Izuku and Ochako had made their way through the woods as quickly as possible, they had to keep dealing with the random varying sized plants along the way however. Some small ones would dangle off trees and take shots at them with various materials or elements. The larger ones always ate time and posed as the bigger of the threats, they seemed resilient almost to a disturbing level.
Whenever Uraraka tried to attack from afar utilizing her zero-gravity quirk, the plants would take the hits in stride, or send them right back. Izuku was able to make them stay down, though the sheer number of them, the many types, the unpredictability of them all, it was overwhelming and whittling the two U.A. students down. It was like a secret jungle had been growing in this forest.
"I think I see a house up ahead... it doesn't look like a worn-down cabin either." Ochako commented, her and Deku had come across a small lake area, it was beautiful, the water practically was crystalline with the reflection it gave, with what little sunlight was coming through the dense leaf roofing the forest offered.
"The reports said two others had been taken before Mei, so stay on the lookout for the others, if they all are here at least..." Izuku said, looking annoyed at the mere idea that the hostages might be split-up amongst different hideouts. He had to hope that it simply was not the case, most villain groups that were supposedly small time didn't have that kind of resourcefulness after all.
Then again, these kidnappers had taken 3 people from hospitals with virtually no trace left behind, and caused a similar accident to one that had happened prior to injure said people.
"You're worried they might use them for shields?" Uravity quirked, understanding that fear all too well. If those people remotely hid behind Hatsume, Midoriya would most likely lock up or stumble in some regards. All heroes were trained to deal with hostage situations, preferably through words if doable, sadly words rarely worked so usually aspiring heroes were prepared with more strategic thinking.
"If they do, I'll deal with it before it can get out of hand." Deku growled, beginning to resume their advanced towards their destination. The gravity quirk user never had heard Midoriya sound so, purely angry before. The greenette normally came off like he wanted to make sure the best outcome could be reached for everyone involved, hero or villain, Ochako knew things could change fast if emotions were involved however.
The gravity quirk user kept up; glad they had a chance to catch their second wind. She was worried about Bakugou, she knew he could handle himself, Uraraka just was worried about how little he would take care of himself to win said fight. Katsuki was always like that, explosive to the very end, it hadn't gotten him nearly killed, yet. And it was that very yet that made the brunette anxious nonetheless.
As they were walking however, Izuku and Ochako suddenly heard the sound of rustling in some of the brush around them. Deku noticed the ground beneath them moving slightly, Uraraka was surprised by being suddenly grabbed by her classmate, before swiftly jumping high into the air.
Uravity saw two more of the large variety of plant bulbs erupt from the ground, swinging around at the location they had been at. Ochako used her quirk on herself and Midoriya so they could stay suspended in the air.
"That was close... These ones are acting more precise than the rest for some reason." Izuku commented, finding it strange, he had no time to think however as Ochako shoved him aside midair sending him floating aside, as several rocks got shot at them in the air by one of the plants that had gotten its body embedded near gravel at some point.
"Release!" Uravity released the gravity negating effects on them, Deku kicked off a tree behind him and rocketed at one of the oversized plant bulbs, grabbing it by one of the vines and tearing it out of the ground and slamming it against a nearby tree hard enough to break their bulb apart. Ochako landing on top of the other one, boot first, crushing the bulb of it on the ground.
"You two aren't the nicest to nature, are you?" Jezel's voice caught their attention, the two 1-A students looked at her in confusion, wondering if she was a hostage that had escaped, or another enemy getting in their way.
They just had to see the all too familiar plant bulbs growing on her forearms to know the answer to that question.
"Please don't keep attacking, we aren't going to hold back anymore." Deku requested, recalling what Mei had told him about the plants that had caused the apartment building fire. He hated to be aggressive, but at this point, Midoriya was more than willing to risk his limbs to get through anything else in their way as fast as possible. The greenette had not let on how much he had been pushing it, yet he had been exceeding his current one for all personal % by a few points by now.
"My plants are a little weird like that, the closer I am the easier they are to control, but even I can't control so many... Sorry, I have to try and stop you. If it's any consolation, we don't like doing this." Jezel apologetically yawned, rubbing the sleep out of her eyes as she got ready.
In a streak of green lightning Izuku had already dashed to the plant quirk users' side, attempting an immediate sideways kick to her head in an effort to try and knock her out with hopefully no further resistance. Only for his attack to be blocked by Brenna, whom had caught the kick with his forearms, resulting in an instant nasty bruise and making it look like a small dent had been left in their limb. Midoriya instantly hopped back, starting to question how many kidnappers were involved at this point.
"More U.A. students? How did they find us out here? Lesk's quirk usually leaves no trace..." Brenna shook his arm sorely, tolerating the pain. He wasn't of much use in a fight, that was the nature of the quirk he inherited. He wouldn't step down just because of it being weak however.
"Please, surrender. We don't want to hurt you; it'll make your punishment a lot lighter too." Uraraka requested, she didn't want to fight them if she didn't have to. Their enemies were roughly their age it seemed too, maybe a year or two older at most. The U.A. students could tell what one's quirk was, Jezel's had been the one they were dealing with for the longest time after they got past Lesk. They had no idea what Brenna's was though, so far, he just seemed to have fast reaction times.
"Sorry, we aren't going to backdown from this. And we can't exactly allow you to leave either now that you got this close, if it's any consolation we don't enjoy doing this." Brenna retorted, and as if on command, Jezel smiled, several more of the large plant bulbs tore out from the ground, Izuku and Uraraka jumped aside to avoid them. If the plants were anything to go off of, the kidnappers had been preparing for anything, they had no clue how many of these plants had been scattered around in the years spent in these woods.
"I need to hold back; he doesn't have a healing quirk I think... He took the hit to his arm and shook it off easy. Maybe he has shock negation? If that's the case, I need to increase my power, not decrease it, but if I'm wrong though..." Midoriya tried to think of the possibilities his opponent had in terms of quirk capabilities. Passive ones were able to always catch many off guard, another downside of having a mission with no information.
Deku had been distracted by his thoughts and the plant attack momentarily, in that time Brenna had charged him and swung at his face, the greenette dodged it and kicked his attacker in the stomach in response, knocking them back a short distance.
"Sorry about this!" Izuku aimed his hand quickly at the leader of the kidnappers, his air force gauntlet gadget extended as he fired a quick finger flick, a small yet very strong burst of air being shot out. Brenna raised his arms in a cross shape and caught the blow, gritting his teeth when it felt like the same bruise got worsened by the air shot.
Deku took the chance to rush up and attempt to grapple his enemy, hoping to capture them relatively swiftly. Only for the leader of the kidnappers to snap back and withdraw his limbs quickly, Izuku stumbled from missing his swift grab at their arms. Brenna jabbed him in the face with his right fist, causing the green haired teenage to wince, but the attack didn't really hurt too bad. It caused a light bleed at worst.
"He's fast, but not strong... I still don't see signs of a quirk though; I better stay low power on one for all to be safe."
Ochako was dodging several of Jezel's plants, whenever the gravity quirk user would deal with one, another two would be thrown her way. The plants weren't the most intimidating or threatening before, but that had changed. Jezel's proximity had increased their activity, speed, behavior, and annoyingly of all, reaction time.
Uraraka could tell her enemy had been training their quirk, using quirks at all would gradually increase their power and maybe even their abilities overtime. It was a common bit of information in hero courses, people that were glorified civilians externally on the other hand, was a whole different story.
"Geh!" Uravity gasped when feeling a set of sharp teeth biting her left arm, seeing a plant had sprung up from the ground and was latched onto her extremity now. The plant had absorbed some sharpened gravel and had converted it into teeth more or less, to increase the damage its bite could do.
"Let... Go!" Ochako was about to attack the oversized plant bulb, she reeled her free arm back and balled it into a fist, unfortunately another plant popped up and got its teeth into her right forearm before she could attempt to break out of it.
"Sorry, but I need you to take a nap." Jezel apologized, beginning to rush at the 1-A student with a small plant bulb filling up the palm of their hand. It was another one that had been absorbing sleeping medicine, just like the few that were being used on the first kidnap victims in the basement.
Uraraka couldn't get either of her hands free, without her finger pads being able to touch anything she wouldn't be able to remove the gravity of her attacker, or anything around her for that matter.
Uravity jumped up into a backflip, using the plants that were gripping her limbs as leverage, kicking Jezel's hand and knocking the drug filled plant away. The second she landed, Ochako spun sideways and roundhouse slammed the back of her boot into the plant quirk user's the chest, knocking her backwards and causing her to stumble, tripping over a small hitch in the ground.
"Ow ow ow ow!" Ochako whimpered, doing that alone made the sharp teeth dig across her arms and definitely worsen the damage to them. She grit her teeth and began to struggle, after enough effort the brunette was able to rip the roots of the first plant out from the ground, immediately preceding to ripping the other off by force the bulb wide open and essentially tearing it in half.
"That really stings... I need to stay a lot more cautious." Uraraka ignored the sore and slightly bleeding limbs of hers, to the zero-gravity girl, she had dealt with far worse pain than this.
"Where did she go?" Ochako quirked, she had noticed the plant quirk user was gone now, like she had vanished into thin air. The brunette expected an attack from underground again, since that seemed to be the go-to strategy amongst the kidnapper group.
Uraraka heard the sound of a tree branch snapping, she looked up and saw Jezel lunging at her from above, with the plant bulbs all over her body grown in various sizes like she was mimicking a plant-based spider. The sheer animosity in the now wide-awake kidnappers' eyes stunned Uravity.
Ochako's hands caught Jezel's as she landed, beginning to struggle and grapple with them. The 1-A student had already used her gravity quirk on the blonde, instead of floating away Jezel was anchoring herself down with some of the plant bulbs on her back that were biting into the ground to keep her anchored there.
"Grhk!" Uraraka bit her lip, feeling one plant digging its grip on her left foreleg, while another bit into her right shoulder. Jezel's unlimited supply of bulbs, it was overwhelming. The brunette was racking her brain for ideas, she had been separated by Izuku, she didn't know what he was dealing with either and feared what might happen if she let the kidnappers have a remote chance to regroup.
"I wanted to make this quick to be nice, I don't like killing people, I'll do it if I have to teach a troublesome person a lesson though!" Jezel declared, two more bulbs extending from her shoulder blades and going over her shoulder, about to try and dig into Ochako's neck.
"AP GATLING!" Suddenly the sounds of a familiar roaring voice rung out, a hail of multiple explosives flew narrowly past Ochako. The gravity girl saw her opponent's plants be shredded on the spot; they had no chance to survive the sheer ferocity that the compressed explosions gave.
Jezel was knocked on her back in an instant when several of the ap shots hit her, thankfully these ap shots were a lot weaker than they could have been, able to tear the plants apart in ease without doing much more than some bad bruises to people they hit. In what felt like a few seconds, all of the plants that had initially been made in the area, or called upon to gather and converge there, were torn to ribbons.
"Jezel!" Brenna gasped in surprise; his attention being distracted when seeing his sister hurt. Izuku jumped at the chance, grabbed his enemy by one arm, kicked their legs out from under them and slammed them onto the ground, pinning the lead kidnapper there.
"You guys okay?" Bakugou's voice caught their ears, the other 1-A students saw their friend had returned, looking like he had been a little battered and bruised, yet dragging an unconscious and bound Lesk behind him, having tied the trapper with the vines off the many plant bulb traps they had to deal with along the way.
"I-I'm fine." Uraraka exhaled in relief, ignoring the many injured parts of her body, Deku looked like he had gotten some scrapes and bruises on him, Brenna had refused to go down, no matter what he did, it was like they had been immune to exhaustion.
Brenna was however, no longer able to resist after the surprise caught him off guard, he had a quirk similar to his dads, yet had been using it differently.
"Are you alright, Kacchan?" Midoriya attempted to inquire, seeing their classmate throwing Lesk against the ground before coming over to begin tying up Brenna, while Uraraka was tying up the sleeping Jezel.
"He buried me underground, 3 times. I'll live." Bakugou huffed a breath, Lesk's quirk had been annoying, and a rough one to get around, it wasn't hard to do thanks to Katsuki's new special attack thankfully.
"Go see if the kidnapped are here, we got these under control." Kacchan ordered his childhood frenemy, Izuku nodded and hurried off towards the house without any hesitation.
Deku busted in the door to the home of the woods, looking around quickly, yet seeing no signs of his girlfriend nor any of the other kidnapping victims.
"Mei!? Mei! Are you there?!" Izuku called out, beginning to make his way towards the southern part of the home, seeing it was just a hallway with a few doors in it. The one for all inheritor heard some odd noises coming from one door, he opened it and saw it was leading down into the basement.
"Mei?" Deku hesitantly called out, beginning to step down the stairs, trying to be cautious in case anymore kidnappers were hiding to try and get a surprise attack in.
"Iz...uku?" That familiar, yet weak voice made Izuku's heart stop nearly. He jumped down the last of the steps, what he saw though made him sick to his stomach. Mei was lying on her back, with a fair amount of blood polled around her arm at this point.
"Mei!" Deku ran to her side instantly, falling to his legs as he wrapped his arms around her and lifted her up, looking her over for where the injury was. All he saw was the terrifying machine on Hatsume's arm, it had torn through entirely now and the metallic tendrils were no longer moving, as if they had gotten stuck.
"D-Don't tear it out... Please, just, crush the main part..." Hatsume weakly requested from her boyfriend, Izuku didn't even remotely hesitate when doing as she said, grabbing the machine and crushing the main body of it with his bare hand, that was enough to fully shut it down. Mei would have broken it sooner, that was when she was worried about making the situation worse.
That worry had dissipated when the pain set in.
"It's okay, it's okay, I'm here now... I'm here..." Midoriya quietly comforted his girlfriend, feeling her still functional hand crushing his free one for comfort, she couldn't feel her other arm at all. The 1-H student couldn't decide what was worse, the head pain or the arm pain now. Mei closed her eyes, panting heavily. The top support course member could only get a few more words out, having been exhausted entirely by the ordeal she had been through recently.
"Izuku... Thank you..."