically surging with energy. His eyes were aglow with emerald light, the rest of his body crackling with that green lightning that was his own personal staple. Arcing tendrils of green and yellow danced with each other on the surface of the Crescendo, making for an almost mesmerizing shape. He stared down the Warhound, which had begun to pick up on the amount of movement inside their particular building.
Then Midoriya spoke, and his voice echoed across the training ground.
"All teams!" he shouted. "Fire on my mark!"
Yaoyorozu charged the bolt on her rifle and closed one eye, taking aim.
Bakugou curled one hand into a tube and braced his other palm against the end, pointing it towards the Warhound.
Yanagi began to increase the speed of the shell's rotation, whirling it around her faster and faster, building up momentum.
"Ready…" Midoriya called.
Yaoyorozu held her breath.
Bakugou smirked.
Yanagi stared at the Warhound.
"FIRE!"
Yaoyorozu pulled the trigger, and the Barret's thunderous retort echoed across the training ground. Bakugou fired off an explosion from his palm, sending a streaking ball of orange light towards the Warhound. Yanagi released the shell from her Quirk and watched it fly straight and true.
Three simultaneous detonations rocked the Warhound; three perfect bullseye hits on its chest, where the guns sat. There was a cloud of smoke obscuring his sight of them, but the lights on the side of his remote told Snipe that all three shots had achieved their intended goal; the Warhound's guns were dead.
Then a streak of green and yellow flew through the air, having been hurtled like a spear of olympian lightning by Shoji. Uraraka was starting to turn green from keeping Midoriya's mass nonexistent, while the boy let out a whoop of glee as he hurtled towards the freshly declawed Warhound with his arms extended.
Uraraka touched her fingers together and let out a sigh of relief as her Quirk released, returning Midoriya's mass just as he impacted the head of the Warhound. His metal fist dug deep into one of it's manhole-sized eyes before he ripped it out, kicking off the machine's face and raising that same overcharged arm.
Snipe watched as the boy put his middle finger and thumb together, and flicked.
"OVERTURE!" Midoriya shouted.
Then his arm released all the pent up electricity in one single surge, five arcing tendrils of lightning reaching out from Midoriya's open palm and grounding themselves in the Warhound's sensitive metal head. The results were explosive; the Warhound possessed a secondary power core inside its steel skull to run all those sensors and systems; that much electricity grounding itself resulted in a catastrophic overload. Each eye popped like a lightbulb during a thunderstorm, the head's casing cracking as the core exploded within. Billowing jets of thick black smoke shot from every new crack and crevice.
And Midoriya fell slowly towards the earth, before a black shape surged out from the shadows and engulfed him in outstretched arms, pulling him down to the ground at a more manageable pace. Snipe stood up and saluted the dying Warhound with one hand touching his temple, before shaking his head slowly.
"That boy's gonna bring the goddamn apocalypse one day," he warned Nezu, grinning all the while. "And he ain't even gonna know how he did it 'till the angels are ringin' the bells."
Nezu said nothing, clearly intent on rewatching and examining all the footage. Snipe dismissed the camera drones back to their charging ports with a quick button press, doing the same to the Iron Legion robots that had emerged from beneath the ground. They had already begun to shut down, their primary signal relay in the form of the Warhound now forcibly offline.
"Alright boys and girls," he said, his voice echoing across the PA system. "That was a damn fine show of teamwork and cooperation. Damn fine. Get yourselves to the changerooms, shower, that whole affair. You just earned the rest of the day off. I'll see y'all bright and early tomorrow morning."
A rousing cheer went up from all over the training ground, and Snipe grinned as he tucked the remote away. Then he made for the stairs; he had some paperwork to file… and an apology for Power Loader in need of planning.
Down on the ground, Izuku felt surprisingly good. He rotated his arm at the shoulder, wrist and elbow in order, none of the joints sticking or backfiring. He cracked his neck to one side, then the other, before raising his hands over his head. Nothing. Not even a single malfunction. The Mark Four had held up to every test he could possibly put it through, and he'd barely even scraped the knuckles.
"Thanks for the save," he said to Tokoyami, who was himself staring in awe at the destroyed Warhound's smoking remains. "That was a good catch, Dark Shadow."
"Don't mention it." the Quirk replied, emerging from its user's collar and shrugging. "If I let you get splattered all over the pavement, who's gonna keep mister sunshine and roses here from spending all day reading boring old poetry?"
"William Blake is a master of his craft," Tokoyami fired back. "And I will not have you disparage his name because you can't comprehend his expertise."
Izuku laughed, leaving the two to their argument and making his way towards the exit. The rest of the class fell in over time, Bakugou dropping down beside him first with a smirk.
"That was pretty fucking awesome." the blonde declared. "Fuck, I wasn't even sure I get an AP-Shot to go that far. How the fuck did you know it would work?"
"Because if it hadn't, it would have been your fault the plan failed." Izuku explained, smiling. "And you can't stand failure. So I knew you would succeed… because I know you, Kacchan."
Bakugou stared at him for a second, before laughing.
"Yeah, that sounds about right." he admitted. "So, you picking up the kids early then?"
"They're with Mirio and Eri today," Izuku replied. "I thought I'd just spend the rest of the morning with them. Eri misses me a lot lately, apparently."
Bakugou shrugged, before glancing up at the sight of Yaoyorozu descending the stairs of the building she and Todoroki had been using, a colossal rifle over her shoulder and a look of calm focus on her face. Izuku watched as Bakugou paused and stared for a long moment, before choking on something and looking away, coughing violently. He gave his oldest friend a pat on the back, receiving a 'fuck off' for his troubles.
"Is Bakugou alright?" Yaoyorozu asked.
"Dust…" Bakugou groaned, before taking a deep breath, coughing one more time. "Holy fuck…"
"Yeah." Izuku glanced at Momo, and then back at Bakugou, smiling a sly little smile. "Just dust."
AN:
This took a little less time than I expected; and with Chapter 35 already all but squared away (more editing is possibly required) and Chapter 36 halfway finished its rough draft phase, you guys can expect a tidy clip for the next few days until we hit another speedbump when I remember that oh-gosh-oh-frick we have a whole new arc to handle.
Canon will be effectively ignored from this point onwards, obviously; I feel that shouldn't have to be said given how liberally I've ignored just about every majour plot-point post Overhaul, but it should likely be noted in writing at least once so nobody gets confused about it. Canon characters will show up, alongside OCs aplenty because we're moving into a whole new, mostly original story from here on out.
If you dig that, let me know. If you don't… heck, also let me know, because some of the best stuff in this story ended up here because people told me they wanted or didn't want something done. Every review and comment makes Caliban a happy boy and gives A.I.R a reason to get out of bed in the morning.
See y'all tomorrow!
Unsettling A.I.R's Aside: Bitches love cannons.
