Disclaimer: I don't own Boku no Hero Academia
Chapter 100:
"Mark's heading here now. Are we waiting for him?" Gentle questioned. The gray haired man in his early thirties stroked his mustache and glanced to the seat on his left at the circular table they were sitting at. There were five of them sitting at the table in total at a bar in western Russia.
"How long will it take him to get here?" Tina asked. The short Hispanic-American woman whose name was actually Martina sat on the other side of the boy Gentle just turned to.
Zach glanced at the woman next to him and replied in a quiet voice, "Still five or six hours probably. If they can move nonstop." Zach looked back at the food in front of him and he picked at it with his fork. Mark sounded weird last time I talked to him. He told me he wouldn't kill. Then he wound up killing those two Demons, said he had to to save the others. He must be handling it though. Blackstar and Skater backed him up. Hope Blackstar's still doing alright back in Hatto…
"Death," Grabble began in a low voice across the table from the younger boy. He was wearing a black hoodie like Zach's but with the hood up. No shadow was cast over his face as his hood was still pushed pretty high up over the top of his head by the two curved pincer horns pushing above his scalp. "How's your neck?"
Zach lifted his left hand and cocked his head to the right a bit so his neck would show clearer. He rubbed his hand gently over a white bandage taped to the side of his neck, then he lowered his hand and said, "It's fine. Probably take that off tomorrow."
"But Hank said to keep it on until he saw you next," Darling whispered from Gentle's other side over to Zach. She was disappointed as she had been on the phone with L outside and missed getting a seat next to Zach at the table, so she had to lean in front of Gentle who pulled his plate back towards himself. He gave a frustrated glance down at the girl with long brown hair who almost got some in his food.
"I'm fine, Darling," Zach said. He turned to Gentle who lowered his plate back as Darling sat back in her seat, not going to argue with Zach any longer if he said he was okay. "You said Mark's coming, so does that mean La Brava's not?" He figured the older man would have said his partner's name first otherwise.
Gentle shook his head. "Some of the others do not want to leave the Middle East. She is trying to get them to stay together and follow her. I do not think it was a smart move spreading so thin."
"We can do more split up," Zach responded, though he looked back at his plate and hummed after saying it. More, but not big things like what we were doing. Mongoloid, SISIS, those were big things. Even with SISIS though, once we had the ISK's permission to move freely, use resources… I don't want to work with heroes. They'll wind up constricting us. Me. They'll begin to expect things from us. Others will put expectations on me. That's what made me mess things up with the villains. I decided I needed to leave because they would keep trying to make me kill, but I was becoming one of them, and I think if I really had just become a villain they would have accepted my code not to kill anyone. Lifebringer meant something to people though. Even with the villains, people had expectations for me so I did VTS. Could there have been better ways? It doesn't matter. That's all in the past. But it was people's expectations of me that forced me to make a move. I need to move at my own pace here. Do what I think is right. Only those things that I decide. People follow me, and they're willing to die for me. I need to take that seriously. That's more serious than anything I've ever done. More weight than ever on my shoulders. Their lives are in my hands. It's so heavy.
Gentle pulled out a box of cigarettes and he leaned back and asked the man behind him, "Light?" He said it in rusty Russian, and the bald Russian man at the table behind Gentle pulled out a lighter and flicked the top open for him to light it.
"Since when do you smoke?" Darling asked, lifting an eyebrow at the older man.
Zach was not going to say anything, but he did just think the same thing she said aloud. Gentle thanked the man behind him in Russian he remembered from a single-semester elective he took a long time ago. Then he turned back and blew out some smoke in the bar where a couple of other Russians were also smoking in the booths on the sides of the room. "Since this one decided to stop fighting villains hiding in volcanoes, and started taking on armies and governments," he motioned with a nod at Zach while taking another puff of his cigarette. It is always more stressful when La Brava is not around. I do take her for granted too often.
"Volcanoes?" Tina whispered, leaning forward over the table and lifting her eyebrows in surprise. The Hispanic woman had black fur on her arms ending in paws that she had gloves over at the moment. She lowered her fork in her right hand and turned to Zach who gave Gentle an annoyed look for bringing it up, because he could see the older man knew what was coming.
"When did you do that?" Grabble asked with wide eyes below his popped-up hood. He did not think Gentle was being serious until he saw the look on their leader's face afterwards.
Zach glanced at Grabble, then at Tina who was looking just as interestedly at him. The two who he brought back to life after their invasion of Saudi Arabia were leaning over the table. Zach started slowly, "It was the day, we met Rebel… Darling, you tell." Zach glanced over to the brown-haired girl who smiled wide as Zach told her what to do. Then she spun to the other two and started speaking rapidly in English all about the villains they tracked down and fought at their secret volcano lair.
The other two were a bit disappointed that Zach was not going to tell it, but they got caught up in Darling's recollection quickly. Zach turned to Gentle who humphed and just took another puff of his cigarette at the boy's smug look. Zach lost that look after a second and looked back down at his plate covered in food he had barely touched. Russian mobsters. Eastern European prostitution rings. Mafias, and drugs, and probably some more allies. Rebel says he found a pair who want to work with us, I'll see if they're good enough to join us afterwards…
"Do you know who you're fucking with?" Br-br-br-BRANG Dt-Dt-Dt- Dink CRASH!
In an impound lot in eastern Kazania, a skinny man with tattoos all over his body from his head to his toes was firing off rounds towards vehicles around his lot. He stopped firing for a second, and he lowered his assault rifle before glancing around in the near darkness of the lot where all his lights had cut off in a minute ago. He turned to his right and motioned towards some cars with his head, "Go look for bodies." He had heard noises in that direction soon after the lights cut off, but then he spun his head the other way towards the impound house where people could come and try getting their cars back for a reasonable fee the Kaveman decided in the moment depending on his mood.
Something crashed inside the building that he also slept in, and he glared towards the building but did not just start firing at it. He rose his left arm and the tattoo sleeve covering it started shifting around. A three-headed black dog with red eyes dragged itself down Kaveman's arm and off of his hand. Flames rippled off of its back, and then snakes that were wrapped around the dog dropped off and started slithering towards the house too. Kaveman pulled his left hand in that those creatures just climbed off and he reached to his face, grabbed a golden magnum pistol out of his cheek and aimed it towards a pickup truck he just heard a clank near. "Viktor! Get the lights back on!"
"Kaveman! There aren't any bodies, but there is a- AH!" BANG-Bu-bu-Clank SMASH!
Kaveman was staring over towards where he just sent two of his guys, then he and the other two standing with him near the middle of the lot all stepped back. They backed up as a car started rolling out from behind a pile of crushed ones and then slammed into a truck and dented the side of it in. One of the two Kaveman sent that way came flying out past the car pile a second later and slammed into the car that was tilted upwards into the truck, and the collision made that car drop down on top of him.
All at once, noises started coming out from different areas of the lot. Clanks of steel on steel, denting cars around the lot being slammed by what sounded like metal pipes. A loud whimper came from inside the house of the lot where Kaveman's three-headed ink dog just leapt through the window. A second after the whimper, all the other windows of that building shattered at the same time.
"Where the fuck are they?!"
"Over there!" Bang-bang-bang!
"No there!"
"They're everywhere!"
"SHUT UP!" Kaveman roared at the two on his sides who shut their mouths but kept spinning around in terror as the noises around them continued.
Kaveman started grinning wide though, and he lifted his shirt up and tossed it to the side. He hunched his body forward, and big black wings flapped out of his back and covered in flames at the ends. The flames flared and illuminated the lot around him, then Kaveman pointed his magnum towards a car that was recently impounded and pretty new. BANG! WeeeeoooOOO WeeeeoooOOO WeeeeoooOOO… A loud siren started going off and the lights of that car flashed over and over on the headlights and the back.
"DO YOU KNOW WHO I WORK FOR?!" Kaveman roared, lifting his assault rifle in one hand and the magnum in the other and firing them both up with a lack of any fear on his face. The men near him started looking at him more nervously than they had been the spooky lot around them, as Kaveman flapped his flaming black wings to the sides and almost hit them while splashing those flames onto some dead grass patches around his lot. "YOU'RE DEAD! I'm fucking KAVEMAN mother fuckers! Do you know who the fuck I am?!" BRrr-r-rr-bang BANG! WeeeeoooOOO…
Kaveman started turning to his right, and he fired some more over towards some cars he heard metal slamming into before. He turned more fully around towards where he sent his guys before and knew people were watching from. "Come on! What are you afraid of?! Haha!" He fired off in that direction and specifically at the car that his own guy was underneath. Kaveman started turning more, and then he froze and he stopped shouting. He stopped firing, and the man on his left stared in just as much shock as Kaveman as they saw their comrade falling flat on his face. The two Kazanians stared at their comrade who had a knife in the back of his right shoulder, and who was flat on his face without moving a muscle like getting hit by that knife just killed him. Small black wisps faded off the knife as Kaveman looked down in the light of his wings. And when he saw his comrade's body flickering dimly in his flames, he got sweat all over his face, because there were no headlights illuminating them at all.
Where are the sirens?
Kaveman looked back at the car that should have been going off from when he shot at it, but the vehicle was not just off, it was gone. "HEY! WHAT THE FUCK ARE- Where did…" Kaveman looked to his right to see if the man next to him was still understanding what was going on.
"Kav-" the guy next to him started while Kaveman was turning his way. They had both spun to the car, forgetting almost entirely the direction the knife that hit their other comrade in the shoulder must have come from. Another knife stuck out of the left shoulder of the only other guy besides Kaveman still standing in the impound lot. He collapsed and Kaveman definitely saw the black wisps all over the knife as his last comrade dropped this time.
"It doesn't matter who you are," a voice said behind Kaveman in a deep, scratchy tone. Kaveman spun and he fired his magnum without hesitating when he saw the dark form he spun to. The dark figure standing there turned his body to the side, and the bullet flew past him and slammed into a car behind him. "It doesn't matter who you work for… but, it does matter who you work for." Damn it Mark. You're usually perfect with stuff like this. Translate my lines- Alright, he still looks very scared, bit confused. Nothing I can't work with. Zach started marching towards the tattooed figure before him who took a step back while staring at this terrifying black form that just dodged a bullet with ease.
"What are you?" Kaveman asked, his tattoos quivering on his body as much as he tried to focus on them coming out. He gulped and tried focusing harder, only for the fully black creature before him that looked like a man to reach its right hand up towards him and make black flames ripple off the entire arm. The arm turned and the right hand curled its fingers up to create a swirling black ball of evil that Kaveman was transfixed on with every ounce of his focus. His tattoos even stopped swirling, and his huge eyes just bulged at the sight of that darkness so close to him that had taken his guys out. "AH!" Kaveman yelled out in pain, as he got kicked in the back of his right leg at the knee.
He dropped to his right knee, then the girl behind him slammed a steel fist into his back between his wings and made Kaveman drop his weapons while slamming his hands down to the ground to stop from hitting face-first. The girl standing behind him pressed her right foot down on Kaveman's back and grabbed him by the wings, and the dark figure walking towards Kaveman stared over at her with his eyes opening huge inside his visor. "You don't need these," the girl said in Japanese so the man below her with his eyes wide in terror did not understand a thing, though he still screamed as she ripped back and tore his wings right off his back.
"Darling get out of there. You're not needed."
Zach glared towards the girl who he could not tell that to himself without breaking his plan. That was too far, but I did say to incapacitate him once she had the chance. If she stayed and held him there, he could have bladed weapons on his tattoos to slash out at her. This could work better. Maybe she knew that. Maybe she's just crazy… The girl in all black nodded towards Zach once before turning and bouncing away using springs she created in an instant in her knees.
Kaveman started lifting his head while turning to the right to glare at the girl behind him, but no one was there. He froze with his head half-turned anyway, and then he slowly turned back and lifted his eyes up the dark legs of the figure before him. Out from the sides of the figure came black flames that pushed out and made him look much bigger, scarier, and more ominous as he looked down at Kaveman's face. In a dark, deep, scratchy voice Zach growled in Kazanian, "Where can I find the men you work for?"
"I, don't know, what you're talking about. I just tow cars… please," Kaveman leaned back while getting to his knees. He pulled his body away as the dark figure leaned down and rose his right hand with a black swirling ball of Death on it. "I- I really don't know what you're…" Kaveman pulled his head farther away with his eyes wide at the sight of that darkness getting pushed towards his face. He knew he was not convincing anyone after already shouting asking if they knew who he worked for while just trying to be intimidating earlier.
"I know you deal Riot," Zach said. "You're on it right now, aren't you?" Quirk and mind enhancer. Like, half-Trigger, half-cocaine. It's not popular in Japan at all but I've heard about it before. Not as strong as Trigger, so his Quirk really is just a pretty strong one. It's dangerous being this close without knowing what other kinds of tattoos he has below the top ones, or what are on his legs, the most hidden ones. Act like I'm not cautious at all though, like it wouldn't matter if he tried anything.
"The family's too powerful," Kaveman said in response to the figure's question.
"Not more than me," Zach growled. He leaned down and put his dark face close to Kaveman's, making the scared man pull back and the tattoos all over him to start shaking as he tried using his Quirk through his fear. He bit down and tried making a confident expression, only for Zach to lift both hands to his head and pull his helmet off from inside his dark aura in one swift motion. He leaned down closer with a skull face and flaring red eyes in the center of it. "LOOK AT ME!" Zach roared in his deep scratchy voice, and Kaveman nearly shat himself.
A dozen others in the impound lot froze and stared towards the figure who just shouted that in such a scary way that all of them felt like they had to look at him. Mark even stopped talking into Zach's ear for a few seconds longer than Zach wanted, but the boy actually liked how long the pause was after that as Kaveman got more and more fidgety and terrified as Zach just held his face there for the man to examine. Kaveman darted his eyes away over and over before slowly dragging them back in fear to the skull face in front of him. "Where are the drugs coming from?" Zach snarled. "Where are your bosses located?"
"I- I- I can't tell you," Kaveman said with a terrified look in his eyes that he was not answering this monster. "If I talk, the family will kill me. Torture me to death!"
Zach pulled his head back. He glared down through his flaring red eyes, and he breathed out a long heavy breath of Death that clouded his face. "What do you think I will do to you? If you don't tell me, you'll face a fate much worse than death. How long will their torture compare…" Zach paused as he knew what Mark just said, yet it was hard to say aloud and not because of the accent or pronunciation. "To the torture you'll face from me afterwards?" Kaveman stared up with trembling eyes and a much more scared look on his face while he fell backwards off his knees and onto his butt. "A fraction of a second, compared to eternity."
"I, can't… you're not the devil!"
"Even so, you do not want Death to be angry," Zach growled. The man pushed back on his butt started opening his eyes wide, and he breathed faster and faster with his heart pounding as the dark figure took a step towards him. "Now what is it going to be? Will you tell me?" The dark voice got lower and Zach's red eyes swirled with black as he focused Death thicker up around his face. He rose up his right hand covered in so much thick Death that started seeping forward off his fingers and towards Kaveman's body. "Or is this about to get very painful?"
"Can't believe he called your bluff," Mark said while leaning back on the wall of the motel room he, Zach, Grabble, and Gentle were sharing fifty miles from the impound lot they had attacked earlier.
"Are you sure I was saying everything right?" Zach asked from over on his bed. He was cleaning the blood off one of his knives that he had put right back in its sheath earlier after ripping it out of the shoulder of a drug dealer. He lifted his head and looked towards the brown-haired man leaning on the wall near the tv they had on at a high volume to cover up their conversation from anyone who might be trying to listen in. "It felt like I wasn't repeating it back just like you were saying it."
"Maybe, that could have been a part of it," Mark started slowly. "But I think he was really just more afraid of what they could do to him. Makes sense, if he's seen what they do to people who snitch before. He's never seen what we do, so he didn't know whether or not to believe what you were saying."
"Well, shit," Grabble muttered and lay back on the other of the two beds in the motel.
Gentle stared down at the man laying back with his pincers pushing up against the headboard at the top of the bed. He kept staring at Grabble until the man who lay there turned to him and opened his eyes wide at that expectant look. "Oh, sorry," Grabble got up and then started over for the recliner chair in the corner. Gentle got onto the mattress with a self-satisfied look on his face.
"You can have this one," Zach started over to Grabble who he felt a bit bad for after Gentle seemed to force him to get up.
"Whoa, no I'm good," Grabble shook both hands at Zach fast. "All yours. I wanted the chair anyway."
Zach glanced towards Mark. "I'm on first watch," Mark replied, and Zach nodded at the man who said he would handle setting that up while they stayed here. "I'll take Grabble's chair when he's up," Mark added. Grabble nodded in agreement while looking towards Zach to show it was good with him too.
"Still," Gentle began while sitting up straight with his back against the headboard of his bed. "This does put a bit of a stall on our plans."
"Not necessarily," Zach started back. "So we agreed that trying to track Kaveman when he gets out of jail is not a good idea, right?" Zach said. The others nodded as he looked around at them. It was something they had discussed after knocking out Kaveman and bringing him and his guys to the police with all the guns they had on them as well as some drugs stored in the impound lot. "Because Kaveman's going to tell the guys who come to get him that we're looking for his bosses. But! Just because it'd be too dangerous for us to try it, doesn't mean there isn't anyone who can keep with them until Kaveman's back with his leaders."
Gentle's eyebrows lifted up, then they narrowed down towards his nose while he hummed in a hesitant way. Mark looked towards Zach in confusion first but then to Gentle in the same way as the older man seemed to know what Zach was referring to. Grabble looked Mark's way in surprise though as apparently the brown-haired man did not know what their leader was talking about. "How can we follow him then?" Grabble asked.
"You're thinking of using him, again?" Gentle asked. He sounded disapproving, and Zach's small grin lowered down as his suggestion started to taste bad in his mouth.
It's not like I didn't just try the same thing tonight. I guess to me, what I did to Hunter doesn't seem that bad anymore. Zach nodded at Gentle in a more serious way, and he said, "It's not good to use him often, but it's been a while since the forest."
"I would like to meet him this time," Gentle began.
"No," Zach countered right back. He shook his head at Gentle, and the older man gave the boy a surprised look at how concise and without room for argument that 'no' was. "If anyone else met him… well, it would mess with how he," Zach trailed off, then he just sighed and finished as there was no point in hiding it, "thinks I'm the devil." He turned to Mark and Grabble who each looked at him in more confusion, and Zach just said in a low voice, "Tonight was, the second time I tried that strategy. It worked last time… too well."
"You have someone who can track others?" Mark asked Zach in a somewhat surprised way. "Why did we not use him for finding Shakad?"
Grabble's eyes widened too as that was a great point. "I needed something of his," Zach replied. "Like this," Zach reached to the nightstand between his and Gentle's bed and grabbed Kaveman's shirt that he had taken from the floor of the impound lot.
Gentle hummed a bit more and then nodded at him and turned to put his legs off the side of his bed closer to Zach. Zach pulled out his phone, and the other two got up and moved closer as Zach started dialing a number he had memorized. Zach's expression got darker, and then he reached his right hand up towards his chest. He hesitated before tapping himself though. No. Using that voice after not using it other times, will make it seem like I'm trying to intimidate him. Just as casual as possible- The phone picked up and Zach opened his mouth to start in an annoyed voice about how the phone rang three times. "Hello," a voice replied over the phone, one that Zach had never heard before yet made him freeze with his mouth open and his eyes growing wide.
Zach pulled the phone from his ear an inch, his eyes darting to the side to stare at it. Gentle looked in confusion at Zach's face, as did the other two who were expecting to hear Zach start pretending he was the devil which had impressed them back in the parking lot at how convincing he could be. That's not the Hunter. "I know, it must be confusing as to why Hunter did not pick up. Unfortunately, I had to kill him, Zach Sazaki."
Zach's eyes went back to their normal size, and he kept his breathing steady while bringing the phone back against his head. His eyes got cold and he said in a low Japanese voice, "That's disappointing. I was just starting to like Kiki-kun, Eziano Mozcaccio." Gentle lifted his eyebrows as he had heard Zach say that name before, and then his eyes started opening wider as he saw Mark take a full step back at the foot of the two beds where he and Grabble were standing. Grabble did not understand what was going on as he only spoke English, but he got nervous just from the expressions of the others in the room alone.
Zach glanced over towards Mark and saw the man standing there making rapid motions with his hand up to his ear and then down as if slamming the phone. He swung his arms in front of his body over and over, crossing them and shaking his head at the kid who sweatdropped at Mark's frantic movements. So, I guess he has heard of him before, Zach thought. He kept a stern look on his face though and got even more serious, making Mark slow down his movements and just start staring at the kid with wider eyes.
There was a brief pause on the other side of the line, and then the man's voice talking to Zach said, "You are playing a dangerous game, Sazaki, and you already think yourself important. Did Midoriya Izuku tell you how simple it would have been for me to blow All Might's brains all over the Sports Festival bleachers? How easy?"
Zach felt chills down his spine but his expression did not shift. "Then why didn't you?"
"None of your concern," Eziano replied, and Zach's forehead scrunched up as he wondered why Eziano would say it in the first place. Is it just to show me he knows Midoriya's the one who first told me about him? How'd he know Hunter didn't say anything himself? He doesn't. That's why he would say it. And I didn't confirm anything, nor did I deny it. Hmmm.
"I suppose you're right," Zach said. They were having a standoff, and he leaned back on the edge of the bed while getting a lot more serious a look on his face looking past Gentle and towards the wall the motel room's door was on. "But it is my business what-"
"You're green," Eziano said. Zach froze with his mouth open, and Eziano continued after cutting him off, "You have no idea what you are doing, name-dropping me in front of both heroes and villains. There will be consequences-"
"I'm not All Might," Zach cut right back in, a dark look on his face and a pissed-off expression spreading over it. "I'm not a hero, and I don't give a fuck about your code or what you think you might do for the world." Zach's lips twisted and he snarled, "You take money to kill people. Fucking assassins? You think you're important? You're a killer for hire, you have an organization of people who kill for money," Zach pulled his phone in front of his face and growled into the receiver on the bottom of it, "and I'm going to destroy it."
Zach brought his phone back to his head and started glaring forward in such an intense way that Gentle realized the boy staring at him could not even see him as he was right now. Zach glared ahead and snarled in a low voice, "And if I kill you, and the other assassins go off the rails like All Might was afraid of, then I'll kill all those assassins too. Wipe you all out, or at least make it known that people who do what you do will not be tolerated in this world any longer."
A few seconds passed and Zach shifted his eyes to his right and the phone he held there as Eziano's voice came through. "Many have tried to kill me in the past three hundred years… I wish you luck, Sazaki. May God grant you good fortune, in the wars to come."
The call ended and Zach lowered the phone from his ear. He let out a breath he did not realize he had been holding after he finished what he had snapped angrily at Eziano, and he started panting while staring down at his cell. Zach lifted his eyes up and met Gentle's gaze which looked nervous just like his did, and Zach muttered in a low voice back in English, "Can't use the Hunter. Eziano killed him."
"Who is that?" Gentle asked. "You mentioned him in the forest saying that Hunter was not afraid of your old friend, the League, or even him. I assumed he must have been someone very strong then-"
"You just declared war," Mark whispered with his hands up through his hair and his eyes huge. "On the worst possible person," he finished with a nervous shake of his head.
Gentle looked to the man who also seemed to know who this Eziano person was. Zach looked his way too and said, "What do you know about him?"
Mark shook his head some more and then closed his eyes tightly. "I should have guessed, you'd do something the CIA wouldn't dare. We were, they were terrified of him-"
"You were in the CIA?" Grabble asked with his eyes huge now.
Mark glanced towards the man with pincers over his head and gave a short nod before turning back and continuing. Grabble felt even more out of the loop as the others were having this conversation and kept adding more stuff he had never heard about before. He started smiling a bit though despite it, realizing that they were speaking English in part for his sake, and he was glad they were including him with all this stuff he had not known before. Grabble grinned even as Mark started saying some ominous stuff about the mysterious Eziano Mozcaccio, and he cut off the former CIA agent, "We can take him." He looked straight towards Zach who turned to face him like the other two. The man with the Quirk- Pincers grinned at his leader and said, "We can take on anyone. After all, everyone has to face Death sometime. Even whoever that guy is!"
That's right, Zach thought, and he allowed a small grin to come to his face too. That's a part of why that name matters. It comes for everyone. All the villains of this world. And I meant what I said to him, even if all that was just in the heat of the moment. I'll take down all the assassins. Any societies of villains. Isn't the Army of Death a- no, it's not. To the rest of the world it might be, but what the rest of the world thinks doesn't matter. "I agree," Zach said. He turned to Mark and looked him in his eyes while the man with brown hair stared at him in shock and then with a hesitant and nervous smile too as he tried to feel as confident as the others. Every villain. Every crime ring, drug den, villain group. I'll smash them all to pieces. He's right, I am 'green.' I'm new at this, and I need to learn quicker even while fighting the whole time! "Tell me, Mark," Zach said, and he looked his comrade in the eyes in a serious way, "everything you know about Eziano Mozcaccio."
"Everyone be most careful of Kaiju and Frostfire," Zach said in a quiet voice as he approached the side of a warehouse in a derelict neighborhood in southern Kazania. "Stay tight. Protectors keep in tank positions."
"Planting D6 on the east wall."
"Flight squad here at the south windows. It's dark in there. Can't see a thing."
"Keep on night vision until I give the signal," Zach said. He rose his right hand and motioned it forward at the wall he crouched near. One of the five figures in dark costumes behind him sprinted up past his right side and lifted her hands up. She turned back and stared through her visor at the shorter boy behind her who took in a deep breath and then gave her a nod. "Breach."
The woman in front of Zach spun back and she swung her arms up making a ray of red light come out the tips of her fingers. The red light scanned in a square from the distance her arms were spread apart down at the base of the wall up to above her head. The wall glowed red and then vanished thanks to Missappear's Quirk: Matter Displacement. Before the red light with the fading wall had even fully disappeared, Zach was sprinting through the wall and lifting a grappling gun in each hand. He sprinted forward with everything in the warehouse tinted green, he heard a blast across the building, and crashes of windows up near the roof.
Everyone ran into the warehouse. They all stopped after breaking in after only a few seconds. The reason there were no lights became clear as there were broken lights and shattered glass all over the floor. Mixed in with all that broken glass and broken lighting fixtures though, were the bodies of the villains they had come to fight. Zach stared ahead with his eyes widening behind his visor, because he saw the figure who matched the description of Kaiju he was given from the last Riot dealer he questioned. The man was slumped against a metal container, his head bowed and a trail of blood down the shipping crate looking like he had slid down from a dent above his bowed head.
"What the fuck happened here?" La Brava muttered from the other side of the warehouse as Zach where Gentle and her had led another team in.
"Took you long enough to get here," a man's voice called out in Japanese from on top of one of the crates leaning against a wall on the north side of the building. Zach's group that came in from the west and Gentle's in the east moved more towards the middle and looked towards the center of the building on the north side. They all entered a more wide open space of the warehouse, with the floor covered in glass and blood, though Zach noticed a couple of the villains on the ground were moving in his green-tinted vision.
"Who are you?" Zach called to the large figure he saw on top of a crate. The man stepped to the edge of the crate all the dark figures looked to, and then he dropped a man he was holding in his right hand. His right hand lost its orange glow after he released the figure who hit the floor on his side with his front facing the group of twenty figures in front of him. The man who was just dropped had burns all over the top of his face, and on his neck, and his mouth was open and moving like he was trying to scream but no sound was coming out. The flying group in the Army of Death landed down on a shipping crate behind the teams below and in the middle of the room. The others who had entered ready for a fight returned to their fighting positions and many of them started panting as they looked to this man who seemed responsible for all of this on his own.
Zach stepped forward though and lowered his grappling guns back to his sides. He subtly pulled a knife while putting the gun away in his left hand, making it look like he was disarming while not doing that at all. The man on top of the crate before Zach stared down at him as he stepped forward, and the figure dropped down off of the crate and ten meters in front of Zach.
"Be careful Commander."
"Should we take him out?"
"Nobody move," Zach said. He said it calmly and not in a whisper only meant for his earpiece. He wanted the man in front of them to know he had just said that too. Who is he? Why did he do all this? He was waiting for us. "Even you," Zach added while staring through his dark visor at the figure before him still tinted green thanks to Zach's night vision. He looked the large man up and down.
The figure standing there was in a mostly black costume pulled tight to his muscular body. There were dark red highlights on the costume too though, on his elbows, knees, his gloves, boots, and around his neck up until the costume ended and the scales began. His light facial skin turned into thicker scales farther down his chin and on his neck before disappearing into his costume. He was over six feet tall, he had no weapons on him, and he had a black cloak on that fell over his back and right side. His steel helmet had thin vertical slits over his mouth before stopping just beneath it, and he had a dark visor over his red irises that shifted around the group facing him in matching black costumes and helmets (except for the one slightly purple one). The man looked to his left at the edge of the group and then to the right across all of them, then his eyes focused back on the figure right in front of him who was standing there without activating a dark mode around himself that the figure was expecting.
"Hmph," the big man crossed his arms and then said, "so this is the boy All Might wanted to save."
I've heard that- "So this is the boy All Might thought was worth saving." Zach's eyes opened huge behind his visor and he sucked in a deep breath. That's, what Ganji said to me. When we first met… "Who are you?" Zach asked.
"My name, is Lavamander," the figure before Zach replied. "I'm a bit disappointed. I've been here for an hour already. How many people do you have, and you still got here after me?"
How did he find the place? If he's judging us on the same time scale, did he find out information at the same time we did? Was he watching us?! That makes sense, if he was searching for us in the first place. "I was making a plan first, since they wouldn't know we were coming anyway and wouldn't be going anywhere." Zach stared closer through his visor at the man in front of him. His eyes lowered down from the figure, and he ground his teeth in anger as he thought again about what that man just said. "All Might, he asked you to save me?" Zach asked.
"Not right now," Lavamander began with a low chuckle. Many of the people behind Zach were confused as to what was going on as the conversation was in Japanese, but they were still getting bits and pieces of the conversation with the mention of All Might a few times in there. "But back-"
"I know when," Zach said, cutting off the man in front of him. Lavamander's head leaned forward and he glared out his visor at the boy before him, only for his red eyes to widen a bit as the shorter figure continued, "Webb once told me, All Might asked three of you. I guess you were the third…" Zach ground his teeth again and he looked at the man before him in such an intense way. He lifted his hands up to his head and grabbed his helmet, keeping his knife slid down on his left wrist in a holder there for this exact purpose. He pulled his helmet off and said, "Brightside."
That was the signal, and his soldiers behind him turned off their night vision. Brightside waited a second for everyone to turn it off, then he lifted his visor and his eyes shone forward and filled the warehouse with light. Zach stared at the man in front of him who did not start taking his helmet off as Zach expected he would. He frowned a bit, but he just stared at the man in his dark visor and then his red eyes as Lavamander did pop the visor up at least to speak to him eye to eye. "Yeah, I figured you knew a bit," Lavamander started, a grin showing beneath the bottom of his helmet for a second. That grin lowered fast though and he said in a deeper voice, "Ganji let me know Webb succeeded, but he didn't tell me shit about what you were doing with them afterwards. I called him out that War Boys thing though, those two were the ones with-"
"It's my fault," Zach said. He stared into Lavamander's eyes, and he saw the man's red eyes narrow fast at his cut off and what Zach said. "About Ganji, and Webb," Zach added. Lavamander's eyes twitched for a second and his teeth clenched behind the slits of the bottom of his helmet. Behind Zach, one of the shorter figures in dark costumes started taking a step forward, her eyes opening wide behind her visor. Cee turned her head as Gentle grabbed her by the shoulder, holding her back while staring towards Zach himself in a hesitant way. Gentle's eyes shifted to the frightening figure who wiped the warehouse's villains out supposedly on his own, and he tightened his hold on Cee's shoulder before letting go so his hands would be free to fight with.
"Is that so?" Lavamander asked, and all of the Army of Death who were not following the Japanese conversation suddenly clenched their weapons tighter or started raising their arms.
"None of you move," Zach said, in a low English voice directed for the people behind him. He glared forward at Lavamander and then continued while keeping eye contact with the anti-hero, "It is," he said, returning to Japanese. "My best friend, who the three of us saved. I told him." Lavamander's teeth bared behind his mask, his red eyes flashing that color throughout instead of just in his irises. His hands started to glow orange, and he took a step forward. "No one help!" Zach shouted behind him, and he slid his knife down into his left hand while glaring harder at the figure before him. "He told me he didn't believe I didn't know the two who helped save him, and I, had lost contact with the others. I wanted him to help me out in that world because he seemed okay with it, interested enough-"
Lavamander sprinted forward and Zach whipped another knife off his right side while flicking the one in his left hand forward. Lavamander sprinted through the knife Zach threw with his left that just bounced off him. Zach dove to the right while slashing his right hand in front of him with the knife in it. Lavamander punched his glowing right fist forward at Zach's slashing knife, only for Zach's hand to release the knife and open up. Lavamander's fist was hot, and his red eyes darted to his fist nearing the kid's black glove. He pulled his fist back, only for his eyes to widen a bit as the kid's right hand pulled away so fast that it had to have been planning on moving away before his fist collided anyway.
Zach hit the ground and his left hand that flicked the knife was already back down at his waist, only pulling the katana on the back of his belt right out of its sheath. "I'm not going to just sit here and let you beat on me for what I did!" Zach yelled at Lavamander.
"Death!"
"Nobody help him," Gentle said, darting a look to his left towards Grabble who spun back in such a confused way. Grabble's pincers were sticking out of holes on the top of his helmet, and he shook his head while spinning back to Zach and watching him have to dodge left and right to avoid molten red fists flying at him from a distance.
"I knew it!" Lavamander shouted. "I knew, you must have done it. There was no way Ganji was going to be figured out by some kid. I knew he had to have been, betrayed!" Lavamander roared the last word and then redirected his right fist that was punching forward like it was going to fly at Zach, straight down into the floor in front of him instead. He slammed his fist into the ground, and the ground between his fist and Zach's feet started glowing orange and bubbling. The orange got darker to red, and Zach sprinted to his right and dove into a forward roll pulling out a grappling gun with his right hand and firing towards Lavamander's feet as he came out of the roll. He sprinted at the man as lava blasted up from the ground between where they had just been facing off, just on Zach's left side so he could feel that side of his face getting singed by the proximity.
Lavamander pulled his legs apart and ripped through the powerful wire holding his legs together. Zach saw through the dark fabric tight to Lavamander's legs, sharp scales turning out to the sides when he pulled apart that told him it was not just his strength that ripped the strong wires. Zach slashed his katana while tossing the used grappling gun up towards Lavamander's mask that his visor dropped back down on so Zach could not see his eyes. "I didn't betray-" Zach began, but he grit his teeth and just jumped backwards while his katana broke on Lavamander's arm he blocked the slash with. His body's so strong, Zach saw a glowing red light behind Lavamander's visor the same time both of his arms and both legs started to glow the same color. What is he?!
"Stop it!" Cee shouted, and she started running forward.
"Gentle!" Zach yelled, while at the same time slamming his right hand up into his chest. His body erupted in darkness, and he leapt up high in the air while Gentle shot forward. Gentle grabbed Cee and tossed her backwards, while swinging his other arm in front of him for a Gently Rebound. Zach dodged up, others in the Protection team of his forces put up barriers or blocks as lava shot past where Zach had just been and almost hit them. Zach darted a glance back towards the rest of his group, then he glared furiously with red eyes down at Lavamander whose visor glowed red right back up at the skull-faced boy. "If you drag them into this, I'll take you down! But I don't want-"
"I knew you were trouble!" Lavamander shouted up at the boy who started arcing back towards him and shooting black flames out of his back to make him go faster. Lavamander aimed his right fist up and fired a glowing orange fist at him, and Zach spun his body in midair and then threw a black knife down at Lavamander's head. He threw it an inch to the left of the anti-hero's face, but Lavamander did not pull away at all as he could see the knife was not going to hit him. Zach started pulling the Death off of the blade at the figure next to it while it passed by, but he clenched his teeth angrily and stopped trying. He just let the knife lose its Death on its own while clanking on the ground behind him. Zach landed and glared at the man who shouted in a pissed-off way at him even angrier now after Zach intentionally missed him with that knife, "Don't think you need to hold back, Lifebringer! Because I won't. I told them you were a villain-"
"Kaminari tricked me," Zach growled in his deep, scratchy voice. "He-" Zach brought his right hand up and smacked himself in the chest, and then he stomped forward and yelled at the man who got even angrier as Zach turned off his fighting mode to yell in his normal voice. "He was my best friend, the closest person in the world to me! I couldn't have known he was with the League! I didn't know, what he was going to do!"
"He came after me too, that Raijin," Lavamander snarled at the boy before him. Zach's eyes opened wide, and the dark figure before him took a big step forward and then roared down at him, "Wiped them all out! Every last one of them, but not me. Because I was always the strongest. Not just of the anti-heroes. I am the absolute!" Lavamander's arms started bubbling orange and bulking in size. "If I was a hero, I would've been far above Endeavor. If I was a villain, Shigaraki would be licking my boots." Lavamander pulled his head back, and he yelled in a furious way, "But I was an anti-hero! I was proud of that fucking name! And you- you fucking…" Lavamander's fists shook and bubbled even more furiously, and then he looked into the eyes of the boy he was shouting at.
Zach's eyes were so full of pain, but he stopped looking at Lavamander in regret. Even as the man shouted Zach's biggest regrets at him, the boy's expression returned to its strong look despite the pain in his eyes. "I was too," Zach said. "And it is my fault, but fighting me here isn't going to bring them back. Killing each other, won't do a God damn thing!" Zach glared at Lavamander's visor and into it where he knew the man's eyes were. Lavamander's arms shook for a couple more seconds, and then the glow on them started to fade and he lowered them back down to his sides. "You, really survived Raijin's attack," Zach said, staring at Lavamander in amazement and not saying it as a question as he believed him after the display he just witnessed.
"I did," Lavamander growled. "Left a mark where he focused his electricity the strongest, but it still barely broke through the surface." The man glaring at Zach ground his teeth but kept himself calmed-down despite how furious he still was at the boy in front of him. "You fucking fool," Lavamander began again after a second of just seething and glaring at him. "You have any idea what you did?" Lavamander could feel a scar on his right side ache with pain and his fists clenched so much harder as he felt the need for revenge against the boy before him.
"I know," Zach said. His response was short, but his voice told Lavamander he did not need to go on a rant to him about the things he was seething in fury about. Zach closed his eyes for a second, then he rose them and stared intensely but not apologetically at Lavamander. "I trusted the wrong person. He had split his mind with his Quirk, and the person I thought I knew was a lie. A fabrication he created with his electricity, stopping neurons and electro-transmitters in his brain… Raijin created the perfect spy, and I fell for it. I told him everything I knew, and he used it to wipe out the anti-heroes."
More than half of the people behind Zach did not understand what he was saying. Most of the ones who did speak Japanese were staring at his back with wide eyes though at what they were hearing for the first time. Only Gentle, La Brava, and the girl Gentle pushed backwards understood what he was talking about. Cee stared at Zach's back and her hands shook at her sides, her fingers starting to curl in, but they stopped and her hands never tightened into fists. She just started looking at his back in pain and then shifted her eyes over to Lavamander who turned away with a 'ch' and started marching off with his black cloak waving behind him.
Zach started glaring at the man, losing his regretful look and getting angrier instead. "So that's it?" Zach asked. He glared at Lavamander's back as the man took another step, then he shouted, "That's really all you came for? I don't think you knew I was the reason, because you would have just attacked from the start!" Lavamander took another step and Zach yelled, "What're you going to do? How will you keep up your work without guys like Ganji, and Conrad?!" Lavamander stopped after that shout. Zach started panting a bit, but he closed his mouth and just glared furiously with hazel eyes over at Lavamander's back.
"Whatever I do," Lavamander started in a low voice. "It won't have anything to do with you-"
"You're a coward!" Zach shouted.
Lavamander's eyes opened wide and then his mouth twisted down at the corners. He did not turn back to the boy he just got a lot more pissed at, instead just taking another step away and ignoring him. "You can't get over that I made a mistake, to look at the good we're doing. Yeah, I fucked up and got a lot of good anti-heroes killed. It's my fault, but right here! I'm trying to make up for it. If you can't see past that, see the good in the Army of Death- which I know you do because that's why you fucking came here! Right?!" Lavamander stopped again, and he ground his teeth as the boy behind him called him out. "It's why you searched us out in the first place, but you can't get over your own hate in order to save lives?"
"I don't need you."
"Then tell me how you found this place," Zach said. He took a step towards Lavamander's back after only waiting for a second, and he shouted, "Tell me you found it without using us! Tell me you didn't come here because you know we've been moving around fast, so you figure we have a better way of finding crime than you've had since you went on the run!"
"I'm not on the run," Lavamander growled. "People run from me. And I'm not working with the brat who fucked up the world."
Zach's hands clenched into fists at his sides, and in his chest bubbled rage towards Lavamander he had never felt so strongly towards someone he just met. He snapped towards the man who still would not turn back to face him, "You're not an anti-hero, Lavamander. If you leave because of this. You're just a villain in an illegal costume, acting in your own self-interests!" Lavamander's fists clenched in a much more pissed-off way, his teeth grinding as he got angrier than ever at the sound of that in his ears. Zach glared harder at the man's back though, and then into Lavamander's eyes as the man turned his head and glared right back at him over his shoulder.
A/N Sudden cut off! XD Lol I hope you guys enjoyed the chapter. Zach finally got Lavamander to stop and look back, but ending it here for now. Lots happened this chapter. We see Army of Death making their way west into Europe, fighting villains and trying to find out where bigger villains are. Zach calls up the Hunter and has a talk with Eziano Mozcaccio. And Lavamander returns for the first time in like 80 chapters or something since he appeared at the small meeting All Might asked Ganji to call. Wonder if anyone remembered him? Anyway, he's pretty pissed off at Zach who did not try hiding his role in the anti-heroes' collapse at all. Thanks for reading, and leave a review below telling me what you think, predictions, or questions for the story ahead!
radoddish chapter 99 . 21h ago
OOOOOOOOOOOHHHHHHHHHH BOY. THE ARMY OF DEATH IS ON THEIR WAY TO CHANGE THE WORLD.
Hmmmmmmm, is my character (me) able to join this army? the information is in my story. Yeah I have a story. It's horrible. gave myself a fnaf quirk. (Can ya read it and then rate pls).
I mean if you want to I mean you don;t have to, just askin.
So yeah back to Zach.
HOW IS A 15-17 YEAR OLD ABLE TO LEAD AN ARMY?! LIKE SERIOUSLY, THE ARMY OF DEATH, IS BEING LED BY A TEENAGER. SERIOUSLY! If it's being led by a 15-17 year old, can a 13 year old join the fricken fray.
Army of Death starts to move! Thanks for the review and I'm glad you're seeming into it! As for your character, not gonna add him in. I really am not throwing in everybody who reviews as an OC, Hummingbird really was just a name I came up with and happened to also share part of a reviewer's name. All responses that might have made you guys think I'm inserting y'all in, I swear I was being sarcastic to try and keep it fun in review section. So I'm not gonna take your character and put him in here, what I'm trying to say^^ Sorry.
Bass4penguin chapter 1 . 10h ago
Good chapter army of death seems cool
It would be interesting to see the army of death when they aren't working when it's the off hours and how the members socialize amongst the group
Thanks! We get a couple scenes in here with the group just kind of hanging, though most of their socializing is based around their work. Got busy lives these Army of Death people, always working whether they're hanging in motels or shady Russian bars. XD Thanks for the review! Hope you enjoyed!
Yes chapter 99 . 14h ago
I await more suffering.
But really tho. We need much more of Darling.
Lol maybe things are going to go good for Zach for once? Maybe? Possibly? ... XD More Darling on the way, don't worry! Hope you enjoyed her parts here! Thanks reviewing!
Super Power Sensei chapter 99 . 25m ago
You know what would be cool? I got this idea after watching Daredevil season 3. What if the League suddenly disappeared because they're secretly taking control of the Japanese government? And the way Zach "comes back to society"(150 chapters down the line) is by the Army of Death and his former classmates joining forces? Kirishima tries to attack Zach at first only to welcome him with a hug next. Jiro and Momo give him well deserved slaps then hugs(maybe some kisses). Izuku is the most reluctant because he is too blinded by All Might and his naive nature to believe Zach hasn't become evil. Sero, Ashido, and Ochaco would immediately have his back, while Iida would try to arrest Zach only to realize their government is too corrupted for "arresting" too mean anything. They save the people, stop the League once and for all, and establish new order just like Saudi Arabia. Zach gets off scott free. This can be done in a way that would seem like a civil war(at first)!
Epic prediction/suggestion. Haven't watched too much Daredevil myself but it sounds like I might have to get back into it. Won't say whether or not any of that is going to happen, won't say it won't though. One thing I want to address is Midoriya, and it seems like a lot of you guys think he's thinking Zach's gone evil. In the last chapter at the point when he was most harsh on Zach, he was thinking about how if Zach did not have any more information than the rest of them, then he just invaded Saudi Arabia with no just cause. It might have ended well, but if Midoriya's thinking that Zach would have done it without knowing about Mongoloid's nature at first (which really he didn't, though he did know some things), then it seems a lot more like Zach just invaded a country with an army of villains. Anyway, I think those with insight into what Zach's really thinking and what his plans are are quick to back him up, but he's said it himself earlier in the story like when he tried getting Bakugo to work with him without really saying anything about his plan. He knows people can't just read his mind and realize what he's hoping for... well this is getting a bit long and I don't really want to defend Midoriya too much nor say I agree/disagree with what he's thinking ('cause who knows what's coming?), but really I think this idea is cool (150 chapters down the line). XD Thanks for the review!