A month ago, at a secluded hideout.
"Whiplash."
The infamous villain was sitting in his "home" when he got a call from his employer.
"Sir," Whiplash answered respectfully.
"I have received news that Izuku Midoriya is going under intense combat training." His boss told him.
Oh. That wasn't good. That wasn't good at all.
"Will this be a problem?" His boss asked him.
"Yeah, the power of Midoriya's suits is overwhelming. If manages to become at least proficient in combat himself, then I won't be able to beat him." Whiplash answered honestly.
One of the reasons Whiplash lasted so long as a villain, was because he knew what he could and couldn't go up against. It was something he learned quickly, as he saw many of his overconfident allies get into fights with Ground Zero with predictable results.
Izuku was so much faster and stronger than him, that it blew his mind that he managed to beat him twice, and only did so because his opponent lacked any real skill.
"I see...well then I will need to relocate you until we can find a way to fix this Midoriya problem." His boss told him. "You will be housed on one of our factories, on a secluded island."
"Sir, with all due respect, Midoriya isn't going to let me go that easily. And with their resources, there is a good chance that he or some top-ranking heroes could find me." Whiplash pointed out.
"Le Million is still out of the country, and the island heavily defended, you should be more than fine as long as Ground Zero or Todoroki don't show themselves." His boss said.
"And if they do?" Whiplash asked.
"Then do your best." His boss said simply. "You have your orders, are you going to refuse?"
"...No sir." Whiplash sighed. "I will move on your command."
It was just something one had to accept when they became a villain. You always ran the chance of running into A Million or Ground Zero or Todoroki, and then it was all over.
All he could do was wait, and hope.
Present Day, with Izuku.
Izuku was flying through the air, over the ocean faster than the speed of sound, heading towards the island he was told Whiplash would be hiding on.
And he wouldn't just find Whiplash, but an entire factory and shipping facility for his stolen tech.
It was practically calling to him, and he was about to answer.
"Sir, we'll be arriving at the island in one minute," Jarvis told him. "I suspect that the island will be mildly or heavily armed, and there is a decent chance that anti-air weapons will be among those defenses."
"Thank you, Jarvis," Izuku said, as he got ready to dodge. "I'll-"
"A barrage of small missiles incoming!" Jarvis warned. "Charting optimal course."
Izuku saw dozens of red blips on his map pop up, all heading right towards him. And there was a blue line behind drawn showing him exactly where to go.
However, he would still have to fly through a bunch of rockets.
Hope my training with Nejire paid off. Izuku thought.
A few moments, later, the rockets were insight.
VWOSH!
Izuku burst past them, using his newly enhanced reflexes and training, to dodge the rockets, flying past them and closer to the island which was now seeable.
Most of it was covered by a huge complex, that was the size of a mall, with a dock located on the far left. With many large shipping boats floating there.
"Let's try and hit them before they can fire again. Scan for all defense systems on the island." Izuku ordered his A.I.
"Already done sir," Jarvis said as a bunch of blinking red dots were displayed. Thirty rocket turrets were aimed at Izuku, and soon to fire.
"Alright, fire the homing rockets," Izuku ordered as he continued towards the island.
Izuku was now flying above the entrance to the island, and the armor's shoulders rose up, and ten rockets flew out and homed in on some of the turrets.
KABOOM!
The rockets hit, and they destroyed the turrets they hit, as well as some of the turrets that were close to the blast radius. Overall, seventeen turrets had been disabled.
PEW PEW PEW PEW PEW!
At the same time, Izuku unleashed a flurry of repluser blasts at the turrets he hadn't targeted with the rockets, destroying eight more in a flash.
The remaining nine turrets fired a flurry of rockets at Izuku.
PEW PEW PEW!
Izuku swiftly dodged most of the rockets, while destroying some others, and shooting out some more repluser blasts at the turrets, destroying the remaining turrets.
"Is that all the defenses?" Izuku asked his A.I.
"Unlikely," Jarvis responded. "Although I am not currently detecting any more defenses, that is most likely because of the cloaking technology they stole from you."
Izuku grit his teeth, before shaking his head to refocus himself. I can't afford to let my anger cloud my judgment. No again.
He looked to the cargo ships. "Speaking of stolen technology."
Izuku flew over to the boats, hovering down so that way he was directly facing the side of one of them. "Jarvis located the engines on these boats."
"Very well….done." Jarvis quickly showed the location on Izuku's hud, allowing the genius to see the engines right through the boats.
Izuku aimed his palm at the engine and shot out a repulsor beam.
The beam quickly melted through the hull, and pierced the engine, causing it to explode.
Izuku swiftly did the same thing to the other boats, rendering them immobile.
"No escape," Izuku said flying back up into the air.
"Good job sir, with no escape, you could wait for the heroes to arrive and safely apprehend the villains," Jarvis suggested.
"I...oh." Izuku hadn't really thought of that.
Without any method of leaving the island, the villains were essentially helpless, sitting ducks.
He didn't have to fight Whiplash now. Because he could just wait an hour or so for Ground Zero, Todoroki, Sun Eater, or any other pro heroes to show up and overwhelm them.
He felt...a profound sense of disappointment and anti-climax.
His brain searched for reasons to actually enter and fight the villain, and after a few moments, he found some.
"Well...what if they have a villain with a teleportation quirk?" Izuku asked his A.I.
"Teleportation quirks are quite rare, but given the possible largeness of the criminal organization we're facing, the overall chances of this are 2.37%," Jarvis reported. "And the chances that there could be a person with a teleportation quirk that would allow them to escape to shore from this range, is about 0.0078."
"Well...what are the chances of them having some other method of escape?" Izuku asked.
"Without us noticing? 10.7%." Jarvis answered. "Sir, are you just looking for reasons to go in?"
"I...yes," Izuku admitted dejectedly.
There was a short pause before Jarvis responded again. "Sir, if you go in there, the chances of success are 78.97%."
"...Are...you telling me to go in?" Izuku asked his A.I. in shock.
"I was built to offer optimal strategies and advice, as such I can not advise that you take such unnecessary risks," Jarvis told him. "What I am saying, is that it is very unlikely that you will perish, and the chances of their escape, is well above zero."
"So...go after him is what I'm hearing?" Izuku asked in a hopeful tone.
"If that is truly what you wish to do, then so be it," Jarvis answered.
Izuku looked at the factory and gave it a few seconds of thought. "Ochaco's gonna be so disappointed in me."
Izuku flew over the factory's entrance and landed in front of it.
Meanwhile, with Whiplash.
brrrrrrr! brrrrrrr!
"Intruder Alert! The entrance has been breached!"
Flashing red lights filled the factory, accompanied by the sound of blaring alarm bells, alerting everyone to the fact that something had gone terribly wrong.
Whiplash was one of those people.
He had been sitting in his office that oversaw a good chunk of the factory when the alarms went off and the security systems turned on.
From his office Whiplash could see blast doors closing, and turrets popping up.
These would all be useless if the person invading was who he thought it was.
A goon burst into his office, panic evident on his face. "Boss! Security reported in! It's Midoriya! He's invading the facility and taking the security and the guards! He's already taken out the boat's engines! We need your help, sir!"
Shit. Whiplash thought, doing his best to keep his calm. Not like retreating to the boats would have been a good idea anyway. Not with him flying around being able to sink them at a moment's notice.
But, there was still one option.
"What's the status of the emergency stealth submarines?" Whiplash asked.
"Well um, no reports about that sir." The goon reported.
"So we can assume Midoriya hasn't gotten to that yet," Whiplash responded.
There was a good chance that Midoriya would now be able to beat him. And his goons wouldn't be able to help much if at all.
His only surefire chance would be to avoid confrontation altogether and retreat to the submarine, which should be untraceable.
The only issue was that the submarine was six floors below his current location and would take him about twenty-five minutes to get to.
Midoriya's armor could go through this entire facility in five minutes, and the blast doors would only buy him about thirty seconds at best.
After a bit of thought, Whiplash had an idea.
Perhaps those minions wouldn't be so useless, after all.
"Tell everyone to arm up, get weapons from the high-quality cargo," Whiplash ordered. "Tell everyone to gather upon production floor C."
"Sir are you sure that's gonna work?" The goon asked.
"With those weapons and that many people, definitely." Whiplash lied. He estimated the chance of that actually stopping Midoriya being about fifteen percent.
But they would buy time, and waste Midoriya's power.
And that's all they were good for.
Back with Izuku.
Izuku walked through the falls of the factory, his armor getting pelted with bullets from both the turret that came out of the wall and the three goons shooting guns at him.
PEW PEW PEW!
With a few repulsor blasts, all the threats were disposed of. The turrets were destroyed and the men were rendered unconscious.
He matched past them, and up to the blast doors that were blocking the exit to the hallway.
"Sir, judging from my scans, this leads onto a large factory floor, about half a mile long," Jarvis warned him. "And there are about a hundred and seventy men holding weapons. From what my readings show, they're quite powerful, most likely stolen from Midoriya Industries."
"Can they damage my armor?" Izuku asked concernedly. If there were that many people holding weapons made from his tech, then this could be a real problem.
"Unknown, but there is about a sixty percent chance that they could do somewhere between three to five percent damage," Jarvis reported.
Of course, that didn't seem like much damage. And it wasn't.
However if almost two hundred people were shooting at him at once, then even one percent damage it way too much.
"Ok, let me see through this door, give me a complete view of the room and the positions of the men," Izuku ordered.
It was time to strategize.
"Of course sir," Jarvis replied, and Izuku was shown the full layout of the room, and where all the goons were standing.
The room was massive, with lots of boxes and conveyor-belts on the bottom floor. Up top was a bunch of catwalks.
After looking at it for a couple of minutes, Izuku nodded. "Ok, time to go."
The first issue would be the door. Normally he could get through it with a few good punches, however, after just a single punch, they would be alerted to his presence and have the drop on him.
So he'd have to take a different approach.
And so, he turned around, and ran back, all the way to the end of the hall, and turned back to face the door.
"Okay, you can do this," Izuku muttered to himself.
WOOSH!
Izuku rocketed towards the door, using his thrusters to propel himself at the door at max speed.
He raised his fist forward and punched through the door in an instant.
Without stopping, only slowing slightly, he charged forward, barreling through the line of goons in his way, and making it to the other end of the room before the goons even knew what happened.
Izuku rocked up into the air and fired two repulsor beams at sections of the catwalks where many goons were standing, cutting away at their supports and causing them to fall onto the goons below, taking many more of them out.
"Eighty-seven villains removed sir," Jarvis said.
"Shit he's here!" One of the goons panicked. Izuku had moved so fast that he had taken out the line of goons and the ones on the catwalks before the villains could even register that he'd come in. "Open fir-ahhhHH!"
Before the guy could finish his sentence, the armor's shin's opened up, and the flares flew out into the air and exploded into a blinding light the engulfed the entire room, and stunned the remaining grunts.
Izuku landed on the ground, and then propelled himself forward right at the grunts, and took out another line of them, before flying around to take out another line.
He then thrust up into the air and spun in a circle while letting out repulsor blast all over the place, hitting dozens of goons that were hiding behind the machines.
"One hundred and thirty-seven enemies disposed of," Jarvis reported.
"Gah! Take him down!" The remaining goons all opened fire at Izuku, but their aim was sloppy and by now, Izuku had taken out enough goons to make space for him to dodge the bolts of energy coming out of the goon's guns.
He still got dinged a few times, taking a bit of damage to his armor.
As Izuku did his best to dodge, he let out a hail or repulsor blast at the goons, aiming mainly for the ones who were by themselves. "Shit he's too strong!" Shouted one goon in terror.
Izuku then used his repluser beams, to knock down entire groups with a single swipe.
"Good sir, only thirteen remaining," Jarvis said.
The remaining thugs all decided, "fuck this" and threw away their guns holding up their arms in surrender.
"We give up!"
"Don't shoot!"
Izuku ignored their cries, and shot out twelve repulsor blasts, taking out twelve of the goons and sending them to the floor, leaving only one terrified guard remaining.
"Now." Izuku flew down right in front of the grunt, who fell on his ass in shock. "Tell me. Where. Is. Whiplash?"
A few minutes later, with Whiplash.
After all, that time booking it to the submarine room, Whiplash had finally arrived at the subterranean room docking station.
Sitting in a large pool of water that led out into the ocean, was three submarines, all decked out with the best stealth equipment they could get their hands on.
The room was filled with heavy equipment, as well as crates filled with goods.
While the subs were meant mostly to transport goods to more secure areas or to transport extremely valuable goods, they also served for emergency escapes.
However, just as Whiplash thought he was about to make a getaway.
BRRRRRR!
KABOOM!
A repulsor blast flew past his head, and hit the center submarine right in the fuel tank, causing it to explode, and heavily damaging the other two subs in the process.
Whiplash watched with dread as his methods of escape sunk before his eyes. Literally.
He turned around, and sure enough, Izuku was standing there with his arm raised and his repulser aimed right at Whiplash.
"Looks like you were the one running this time," Izuku told him. Inside him, feelings of immense satisfaction, relief, and slight nervousness, welled up.
It was time to end this.
Whiplash powered up his whips and hit them against the floor. "I've beaten you twice before without taking a hit. If you pick this fight, I'm not letting you leave alive again."
It was a bluff. But Whiplash had to get every advantage he could. If he could convince Izuku to walk away, that'd be the best result. Then hopefully he could call for an escape.
"I'm not the same as I was all those months ago!" Izuku told him. "I've spent all this time, training, working, so that way I could take you down! Not only that, but this armor is far superior to the other armor's you've fought!"
"Do you really think that a few months can make up for a difference of years of experience and skill? How arrogant." Whiplash replied. "And, your poor family. Wasting all that time doing that when you could have spent it with them."
"I multitasked!" Izuku shouted back. "I love my family more than anything! Of course, I paid attention to them!"
"Well if you care about them so much then you should walk. Away." Whiplash replied. "Go back to them, and quit the hero crap."
Izuku was about to shout back, but Jarvis spoke up first. "Sir, my sensors are detecting perspiration, coming from Whiplash. I believe he is trying to either stall, or he is attempting to persuade you to retreat. Judging from what he has been saying, I would guess the latter. My suggestion would be to not listen to him any further."
"...Right, enough talking," Izuku said. "Time to end this."
Shit. Whiplash thought.
Izuku made the first move, charging forward at incredible speeds, with his fist outstretched in an attempt to punch the villain in the face, but Whiplash barely managed to avoid the blow by ducking under it and then flipping over to the side.
Before Whiplash could start attacking, Izuku unleashed a volley of repulsor blast at Whiplash, forcing the villain to keep flipping while flailing his whips to avoid and block the blast.
Izuku zipped behind Whiplash and kicked his side.
"AGH!" Whiplash was sent flying by the power of Izuku's attack, getting sent through one of the crates.
"I hit him!" Izuku celebrated with elation. "I finally hit him!"
"Good job sir, but focus on the battle," Jarvis told him.
"Sorry!" Izuku quickly got his head back in the fight and flew over to where Whiplash had flown.
But when he flew past the destroyed crate, he didn't see the villain.
"Judging from how hard he was stuck, his velocity, and accounting for the weight of his equipment, he should have landed here." Jarvis made a highlighted circle on the ground, showing the area where Whiplash should have been.
"Well then where is he?" Izuku asked, staring at the spot Jarvis pointed out.
"Behind you!" Jarvis altered.
"Huh?!" Izuku turned around, and just managed to see the whip coming at him in time to fly to the left and dodge it, and then fly up to avoid the other whip swing.
Whiplash was standing on a stack of crates, and Izuku could see that his kick had left a serious dent in Whiplash's armor.
Izuku raised his palm and let out a repulsor blast at Whiplash, but the villain backflipped off the crates and dodged his attack.
"Damn it! How is he still dodging me!? I'm moving at speeds so fast he shouldn't be able to react! Or at least react this well!" Izuku asked in frustration.
"A theory, sir. Perhaps he is listening to the sounds of the armor, in order to predict your attacks." Jarvis suggested.
"The sounds of my armor?" Izuku's eyes widened in realization. "Of course! My repulser and thrusters all make loud noises before they activate!"
"Indeed sir, I would suggest you forgo using your thrusters and repulser, it would also help conserve your armor's power, which is currency at 45%," Jarvis advised. "Also watch out on your bottom right!"
Izuku was more ready for it this time and dodged an overhead whip swipe from Whiplash, who was hiding behind another pile of crates.
After his attack failed, Whiplash retreated back behind the crates and out of sight.
Izuku flew right through the crates, cutting the villain off before he could hide again, before dropping to the floor in front of him.
Whiplash tried to raise his left whip up to attack him, but Izuku had already zipped right in front of him and smacked the whip out of his hand.
Izuku thrust his fist forward, right into Whiplash's chest, making a huge dent in his armor and forcing the villain to go flying once more, this time into the water.
"Wait, Jarvis, will his equipment electrocute him!?" Izuku quickly asked the A.I.
"No sir. Do remember that he is using YOUR equipment, which you have made thoroughly waterproof." Jarvis reminded him.
"Oh, yeah." Izuku blushed with embarrassment at having forgotten that. "Anyway, I'm going in!"
Izuku ran towards the water and dived headfirst.
And almost immediately after submerging, he had the Whiplash's whip wrapped around him.
"What!" Izuku cried out, as his armor started taking damage.
This didn't last long, however, and Izuku grabbed the whip, no longer caring about the damage it did to him, and ripped it out of Whiplash's hands, cutting off its connection to his quirk.
Now with the whip doing no damage, Izuku took the whip off of him, and then threw it aside, and looked turned up and behind him to see Whiplash attempting to swim away from him.
Izuku activated his thrusters, and flew up, grabbing Whiplash as he made his way out of the water and into the air.
He threw Whiplash onto the floor, hard. Making the whip wielder gasp as he got the wind knocked out of him.
Izuku dived down and delivered a solid blow to Whiplash's face.
And then he brought down his other fist for another, and another and another.
All the months of frustration were now being taken out on the person who had caused it all.
After a few more blows, Izuku stopped.
He looked down at Whiplash, and at his work. His mask had been torn off, and his face was now bruised and bloody beyond recognition and he was definitely unconscious.
"You've won sir," Jarvis told a panting, Izuku. "Congratulations."
Izuku took a moment to let that soak in before a huge smile broke out on his face, and he raised his arms to the sky in victory. "YEAHHHHHHHHHH!"
And so ends the Whiplash arc...kind of. The next chapter will be an epilogue to this arc including a celebration of Whiplash's defeat.
Anyway, leave a review and have a nice day.