As Tel teleported out and left Izuku, Mina, and Venom alone with Rhino and the yellow guy, a silence arose, as the two sides just stared at each other.
Izuku and Mina were both incredibly tense, and on guard, both of them staring with complete scrutiny at the other duo, awaiting some attack or charge.
On the opposite end, maybe 7-9 meters away on the other side of the roof, Rhino and His buddy seemed far calmer, collected, and at ease.
It was Venom who broke the silence.
"So, who is this exactly?"
On instinct, Izuku almost went into a tangent laying out all he knew of Rhino and his history.
For once though, he bit the answer down. This wasn't the time to stand around like a moron and give a long-winded tangent.
Rhino apparently felt differently.
"Oh, of course, how rude of me! We haven't introduced ourselves yet. Allow me, to rectify this error."
He lifted his hand up nonchalantly like he was an enthusiastic teacher motioning as he explained some problem or something before his class.
"I'm The Rhino. And don't forget the "The" part of it. There are plenty of rhino themed guys in the world. But there's only one of me."
Well… That was true enough.
The Rhino grinned, then he struck a bodybuilder pose as he continued.
"My quirk is RHINO! Letting me do anything a rhino can do! Like tank sniper shots to the head! Or shatter a street beneath my blows! Or survive explosions! Or-" "They get the point." His companion interrupted his rather inaccurate, and inane comparisons.
"Right! And THIS is my good buddy shocker! He is a cripple! A genetic throwback to an earlier age, where humanity as a whole was weak and puny! A quirkless man with no abilities beyond that of the old human race!"
Izuku, for the first time in The Rhino's ramblings, was genuinely thrown off guard. The shock of learning this guy was quirkless, almost overshadowed the very personal sting of the comically ableist way Rhino described quirk less people.
If shocker took any offense to being described like this, he didn't show it. Instead, he kept his eyes on firmly on Izuku and Mina, obviously expecting an attack of some kind.
"Wait, he's quirkless?" Mina interrupted in a surprised tone. "Then… What's with the costume?"
"Ah, yes! Good question pink girl. Unlike the rest of his kind, he did not contend to simply wallow in powerless obscurity, or rage, rage against the establishment who put those like him down, and passively resents them. NO! He instead created his SHOCKER technology!"
The Two teenagers and the Alien stared at him.
"Truly, the most eloquent of naming schemes we have here. Let me guess. It shocks people with bolts of lightning."
"Nope, it produces explosions with compressed burst of Air."
Venom sputtered, before replying in an angry voice.
"Then why is he called Shocker?! He isn't shocking people at all! That name makes no goddamn sense!"
Shocker surprisingly agreed.
"Aye… Tha higher-ups decided on it." He shrugged his shoulders. "Personally ah, wanted to be Soundwave, but tha higher-ups told me to get bent when Ah suggested it."
"It is what it is."
His voice turned darker, as he raised one of his hands up, and pointed it towards Izuku and Mina.
"Now… Let's get this show on Tha road."
Izuku and Mina were both about to move when Rhino interjected.
"Wait, Shocker, we can't start yet, they haven't introduced themselves yet! We can't start before Introductions are over."
Izuku and Mina just stared at him incredulously, while Shocker groaned.
"Is this guy for real?" Venom asked in a tone like he couldn't believe the stupidity of this guy.
"Unfortunately." Morris replied from the roof floor. Izuku had honestly kinda forgotten he was there.
"Oh, hi Morris!" Rhino replied cheerfully, seemingly having just noticed him.
"You okay buddy?"
"I've got several broken ribs." He winced. "So it could have been better.
"Ah, can't believe you lot got beaten up by Middle schoolers." Shocker shook his head. "Christ that's-"
Mina made her move.
So quickly, that Izuku, even with his enhanced reflexes had trouble keeping up, Mina darted to Izuku's side, spun him around as she grabbed his hand, and pulled him along as she sprinted towards the roof edge.
"WEB!" She screamed at him as they ran.
Then, faster than Izuku would have believed, they were at the edge of the roof. Without even a hint of hesitation, she jumped off the edge, dragging Izuku along after her.
Panic set in inside Izuku's mind, as gravity took hold.
For a small eternity, the ground came up, unavoidably and unstoppable.
Then, by instinct, his hand shot upwards to the side and a black line sprung forth and attached itself to the top of one of the buildings on the other side.
Almost instantly, the momentum of their fall was veered sharply sideways, as they began going downwards in a pendulum arc like they were swinging on a vine. As Mina's hand gripped tightly around his own, in a grip like iron the entire way down.
Then without warning, as they began reached the lowest point of the arc, Izuku's arm, and the liquid encasing it, was hit by an explosion of pain!
Izuku and Venom both screamed out in agony as the line keeping them up suddenly burst into countless black pieces of liquid.
Thankfully, they slammed into the ground at a sideways angle, sending the duo rolling from the momentum, rather than just slamming into the ground.
Which was good, because suddenly, all around them the ground burst to pieces, as invisible explosions hit all around, sending pieces of rock flying.
Mina had also entered into a roll as they hit the ground, but unlike Izuku's it was a much more controlled affair, and at the end, she jumped right back unto her feet, in a flash of pink and black.
Izuku forced himself to his feet, pushing himself up, as bangs of pain echoed through his body with every single explosion all around him.
His hand didn't show any external signs of injury, other than the liquid that should have covered it having seemingly disintegrated, but to Izuku it felt like it had been literarily run over by a car.
Fucking hell it hurt.
"YOU OKAY MIDORI?!" Mina screamed over the sound of explosion all around.
Then she yelped in pain as a piece of Rocky shrapnel hit her in the head.
She didn't fall over, thank God! But the red that suddenly dyed her pink hair, was probably not a good thing.
-FUCK THIS SHIT!-
Izuku's arm, shot around, completely unprompted, as his entire body turned around, facing the rooftop they had just jumped off from.
-THERE!-
Izuku saw what he was aiming for. A figure in yellow on the rooftop.
He instinctually moved his hand to aim, and on an internal command, a line of black goo shot from the white piece on his hand, much MUCH thicker than the webline he had used to anchor them to the roof.
He couldn't hear it, but he both saw and felt his surprise as the man was hit by a black mass hitting him straight in the chest that sent him flying, and burst out at the point of impact to engulf him in a huge black mass.
For a second he just stood there, crouched, panting as the adrenaline still pumped through his body, the pain in his hand beginning to fade as the black liquid once more flowed forward to engulf it.
Then reality hit him again, as he remembered Mina was wounded, and he spun around.
"You okay!?"
"Yea-yeah." Mina answered though she winced as she said it, one hand over the spot where the blood came from.
"It's just a cut."
Oh, thank God! Izuku thought immediately. If it had been a hole…
He quickly got to his feet and walked over to her.
"Venom, can you help her?"
The Black mass around his head detached itself once more and formed a head.
"We can close the wound and stop the bleeding, Aye! Healing it is another story. We can only heal you."
He bit his lip.
"It'll have to do."
He reached forward his hand to Mina's wound, and though she flinched at his touch, she did lower the bloodstained hand and allow his black hand to touch the wound.
Suddenly, making both of them jump in startled surprise, a massive crash sounded, as something slammed into the road not too far from them.
Both their heads and attention snapped towards the origin of the sound.
Rising up from a small crater was Rhino still with a huge grin on his face.
"So, you kids want to just skip Introductions and instead jump straight into tangling with the American Elite eh? Okay, I'll oblige you."
As Izuku and Mina just stared for a second in shock, a piece of black liquid detached itself from Izuku's hand, and jumped over to Mina's head, closing around the wound and stopping the bleeding.
Then, Rhino lifted his hands, up and backwards in preparations of slamming them down forwards.
Izuku and Mina both realized what was about to happen, and both of them jumped sideways away from the center of the road.
With a massive crash of Sound, Rhino slammed his hands down into the road in a ground pound, looking like more like Stan Lee's Hulk than anything else, a comparison only reinforced by his only piece of clothing.
The road, BROKE in half like it had just been cleaved with a giant knife, smaller rocks flying everywhere, and pipes filled with steam bursting up from the ground.
Izuku landed on a wall, clinging to it, whereas Mina landed on the sidewalk.
Both the two teenagers gaped in shock an horror at the titanic display of strength.
-Huh. Yeah, that's not good. Not good at all.-
Rhino for his part laughed… Only to yelp as the ground collapsed under him, and he fell into whatever was below the streets here.
6 seconds later though, he burst straight up again and landed on the road, covered in dust and dirt, both moist and dry.
"Just like a dugtrio…"
Then he turned to face the two teenagers while wiping away dirt from his face. For about 10 seconds, they just stared at each other, both of the younger heroes tense as steel cables. Then, suddenly and with a speed that did not seem to fit his enormous frame, Rhino gripped a large piece of stone, roughly as large as a car, and hurled it at Izuku.
He jumped in a burst that would have made any jumping spider proud, the rock crashing into the spot where he had just been.
Izuku landed right by where Mina was, but he didn't turn to face her. Instead, two black lines shot up to where the rock was now embedded in the wall and fastened themselves to it.
With a scream, Izuku put all his weight into a massive pull, wrenching the stone out of the wall and towards Rhino, hitting him straight on, and with a mighty sound, it exploded into a cluster of shattered rocks and dust.
Izuku and Mina did not stop and wait until the dust cleared though, instead they began running in the opposite direction away from where Rhino was.
As they ran, Mina began shooting some Grey liquid out of her hands, covering the street behind them as they ran.
"What is that?" Izuku called out.
"Acid!" The pink girl exclaimed.
Another combined quirk? It seemed like Izuku was the only top student in class who wasn't one. Which made sense, combination quirks were generally the most powerful ones on average and-
-The yellow guy broke out of the web by the way. Just thought you'd like to know.-
Great.
"Shocker broke out of the web!" He exclaimed.
Mina swore. Then she swore even harder, as the sound of Pursuit came from behind.
Izuku glanced over his shoulder and only now realized two things.
The first was just how much Acid Mina had produced behind them. Maybe 10-20 cm layer on top of the street floor behind them.
The second was that Rhino was completely unfazed by it, as he ran through the liquid without any care in the world.
Mina immediately stopped producing acid, and instead just turned to run at full speed alongside Izuku.
She was fast, Faster than Izuku. Unfortunately, as Izuku could feel without looking backwards, Rhino was faster than both of them, as he began to pick up speed behind them at a truly astonishing rate.
At least in a straight charge.
As they reached the end of the road, the two of them quickly changed direction right. Rhino instead seemingly couldn't change direction on the fly and just crashed into the building.
Rhino seemingly hit a load-bearing pillar(Or a dozen, because the entire building, as massive as the one Izuku had fought Uraraka in, collapsed in an enormous, cacophony of sound, as the building caved in on itself on top of Rhino.
The whole thing took over 30 seconds or so.
Izuku and Mina, having gone a bit further, before stopping to look, took in the sight of the entire thing caving in on itself.
-Think he's dead?-
"No." Izuku answered.
If Rhino could have been killed by that, he wouldn't have been half as Infamous as he was.
As if in response to that, Rhino burst out of the rubble, seemingly none the worse for wear, other than the copious amounts of dust on him.
At his side, Mina created a ball of sickly green, slimy Acid, but once it was finished she seemingly hesitated in throwing it.
It wasn't before Rhino finally turned, having cleaned his face, that she made the choice to throw the ball.
More specifically, she threw it straight at one of his feet. Engulfing it completely in the green goo…. And Rhino simply stepped out of it none the worse for wear.
The stone beneath disintegrated, in smoke.
"Holy shit…"
"NOTHING goes through my skin Pink girl! Not fire, not acid, nothing. Well, except for electricity anyway. That goes straight through it no problem."
He paused his steps towards them, a horrified expression flashing over his face.
"You two don't have hidden electrical powers, do you? Cause that would be really, really bad. For me of course, not for you."
-Holy shit this guy is stupid.- Venom said inside Izuku's mind. Out loud he said:
"So absolutely nothing goes through that thick, Grey skin of yours? Nothing at all, except electricity?"
"Yeah, that's right! Absolutely nothing at all."
"What about your face then? It's not covered." Mina asked.
"Well duh, how would I be able to breathe if it was?" He said in a tone Like Mina had just asked him something incredibly stupid.
"Mina, can you make the ground slippery? Izuku asked in a tone that hopefully didn't carry far enough that Rhino would hear him."
Mina tensed but gave a quick nod.
Alright, showtime.
Far away, Izuku could feel Shocker reaching the exit of the building they had started this fight on, but he would have to run down an entire street to catch up to them. If he was well fit, that would take him maybe 6 minutes. They had to finish this BEFORE he got here.
Izuku sprang towards Rhino.
The Grey titan, proving himself way faster(If about as agile) as his appearance would suggest meet him with a blindingly fast punch.
It would have sent him flying into the next zone over if it had hit, but Izuku ducked under it, and with some footwork, he darted to the side and behind him, and with a jump, he got maybe 10 meters or away from Rhino.
As he had hoped, Rhino snapped around to meet him.
It was at that point, that Mina unleashed a whole bunch of Acid all around Rhino's feet, this one a much lighter shade of Grey than any Acid she had used so far today.
As Izuku had requested, this acid was apparently very, very slippery, judging by the way Rhino stumbled as he tried to continue pursuing Izuku.
That was what Izuku had been counting on.
One webline slammed into Rhino, and with enormous force, he was pulled off his feet and into the air, straight towards Izuku.
Apparently being taken completely by surprise, he didn't manage to make a countermove as he sailed into the air, straight into Izuku hook.
It was thrown with the hand who had been hurt so badly earlier, but feeling and strength had returned well enough, other than an underlying, constant pain.
The punch went straight into Rhino's face and Izuku put EVERYTHING into that punch. The full might of someone who could have lifted a locomotive over his head.
The blow created a Shockwave that broke the windows of the lowest floor on the nearby building and cracked the ones on the second floor.
It sent Rhino crashing sideways into a nearby building, and smashing through at least 2 different sets of walls.
And finally, it broke the first digit on all of Izuku's fingers on his right hand, along with the corresponding knucklebones, except for his thumb.
"GAAAAARRRGGHH!" Izuku screamed in pain, as he cradled his now broken and useless hand.
As he fell to his knees in shock and pain, Mina worriedly ran up to him and knelt down.
"You okay Midori?" Izuku groaned in pain. "Yeah… pretty stupid question."
She put her arm around him and helped him back to his feet.
"We still need to deal with Shocker though, before we can-"
"Man, that fucking hurt." A loud voice said in a cheerful tone.
Izuku and Mina both froze, and almost in unison, they turned their heads, to where Rhino was walking out of the hole he had made in the wall. Other than a very prominent black eye, he didn't seem to be any worse for wear.
"Not bad kid, not bad at all. It's months since someone actually managed to wound me. Congrats." He grinned.
-Huh. Well, fuck.-
I
Shocker was panting as he reached the end of the road. God damn Tel for not sticking around and helping them. This would have been so much easier if they could have just teleporter during battle, but no, that would have been against policy.
Damn the league and their stupid rules. They had the largest collection of teleporters in the world, and yet they still were treated like fine Chinese porcelain.
Keep them out of battle if at all possible.
So, he had been forced to run down an entire building worth of stairs, then an entire street worth of road. He was totally winded as he reached the end of the road.
And… He almost smacked into the Rhino as he rounded the corner.
"Shocker!" The Rhino proclaimed, as a large, gray hand shot out and prevented him from falling.
"We got problems, buddy! They got away!"
"What do ya mean they got away? How the hell did ya lose em?
"Well, the black kid shot his goo into my eyes, and blinded me for a second before i-"
"Nevermind, ah don't wanna know."
He stepped out into the street and sighed.
As he began to modify his gauntlets for the task, he glanced over at The Rhino, and noticed his black eye.
"Fucking hell, they were strong enough ta do that to you?"
"Yeah, that black marvel of Muscle really Pounded me through that wall."
"...Yeah. I'm sure he did. Anyhow…"
He finished his modification, and the left gauntlet suddenly began to hum with a sound like periodic mechanical whistling.
After a second, sounds all around were picked up. The sound of steam beneath, spiders and insects buzzing about in the buildings, and far more faintly and far away the sound of battle. In particularly a loud crash as two doors flew off their handle by the entrance.
Thousands of sounds, small and large, far, far too many for any human mind to be able to pick up and sort through them.
Luckily for Shocker, they didn't live during the turn of the Millenia, and a small app he had installed in these gauntlets did what his mind and senses could not.
The sound of two people breathing was picked up, and over his visor, directions showed up, pinpointing them around 264 meters away.
"Let's finish this trip and go home to sweet Haiti."