Chapter 40: Going Underground

-REGENCY ACADEMY: SOMEWHERE UNDERNEATH ENGINEERING WARD-

Simon and Mallory touched down somewhere in the dark. They were on solid, flat ground, based on the feel of it. Their eyes had yet to adjust to the low light, but that was a problem that Izzy wouldn't be having. They needed to find themselves and fast.

At that exact second, the same thing was on both of the children's minds. What the hell was this underground chamber? What purpose did it serve? It's quite a happenstance for any old destroyed floor to open a hole into some grand underground complex.

Mallory felt around with her- Simon's feet. The texture of the floor… It was hard to discern because of all the detritus that had fallen down with them, but Mallory swept it all out of the way to plant herself firmly. It felt… familiar down here.

Had she been here before?

"This place…!"

Mallory realised. The battle royale! They were in the SESSE! The Subterranean Enclosed Space Simulation Environment! This was a place that she and Simon knew, and a place that Izzy didn't. That was a silver lining, but every one of those has its cloud, and if Mallory recalled right then this was not the type of environment that Simon performed the best in. Too enclosed. Back then, he was beaten by a physically dominant opponent in Devin.

And now? What else were they staring down but exactly that?

Izzy emerged from the rubble like Godzilla emerging from the mouth of a volcano. He saw a world made of heat and taste and smell and disturbances in the air. Chief among them all were the two pesky teenagers who had made themselves his enemies.

"Real nice a' you fellas to put these tunnels here… Reminds me o' my younger days… fleecing kids not much older n' you under bridges and in tube stations and the like. Makes a man… Nostalgic... "

"We're not here to talk about your backstory, scum!" Mallory shouted. Izzy made sad eyes and placed his hand over his chest.

"Scum? Really?" He said.

"SCUM!" Mallory reiterated several times more loudly than before. Izzy snorted with laughter.

"Scum, scum, scum. Scum this and scum that. That fella wot' cut me off in traffic is scum, our laundry detergent removes more scum than any competing brands, blah-de-blah-de-blah… You are SO boring, y'know that?"

Izzy got on all fours and charged, using the enhanced strength of his upper body to add to his speed. He was within range in a split second. Pedestrian compared to Simon, who fluttered back away for the lunge with time to spare. Izzy kept it up, swiping wildly as he talked.

"I'm not the type a' fella who gets offended easy, but if theres one thing I don't like its LAZINESS!" He exclaimed, swinging his fist into a wall hard enough to leave a hole in the brickwork. "Call me a lizard fucker, make a disco pun, do SOMETHING a little more INVOLVED!"

Izzy brought his two fists down and Simon barely managed to dodge to the side before the floor cracked in pieces and caved in around the impact zone.

"A hero worth readin' about woulda said somethin' more clever, yeah?"

Simon and Mallory unloaded into Izzy's flank, spinning around him like a buzzing mosquito. Every blow felt like pounding against a punching bag filled with nothing but steel ball bearings. It wasn't gonna work. Simon swung his leg super fast at Izzy's shin and it connected with a satisfying smack. The villain grunted and staggered. His body wasn't all scales. He had areas of soft, spongy flesh aswell. He was just a man. He wasn't invincible. He was more weak points than strong ones actually.

The pair twirled around Izzy fast enough to leave a whirlwind. They aimed only at his legs, making him buckle to and fro like a tree that was about to be felled. Just when the final axe swing that would have brought the mighty Izzy to his knees was about to come, the lizard found his opening.

He didn't punch where the kids were. He punched where they were going to be. Miraculously, he got a solid blow in. Whether it was luck or skill was nobody's business. Mallory pinged off of the ground like a rubber jack and she took Simon with her.

The world revolved sickeningly. The girl was dizzy and reeling after that punch, but Simon stood her up with her own quirk. So this is what if felt like to get corralled around by her, huh? She couldn't say she envied anyone on the receiving end of it, but this was a special case.

When her vision finally decided to re-focus, Izzy was gone.

"Discotech: Exploratory Surgery…"

Simon heard scratching.

"The walls! He's in the walls!" He alerted. A lashing blue wave of energy shot out from the villain's hiding place. They let it hit them and put themselves back together in the brief window of time that they had. Then another one came, and they did the same. When the attacks started to come faster, Simon and Mallory started to sweat in order to keep up the pace. There was momentary stemming of the flow of attacks. It gave Simon and Mallory enough time to think. Izzy had to know that these attacks werent having any effect, right? He 'saw' it for himself. Then what was his game?

Mallory panted for breath. Her- Simon's arms were starting to get sore. His astronomical heart rate was going up even further. That's when she realised.

"He's trying to tire us out… We can't hit him while he's hiding in the walls, but he can attack us with impunity…"

"But we still have one advantage, don't we…?" Simon whispered, not sounding intimidated. "We know the area…"

When faced with this impossible situation, Simon remained cool. He knew exactly what to do. He turned, and he ran, jetting off at impossible speeds. Velocities that Izzy could only hope to spit at. The villain was made red in the face.

"OI! GET BACK HERE YOU LITTLE WANKER!"

He gave chase, digging through the walls with furious claws. How dare they run from him! Cowards! They must be scared. That's right. They must be shitting themselves! Pissing in their little britches because of him! That's right… Izzy was gonna give them something to be scared about! Barreling through the concrete, the villain's mind spun with sadistic plans.

Simon slowed significantly once a big enough gap had been put between them and Izzy.

"What the hell was that?" Mallory demanded to know. "What, are we running away now?"

"Hell no!" Simon declared. "What kind of heroes would we be?"

"Then what are we doing RIGHT NOW genius!"

"Call it… Tactical retreat. The only way that we're gonna open him up to attack is by tricking him. So we gotta use the one thing we have over him. Knowledge of our surroundings. Theres a place that I need to lure him to… And then we can get him!"

Izzy was catching up now. The kids could tell because the walls were making a sound like a chugging train. Mallory had a concerned look plastered on her face as she looked from wall to wall trying to anticipate an attack. Simon was still smiling. He had wanted Izzy to catch up. That's why he slowed down.

True, Izzy's individual cuts werent going to have any effect. If Simon and Mallory were just going to run away when he tried to wear them down, then he would need an attack that could actually do damage. Luckily, he had just the thing. All ten of his clawed fingers lit up with blue energy. He oriented them perpendicular to each other, pulled them back, and he slashed.

"Crocodile Tear!"

The next thing that Simon knew, a grid pattern of blue energy blades, five by five wide, was coming right at him. Simon could tell just by looking that he wasn't going to be able to put himself back together again if that hit him dead on. After all, what was he going to use to reattach his limbs? His arms? Those would be cut up just the same! If his entire body was diced into squares at the same time, then no part of him would be spared. He's be stuck as a chopped-up body, waiting to be killed for real.

Simon put on the breaks, and luckily the lattice only cut up the wall infront of him. He kept going, picking up speed now that he knew Izzy had an attack capable of finishing him in a single fell swoop.

Then came a lot more fell swoops.

Izzy was sending them out as furiously as he was sending out those single slashes before. Simon, unable to take them, had to modulate his speed and take evasive manoeuvres. It was slowing him down. A lot. He would have pulled ahead if he could, but he made a miscalculation in underestimating his foe's creativity. Now he was trapped like this. He'd managed to dodge all of them so far, but they werent just disappearing as soon as he avoided them.

They were hitting the walls. The floor. The ceiling.

They were cutting the environment to shreds. Blocks of stone came raining down on Simon's head, giving him yet more things to dodge.

"How much longer?" Mallory shouted, barely able to deal with the dizziness that she was being struck by all of a sudden. Simon was good at combatting that sort of thing, but all of the equipment to do it was located in the head, and Mallory wasn't using those parts of him at the moment. She could have vomited right there.

"We're close!" Simon said. "It's just at the end of this corridor!"

"Crocodile Tear!"

Izzy howled triumphantly as he released another round. These ones were aimed right up. All at the ceiling. Simon was befuddled when the attacks sailed right past him, but he understood what the villain was trying when he noticed that the ceiling ahead of him was crashing down like a security door. Simon managed to slip under that one, but Izzy had set up a line of them. He accelerated, going under each one with just barely enough time to avoid being crushed or having his path cut off.

Izzy barrelled forward. He wasn't going to stop now that the kids were within his grasp. He kept firing his Crocodile Tear technique. He was going to keep going, faster and faster. He kept going, burrowing through the wall as a man possessed until... there was no wall.

Izzy bored a hole straight out into the open, and flew out of it, skidding to a halt on the wide-open floor. Just as his last 'door' fell down, blocking the path away.

"What did I say, Mallory? We know the area!" Simon said. Both of the kids were panting heavily, exhausted from the chase.

Izzy frantically activated his quirk.

"Discotech: Exploratory Surger-"

He was interrupted long before he could worm away again. Simon and Mallory performed a soaring spin kick that landed precisely on the villain's nose, breaking it at a grotesque angle. Globs of blood dripped onto the floor like sanguine snot. Izzy panted nasally and skittered backwards.

It wasn't that he was afraid to fight them face to face. Obviously, he could squash them flat head-on, it was just that… he wanted to do things efficiently. Clearly, the best way to take out your opponent is the way with the least amount of risk, right? Even if there was no risk, obviously…

Dammit, how did they trick him! He was as confounded as he was pissed off. Up until now, he'd easily been able to detect when there was a bend or corner in the tunnel by checking for an echo off of the opposite wall and listening to where Simon and Mallory's footsteps or fluttering was coming from as they made the turn. This time though, there was no opposite wall within hearing range and Simon and Mallory had kept going straight. That was because what Izzy had tunnelled into was not another corridor, but a wide-open dome. It was like an arena, specifically made for fighting in. Having such a construction in a place like this was inexplicable, but such were its dimensions that Izzy never detected an echo off of the opposite wall, and Simon and Mallory could keep going straight forward without arousing suspicion.

He'd fallen into a trap. Now the only solution was to trap them back. But first, he had to do something about his nose. There was no way he could smell with it now, so those neurons would be put to better use elsewhere.

"Discotech: Nerve Lift Surgery"

Inserting a flat beam of energy into his nostril, Izzy took the nervous tissue that allowed him to detect smells and rewired it to his ears and tongue. His hearing and binocular taste were amplified even further, and the world became clear again. He flicked his tongue out, picking up minute particles of ferrous blood and salty sweat that hung in the air and lead directly to his foes. Their breathing was getting heavy. Despite their successful trickery, the fight was only just getting started.

"Crocodile Tear: Dance Floor!"

Izzy unleashed a furious barrage of energy lattices. One dug its way into the floor, leaving a square grid pattern. Blue light arose from the gaps between the tiles, brightening the battlefield. The rest ploughed and plunged their way into the surrounding stone of the walls and ceiling. Simon and Mallory couldn't afford to slip up once in their dodging of the technique, but Izzy wasn't even aiming for them. Big blocks of stone rained down. First, they blocked the exits. Simon and Mallory were trapped in this dome with him now. Next, they began to fall in a ring all around them. Izzy was making new walls, floor to ceiling, and they were getting closer. He was bringing the ceiling down to shrink their arena. He wasn't interested in dancing around and fluttering about. Izzy wanted an up close and personal bout.

Odd bits of rubble fell out of place, making the floor uneven. In some places, there were great mounds of concrete that had to be navigated around. Other places were funnels or bottlenecks which lead straight towards Izzy. It was not mere chaos, Izzy was directing the rubble deliberately to make the environment unfavourable to his opponents.

"Simon... I can't help but feel like even though we tricked him, our situation hasn't exactly improved..." Mallory whispered.

"Have faith in the plan, Mallory!" Simon reassured. "Everything had gone to plan thus far, and if everything continued to go to plan, then our victory is assured!"

"What are you kids chatting about over there!" Guffawed Izzy. He held out two fingers and his thumb and stabbed them into one of the tiles on the floor. With strength that made his bulging biceps and pecs look fit to burst, Izzy pulled out the tile, actually a perfectly square block of stone, out with only those three fingers that were stuck inside of it. He observed the stone block lovingly, and then took his free hand and whirled it around the block in a dizzying display of coordination.

When he was done, all of the excess stone was carved away, and he was left with a perfect sphere. A... a bowling ball? That's what he was making? It looked exactly the same, as one, down to the way he held it, except that it was at least three times as large as regulation and made out of solid concrete.

Izzy took a few steps back and lifted his bowling ball into the air behind him.

"He... He doesn't intend to..."

"Discobowl: X-Strike!"

The ball was propelled through the air with terrifying speed and accuracy. Simon dodged it by a hair and watched it explode on the wall behind him, shattering into shards that blasted his back. Just when his pelting from behind was over, Izzy had prepared a second ball.

"Discobowl: X-Spare."

The second ball came even closer, and the last one was already too close for comfort. The velocity and weight of the balls made it seem like they were being bombarded by cannon fire. Dodging bullets would have been easier. The ball cut it so close that Simon and Mallory were still thrown back by the atmospheric turbulence coming off fo it. They spun out and hit a wall, Simon first, with Mallory cushioned from the impact by his- erm, her body.

"So..." Grunted Mallory. "All according to plan, right?"

"Well... It's not that it was in the plan... But its nothing that we can't handle... right?"

"Speak for yourself! If one of those hits us, we're dead on the spot..."

"If we can weave around them and get close, then he won't be able to throw anymore, right? So let's do it!"

"Discobowl: Ten Pin Night!"

Izzy was throwing the great big concrete spheres more like rapid shot puts now. They came in waves, a veritable bombardment. Simon swam around them as best as he could, advancing by mere centimetres at a time. It was the same as most of the villain's other attacks. If it hit you once, you were as a good as dead. However, Simon was managing. Just barely. He was putting pressure on Izzy, making him sweat a bit more the closer that he got. Whatever Izzy was doing, it wasn't going to work on its own. He needed more tricks. Izzy was the type of guy who always had more tricks up his sleeve, however.

"Discobowl: Seven Ten Split!"

A ball that came head-on, just like any other ball. If Simon and Mallory together rolled up into the fetal position and combined their mass, then this concrete orb would still eclipse them in size, and it was moving quick enough to punch a hole all the way through a car. Simon thought about dodging left. He thought about dodging right. Then, Izzy initiated the second step of the trick. A single vertical trace of the finger and the ball split into two halves, each of them going to either side of Simon and Mallory. Their brains hadn't the time to fully process what had happened, they only instinctually knew that they were pinned down. Trapped by a hemisphere of stone on each side.

Trying to dodge into any one of them would be like pressing your face up against the side of an eighteen-wheeler going at maximum speed barreling down the highway. Suicide, in a word.

Then, Izzy sent something down the middle.

"CROCODILE TEAR!"

An undodgeable attack, or a combination of attacks. This setup was something Izzy considered a stroke of genius on his part. With two halves of a concrete bowling hall pinning you down, you couldn't go back without them just following you, you couldn't go to either side without them blocking you, and you couldn't go forward except to meet your end slightly faster. Going up or down was impossible with the low ceiling.

Simon and Mallory were trapped.

Mallory closed her eyes, fully expected this to be it.

Simon had only one thought as Izzy's unavoidable attack grew nearer.

"I'm not gonna let... Something stupid like that... Kill me!"

His body moved by itself, not following commands, but instincts. When he sent the bioelectrical signal through Mallory's barbs, his muscles reacted. If the grid struck Simon head-on, he'd be cut into a two dozen or more little pieces. But the gaps... they were quite wide. If Simon just came at it from a different angle...

He could slip right through.

Simon and Mallory jumped, tucked their limbs in, and faced the grid. It came close enough to cut the hair off of your skin. It took a few of Simon's feathers with it, but by going through it top-down, they got through it.

Mallory gasped, sucking in a huge gulp of relieved air. She hadn't taken a breath that whole time. She had come millimetres from death for the god-knows-how-many-th time tonight. Simon couldn't stop. Izzy's face was contorted with frustration after they'd managed to dodge his so-called undodgeable attack. He paused for a moment, and that was Simon's queue to go in for the kill. He dashed forward, arms and legs flying. Izzy had to react quickly.

"Discobowl: X-Strike!"

Another ball. Simon sighed. This again, huh? He let it get close enough to cast a shadow on him, but he wasn't scared of this technique anymore. Did he even slow down? If so, it wasnt by much. He had a perfect answer, after all...

"Hummingbird Counter..."

It wasn't just Simon's speed that was superhuman. It was his reflexes aswell. He went limp and bent backwards. His light body moved like a feather floating in the wind. He caught the slipstream of Izzy's bowling ball and allowed himself to be sucked into it. He was rattled, but uninjured. He pressed his feet against the back of the ball, and he shot off from it. He used it as a platform to jump off of and get a running start. He was barreling inexorably towards Izzy. He wouldn't be stopped, not by anything else. They were going to clash, face to face and fist to fist.

Izzy's eyes widened in shock but soon narrowed back down to sadistic glee. He brought his fist back, and he charged Simon head on himself.

"Fuck it, kid. Let's do it your way!"

...

The two combatants met in the middle, their dashes deflecting off of each other. They continued moving, their inertia dragging them until an eventual stop. They were about ten paces apart, with their backs facing. All was still for a while. Repeat injuries had dulled all of their minds and bodies to the point that it took more time to even register an injury.

They had exchanged one stroke, but this one felt important. Simon had a plan in mind, and whether or not it worked would determine whether they would live or they would die. It had just now either worked or it hadn't. Mallory was shivering. If she turned her head, and Izzy was still standing? Hell, if she turned her head and it fell off or something?

It did not bear thinking about. Too afraid to realise the result of the fight, Mallory put her eyes straight ahead.

It was only the unholy noise that Izzy started to make that alerted her. A hellish banshee cry. Like the last pained cries of an ancient whale while it was cut up on the deck of a whaling ship.

Mallory turned around at once. Suddenly, the prospect of not seeing what was going on became scarier than seeing it. The reptilian hulk was kicking and screaming, bucking like a wild horse. Whenever he opened his mouth, blood vomited out and splashed everywhere. It was hot, steaming blood. Almost boiling.

He looked Simon and Mallory dead in the eyes and said something.

He tried to, anyway. Only a muffled gargle emerged from his throat. A slurred mess of dull syllables. Like the barking of a seal. Mallory watched him flap his jaw open and closed again, and saw that something was missing.

Izzy's tongue. It was gone.

Simon started laughing.

"You have no idea… How much I've been wanting to do that…"

Mallory looked down at her own clasped shut claw. She hadn't felt it there before, but she was holding something wet and dripping blood. It was Izzy's tongue, long and forked at the end. She dropped it with a sickened yelp and watched it twitch and writhe on the floor.

"We… We ripped out his tongue?!" Mallory yelled. "Why?!"

"It's all a part of the plan, Mallory… It's his senses…" Said Simon, but something was wrong with him too. His speech was slowing down. He looked like he was getting groggy. When Mallory looked over her shoulder to see the boy's face. His eyes were fluttering open and shut.

"Simon, are you alright?"

"Luna… Took his sight… We took his smell… With that kick earlier… And just now… We took his taste… All of the warm blood in this enclosed area and whats smeared on his face… Should be enough to turn off his heat detection… So now… All he has left… Is hearing…"

"Simon, what's wrong? Are you hurt?" Mallory asked.

"Just a little… bump on the head…" Simon said. Then, his eyes closed. They didn't flutter back open. Simon slid right off of Mallory's back. He got turned over during the fall, and Mallory could see.

He was bleeding from the back of his head. Badly. There was a small area where the skull actually caved in and a concave dent could be seen even over the skin. Izzy… Izzy had to have done this just now. That was his one stroke. Simon ripped out his tongue and Izzy got a solid blow to the back of his head.

But… that wasn't equal at all! You can fight as much as you want without a tongue… but… but the head was important! Simon could die!

"What kind of plan was that, you idiot!" Mallory scolded.

"Its… It's not done yet…" The boy whispered. "His hearing… That's the key… You need to use… My technique… You remember, right... ? It's called… It's called…"

Simon faded away. He was out. Maybe worse than that. Mallory was… On her own.

And Izzy was far from finished. His wordless babbling was incessant. He couldn't talk anymore, but that wouldn't stop him from trying. With most of his senses disabled, he would have a hard time pinning Mallory down.

"You think you're fucking clever, don't you ya little shit? But you forgot somethin'! As long as I still got my ears… I can find you near or far… You're a sittin' duck without yer boyfriend… You're just waitin' to die…"

Izzy pierced his own face with his blue claws. His nervous system uprooted itself, cut and restuck into a new configuration. All of the tissue available was directed to the ears. Izzy was blind, anosmic, ageuisic, and his secret weapon, the pits on his face that detected heat like a snake, were disabled after they were flooded with warm blood. If that had to be the case, then his hearing would make up for all of them.

"Discotech: Nerve Lift Surgery…"

Izzy could hear everything. He heard his muscles expand and contract, straining like taught fraying rope. He could hear the blood rushing through his veins like the bubbling concoction of a mad scientist was whizzing and swishing within him. He could hear the hiss of his stomach acid, the beating of his heart, and if a pin happened to drop down here then he'd be able to hear that too.

He heard Mallory. He heard her every shallow, fearful and exhausted breath. He heard the machinegun pace of her heartbeat. And he heard Simon on the floor, close to death but not quite there yet. All it would take is a solid step on the head. And Mallory was no threat to him.

He'd already won.

And that meant that he could afford to have some fun.

Izzy came at her slowly. She rushed him, flailing her arms. Her control of Simon's body had improved what with him showing her the movements, but she was still as capable as a toddler who had just learned to walk a few minutes ago.

In a second, Izzy was on top of her. He ripped the bandanna away and unveiled her mandibles to the world. Despite not having a tongue, and not being able to see, his hearing was so powerful that he was capable of using echolocation to make a mental image of the girl's face. So vivid was this image that he was still capable of laughing cruelly at her, which he did with gusto and enthusiasm as he pinned her down.

Simon had an idea of how to turn the tide. Izzy had already been tricked, and he was somehow vulnerable, but Mallory for the life of her couldn't figure out how. From here, this position that was inches away from having her throat ripped out, all she could do was scream.

And so she did.

Simon, barely awake, whispered something to himself.

"Hummingbird… Harmony…"

Something resonated inside of Mallory. In her throat and her lungs all the way up to her mouth. A harmonious sound erupted from within her. An ever-increasing pitch and volume that should have shattered glass.

Izzy, of his own volition, was right next to it. His hearing was something like a hundred times what it normally was. The noise struck him like thousands of burning hot flaming spears soaked in acid were impaled through his skull and then barbed wire was dragged through the wounds. His world turned into a million shifting and warbling copies of itself. His brain activity was killed, overwhelmed by the extreme sensory overload. The noises echoed in the small chamber and converged right back onto him, repeating the process again.

With a dramatic money shot of blood from either side of his head, Izzy's eardrums exploded. His mouth hung loose. His arms dropped. His eyelids sunk.

"Fuck... Me..." Izzy thought. "I really... hate... kids..."

That was Izzy's last thought before he succumbed. Mallory stopped screaming. She felt her throat as it resonated with residual power. She… she did that. That was Simon's plan, wasn't it? She… She did it.

She won!

At long last, Izzy fell to his knees. The man's blind eyes were rolled back in his head. His tongueless mouth was wide open, and a pool of blood had gathered in his bottom jaw. His whole face was red, stained with sanguine fluid. It came out of his nose, his mouth and now his ears. He was perfectly limp, waving back and forth like the fronds of a palm tree. His disproportional upper body was bound to lose balance eventually, and it appeared as though he was about to fall forward onto his stomach.

Mallory looked up at him. It looked like he was barely conscious. Whatever state he was in, it was clear that he was in pain. For Mallory, that wasn't enough. Her brow furrowed. She thought about how she felt when she was laying on the floor pretending to be dead while he calmly and casually took to gunning down the rest of her peers. She didn't know that Dexter had saved her, she thought that she had been spared by some kind of miracle. She felt like she was watching everyone she knew at Regency die.

Mallory had heard that some villains were ideological. They fought hard because they had principles that they believed in. They had a reverence for the people that they fought and didn't take their villainous actions lightly. Those were the ones deserving of sympathy, mercy, even respect in some cases.

Izzy was not one of those.

No mercy for him.

He started to fall over, and Mallory brought her foot up into his chin as hard and fast as Simon's body would allow. She wasn't done with him just yet. Simon still had some moves that he hadn't gotten to use. Like playing keepie-uppie with his head, Izzy bounced back up so that his face was eye level with Mallory's incoming fist.

His head made a noise like a hock of meat being slammed against a concrete wall. But that was just one punch. He wasn't going to get off that lightly. He made a croaking sound, just loud enough that Mallory knew he could feel it.

Then came punches two through two hundred.

Going at a comfortable speed, Simon could throw about sixty punches in a second. If he really put the effort in, then that number went up to one hundred punches a second. What Izzy was on the receiving end of was something slighter worse than even that. More or less it was one hundred and twenty per second. Mallory, filled with pure rage and adrenaline, was pushing Simon's body to the point of breaking.

Simon's hands moved so fast that no individual punch could be made out. The repeat thudding against Izzy's face all melded together, no impact discernable over any other. It became a constant drone of sound like a mechanical drill. All of them, every blow, was directed straight into Izzy's weak, exposed, unmodified head. His weak point. He had a normal, quirkless body from the neck up. It was rapidly turning into nought but a red pulpy mess. His skull rocked and his neck rolled like a bobble-head in a magnitude ten earthquake.

Simon had a name for this attack. Mallory had no way of knowing it but were the boy conscious we would surely have let it slip, such was his spirit of showmanship. The name itself was quite catchy, in his opinion. He called it…

"Hummingbird Barrage…"

Simon was standing. Mallory was so shocked to hear his voice that she stopped her barrage short of about half of where she would have liked, at only twenty seconds. Izzy's face would never be the same. Right now, you couldn't even tell where his features were. He fell backwards rather than forwards, and let out a rattle as his breath left him. He sounded like a broken accordion, splayed out on his back and deflated.

He lost, they won. No two ways about it.

When Izzy finally passed out for real, something strange began to happen all around. The pieces of rubble that he had cut up with his quirk began to rumble and grind against each other. They started to glow bright and burn out. Then, in a flash of motion so smooth and instant, it seemed almost like teleportation, they all rearranged themselves and returned to their original configuration.

In an instant, the previously cramped and cluttered little crevice in which Izzy had caught the pair was gone, and they were in a wide-open, dark and empty subterranean dome. Mallory felt her head start to shake. It felt like it was shaking off of her body, but really it was the opposite. Her head shook itself right off and Mallory felt a sickening burst of extreme vertigo as her head moved instantaneously.

When her eyes opened, she was back in her old body. She felt herself deliriously. Everything was just where she left it. She had all her bits back, and they were the right ones! It made her positively giddy.

Simon looked at his own hands, dumbfounded. He was just as happy to be back in his own body as Mallory, although the powerful ache in his elbows, shoulders and knuckles he could have done without.

"S-so…" Mallory approached. "Are you feeling b-better?"

At a time like this, it seemed that she was still feeling a little shy. Simon gave her an encouraging smile and ruffled his multicolour feathers.

"I'm fine!" He exclaimed, coming a bit closer. "Its… um… You that I'm worried about, actually. Y'see, most of what was wrong was blood loss and well, that was technically your blood I was losing so…"

Mallory staggered. She felt incredibly light-headed all of a sudden. Her vision started fading to black and she crumpled into Simon's arms. The feeling passed quickly, but Simon was still cradling her and she wasn't feeling like pulling away.

Dammit, even beat to hell the boy looked beautiful. Stupid… beautiful boys… With their pretty smiles and bright colours. The soft, assuring look in his eye made Mallory forget that she wasn't wearing any kind of mask or covering over her mandibles. She… she liked that. Around him and only him, that feature of her face became just another mundane feature of hers. As plain as a nose or an ear. She could safely forget about it. Already that lifted too much off of her shoulders.

If she was daring, or crazy, she might even be able to think of herself as pretty. She sighed.

"H-hey… Simon…" She stammered, daringly resting her head into his neck. She tried to work up a lot of courage. She looked up at him with big, bright sparkly eyes. He looked back at her, meeting her gaze curiously. Why did what she was about to do feel scarier than fighting Izzy? "Do you… Do you… Do…"

Simon interrupted her by putting a finger over her mouth.

"Shh…" He whispered. "You don't need to say anything. I may be a little delirious after that ordeal, so forgive me if I overstep, but I think I'm lucid enough to know what you're going to tell me…"

"You… You do…?" Mallory vibrated, turning bright red.

"Yeah…" Simon sighed. Blowing all of Mallory's expectations out of the water, he started to lean in… Oh god, was this it? Mallory gulped. Was this happening? It wasn't a dream? "I bet…" He continued. "I bet that… I bet… I…"

Simon fell down. His face slapped against the concrete floor, and he snored loudly. Curling up into the fetal position, his stomach growled. He was out like a light.

"You… YOU BET WHAT?! WHAT?!" Mallory screamed into his ear. Enraged, she punted Izzy's unconscious body. She kept punting it. That was, until it stirred.

"Grrrgh… Graaaghh… Gruaaghh…" Growled Izzy, awaking from his induced slumber. He sat up and saw Mallory and a sleeping Simon. He smiled toothily, his gargantuan lizard musculature shifting under his skin, priming itself for an attack.

"It were' a nice nap, doll… But I'm about ready for round two!"

TO BE CONT-

"No, absolutely the fuck not."

Mallory stabbed her fingers into Izzy's exposed neck, and a little jolt of electricity went into his brain. She pulled her hand out, leaving one of her now re-attached barbs inside of him. Izzy shook like a washing machine with a brick inside of it, but it was no use. He couldn't fight against Mallory's iron control. His mind was completely dominated.

Izzy was a puppet.

"Now, I'm in a bad mood. So you just sit down, shut up and be a good little hostage, ok?"

Izzy nodded.

TO BE CONTINUED

The fight against Izzy the Lizard reaches its conclusion! The students, at long last, achieve a victory against the forces of the Union! Now with their hostage in tow, how will the situation develop? To find out, keep reading! Sorry about the late chapter everybody. First I was sick and had to push back to Saturday, and then Google Docs kept crashing on me and deleting my progress! (I actually finished this chapter in 's own doc manager, go figure!) So... uh... Let's call it a valentines day special! Hey, Simon and Mallory almost had a moment there, right? It counts!

Anyway, let me know what you thought of this chapter in the reviews! And as always, thanks for reading! I'll see you in the next one!