Disclaimer: I don't own Boku no Hero Academia
Chapter 98:
"Mon- President Mongoloid!"
Mongoloid was marching back through the main hall of his palace towards the front doors. He threw the robe he had been wearing off to the side, and beneath it he had on a costume of dark red with skulls designed in black around it. His arms stuck out of the sleeves of his costume, covered in sleeve-tattoos with dragons and symbols and Kanji letters hidden in the designs. The man loosened up the turban around his head and pulled it down below his mouth, and he glared towards the huge ornate doors of his palace where a man just slipped in through. He slid in through the crack between the doors, and his body reformed from the misty mass it had looked like when he called out the President's name.
"Sir, their helicopter was shot down, but the enemies. They're inside the city. They're, inciting rebellion among the citizens."
"Rebels?" Mongoloid growled. How did they organize like this so fast? The nine foot tall man slowed down and he frowned deeply while glancing at the ground. He lifted his head and said to one of his Seven Demons in front of him, "Slyfer, find out how many of them there are-"
"Sir you don't understand. The incitements are working," Slyfer said in a worried voice. Mongoloid glared towards his subordinate, but Slyfer just glanced at the door behind him nervously and then back forward at his leader, "We're getting in reports from around the east, northeast, southeast, they're all saying that the people are rounding up our forces-"
"Getting reports?" A voice asked from behind Mongoloid. The high-pitched voice made the man reporting to the president freeze and get chills down his spine. He looked behind the country's ruler and back towards the leader of the Seven Demons. Arma walked down a long grand staircase and flipped her black veil up from in front of her face. The woman called down in Japanese as they had all been speaking, "How is it that we are suddenly able to receive such reports?"
"The enemies, they're taking down WhyFight's towers. All our men at those stations are getting taken down!"
Arma stopped on the steps and she stared over towards the skinny villain with a surprised look on her face. She turned a bit to Mongoloid who glanced back towards her too. "How can rebels be doing this?" Arma questioned in a low, angry hiss. She had been ready to go stomp out rebellion, but the idea that WhyFight's towers were being targeted en-masse was alarming. "Get me WhyFight!" She yelled towards Slyfer.
"He's across the city! In the finance-" Slyfer stopped arguing and stared with huge eyes at the terrifying looks both of the others started giving him. He nodded his head and took a step back towards the doors behind him, "I mean. There are enemies all over the city. But I'll, get him here as soon as I-"
The right of the two doors behind Slyfer started pushing inwards. Slyfer turned his head and looked over his shoulder. His eyes started opening wide, as black wisps seeped through the widening crack in the door. The door stopped opening after a couple of feet, and the black wisps seeping in from the floor to about five feet up slowly faded away. The three villains in the grand hall stared silently towards the door with hesitant or confused looks. Slyfer started backing up towards Mongoloid who moved the opposite direction closer to the doors, while Arma just glared harsher towards the open door with her orange eyes that had vertical black slits in the centers.
Out in the city through the open doors they could hear the screams and roars of people gathering about getting louder. Mongoloid did not understand what Slyfer was so hesitant about when told to go across the city, but in the last few minutes from when he was last looking out from his balcony to the city's east side where he thought he saw the smoke from the enemy's destroyed helicopter, it sounded like full scale riots had started. "Who's there?" Mongoloid asked towards the door. He paused, then he asked again louder, this time in Arabic instead of Japanese, "Who is there?!"
He speaks Japanese? More than that, it was his go-to. Zach lifted up the hilt of a knife and he slammed it forward into the glass window he had brought himself up to with his grappling hook. He dropped at the same time and fired the retracted grappling hook over towards a different ledge on the outside of the palace's front walls. Zach smashed another knife through that window, then he tapped his chest with his right hand and he threw a black knife through the window while glass was shattering inwards. Look at the knife. Zach dropped down and sprinted forward towards the crack in the doors he had opened up already.
Mongoloid had his head lifted up and looking to the right as he saw something black looking like the same wisps he saw come through the door before. He clenched his fists and glared up towards it, only for those wisps to fade so he could see the knife inside. His head spun back down and to the left, as he saw darkness out the corners of his eyes. Mongoloid's eyes opened huge under the top of his turban, and his bottom lip lowered while he took a step back. Standing there crouched down on top of Slyfer's back was a figure covered in black tendrils of darkness from head to toe. He stepped off of Slyfer and then kicked him to the side hard enough that the unmoving man rolled across the floor and slammed into a pillar holding up the second floor high above.
The helmet's visor keeps any red from showing. As I look now, may be the most terrifying. More than with bones, or flaring red eyes, just a single mass of pure darkness could be the worst of all. Zach rose up his head a bit and breathed out heavier, and a thicker steam of darkness left his helmet to rise around his head. "Mongoloid, you are a villain," Zach started in his native language and made the figure in front of him open his eyes wider at the sound of Japanese in the middle of Saudi Arabia. The dark, scratchy voice coming out of the wispy figure in front of him was menacing, but Mongoloid's eyes shifted up and down the figure who was five and a half feet tall, not even half Mongoloid's width at the shoulders.
"Who are you?" Mongoloid asked. Touching him is bad. What happened to Slyfer? What the fuck is this? "Why is it you know Japanese?"
"My exact question," Zach replied. "Aren't you supposed to be the rebel leader? The one who took over because of the successful protests of your people? You don't look very Arab," Zach looked closer under the man's turban and examined his face in a reddish-black-tinted vision. Where do I recognize him from!? Zach thought while staring at the face that was not all that covered by the turban anymore. Oh my God, Zach realized, right as the man in front of him started smirking.
Mongoloid had been unnerved, confused by what he was seeing. The fact that this dark being did not know everything though, even if he was being sarcastic with his questions like he did know it was not true, it meant that it was not the worst case scenarios he was imagining in his head. Mongoloid bent his knees and then leapt up in the air and far backwards through the palace hall to the bottom of the steps just below Arma. "I knew the people of this country could not incite a rebellion on their own. Not with the barriers in place. No foreign country would have dared do this either. Who are you? You trying to take this country for yourself?!"
"It's a good move," the woman walking up next to Mongoloid started. She grinned over at the dark form while her voice that came out as a hiss started echoing around the hall. Zach felt his body inside the dark aura shiver but he tried keeping his aura steady while facing his enemies. "Taking over after us, inciting the people to think you're on their side. You'd have even more control. A genuine power over them, one that would have taken us months to create hereeee."
An attack. What's her Quirk- Zach yanked his head to the side while his red eyes darted down to his left inside his helmet. A slash ripped through the black aura around his neck, and blood splashed out behind him. An explosion of darkness erupted under Zach's feet and he darted over towards Slyfer's body and right behind the thick pillar the man had slammed into. Zach's left hand shot up into his aura and he grabbed at his neck, How deep? It hurts. But, I think I'm good. Focus Death- no! That doesn't work. That's how I died. I need a better measure. Zach lowered his left hand that had blood visible on his glove through the dark aura. He formed a Death Grenade on his palm right as he heard the woman's hissing voice over near the stairs.
"You can try to HIDE!" Rocks blasted out from the sides of the pillar, and then Zach leapt out from behind it with his left arm swinging forward. His eyes opened huge behind his visor, at the sight of Mongoloid more than halfway back across the hall almost at him.
"This is MY country!" Mongoloid roared, and he leapt up and right over the Death Grenade Zach threw at him. Zach clenched his fist, Mongoloid's eyes darted down, Arma leapt away farther back in the room. Zach dove to his left as Mongoloid kicked his legs down and blasted away the black wind rising for him. Arma ran up the stairs to avoid some wisps coming for her, but she grinned while looking back and seeing they had faded before reaching her anyway.
Mongoloid is strong. How strong? Strong enough to push away ranged Death. His reflexes were fast too. Zach came out of a roll and pushed both hands and feet down below him to bounce himself back and away from where Mongoloid was coming down with his right hand opened up and curled forward like a claw. His huge hand had no sharp nails sticking out or anything, but Zach was wary of the stance the man had while dropping at him. Mongoloid swung his arm up at where Zach started dodging, and the force from the swing of his arm was so strong it lifted him off the ground and threw him back into the wall.
Zach slammed into the wall and he forced Death behind him just a second too late. The force was powerful, he coughed and black steam blew away from his head. Mongoloid looked down to his left where Zach had rolled onto his hands and knees before jumping away as Mongoloid was coming down at that spot. Mongoloid stared at some blood that had dripped on the floor there and some that was in the shape of a handprint too. He grinned and lifted his head towards the black form that dropped from the wall and then snapped its head up while back on its hands and knees.
Zach rose his right hand. He tapped himself on the head, and he made his aura vanish in an instant. Need a second, he thought, and he started panting loudly while pushing himself up a bit. "I recognize you," Zach said in Japanese, his voice losing its deep and scary pitch. He stood up in his tight black costume that had a thicker vest over his torso. Without his black aura Mongoloid could see all the weapons strapped to him that kept the man from charging at the boy who had seemingly made himself defenseless. The figure before him had a voice that did not sound very old, he was shorter than the average man, yet he was wearing high-grade military hardware and looked like some kind of super soldier. "You broke out of Tartaros, didn't you?"
Mongoloid stared at the figure before him for a few seconds. He looked into that dark visor, then he stared behind the boy at the doors and the noises that were getting a lot louder outside them. He reached up his right hand and grabbed the turban on his head, "Well fuck it." Mongoloid ripped it off and tossed it to the side, a smirk spreading across his face. He had an X-shaped scar on top of his bald scalp and there were tattoos around it just like the teeth-like tats under his bottom lip going along the bottom of his chin and around his jaw-line. "You got me. I'm actually glad someone finally recognized-"
If I had killed Kurogiri the first chance I had. The first time he sent me through a portal without the box. None of this. This entire country- all the heroes on spikes outside! Zach snapped his left hand up at his side and dug it into one of the pouches over his thigh. He pulled out a needle full of purple liquid and brought it fast up to his neck where blood was still coming out of the slash in his costume. He was bringing his right hand up to his chest at the same time. He had not yet hit himself in the chest though, Mongoloid was still running at him but started skidding as he decided against attacking when that black aura was about to reappear. Zach did not yet have his red eyes, yet instead of them darting to Mongoloid whose feet were skidding to a stop anyway, they darted over Mongoloid's left shoulder.
Zach tried moving his left hand faster, though he yanked his neck away at the same time and then just started releasing the vial. "EEEEIIIIEEE!" Arma screeched so hard that a visible piercing split in the air cut from her mouth right over Mongoloid's shoulder and through the vial Zach had pulled his hand away from. Zach's eyes darted towards the vial shattering and then back to Arma, then to the glass and the purple liquid splashing away, then to Mongoloid whose eyes widened before his mouth started twisting up and his feet pulling the other way stopped again. How did I? Outside of Nightmare… No time to- except, there is time. I'm thinking faster. Like in Nightmare. No I'm not! Zach started panicking as everything fell faster on his left, as the red glow in his eyes that he could not see himself faded completely and his eyes were hazel again. He finished slamming his right hand into his chest right as Mongoloid jumped forward again.
Mongoloid thought that Arma's sudden attack stopping the enemy from injecting would cause a longer pause in his opponent. He swung both arms down fast before reaching the kid fighting him, while Zach swung his right arm out from his chest and his left forward above the falling glass and unused Trigger. Black wind pushed at Mongoloid from close, but the force from the swings of Mongoloid's huge arms slammed it right back and into Zach who forced a lot more Death behind him this time before slamming into the wall. Zach pushed out Death from the front of his body too, creating a wall of it in front of him by pushing as much as he could. Running low. Should have fought more without Nightmare before getting here.
Zach darted away behind the dark veil. Mongoloid slammed a fist towards the wall of Death, punched a hole straight through it and pushed the rest of the darkness away. He stared in confusion on the other side, then snapped his head back and forth but did not see his opponent anywhere. Where'd he go?
Zach held his breath and slipped into the shadows of the room. He was panting, and he reached his left hand up and rubbed his neck again. Need to stop the bleeding. Can't give these two time to organize troop movements. Can't let them go out and face the people we've gotten to rise against them. That's just for them to be a part of it. They shouldn't have to fight. I can do this! He started lifting his right hand to his head.
"Did he leave?" Mongoloid snapped back towards Arma, though he kept his gaze shifting around the hall as he felt like that figure did not slip out the cracked-open doors even though the darkness had blocked them from his sight for a few seconds.
"You were going to use Trigger right there, weren't you?" Arma called out, answering Mongoloid's question at the same time as she was interrogating their enemy. "That shows me you don't think you're winning. It's too bad about your vial though. Now what are you going to do?" She yelled it towards one side of the room in particular, and Zach shifted in the shadows behind a pillar before stepping out without the dark aura around his body anymore.
Zach stood there in his costume next to a pillar, keeping both Arma and Mongoloid in his vision. Mongoloid started marching towards him and then jogging, not going to let him activate his dark mode again. Arma pursed her lips in an o-shape and started blowing air through them, and then she froze. She froze, as the dark-clothed figure opened his bloody left hand and dropped a needle. "Who said I only had one vial on me?" He asked. "Now!" He shouted.
"I really don't like to hit a lady!"
Mongoloid snapped his head from the boy he stopped charging at over to the stairs where a figure just shot in out of nowhere and slammed a fist into Arma's right cheek. The dark figure with a purple cape and purple highlights on his costume glanced to his left after the woman he hit went flying across the stairs and off the side into a hallway breaking off of the first floor. In a quieter voice the villains running the country did not hear, Gentle said, "If you lose your mind here-"
"I won't," Zach replied. What does Trigger do to me when I'm not in Nightmare? Would touching any part of my body kill Mongoloid right now? If I go Nightmare, can I dilute Death enough not to kill- That's a stupid question. I could control it enough not to kill Kurogiri for longer than I ever could without it. Trigger, just makes me stronger. I don't feel out of control right now. I can think clearly. Because, I know it's my fault. Stay angry at myself. Kurogiri, letting him live for so long, killed so many people. Mongoloid taking over this country is something I created. Something I have to fix. I know that's not really true. I know it's not on me- it's on him! KILL! FUCK! "I swear," Zach growled in a deeper voice, while feeling the white bandage pressed to his neck by his skin-tight costume starting to soak through. "I won't lose here. Not my mind. Not this fight. Nothing."
Zach pulled a couple of knives off of his belt and started running at Mongoloid. He threw the knife in his right hand, flicking it forward and continuing to bring his right hand back towards himself while lifting his left up like he was about to slash it. His right hand hit himself in the chest at the same time that Mongoloid punched his left fist through the first knife Zach threw. Those knives are titanium. Over! Zach's body turned into a black mass that shot up in the air over the shards of steel and force of the wind that came off of Mongoloid's punch. As Zach rose though, his eyes opened wide on the outside of his huge black aura, eyes that started glowing red while Mongoloid lifted up his hand and stabbed himself in the arm with a needle that looked similar to Zach's but with a darker pink liquid inside instead of purple.
Zach forced Death out behind him to fly faster at Mongoloid. Mongoloid had seen Slyfer go down barely being touched by this dark figure outside of using Trigger. He was not taking any chances. The self-declared President of Saudi Arabia snapped his head up while lifting both arms over his head. Zach swung his right hand forward and then kicked up his left leg that extended out towards Mongoloid. Mongoloid slammed both fists down into the ground below his feet. The ground of the hall dipped down into a huge crater with wind blasting away from him, breaking apart Zach's extending leg and slamming his Triggered body backwards with Zach yelling out in pain as his mostly un-formed body pulled apart.
Create a core! He screamed in his head as he felt his consciousness slipping. He imagined how he had formed such a thick center inside the demonic creature he had taunted Kaminari with, right before flying out of it inside that core to capture Kurogiri. It focused his thoughts and made his vision that was getting blurry get clear again. It was hard to see with so much smoke and dust flying everywhere, but the black form spinning around in midair threw its arms out in front of it anyway and poured Death towards the center where the dust was thickest. Zach's body got solid while he forced out a lot of Death below his legs to keep him up, and just as much out of his arms down into the center. Slow down. Don't want to suddenly feel a pulse of power. I can't kill- In the corners of Zach's eyes he saw something moving in the smoke at the same time he heard loud cracks breaking behind him.
Zach turned his head, his red eyes glowing through his aura and growing wider at the sight of one of the massive pillars holding up the ceiling being pulled backwards like a baseball bat. The pillar swung forward, and Zach's body spiraled up in the air in a coil only for the coil to be split by the pillar-bat. Zach let out a roar, "RRAAAA!" He turned around in midair and focused on the Death down below where he was split, pulling it up towards his body and watching as it merged with the rest. I control Death. All of it. As long as there's a core, I can scatter! The long thick spiral of Zach's body blew apart in every direction and he just focused more on keeping himself high in the air with thinner trails coming straight out the legs he had created. All the rest of the Death from what his body had just been, blew away in a dozen different thick plumes of black smoke whipping around the room.
Mongoloid tossed the pillar and he slammed it through another one, and cracks broke apart on the ceiling. Some villains who just reached the palace to come help out slowly backed away from the front doors they opened up as they looked inside. Through the settling dust and ash, a dozen black pillars of death swirled around the room and shot after their leader who started sprinting up a wall with his feet digging in and making cracks branch off every footprint. Mongoloid dropped his hands into the wall when he got higher and he ripped backwards as he saw the dark form point arms at him and start firing Death straight form his body. Mongoloid threw chunks of wall in the way of Zach's closest attacks to him, smashing through a couple of them. Then as Zach curved other pillars around and tried slamming them into where Mongoloid should have been, he realized that the enemy was no longer there.
Zach shot towards the hole in the wall with the pillars of Death from around the room flying together behind him and merging back into his body. Solid form. Solid form. Get the weapons- Zach made it through the hole in the wall, and then he split his body in the middle again and dodged a door flying straight towards him down a long hallway. Mongoloid glared down towards Zach, then he slammed both fists out to the sides. Zach's eyes opened wide as he realized there were already cracks going down both walls on his sides all the way towards Mongoloid. His feet turned to gas and his body started racing forward, and the ceiling collapsed down on top of him. Swerve between the rubble! FASTER!
Mongoloid leapt up in the air, smashed through the ceiling into the floor above with a huge grin on his face. He charged forward after hitting the next floor, and Zach could hear thunderous footsteps above him about to head the other way over his head. He's going- no! He's speeding the collapse?! He's insane, but he's a great fighter. I'll give him that. His instincts. His reflexes. His strength. That's not natural strength. It's more than Inhuman's, but Inhuman claimed to reach the peak of human potential without a Quirk. That means, his Quirk is his strength. I can escape this! I can beat him! ESCAPE! WIN! Zach forced his body forward as fast as he could, slipping through cracks of falling ceiling and letting out a yell as he felt some of his gaseous or conceptual body crushing and getting left behind him.
Outside of the palace, Akhmed stood on an outer wall of the palace looking down into the courtyard at a group of Mongoloid's soldiers who were trying to figure out what to do. They look Arab. Does that mean they aren't with him? Zach reported Mongoloid's from Japan. Mark said the villains of this country were recruited though. Could also be actual soldiers. In Hatto though? Although closest to Mongoloid so where he should have the most power, it's likely the opposite with his real influence. The people here know most, so if they're with Mongoloid… I should still give them a chance though.
Some loud shouting behind Akhmed got him to turn and take a step towards the other side of the palace's outer walls. Or maybe, I don't need to do a thing, he thought at the sight of the crowd amassed and heading for the palace. Might've done a bit too well, Darling. Akhmed stared at the girl who was yelling at the American reporter next to her who she freed from jail and who spoke English, Japanese, and Arabic. The man who was going to be used as a political prisoner later on in Mongoloid's plans yelled out in Arabic, and more of the others around the front of the crowd shouted farther back too, yelling encouragement for the people and inciting a rebellion.
CRASH! Akhmed saw the huge crowd heading down a main street towards the palace from the south slow down. They stared behind him and towards the palace, and he spun around only to stare with wide eyes behind his visor too at the explosion of darkness that blew out one of the walls of the magnificent palace. A few seconds later, something shook the entire building but shattered all the windows on the right side of the third floor. Cracks formed on top of one of the domed roofs on the top right side of the building, and then a hole blew through the wall in the middle of the second floor.
While most of the civilians stopped and stared towards the palace confusedly or in fear after seeing that dark explosion, the girl leading them and screaming at them all to stop being such cowards opened her mouth and let out the loudest scream, "That is our leader! Fighting for you because none of you will!" The American man in his mid-fifties standing next to the girl spun to her in surprise, then he shouted the same thing loudly in Arabic for the confused people behind him to hear. "He's fighting Mongoloid on his own!" Darling started running forward, her arms transforming at her sides into assault rifles she rose up in front of her. Her arms broke right through the dark sleeves of her costume while transforming, and her voice roared out through the visor of her helmet right before a chorus of louder roars echoed behind her from the crowd charging at the closing gates of the palace.
Inside the palace in a giant kitchen on the first floor, one of the walls was covered in flames. The stoves and ovens were smashed apart and gas pipes sticking into them were broken with flames pouring out into the air. A woman on one side of the room with a nasty burn on the right side of her face threw her flaming robe to the side in a flustered way and then snapped her head back and snarled towards the man she was facing. "HOW?!" She yelled at him, while her enemy stood there without a scratch on him. His black uniform actually looked pristine to a point it was impossible to tell he had just crossed a desert, half a country, fought a couple of fighter jets- and won, pulled a bunch of people out of a crashing helicopter, and broke into a nation's top executive's palace to attack the president's wife.
Danjuro Tobita was panting inside his helmet, though he breathed in through his nose and out his mouth to try and keep it from being audible. "HOW?!" Arma shouted at the man in all black, and her voice pierced the air with the yell that became visible as it shot towards the unmoving man. He had already acted though, while Arma was still staggering to the spot she was in now and trying to rip off her enflamed robe. The attack she shouted at the man bounced back, and Gentle's eyes opened wide inside his helmet as the woman's left arm ripped off at the shoulder. Blood splashed out of the wound while she turned her head in utter shock and horror.
"AAAHHEEEE!" She stumbled to the side and then kept screaming louder while swinging her head around. Arma tried screaming her Quirk towards Gentle who was getting blurrier in her shaking snake-like eyes while her face got paler and blood spouted out of her shoulder everywhere. Cuts slashed through the roof and walls, her voice split flames and cut the pipe they were coming out of to fill the room with a lot more all of a sudden.
"You fool," Gentle said, while the screams aimed directly at him bounced off the wall he had created in the air. He lifted his left hand closer to the flames and made a wall there, blocking the flames that bounced away and then slamming his own fist into that Elasticity wall. Gentle bounced himself over towards a hole in the wall on the opposite side of the billowing flames, and he made another wall as he rose into a hallway, bouncing himself back the other direction right as BOOOOOOM! The kitchen behind him exploded, flames erupted out of it and into the hall behind Gentle, while the man in all black shot away and then flew himself towards a doorway he smashed down at full speed.
Gentle bounced himself out to the right after making it through the door, and he still had to dive after landing as a huge jet of flames flew into the room behind him. "Oh shit! You good Gentle? What the fuck was that-"
"Would you, shut up?" Gentle said in a low, annoyed voice. He pressed his hands down on the floor below him and dragged himself up to his knees too. He kept panting, and he shook his head around before lifting it and turning to the left where he stared into a hallway full of flames. The doorway he had smashed through was engulfed too, as was part of the carpet of this room and more of it every second. Gentle started up to his feet, This is ridiculous. Ludicrous! Gentle staggered over to the wall on his left and he pressed a hand on it while bringing his other to his helmet. It's so stuffy in here. I should take- "Ahhh," Gentle sighed and he lowered his right hand from his helmet. It is not that hot. Gentle looked towards the flames. Or perhaps, it is not just an excuse to take it off.
"Hey, just tryna be a nice guy here, asshole," Rebel said to the man who groaned at the voice in his head.
If only I could mute him.
"What happened with that Arma bitch? That explosion sounded nasty-"
"She is dead," Gentle said.
Rebel got cut off by Gentle who had no lag between when he spoke and when Rebel heard it. The towers around Hatto were being taken down, and messages were traveling better without WhyFight's control over the signals. Rebel paused for a second, then he said while leaning back in his chair, "Nice. Bitch was a savage from what Anon 5 got out before she-"
"She did it, to herself," Gentle muttered.
Mica frowned. He stopped leaning back on his chair behind his computer, and he leaned forward with the right corner of his lip dipped far down. The chubby, dark-skinned man sitting in a dark room with three screens in front of him stared at the main one he had his most important windows up on. "Your forces have to keep moving across the damn country, but y'all have more prisoners already than you have troops to fucking watch them!" Rebel glared at the screen and just heard panting from the man he was only locked into communications with at the moment. "Why the hell is Zach such a pussy about killing the bad guys?" Rebel asked.
"I did not kill Arma," Gentle said in a low voice. It sounded to him like Rebel was asking the question because he thought Gentle might agree with him after what he just did. Her own attack just bounced off my Gently Rebound. Then the fool attacked too wildly. What a mess. "And we are not here to kill anyone. I, should have," Gentle paused and he frowned towards the flaming hallway, then he turned and started towards a window covered in cracks. Those cracks extended in size as the whole building shook around him from something that was not an after-explosion back in the kitchen. "Found a way to capture her," Gentle finished. He said it in Japanese and then smashed the window.
It sounded like he was done talking to Rebel as he switched back to his native language and was getting moving again, but Rebel had his translator and shook his head as he saw what Gentle just said. "You're being too soft."
"And you still have not learned," Gentle replied. He leapt out of the window and then swung an arm below himself to bounce to a balcony on an upper floor. His eyes darted from inside his helmet out to the city, and he saw smoke rising from a couple of different points. Gentle landed on the railing of the balcony and stared out past the western edge of the city, and he watched as a huge radio tower started toppling though he lost sight of it behind some tall buildings between the palace and it. "Not since that day in Hawaii. You are still naive."
"Nah, you're just being a puss' and making excuses," Rebel replied.
"Do you really think it is that easy?" Gentle questioned. "To kill a person?"
"How do you know I haven't killed no one before?" Rebel asked, sounding smug and smirking as he did. "All you know's my name bro, so don't-"
"Do you really think," Gentle cut in, "that you have the experience to question his stance on killing?" This time Rebel shut up and he started frowning at his screen more but leaned back a bit with a thoughtful look on his face. "To call him a 'pussy' with the number of people he has killed? Instead of criticizing his methods. Our methods. Why don't you do your job, and go talk to someone who wants your help?" Gentle turned and headed back into the palace with a small grin on his face. He took a few steps inside, then watched as the room in front of the balcony he stepped into broke apart. Each of the walls cracked, the ceiling blew apart, and two figures came smashing down through it entangled and swinging at each other.
Gentle crossed his arms and leapt back at the same time. He skid back on the soles of his feet and then waved his arms in front of his face to push away the dust and debris still pushing at him. Eeerk- creeaak! Gentle saw a shadow lift up in the rubble. It was dark, but nowhere near as black as Zach would be. The figure stood nine feet tall and let out a low growl, "Grrrr…" The growl faded. Then the shadow fell forward, and with a thud the room became silent for a few seconds.
Dust settled, and Gentle carefully stepped into the room while keeping his eyes peeled on the cracking ceiling around the hole. His eyes shifted to the walls and then to the floor beneath him that creaked a lot with his next step. Gentle stopped as the creaking got louder from in front of him though he was no moving that much. He stared towards some rubble from the ceiling that shifted to the sides so a black arm could reach up from the pile. More of the rubble shifted around, and a dark figure climbed out from beneath it and pushed himself up on the top of the pile of debris near the center of the room. "Fuck," the dark figure down on his hands and knees muttered, feeling a solid body in his dark mass and his heart pounding very hard inside it.
"You alright?"
Zach snapped his head up so fast and brought his right arm up with his fingers curled out in front of him. The man he rose his hand at swept a hand in front of his body and made the air Elastic. "Sorry," Zach said after seeing the man protect himself from a coming attack. He lowered his right arm and Gentle kept frowning in his helmet but lowered his arms too. He looked over to the form that was more visible now that the air of the room had stopped being so dusty.
"I take it he was no problem for you," Gentle remarked.
How did you get that idea? Zach thought, as he pushed his hands down below him but started coughing up black smoke. He lifted his left hand while sitting up on his knees, and he grabbed at his neck through his dark aura as he felt his body fully reformed inside the aura, along with the injury he received earlier. "Not at all," Zach said with a dark look over towards Mongoloid. His red eyes were no longer visible inside his aura, making him just a pitch black form that started rising up in the middle of the room. "Ahh, haa, ahh- ack," Zach panted a few times heavier after struggling up to his feet. "Fuck," he gasped out again. Using Trigger while already low on Nightmare means it doesn't last as long. Good to know. Learning experience. Learning, "Fuuucckk," Zach's body hunched over and he grabbed at his chest that he felt pounding so much harder all of a sudden to a point it was causing him pain.
"I told you not to be so quick to use drugs-" Gentle began.
"I told you so? Really?" Zach gasped out, lifting his head a bit and looking at Gentle through his visor as grabbing at his chest with his right hand deactivated his Nightmare aura. "We have, shit to do." Zach lowered his hand from his chest, and he rubbed at the left side of his neck where he felt the wet gauze he stuffed into his costume against the wound still there. Doesn't feel like it's still bleeding. Dizzy from the Trigger, from being low on strength, exhausted, hot as hell, but blood loss could be taking effect. Yet if I can still function with all those other things, then the blood loss isn't too bad. It didn't feel deep. My ribs though. It hurts just standing. This sucks. I need a healer. Soon.
"Hey! Everybody hear me?" La Brava's voice filled Zach and Gentle's ears. "Yes! Alright I got it." The young woman back at the first tower near the eastern border where their force entered from leaned back from her laptop she plugged into the main computer. "All the other towers are shut down-"
"I just found WhyFight!" Another voice called out, this time a man who had gone with Zach to Hatto and was out in the city at the moment. "He's deactivating his Quirk."
"I did it first!" La Brava shouted in frustration, as she had just spent over an hour and a half trying to crack through the system connecting all the towers. It was apparently for nothing, and Gentle and Zach both sweatdropped as they understood the frustration the short woman was feeling. "Whatever! Communications are up around the country. Finish it up-"
"Just took down, Mongoloid," Zach said while putting his hand on the side of his dark helmet. He panted a few times, listened to shouts and cheers from others who were all connected on the line at the moment. "It's not over though. Capture all his forces. Let everyone know. Ah, haa, and keep focused. We're in a warzone. Everybody check in, current status…"
"Who?" Zach asked, freezing where he was on the first floor of Hatto's executive palace. He stopped where he was and stared across the room with his eyes opened wide, his heart rate speeding up so much and filling with pain as he heard Mark repeat the name in his earpiece.
Gentle looked over from where he was sitting at the bottom of the steps in the big entrance hall. He stared towards Zach's back as the boy standing there rose both hands up to his head and ran his hands through his hair. Zach's helmet was down clipped on his side like Gentle's was, and they had the air conditioning on which still worked despite most of the windows being broken and there being cracks on the walls and holes in the ceiling. They were still sweating even with the air conditioning, but Gentle had found a good spot directly where one of the vents pointed at to sit in and rest for a bit. The gray-haired man with a bushy mustache and thin beard narrowed his eyes over towards Zach while listening in to Zach's side of his conversation, as well as to an open line between the rest of the soldiers that Gentle could hear in his right ear.
"What's the damage?"
"It's," Mark started on the other side of the line. The older man looked down and to his left at the body a member of his team he had regrouped with just brought to him. "Bad," he said in a low voice. "Bullet went through his head. Part of his skull is-"
"How far away?" Zach asked fast.
"Zach-"
"Call me Commander now Mark," Zach said in a low voice, serious and without hesitation. "How far?"
Mark's eyes widened for a second but then got softer again before he said, "We're two hours out from Hatto. By the time we reach-"
"If I head that way, it's only one hour," Zach countered. Mark's eyes widened again, and Zach continued, "I can do that. Now start back towards Hatto!"
"Yeah, you got it. We're ready anyway," Mark turned to his guys and shouted towards them. "We'll get there as soon as possible." He paused after calling to them, then he said in a lower voice while cupping a hand over his earpiece, "It's already been, thirty, forty minutes since…"
Zach ran his left hand up through his hair again and then he spun his head straight towards the doors. "Just do-"
"Commander," Gentle said, standing up and starting towards the kid who spun around to face him. "What do you think you're doing?"
Zach stared at Gentle with wide eyes for a second, then he narrowed them and lowered his hand from his earpiece. "Muhammed, The Gorrani Boxer, he got hit by a bullet and it killed him. I'm going to meet Mark halfway and bring him-"
"You're not leaving here," Gentle said, shaking his head and glaring at the younger man who glared harder right back at him.
"I have to," Zach started.
"Why don't you check the open channel?" Gentle suggested. Zach frowned at him for a few seconds and then lifted his left hand and tapped his earpiece since waiting to argue any longer would be a waste of time. Zach tapped his headset and listened to the rest of the Army of Death and their support team.
"…Twenty minutes out ourselves."
"We're heading back to the capital as ordered."
"Cee, how many prisoners with you?"
"Sixty with the first group. A lot of civvies helping us out transport to the capital. The Demon we caught is with them. The next group has another thirty prisoners, and they're heading back a lot faster because Grabble and Tina's bodies are being transported with them."
"Tina's body was pretty burned up, can the Commander really-"
"Get them here faster," Zach said in English that most of the comms were in. All the communications paused for a second, then a few different people replied 'Understood.'
Zach cut off his headset for a second and he lowered his head while thinking as fast as he could. They're north! Fuck! FUCK! How long until they reach? I can't go up to meet them or it'll just be longer to get back southwest to Mark. How long ago were Tina and Grabble? If I go for Mark first because it was longer, what if the two of them- two instead of one? No! All three. He brought his hand to his earpiece again and snapped, "Is anyone else-"
"We're all accounted for here."
"Rest of southern teams are alive. Blackstar's got it pretty rough, but he'll pull through. Rib pierced a lung."
"Capital team is all fine Commander."
Zach lowered his hand from his earpiece again and he clenched his eyes shut. Three still isn't alright! I need to bring them all back!
Gentle pulled his earpiece out, and he stepped closer to Zach and pulled his off too. Zach lifted his head fast as he did not even notice Gentle had gotten that close to him, then he stared with wide eyes as the taller man tossed their earpieces over to the side. He tossed them towards the hall covered in burnt walls that the flames had been put out in a little while ago, and Zach spun towards them before turning back to the tall man glaring down into his eyes. "What are you doing?" Zach snapped as Gentle was doing something right now that was preventing him from coordinating plans.
"You don't get to leave right now," Gentle said. He glared harshly down at Zach and then said in an angry voice, "If you go south to bring Muhammed back, I'm going to ruin everything."
"What?" Zach asked, too confused to come up with anything else. He stared at Gentle confusedly and then in a more frustrated way, "I don't know what you're doing. I can't save him unless I meet halfway-"
"And those other two coming back here?" Gentle questioned.
"I'll save them too."
"And while you're doing all of that, everything you set up falls apart," Gentle said.
Zach glared at Gentle for a few seconds, then he shook his head and turned back towards the big doors at the front of the palace. Gentle said as Zach took a step, "You cannot be the tank, and the healer, and the leader. Not at all times."
Zach glared towards those doors and then back at the taller man who was scolding him. "I can try," Zach growled.
"You are needed here right now." Gentle glared harder at Zach and did not back down at the dark look in the younger boy's eyes, "If you leave, I will go out there without my helmet. I will announce that the Gentle Criminal has saved Saudi Arabia."
"You wouldn't," Zach started.
"Do not test me," Gentle warned, and Zach's eyes shook at the tone in his ally's voice. "That is what I would most like to do right now, and you overestimate me." Gentle stepped towards Zach who fully turned back around to stare at him with wide eyes. "You overestimate the people of this country to hold together if you give up so easily on your plan to deal with this 'delicate' situation. Your words. Your plan. You don't get to leave now, at this, the pivotal moment." Gentle glared harder at the boy whose eyebrows started rising and his breath speeding up at what Gentle was telling him. "You overestimate your own abilities: to save everyone, defeat all the bad guys, and establish a lasting peace? You can't do that. Not with the current forces you have."
"I- I have to-" Zach tried forcing it out angrily, but his hands clenched at his sides and started shaking as he thought about what Gentle was telling him. Behind him he could hear voices shouting, roaring over each other through the broken windows at the front of the palace. He glanced over his shoulder and towards the front door where a large number of people were gathered inside of, unconscious and piled up on top of each other.
"You can't save them all," Gentle said.
"They followed me!" Zach spun and shouted at the man behind him. Gentle had spoken in a softer, understanding voice when he saw Zach looking back at the enemies they had captured like he was accepting what he had to do. Gentle started frowning as Zach did not have that accepting look anymore though, but he also could not look as angry at the kid whose eyes started shaking after what he just shouted. Zach stepped towards Gentle with an angry look, then he froze and pulled his face back at the pitying one on his ally's face. "They came here, because I told them to. This was my plan. I- three of them died- I should have made a better plan."
"Maybe," Gentle agreed. Zach's eyes shot open wider as Gentle did not deny him but just accepted what he said might hold truth. "Yet that doesn't make a difference to what you need to do now." Zach's fists clenched so much harder in frustration, and he clenched his eyes shut this time too as he felt water pulling at them. His chest ached and he felt a pounding sensation in his head not from blood loss or Trigger after-effects or exhaustion or heat. "The two of them being rushed here, you can probably save. Taking an entire country, you lost a single man."
"Muhammed was Akhmed's friend. They were going to fight SISIS together, and they joined because I told them we'd help. He shouldn't have even been here." Zach shook his head and clenched his eyes so much tighter. Why? Why?! What did I do wrong?
"You need to take responsibility, but you can't let it show like this. You can't just do whatever and break off from the plan. You can't break down. If you do, who can they turn to?" Gentle questioned. He looked down at the boy and spoke about the rest of the group, not including himself by using 'they.' Yet as much as he was telling Zach that the rest of them needed to look to him while he did not, he was also saying in it that it was not like the rest of them could just turn to him instead. "I am not you. I will not stay here, and do what needs to be done. Coming from me it would mean nothing, for I would not have the conviction you do." Zach rose his gaze up into Gentle's eyes as the older man finished, "Finish your plan. Do what needs to be done, what you yourself claimed needs to be done. Only you can do it. And our man who died, he didn't come here because you forced him to. He came because of the same reasons everyone else followed you. What did he die for, if you fall apart here?"
"It hurts," Zach whispered. He stared into the older man's eyes that widened for a second before returning to their same look. Killing Mongoloid would only make people think it was another random overthrow. Wiping his forces out… But trying to capture them all, is that what got them killed? Would anyone have followed me though if I wanted them to just kill all of them? Would that have been better? No. I make plans better beforehand. It's the moment, the emotion, that I'm thinking about changing… It hurts though. It hurts so much. "I didn't know, it would hurt this much," Zach said, lowering his gaze from Gentle and then glaring so hard at the floor.
This time Gentle could see a look of more acceptance in Zach's eyes. He started heading over to the earpieces he tossed to the side, and as he walked he said back to the teen, "That's what it means, to be a good leader." I didn't think I would be fine following your orders, but it is very clear how much you care about each of our lives. Seeing that myself, it does make it easy to trust you. "This was the first time we lost anyone," Gentle said, picking up the earpieces and walking back to the boy who rose his gaze and stared back into his eyes. Gentle kept his hand curled around the earpieces to keep their voices away from anyone who might be connected as he did do a sudden dramatic toss away before arguing with the boy. "I doubt it will be the last. Are you capable of continuing on, even when we lose people? Can you keep going? Or will you fall apart?" Gentle uncurled his fist and he picked his earpiece out from the two though it took him a second to figure out which was which.
Zach grabbed his back from Gentle's open palm and he stared at it for a second in front of his face. He rose it and put it in his ear before tapping a couple of buttons on it and connecting a private line again. "Mark?" Zach began quietly.
"What is it?" Mark asked while driving fast across a desert.
"Head straight to Hatto, but I won't be able to… Just get here as fast as you can. I can't meet you halfway."
The hope the man driving across the desert had for the corpse whose skull his comrades were holding together in the back started to fade. Mark heard an acceptance, and a dark tone in the voice of the boy speaking to him. "Understood," Mark replied after a few moments.
Zach heard the disappointment and sadness in Mark's voice, and he cut off the connection before lowering his gaze to the floor. He rose it and turned towards the front of the building, the broken windows and through them where the noises of the people of Hatto were getting louder and louder. Zach reached to his side and pulled his helmet off, and he turned it to stare at the front visor. Saving lives is more important than what I stand for. Stopping villains is more important than being a symbol. Actions, matter more than words. But that doesn't mean that words don't matter. That doesn't mean that all actions speak louder than all words. I can't do nothing, but I can't do everything. I always have to make compromises. Always pick, one bad option over another. I've had to so many times. And right now, one bad option comes with so many risks, for saving one man. It should matter. It should, be everything. I took a lot of risks already, so one more… Zach stared closer at the helmet he was holding, then he rose it up and put it down over his head.
He turned to the doors of the palace and the villains piled up inside them. He brought a hand to his head and tapped a button on his helmet. "Let's do this," Zach said, his voice modulated and coming out a lot deeper. Gentle nodded behind him and rose up his black and purple helmet to put on his head too. Zach's eyes narrowed at the largest body of the unconscious villains gathered in the room. Mongoloid. If I could kill you… I could. No, no no. People will think this was just another random overthrow. More chaos. That's not what I'm doing. But I want to kill you. I want to kill you so badly right now. I don't think I've ever wanted to kill someone, when I did it. You would be the first. You could be… Damn it, mother fucker. Zach's eyes shifted from Mongoloid to the doors he was approaching, and they narrowed down as he took in a deep breath. You might not taste my vengeance, but you will face justice.
A/N Thanks for reading! Hope you enjoyed the chapter. Leave a review telling me what you think or predictions for what's ahead down below.
Shade11224 chapter 97 . Oct 18
Can't wait to see the fight between Zach and mongoloid, this really should have more follows and favs than it does. I honestly couldn't believe it when I saw how few this has especially since the word count is outrageous. You really are a great writer, which is compounded on by the fact you write excessively long fanfics compared to the norm. Honestly I'd love to see the stats of a Gamer Fanfic if you wrote it.
Thanks for the Chappy!
P.S. I'm probably gonna hold back on reading these for 2 weeks so I can binge on a few.
Well I hope you enjoyed the fight! I get the wanting to binge thing, so if this is 2 weeks from you now... then still hope you enjoyed the fight! Thanks for the great review, I'm glad you think it deserves more follows/favs, though I think the OC main and the fact I only started a few months ago are pretty big factors to that. I'm actually amazed so many people have been reading this consistently for months now, so thanks to all you guys for sticking by Death!
IntricateHummingbird chapter 97 . 23h ago
...Bloodbender!? Nani!? Is that an Avatar reference? And Hummingbird? Is that inspired by my name? Lol probably not but I can hope XD
Haha yep! Totally had the idea for what his character would be and then went "Oh shit, that would be awesome" thinking about Liquid Control (waterbending). Bloodbending was the clear next step up. XD As for Hummingbird... yeah, yeah totally that's what I was thinking when I added her! ... definitely. ;) Thanks for the review!
Mark chapter 97 . Oct 18
Whoreslayer42, EatDatPussy445, TheLegend27...
Not all heros wear capes...
Lol I loved this comment. Don't forget Skankhunt though XD. Thanks for the review!