EDIT: I posted a second opening video for this story on youtube! It's titled "Invasion Opening 2", and if you are interested in viewing, PM me and I'll message you the link.
CHAPTER 18
MOMENTUM
A series of explosions broke the silence of the suburban neighborhood.
There were a dozen Teckh Bots marching toward Deku, ready to face him in close combat. Red glimmers of stoic drive showed in their face scanners.
Meanwhile, Deku was full of emotion on his face. He bared his teeth as his face glowed with red streaks, while his Quirk powered up. From there, he lunged forward, delivering a lightning fast punch to the nearest bot. The impact sent the machine flying backwards, where it took out two others. Next, Deku slid along the ground and threw up a kick, sending his Quirk energy into his red sneaker so that it hit the next bot with authority. His target exploded into a shower of shrapnel, and Deku flung himself back up, aiming two punches simultaneously at the next bots in line.
Elsewhere, Maka sliced through a couple of drill bots. These enemies were trying to sneak up on the heroes, but Maka was making them pay for it. Each time one surfaced from the ground level, she was ready to remove the drills with her scythe, which left the machines virtually defenseless afterward.
Watching from above, Kotoko smiled proudly. She was sitting on the shoulder of the giant skeleton yokai, which was a servant who helped her to travel across the land. At one point, she looked down and noticed that Maka was suddenly surrounded by three new machines. They resembled the standard bots but were armed with staffs that were glowing with red energy. Apparently, their weapons were powered by energy, and when Maka struck them with her scythe, they withstood the impacts.
"Looks like a new type of enemy," Kotoko commented.
At one point, one of the duel bots swung its energy staff at Maka, hitting the scythe in her hands. The blow caused Maka to fly backwards and hit the ground. She rolled away, until she bumped into a large rock on one of the home lawns. Despite the blow, she quickly regained her bearings and growled as she kept her eyes on the enemies. That same duel bot rushed in, sensing that Maka was vulnerable.
Right as it came close, Kotoko crossed its path, blocking its attack with her cane. She was surprisingly nimble, and she followed that up with a spinning kick that caught the bot in the side of its head. It was enough to damage the duel bot's scanners, and it began to spin around in confusion.
Seconds later, Maka was back to her feet, and she finished off the duel bot with her scythe. After that, she glanced at Kotoko. "Guess you ended up wanting some of the action for yourself?"
"It's only fair I shared in some of the risks," she replied with a smile. Apparently, she was capable of doing some impressive fighting as well. Even so, she still had her limitations. Suddenly, there was a crack sound, and she began to lose balance. Thanks to her springing into the fight, her left leg prosthetic came loose, and collapsed to the ground. Kotoko waved her hands to try and keep balance, but inevitably she began to fall as well.
To her relief, Deku came up behind her, catching her before she did. "Whoa," he said in surprise. "I didn't realize you were a good fighter, too."
Kotoko smiled but then sighed sadly. "I suppose I'm better off sticking to my purpose, though."
Even with her disappointment, Deku just looked upon her proudly as he held her up. He managed to bring the prosthetic back over with his foot, then he helped her reattach it. "You were just trying to do everything you could to help. There's nothing wrong with that."
His kind words caused her to raise an eyebrow. Even with her seemingly clumsy attempt to battle, she managed to get some praise out of the strongest member of the group. Perhaps it had been worth it after all.
The two of them glanced over at Maka, who pointed her weapon over to the next crowd of enemies. "Battle's still going on."
"Too bad they don't have souls," Soul said, licking his lips. "Imagine if we were saving up? I'd be a Death Scythe by now."
Maka squinted at him. "We'd still need a witch's soul."
"You know what I mean," he replied with a grouchy tone.
"You don't become a Death Scythe with shortcuts," Maka explained angrily. "That's how we blew it in the first place. Remember?"
"That was just bad luck!"
"If you hadn't been too busy staring at that Blair, you would have realized she wasn't even a witch!"
"You didn't realize it either!" Soul protested.
With the bickering resuming, Deku and Kotoko could only sigh and give them space. Deku turned his attention to the bots up ahead and got in a fighting pose. Before he went in, he turned to Kotoko. "Any ideas?"
She grinned. "Their staffs have energy powering them up. But there doesn't appear to be any wires or plugs to them. Which means you could acquire one and use it yourself."
"Got it." With that, Deku surged forward, baiting the duel bots to swing at him. Since he expected the attacks, he easily swerved around the blows and kicked at the bots from behind. It only took him a moment to incapacitate the first one, and he retrieved its energy staff. From there, he wielded it effectively, using his Quirk to empower his blows. The additional energy overwhelmed the duel bots, and the staff in Deku's hands smashed through the weaker ones, crushing them to bits with a single hit each time. That helped him make short work of the machines.
Ahead of the others, Genos and Senku were stationed atop a house at the end of the block. "There it is," Genos announced, pointing to the target with his right hand.
Senku raised a pair of binoculars to his eyes. "Not where you'd expect a generator to be," he commented with a grin. There were two water towers erected in the field just beyond the suburbs.
"Far less effective than a factory with industrial components," Genos mentioned.
"Not necessarily." Senku lowered the binoculars and motioned to the fields to the west. There were countless windmills stationed out that way. "Wind generators," he clarified to the cyborg. "Teckh must have connected them to these water towers, where I'm guessing there is some sort of a water wheel generator set up. A bit primitive for someone like Teckh, but it would still work with the different properties building on top of each other."
"Then we'll destroy it," Genos simply said in response.
Senku turned to him, as if about to scold him. Instead, he just grinned. "Precisely."
The buzzing of more enemies rang out and several jet bots appeared in the sky. They had picked up on Genos and Senku by now, and so they prepared to open fire.
But that was what Senku had been expecting. He placed a gas mask over his face and then nodded to Genos. "Move in now. I'll be right behind you."
As soon as Genos went airborne, Senku unleashed his weapon of choice; smoke bombs that he crafted from parts he scavenged during the journey. The smoke covered the air, limiting sight right away. The jet bots were still capable of scanning to determine that enemies were present, but they couldn't lock their missiles onto targets without visibility.
That was more than enough of an edge for Genos. He brought up the two steel blades in his arms and began to slice through the jet bots, making short work of them. They began to maneuver, but were still ineffective as they did, and Genos picked them off rapidly.
Eventually, several jet bots took refuge out of range from the smoke, and tried to lock onto the lights from Genos's engines, which shone even in the smoke cloud. They managed to fire a few missiles in his direction, and Genos had little time to respond. There was an explosion and he was damaged from the blows, which sent him falling to the ground. Ultimately, he crashed to the ground in a heap.
Silica noticed when Genos went down, and she hurried over with Pina. "Pina! Heal him, quick!" she exclaimed.
The feathery dragon chirped and fired a magical beam at the cyborg. Almost immediately, Genos felt his cybernetic body get fully restored.
"Yes! Good job!" Silica cheered loudly.
With a sudden frightened screech, Pina grabbed at Silica's hair with its claws and pulled at her aggressively.
"Pina! Stop it! What are you doing!" she shouted frantically.
Ultimately, Pina pulled her several feet away… just as a missile smashed into the ground where she'd been standing previously. One of the jet bots had spotted her, although it missed its mark thanks to the dodge.
When Silica realized it, she gasped. "Pina! Nice work!"
The dragon seemed to give her a stern look, although it was difficult to be sure with how little emotion it was capable of displaying in its facial expressions.
Despite the close call, Silica armed her dirk and went charging back into the battle. "Let's strike back!"
More of the duel bots were joining the battle, and they quickly spotted the young girl. As soon as they did, they surrounded her and unleashed repeated attacks. Silica fought them off but quickly regretted her choice, once she realized she was hopelessly outnumbered.
There was a burst of fuchsia light, and then a section of the duel bots got obliterated. Caitlyn came diving down from the air, landing next to Silica. She wrapped her left arm around the girl and leaped backwards, through the newly opened section. "Getting ahead of yourself again?" she said while squinting her eyes at the young girl.
Silica looked at her as if she'd been caught stealing a cookie. "Sorry…"
Once the two of them repositioned in a safer location, Caitlyn shook her head as she grinned. "Let's try that again. Only we'll both go together."
This time, the result was much different. Silica was able to use her sword to defend the melee strikes, while Caitlyn opened fire on each target. Her sniping skills came into play as she fired single shots at a time, hitting the duel bots once they got distracted by Silica's sword strikes. This combination of offense proved very effective, and the duel bots were quickly dispatched.
Now that he was restored, Genos resumed his path to the generator. As he got in range, he noticed each water tower had a tall bot positioned on top. They were two Teckh Bots with appendages hanging down from their sides. It turned out that they each had four arms, and each one was armed with a different type of weapon.
Despite the obvious threat before him, Genos kept moving forward. "I'll show you I can win," he said to himself. "I'll prove my strength… master."
The multi bots glowed to life with a crimson light in their faces. Any threat to the generator that came close was a target. The first multi bot leaped in the air and one of its arms was some sort of turret. It aimed the weapon toward Genos and opened fire, unleashing dozens of bullets in rapid fire. When Genos saw it, he activated his jets and began to evade. As he moved, the bullets struck the ground behind him.
Up ahead, the second multi bot appeared in Genos's sights. While he was still moving fast to avoid being shot, he readied a punch to the upcoming opponent. However, the second multi bot aimed one of its weapons and sent out a glowing yellow light. Genos raised both eyes in surprise when he realized he was unable to dodge the blast, since it encompassed a large area. When it hit him, electricity surged through his body and sent him crashing into the ground at great velocity.
Right away, Kotoko observed what happened. "Genos is down! He needs backup now!"
The first one to respond was Caitlyn, who glanced over for a moment, but was still too busy covering Silica. "Dammit. I'm engaged. Someone else able to go help?"
Deku heard the call and leaped into action. He zoomed through a crowd of the bots, still armed with the energy staff, until he saw Genos just ahead. When he arrived, the multi bots both leaped backwards cautiously, as if they were trying to feel out the new threat first before engaging.
That one motion was enough for Deku to figure out these two were smarter than average.
Before he could actually reach Genos, one of the multi bots lashed out with a long strand of wire. Deku caught it and flung it to the side, causing the machine to fly forward. As it was airborne, the multi bot released a hook from its foot, keeping it anchored down to the ground to prevent Deku from landing any follow up offense.
"You guys sure are creative," Deku commented.
The multi bot released the wire from its wrist, and then secured its own position standing. Once it was back to the ground, it released the anchor as well. Meanwhile, the wire that Deku had pulled suddenly sprung to life, like some sort of snake. It began to wrap itself around Deku's body, even while he struggled to knock it away. Suddenly, he was being constricted with great force, and he felt his breathing become burdened.
At some point, Caitlyn saw that Silica was down to just one final duel bot, and she spotted Deku and Genos. "Shit," she swore under her breath before turning back to Silica. "Can you handle that last one? They need help over there."
"I got it!" she shouted boldly. Pina was by her side, flying aggressively at the duel bot as well.
It was enough to convince Caitlyn, and she jetted over toward the other two heroes who had run into trouble. Once she arrived, the two multi bots spread out, attempting to box Caitlyn in between them. She noticed they had four arms each, and they were all different weapons. Apparently, they were resourceful enough to incapacitate Deku and Genos.
"Watch out!" Deku shouted, even while he could barely breathe as he struggled against the constricting wire. "Their weapons are really unpredictable."
Caitlyn glared at her enemies for a moment, but she still realized that Deku and Genos needed help immediately. Unfortunately, if she ended up going for either of them, these two advanced machines would definitely land some sort of attacks on her. It was unlikely she'd succeed with two enemies waiting for her to lower her guard.
Instead, she would have to figure out how to predict their moves. Sure enough, she came up with a plan, and pointed her gun at the new target; the water towers. From there, she opened fire with her machine gun.
The reaction was immediate. One of the multi bots dashed with great speed toward the bullets and held up one of its arms, which opened up to a reveal a metallic shield to deflect the bullets. The second multi bot lunged toward Caitlyn, aiming a spinning saw blade at her.
"Oh crap," she muttered as she jetted in reverse, barely avoiding the attack. From there, she had to move with great speed, even though she couldn't fully control her moves. With how fast these multi bots were, she didn't have much choice.
Fortunately, Silica defeated her final foe, and then hurried over with Pina. "Pina! Heal!" Sure enough, the dragon used its magic on Genos a second time, and he returned to his feet, looking incredibly angry.
As for Deku, he was still struggling, but when he looked up and saw Caitlyn being attacked, he knew inside he needed to act immediately. "One For All!" he declared, firing up energy throughout his entire body. Then he channeled it outward, like a seismic wave, and it shattered the wire, releasing him. As soon as it was done, he blasted into the sky, pursuing the multi bot that was after Caitlyn.
Eventually, Caitlyn spun around midair and aimed her gun, firing one of her lucky cat missiles. The multi bot allowed its saw blade arm to take the missile, even though its appendage was wiped out in the process. It still had three more arms available, including the wire shooter, which it tapped into next. The steel twine shot out until it reached Caitlyn, snagging her ankle.
"Hey!" she shouted angrily, but she was quickly thrown from the air. The wire snaked around her shoe and covered up the thrusters, and she couldn't keep airborne with the jets on only one foot. From there, she began to plummet, and the ground was coming up fast.
"No!" Deku thought, feeling his heart beating fast. As if his body sensed it, he felt the power channel through him. It would be necessary for him to pull this off. "Delaware Smash! One Hundred Percent!" He launched himself with great velocity, as fast as he possibly could, coming in below the multi bot. As he did, he flicked shock waves from two fingers on his left hand at the multi bot, striking it with great force. The machine was sent upward from the blow, spinning around rapidly. Meanwhile, Deku was still moving ahead, and he rolled over so that he was looking up into the sky. Moments later, he had his arms out and Caitlyn fell into him, with her face ending up in front of his. Somehow, during the chaotic moment, they looked into each other's eyes.
"Hang on!" Deku shouted as loudly as he could.
Caitlyn's eyes looked more animated than he'd ever seen before. "You're crazy!" she yelled, twitching her face in disbelief. It would only be several more moments before they hit the ground… and it would be fatal.
"Don't worry!" he said reassuringly, as he held his right hand up to her. "I've still got more!" Sure enough, he launched another blast of wind force, only this time he aimed below both of them as they fell. What resulted was that they both flipped in the air numerous times, and their descent slowed down from the addition of the wind force. Somehow, unbelievably, Deku got them both to land on their feet, although they still lost balance and tumbled onto the ground in the process. But they were alive.
Deku coughed from the dirt that flew up as he regained his senses. Immediately, he began to glance around to check on Caitlyn. He had ended up landing on his back, and she was on top of him. His arms were still around her to shield her from the fall. "You all right?" he asked weakly.
More coughing revealed that she survived the fall as well. She shook her head back and forth, sending the dirt away from her hair, and then got her emerald eyes back to peering into his own green ones. "Like I said, you're crazy," she said, still looking like she was in shock.
All he could do was laugh in relief and rest his head against the ground. When he thought over what just happened, it began to sink in how close it really had been. Then it really sank in, and he began to breathe with a fast pace.
Right away, Caitlyn knew he was in trouble. "Hang on, Deku. Stay with me. We'll heal you up. Just keep your eyes open. Look at me." She was struggling to avoid being too frantic as she sat up and rubbed Deku's face, checking him as carefully as possible to see what kind of injuries he received from the fall.
The roar of jets rang out and one of the multi bots returned to finish the job. As soon as it appeared, Caitlyn shielded Deku with her body, glaring up at the machine with fury. Despite the weak condition its target was in, the multi bot still seemed content to finish the job, and it aimed one of its arms, which appeared to be a rifle. Suddenly, a series of shots were unleashed, only they came from behind the multi bot. Caitlyn's machine gun was floating in the air several feet away, apparently able to open fire even when she didn't have it in her hands. The blasts did the job, and the multi bot burst apart and fell to the ground, no longer a threat.
Caitlyn had a smug grin as her machine gun floated back over to her. "Locked on to the target ahead of time," she commented proudly. She was glad to know that all those hours spent designing her special weapon paid off now.
Another multi bot remained, but now it was up against Genos, Maka, Soul, and Silica. The four heroes rushed toward the foe, and naturally the machine took to the air. Genos flew to the sky as well, and opened fire with his palm lasers. He lit up the sky, forcing the multi bot to soar lower, and in range of the others. Maka was fast enough to cut it off, and the multi bot had an energy staff now as it dueled against her scythe. Next, Silica came up on the opposite side, lashing out with her dirk, aiming mainly for the multi bot's legs. Since Maka's scythe was the more immediate threat, the multi bot had to concentrate on that, and so Silica successfully hacked at its limbs.
"Nice work!" Soul shouted words of encouragement.
"Now it's our turn!" Maka declared, addressing Soul specifically. "Soul Resonance! Witch Hunter!"
Her scythe shifted in a flash of light, until it was three times its original length. From there, Maka swung it with great force, and the multi bot didn't possess the means to evade it now. All it took was one swipe to leave the machine in two halves, and both halves burst into flames and fell. That was the end of the second of those vicious machines.
With the last of the Teckh Bots eliminated, there was nothing left to guard the water wheel generator. Senku and Kotoko quickly inspected the property, ensuring that no human statues were present and at risk, and then Genos was left with the task. "Spiral Incineration Cannon!" he announced, aiming the collection of cannons from his upper body at the target. The blast he unleashed was enough to wipe out the generator completely, in just one shot.
Even with the success they just had, Caitlyn was ushering the team over to help Deku. Pina arrived and breathed some healing magic upon him, but it wasn't having the usual effect. This time, Deku had hurt himself so badly from the maneuver that the magic wasn't strong enough to restore him.
"We have to do something," Caitlyn said desperately.
Silica had tears in her eyes. "Pina can heal him. But his magic levels are too low right now, and Deku is really weak, too. Pina just needs more time. He'll heal him. I know it!"
Somehow, hearing Silica's reaction got Caitlyn to realize that now wasn't the time to be frightened. She needed to be strong. Instead of being afraid, she took a deep breath and nodded her head, restoring her composure. "All right. We're gonna keep him alive. And then Pina will be able to heal him."
The entire team arrived now and looked over Deku with care and concern. They weren't about to abandon any member of the team. No matter how long it took, they wouldn't move on until they got Deku to stand up again.
