"You sure you can't climb?"
Izuku winced at the question, still cradling his broken hand.
"If he had more experience he could run up walls without using his hands, but we haven't really covered it yet, so no."
Mina nodded, having seemingly accepted the reasoning. Then she put forth her hand and melted the lock on the door to one of the buildings, the two young heroes hurrying in, and quickly, with as little extra sound as possible they began making their way up the stairs towards the roof.
It would be an obvious tell about where they had gone to regroup if the two saw the door, but frankly, their best shield right now was them not knowing where they had gone in the first place.
With any luck, the Villains would have to search all the buildings to look for them. That could take half an hour, just checking the doors.
And that was assuming they didn't just do less subtle means.
Izuku was painfully aware that if Rhino and Shocker decided to just start leveling the buildings in a methodical manner, there was nothing they could do to stop them.
It wasn't before they reached the top, that both of them finally stopped moving. Mina was breathing hard, while Izuku desperately tried coming up with a plan, ANY kind of plan.
After a short while, it was Mina who first put the big question forth.
"What… What do we do now?"
Izuku opened his mouth. Then closed it again. Then finally got managed to croak forth an answer.
"I don't know."
A silence arose again, this one awkward, with a hint underlying panic beneath it.
It was then that Venom formed a head from Izuku's shoulder.
"Well, at this point, a full retreat seems the most logical option."
His head turned towards the nearest part of the walls of the great dome above them.
"We can make it to the end of this arena, then use Mina's acid and quietly make our way out. Then, it's just a bit of running and jumping back towards the school."
It seemed such a logical suggestion, and a large part of Izuku wanted to agree with him.
"We can't." He said instead, gritting his teeth through the pain in his hand.
Both Mina and Venom turned to look at him.
"Why not? We do not have the weaponry to deal with Rhino, and given his face is almost as indestructible as his body, most likely Mina's Acid won't do much damage against it either. And even if it does, he'll be on guard for attacks against his face now." The symbiote hesitated briefly, before continuing. "Or at least that is what any warrior with any semblance of battle sense would do. Which, granted he might not have."
"If we run away… Then those two are just gonna move on to the next area, and join the battle there. And if we can't beat him, the rest of the class won't be able to either. Unless he's unfortunate enough to run into Uraraka-chan or Kaminari on the first move, he will Kill whoever it is he finds next."
The chances of him running into the gravitation girl or the living battery who seemed to be the only natural counters he had in this class were far, far too low for Izuku to EVER bet lives on it.
"We can't avoid them forever either. If we just run away and they never see us, they'll sooner or later decide we are not here anymore, and then move on."
It was an awful, awful situation. Mina also seems to agree with him, judging by how worried and stressed she currently looked.
"So, it's basically like we're Luffy at Enies Lobby, and they're Lucci."
Izuku blinked. Who?
"Yeah, pretty much." Venom affirmed. "We'll have to fight them, and soon, or they'll go on and murder the rest of the class."
Mina bit her lip, but then suddenly lightened up.
"Why don't we go get them then? Kaminari and Uraraka I mean! One of us could stay here, and act like a distraction, while the other one goes and find them and bring them back here!"
Mina sounded so hopeful and back to her usual happy self, that Izuku felt really, really bad about having to kill this plan immediately. There were way too many holes in it.
"We don't know where either of them are." He winced as he instinctually, and very stupidly, motioned with his hand towards the other zones.
"They could be anywhere right now. And the absolute worst-case scenario, we'd have to go through every single zone to find them, unless we have the incredible luck to run into them immediately. Sure Venom's ability to sense people would help with the search, but I'd still have to go physically to every single location to scout, given the maximum range of that sensing is…"
He looked questioningly over at the liquid head.
"70 Meters or so from our any piece of our self."
"...Right. Point is we DON'T have that kinda time. Neither of us is capable of stalling Rhino alone for what could take over an hour, not to mention that Shocker will be there for support."
He did not mention his own feelings. Of just how unwilling he was leaving anyone to potentially die, while he ran off to safety. It might have made perfect logical sense, but it was still a concept that made him feel incredibly uneasy.
Mina's briefly reawakened cheer deflated, as quickly as it came.
"So what do we do then?"
Izuku thought. He REALLY thought. Thought harder and with more effort than he had ever done in his life about this problem, and any way, any possible way they could bypass Rhino's skin.
There was one more weapon he hadn't used yet. But no, even if he had been willing to use it, he'd still have to get it into Rhino's veins.
OK, what did he know about Rhino's strengths and weaknesses?
The first thing that came to mind was the one he had admitted himself.
Electricity. Lightning. But no, that didn't help them much here. Although…
They were in the ruined building's section of the park, or more accurate, a section full of buildings that hadn't been toppled or submerged underground.
There were still lights on inside the buildings here, which would mean there had to be electricity of some kind.
The problem was first to locate it, then how to utilize it. Then whether or not the kind of energy that kept the lights on in this building would be enough to take out Rhino.
Luring rhino inside a building without toppling it would be a hard enough task, without also having to lure him to he electrical outlet, wherever that was.
There was also another weakness, one obvious one, that he had deduced himself, but utilizing it was another story.
His gaze turned to the distant fire zone, where the red glimmer of flames was visible in the distance.
If he could somehow get Rhino all the way over there, then mayhaps-
Izuku's thoughts were interrupted by a massive, and incredible loud explosive sound from somewhere directly beneath their feet, along with the entire building shaking to it's very foundations.
Then, the entire building began to collapse sideways.
Fear instantly gripped Izuku as both him and Mina shot back up to their feet, and began sprinting towards the edge.
This time though, they didn't manage to jump over it in time, as another massive explosion burst apart another huge chunk of the building beneath them, seemingly making the toppling building literarily crumble into pieces as it fell.
The ground literarily fell from under them. As the toppling roof broke to pieces.
Izuku's good hand Instinctually shot towards mina, and a web shot out, and linked the two of them, with a 3-meter long web.
Then, with a scream through gritted teeth, he pointed his broken hand towards the side of another, still standing building.
It was at this point that Izuku learned what happened when he shot a webline to swing from, but rather than maneuvering his hand to grab it, he instead let the black suit around the two shooters hold it.
Namely, that as he suddenly moved in that direction, he felt a sharp, and tight wrench sideways, localized in his hand.
Normally, it was something he could have dealt with with a bit of discomfort.
However, with said hand having 4 broken fingers, an unimaginable pain shot down from the broken digits, and he screamed in pain.
Pain which blinded him, and made him slam directly sideways into the wall he had attached himself to. Further down below, Mina also slammed into the wall, though unlike him she hit feet first, and didn't have the wind knocked out of her.
Suddenly, Venom disintegrated both the webline holding Mina up and the one who had been holding Izuku himself up.
Which was good, because the place his body had been just 3 seconds earlier, suddenly burst to pieces as another explosion hit the wall exactly where he had just been.
The explosion still sent a bang of pain throughout Izuku's body.
Izuku twisted around in the air and managed to land on his feet, barely missing Mina, who scrambled out of the way, having done the exact same.
They then leaped out of the way from a wall of Grey that suddenly charged towards where they had fallen.
Rhino smashed into the wall, and, judging from the sounds, just kept on trucking until he smashed out the other side.
That the Rhino made himself scarce from the battlefield for a brief moment was very fortunate for the two heroes. For they had enough problems avoiding Shocker's bursts of air, which he was very liberal with as everything burst around them, showering them in small rocks, like hail.
Then, Mina produced something Izuku hadn't seen her do before, as a wall of Grey goo suddenly formed in front of her, between her and Shocker.
The wall looked like melting ice cream and wasn't particularly stable. Even without any interference from Shocker, the thing would probably not have lasted too long.
As it was, an explosion hit right to the side of it, bursting it to pieces, showering the entire battlefield left of where it had stood with acid, and the moment it hit the ground the concrete immediately began to disintegrate into smoke.
Mayhaps Shocker thought the plan had been to hit him with acid and hadn't hit it straight on.
That decision had saved Mina from learning whether the shield would have protected her at all.
Before Shocker could fire off another burst, this time at an entirely unshielded Mina, however, a burst of black web hit his visor straight in, instantly engulfing it and stripping him of sight.
Instinctually, the quilt padded man began to claw at it, trying to remove it.
That was a mistake however, as Izuku leaped towards him, and without the man being able to see him, he had no trouble landing a punch to his ribs.
The fact that his enemy was a quirkless, made Izuku pull his punches, and the blow would have simply cracked his ribs or so, or at least that was Izuku's plan.
Unfortunately, his enemy was wearing a piece of clothing made to protect him from shrapnel, and the blow didn't do more than knock him backward and knock the wind out of him.
Izuku wanted to press in, but instead, Venom forced him to duck, as a swing from Rhino came as if from nowhere, and barely missed his head. The grey horned titan had apparently made it back through the building.
He jumped back to put some distance between himself and Rhino, as the larger man swung again for his head.
As Izuku landed and got into an awkward stance, half hunched over protecting his broken hand, 2 things happened in quick succession.
The first was that a ball of Grey liquid hit one of Shocker's gauntlets, instantly making it's holder scream in pain and quickly unhooking the entire device, as the metal melted from the acid.
The second was that almost immediately afterward, the acid that had just been spread out over the street finished melting their way through the upper floor, and had seemingly hit some pipes, for a huge plume of steam burst into the air, making all 4 of them flinch, and hastily jump away from it.
Mina and Izuku both did so independently, whole Rhino grabbed Shocker and jumped out of the way of the huge plume of hot water vapor.
Izuku landed on the wall and instantly yelled down at Mina. Where the vapor had seemingly washed away the piece of Venom that had stuck to her head, making her begin to bleed again. Hopefully, that had been everything it had done.
"Are you okay Mina?"
"Y-Yeah, I'm fine!" She yelled back in a tone that made it clear she was in sudden pain again.
Shit. Shit, shit, shit!
The hell did they do now?
His gaze looked from Mina to Shocker and Rhino, where the larger man was helping the smaller one remove the loose pieces of the now destroyed gauntlet. The black goo hadn't left the visor thank God.
The steam made it hard to see, but thankfully, the steam began to let up, the pressure seemingly having seemingly lessened.
He glanced towards the hole into the ground, where he now realized the network of pipes ran in what seemed to be a tunnel. This sections equivalent of an oversized sewer apparently.
The underground of the park was interconnected he realized. The pipes that went beneath here either went to the water slide, or to the fire section.
He froze.
Maybe… Maybe he could…
"MINA! CAN YOU DEAL WITH SHOCKER ALONE?"
The pink girl's head shot up looking at him, confusion marking her blood-covered face.
It seems as if it took a moment before his question sunk in, and she finally replied.
"Yeah, sure! I'll do it!"
She trusted him. Now he just had to hope that her trust wasn't misplaced.
He jumped from the wall, and landed on the wet ground, fastening himself straight to the floor with webbing.
Then, gritting his teeth, knowing just how much this would hurt, he shot out two webs straight at Rhino's back. Then, with some motion, he formed the two coils into. One at his end, and forcing himself to grab the rope of black with both hands, his shattered fingers screaming in pain unlike any he had ever felt since he wrenched his foot, he WRENCHED Rhino off his feet and into the air, SLAMMING him down straight into the now open hole.
He didn't stop there though. He couldn't. Not if he wanted to actually win here. So, instead, his poor, poor hand still screaming in pain, he sprang after him and jumped down into the hole.
He landed straight on Rhino's back, toppling the giant who had just tried to rise, right back into the ground again.
The acid had seemingly evaporated at this level, and Izuku didn't fail to understand why.
The moment he jumped down, the heat washed over him, like he had just jumped straight down into an oven.
-We really, REALLY hope you know what you're doing Izuku.- Venom said in his mind, in a tone that was a strange mix between fear and curiousness.
So did he.
The tunnel wasn't exactly the largest thing in the world, but it was large enough that Rhino barely was able to stand fully upright, with his horn barely not hitting the roof.
This tunnel was made so that people were able to comfortably move through it to maintain the pipes, for whatever they were used for.
He rather doubted they were this damned hot during maintenance though.
"Man, I fucking hate sewer levels," Rhino muttered as he got back up to his feet.
"It's… It isn't a sewer. This is for the rest of the park!" Izuku replied.
Rhino frowned, beads of sweat beginning to form around his brows.
"What, this stuff goes to the fire zone?" He furrowed his brows, as he suddenly began sniffing. "Yeah, now that you mention it, I didn't think this steam smelled like water. What do you guys use for this crap anyway?"
"No… No idea." Huh. Izuku hadn't really considered it, but he didn't actually smell much when he had this mask in. That was of course completely logical, but he hadn't considered it before.
"Anyway kid, you really wanna have our glorious final bout here?" He motioned towards the pipelined walls.
"It's not exactly a glorious place. Not to mention your spider jumping and running around won't work here kid. Here it'll just be good old fisticuffs.".
In response, Izuku fell into a stance, this time forcing his broken hand up, and not cradling it.
"I'm sure. This will be where we finish this."
Rhino stared at him for a moment of silence, making Izuku thank him in his mind the longer this dragged out, the better.
"Damn, you're actually serious?"
Then he burst into a wide grin, looking like a mountain had suddenly taken a face.
"Man, it's been a while since I met a guy with convictions in his own stuff. You know, the boss actually wants us to recruit promising young spitfires when we meet them. I could go on and give you the traditional Villainy offer of you joining us, but frankly…" His grin turned serious." If you were the kind who would turn on his own, you wouldn't be much of a hero now would you?"
"No. I wouldn't."
"Excellent!" He rolled his arms in a windup manner, stretching his muscles.
"By the way, I just realized, you never did tell me your name."
"My… Name?"
"Yeah, your name. Not your birth name, your real name, the name you chose yourself. The name you want history to remember you by. What is it?"
The tone of the question was friendly and jovial, it was an honest question, by a soul who truly wanted to know.
For Izuku though, the question came completely out of left field. Who was he? He was Izuku Midoriya. He had been a shy weakling obsessed with heroism, who had made a bargain with a being from beyond the stars for power.
There was a name from that period of his life. One an old friend had labeled him with, not out of affection, but to put him down.
Deku.
He hated that name.
He remembered his childhood where he had proposed many potential hero names.
For a split second, he almost blurted out one of them.
But he didn't. Mighty Man, Captain All Might, or All Might Junior were the product of a child, and he wasn't a child anymore.
And even if he was, he wasn't all Might's child.
That was Uraraka, not him.
The idea of calling himself Venom briefly fluttered through his mind, but he didn't say that either.
He wasn't Venom. No more than Venom was him.
He thought for a moment, before just admitting the truth.
"I don't have one."
Rhino's face went into a comical shock like Izuku had just admitted something completely out of left field, he would never have imagined.
"You don't have a name?!" Rhino proclaimed in a tone that begged for him to add "Egads!" at the end.
"You gotta make yourself a name kid! Being a hero and a villain is all about remaking yourself into something new, something better, and superior to what you were before! And that journey starts with your new name!"
That… wasn't too far off from his life after bonding actually.
"Your name is important kid! It's your legacy, your mark in history, it's what makes you you! If you die here, do you think anyone is going to remember that random kid from Yuei that died in his first week?"
"I'm not going to die here."
Rhino suddenly pointed a finger at him.
"See? THAT is exactly what I'm talking about. You got guts kid! You've seen what I can do, and you're still willing to go toe to toe with me, Mano a Mano! That's more than half the American Heroes I've met. And yet you still plan to come at me intending to win! Win or lose, it's a course of actions that anyone can be proud of!"
"But instead of tying that glory to a name, a symbol, something larger than yourself, you remain in the world of common people! Never rising above the rest! You gotta have a name kid! Something amazing! Something spectacular! Something you can be proud to attach every single action you ever make to!"
"Okay, but… I still don't have one right now."
Rhino glared at him. Then sighed.
"Alright then, nameless hero. I shall remember you. One or way or another, despite your lack of name. Now… Let's begin-"
The moment he proclaimed the last word, Izuku's good hand shot up, and a large and wide web shot out into the wall to his left, and with a pull of titanic strength, Izuku wrenched the pipes from the wall, filling the entire spot where Rhino stood with steam from whatever the stuff these pipes pumped through them.
Rhino coughed, but he didn't seem to have been slowed down all that much as he burst forward.
Izuku had expected a punch, but instead, the giant kicked with his massive Grey foot, straight where Izuku had been.
Izuku sidestepped, and he felt the air pressure as the kick came within a couple of centimeters of hitting him.
Izuku danced under Rhino's arm, and- and straight into the steam.
It was like being cooked alive in tar, as the black suit began to melt from the heat.
Izuku screamed as he whirled, desperately trying to remain on his feet, and facing Rhino, as Venom screamed just as loud inside of Izuku's head.
Then, something hit him. Something hard, and massive, and shaped like a fist hit his chest, harder than the bullet that had scarred his arm, and Izuku was sent flying.
How long it was, he didn't know. It felt like an eternity as he flew through the air, but mayhaps it was only as little as a few seconds.
Either way, his journey through their air, ended with a massive "CRASH!" as he hit a wall of pipes that burst asunder.
The only thing that saved him from being cooked alive again, was that he hit the wall with such force that he bounced off of it and hit the floor face first.
Stars swam before his face, as he struggled to breathe.
"UP! GET UP MAN!" Venom screamed in his head.
The stars began to dissipate, as he felt the heat right above him abate.
"SERIOUSLY IZUKU HE'S COMING, GET THE FUCK UP!"
A hand slammed down and began to forcibly push him up.
Izuku groggily looked upwards. His chest felt like someone had just hit it with a sledgehammer. It was hard to breathe.
He felt the vibrations before he saw him. Then the sounds began to hammer through the corridor.
The Rhino was running down the corridor, and stampeding straight towards him!
Izuku got his feet under him again, just in the nick of time. Using his enormously powerful legs, he jumped… And slammed straight into the ceiling, where he instinctually fastened himself to it.
Rhino, no more capable of stopping than when he had chased Izuku and Mina above, slammed straight into the wall… Which promptly broke to pieces, and Izuku could hear the burst of what must have been a dozen more pipes and the steam that followed.
He hang there for what seemed an eternity. Then, he dropped down, landing on his feet. He almost collapsed from the pain, that shot through his entire chest.
Then, still almost buckling, he turned to face the Rhino, as he came.
And he did come.
Harking, and coughing, and his face completely drenched in sweat to such a degree his eyes were shut as he walked. But he did come, slowly, and weakly.
Izuku raised his hand, then let forth a webline, hitting him straight in the chest. Then, with a pull that made him feel like all his ribs were broken, he made Rhino topple forward and slam to the ground, right in front of his feet.
A large and massive hand went up and closed around Izuku's leg. But it had no power. Nothing compared to his anyway.
"Wha… What's… going on? Why… Why am I so… weak…?"
It was only as Izuku began talking that he realized he dripped blood from his mouth.
"A mix between… Unnnghh… between what's in the pipes, and a lack of… AARRGHH… OF sweat… to cool the body down…"
He wrenched his leg free, and putting the webline over his shoulder as he turned, he began to walk down the corridor to where he had just come from, dragging Rhino behind him like a sack.
"I… I realized it… Unngh… when you said nothing goes through…. Your skin… If nothing does… then nothing comes out of it either…"
Izuku forced himself to talk. It made the painful, PAINFUL process of dragging Rhino with him more bearable like it steeled his will to do it.
"Your face…. It's the only… part of you that sweats… Unnmmmgh… it is fully responsible for… For cooling down your entire body… You're having a heatstroke right now… Along with whatever that flammable gas does… You might not burn… But your lungs are as human as the rest of us…
He had to get Rhino out. If he left him here, he died.
A part of him told him to just do it, but he did not listen or consider that, darker, alien part of him today.
This was who he was. Someone who didn't kill when he didn't have to.
"I… brought you down here… because I realized you'd sweat yourself into unconscious…. The longer we were down here… The more you moved… The more I sprayed you with steam… I Didn't think about it being gas…"
"Huh…" Rhino replied in a hazy tone like he was barely awake.
"You know… That… That eksplain hov te big man beas me… Wenne I came to the Caribian…"
Venom formed a head, and turned to look at him.
"You're so fucking stupid, you've lost this way before, and you didn't realize how, before someone explained HOW to YOU? HOLY SHIT, you really ARE retarded aren't you?"
But Rhino spoke no more.
Venom snorted.
"The idiot lost consciousness. He better fucking hope the battles are closing down, because if he has to wait for hours to get help for this shit..."
"He won't die," Izuku said through gritted teeth.
"If you say so."
Dear God, this tunnel was long. Had he really sent him flying all the way through this thing?
I
Dealing with Shocker was pretty damn easy really.
Blinded, and with gauntlet down and still in pain from it's destruction, it wasn't much he could to stop Mina from approaching him at lightning speed, destroy his second one, then put him into the ground, with both hands behind his back.
It had been easy, keeping him like this, without anything to bind him, was a different story. It was even more so, a problem when she was half terrified Rhino would burst up through the ground at any moment.
She was really starting to get worried, as the minutes ticked by. Until finally, maybe 10 minutes had passed.
The accompanying commentary didn't help.
"Yeh know kid, and don't take this Tha wrong way, but yeh really should get going. Rhino will crush tha boy eventually, and when he does-"
"Midori will win." She said harshly. He had to win. He had a plan after all. He would win. He wouldn't have so clearly split up the two of them if he didn't have a plan.
She had to keep telling herself that. He was a capable guy, probably the most capable in the class along with Uraraka.
He'd manage himself.
She kept telling herself that he would be fine.
It was still a shock when the limp body of Rhino was unceremoniously thrown up from the hole, and crashed into the ground, sprawled flat on his back.
One of the most feared in the USA.
Shortly afterwards, Izuku crawled up from the hole, rising to his feet like a shadow given life.
For a moment, Mina and Shocker(His visor having been ripped off and crushed by Mina) stared at him as he walked slowly over to Rhino, and began webbing him to the ground.
"Yeh beat Rhino…" Shocker said in a tone of Awe mixed with complete and utter shock.
It was as if at that moment Izuku actually realized they were there, and a spell was broken, as he stumbled clutching his ribs.
Mina didn't think, and in a burst of speed, she moved over to his side, helping him stand.
"You okay Midori?"
"He's cracked or broken all of his Ribs to varying degrees. Only our powers are keeping him upright. Also, we shouldn't let our enemies run around."
With that last line, Venom forced Izuku broken hand up, and a bunch of black webs encased Shocker to the ground.
With that motion, it seemed all energy had gone out of Izuku, and he really crumpled to the ground, only her arm keeping him from falling to the floor.
"Holy shit man, we need to get you to recovery girl!"
"Rhino… He… needs medical help."
She stared at him.
He had literally broken and cracked all his ribs, yet he still wanted to help the guys who had just tried to murder him.
"We'll do that too. For now, we need to get you-" At that moment, a massive crash from above sounded.
Her head turned upwards, and so did Venom's, though Izuku's face was still pointed downwards to the ground.
A massive, massive hole had just opened up in the dome of the park. And Mina, with her incredible eyesight, got a brief, brief glimpse of a figure flying through the sky. But then she blinked, and she didn't see it anymore.
"Hopefully, that was good for our side."