The group took a few minutes to recover, cool down, and extinguish the fires that had sprung up all over. The fire spread rapidly, but the wet wood and ground ensured they could keep up with the spread, though it took a considerable amount of work exhausting them even further.
While the group rested and hydrated, Momo radioed the other groups. While they had been busy fighting the fake Dark Shadow, the hounds, and the fire, the other groups had closed in on Zeus's compound. Zeus had prepared well, and the buildings that made up the compound had undergone extensive reinforcement. It had made advancement difficult. They'd already called for reinforcements, believing Momo's group to be MIA.
She disabled her transmitter and turned to the group that was sitting around or stretching.
"The assault on the compound has begun, reinforcements were called in but it'll take time. We gotta get going now and reinforce them. They have defenses that Bakugo and Mina are suited to breaking." she said, packing her stuff up.
Everyone did the same and before long they were jogging through the final stint of trees closing in on the source of the combat that was echoing across the mountain. The flashes of weapons and quirks could be seen through the trees, and by the time they had gotten to the edge of the compound, twilight had fallen. It would be night by the time they finally breached the mountain fortress.
As they breached the thickest tree line, the compound came into full view and Momo could immediately understand the group's difficulty in breaching. There were relatively few trees across the compound, but they were strategically placed to hold up the camouflage mesh across the compound's top. An exterior metal wall had been raised from the ground ringing the compound, with reinforced buildings dotted along with it at periodic intervals. From these reinforced points, Zeus's forces could attack with safety.
The moment they came out of the thicker tree line, mercenaries in the reinforced building immediately opened fire. They were already behind decent cover though, so all it served was to pin them down. Momo glanced behind her where she could see a few of the others crouched for cover. She was turning her attention back to the front when there was a pause in the gunfire, then there was a mechanical noise different from the others. Then Shinso's tree exploded, sending bits of the tree everywhere. Momo recoiled from the explosion and was about to run over when the suppressing fire resumed. She watched anxiously where there was now a smoke cloud. The smoke eventually cleared and she saw Shinso laying on the ground, body at least intact. The tree she noticed, hadn't been destroyed at the base, but a bit further up. While Shinso was unconscious, and likely wounded, there was a chance at least that he wasn't dead, but that could change if she couldn't get to him and help.
Bakugo meanwhile had laid himself down on the ground, he stuck one out from the tree and toward the wall and let loose a series of flash and smoke explosions, then followed it up with a bunker buster explosion. The gunfire faltered as they lost sight of what they could see, assuming they could see, then the explosion meant to breach the wall crashed into them.
There was a pause as everyone waited to see if it had done anything. The smoke dissipated and there was a large scorch mark on the wall and building but not much else. The gunfire didn't immediately resume, however, so Bakugo motioned for everyone to fall back.
As Bakugo moved back to fresh cover, he passed Mina. Their eyes met and they both nodded, Mina, staying put as everyone moved past her. Bakugo and Todoroki both threw attacks behind them, obscuring the enemy's vision while they retreated to give Mina space.
Momo took the opportunity to run over to Shinso and drag him back behind fresh cover, before examining him for injuries. His back looked pretty bad, his armor had been damaged and she saw a piece of wood sticking out of it. She examined the area around the wound but was relieved to see very little blood. She materialized medical supplies and after another examination, removed the piece of wood. While the wound began to seep blood, it wasn't serious and she quickly cleaned, packed, and dressed the wound. Halfway through, Shinso came around but didn't move, opting to groan instead.
While Momo worked on Shinso, Mina copied what Bakugo had done earlier and laid down and stuck both arms around the tree, then she started releasing the strongest acidic mist she could, spraying towards the enemy encampment. The ever-growing cloud of acid was expanding around her, disintegrating everything rapidly and causing noxious gasses to form but also moving inexorably closer to the enemy's fortified position. The gunfire resumed for a few brief moments, but quickly ceased and they could hear screams as the mist wafted through the small windows and started eating at the people inside. Before long even the barricade started melting, slowly but steadily.
Momo couldn't help but stare in fascination at the process. Mina's acid was horrifying, but the spectacle was always fascinating to watch. When the acid had disintegrated everything to a sufficient level, Mina sprinted back towards the others, releasing a mist to counteract the acid as she ran. She ducked behind the tree Momo was at, grinning from ear to ear. Then popped her head back to watch the follow-up along with everyone else.
Bakugo stuck one arm out toward the mist now spreading further, and fired a small detonation towards it before ducking back into cover. It wasn't so much a single explosion as it was an expanding cloud of explosive fire. The explosion traveled along with the acidic mist like fire, creating one massive expanding explosion. The group could feel the shockwave roll over them, but they were far enough away to avoid harm. When the explosion ended, they came out from their cover and ran to the shallow crater that had formed where the fortification had been earlier.
They split into three groups, Ahmya's team went left to knock out other fortifications while Momo and Todoroki went right to do the same. The others ran straight ahead, where mercenaries were taking cover and preparing to meet them. Bakugo shot explosions everywhere, keen on creating as much chaos as possible, while Mina fired globs of acid. Kirishima ran headlong into a group that came round the corner of a small building, with Shinso close behind.
Bakugo started blasting himself all over, weaving in and out of buildings he threw explosions wherever he could find them, mixing in a few designed for smoke generation to hamper visibility in the middle of the camp. He blasted through the window of one building, blew up the interior then burst from an opposite window where something slammed into his side. He rolled across the ground, but sent a series of explosions under him and was quickly back in the air. He spared a glance behind him and saw a four-winged rocky snake hound gaining on him. He sent a series of explosions at it, while a sense of deja-vu washed over him. He was getting a really bad feeling from the thing. To his annoyance, its rocky armor seemed to shrug off his explosions easily, but it did serve to slow it.
He sent a flash bomb into its face and it hissed as it writhed in the air, now suddenly blind. Bakugo slowed dramatically and let it pass him, then he blasted after it. It hissed again and seemed to be searching for him through its flying remained erratic. Then he latched onto two of its wings at the base and released a contact detonation, blowing its wings clean off and causing it to spiral downwards. He let go and fired a series of rapid explosions at it, pushing downwards even faster before it smashed into the ground.
Taking a moment to reassess his situation, he realized he had gone pretty high into the air. He looked down and saw that he had blown through the camouflage mesh without realizing and that it was now burning rapidly sending smoke into the air. As he scanned the area below him he saw four objects fly out of the smoke. He cursed as more of the flying snake hounds came at him, but he noticed that they were different colors. One was red, another white, with the last two being yellow. As he prepared to fire off some explosions, they opened their mouths as one and a jet fire, a flurry of ice shards, and twin bolts of electricity came at him. He blasted himself sideways, barely avoiding the attacks as it finally clicked.
The false Dark Shadow, he had taken at face value as Zeus having found out how to extract quirks and give them to someone else, like AFO. Only now did he realize it was much worse. He hadn't been taking quirks, but replicating them and then implanting them into his twisted versions of nomu. The blood, stolen from heroes during the attack of Mufustafu, and Tokoyami's capture had all been to augment his forces with new weapons. He set about avoiding the snakes while he keyed his radio onto an emergency broadcast.
The enemy would pick it up, but the danger warranted it.
"THIS IS DYNAMITE! THE BLOOD STOLEN FROM HEROES DURING THE RAID ON MUFUSTAFU HAS BEEN USED TO REPLICATE THEIR QUIRKS AND IMPLANT THEM INTO HIS HOUNDS!" He roared into his mic.
There was no response, but he knew everyone had heard the message. He turned his attention back to the hounds and started firing off explosions. It was going to be a hard fight to secure the doorstep into Zeus's stronghold.
Momo rolled to the side, avoiding a globule of acid that sizzled and hissed as it hit the ground. She raised her rifle and fired a quick burst at the insectoid hound, her bolts hit their mark but only succeeded in cracking the creature's chitinous plating. She cursed and jumped backward as it lunged at her, wickedly sharp claws slicing through the air. She fired off another burst, and one of her hit its eye. The creature gave a brief shriek before slumping to the ground, the bolt having passed through its eye and into its brain.
She didn't have time to rest though, she ducked behind cover as a small group of mercenaries came round the corner of a building and opened fire. Then her comm crackled to life and she heard Bakugo's message.
She cursed again, the situation was becoming direr by the second. Todoroki was busy fighting off upwards of a dozen hounds, and she was pinned down. She fired a burst of blind rounds over her cover then materialized a grenade and tossed it over, buying her a couple of seconds.
Then she felt the ground rumble and she saw Godzillo storm past her roaring as he let loose a torrent of green fire, he was followed closely by a squad of QSU and several infantrymen. She got up and vaulted over her cover, letting Godzillo tank the brunt of the small arms fire as he carved a path.
Momo elected to leave the mercenaries to them and headed to where she could see flashes of fire and occasional spears of ice fly into the air. She wove her way in between barracks before coming out at where one of the fortified buildings had been. Now it resembled an iceberg more than a building since large spears of ice jutted out from every opening. She also saw multiple burned bodies of infantrymen, a dead QSU member, and the multi-icicle impaled corpse of The Fly. Taking it all in, in a moment she shifted focus to Todoroki who was dueling with two mercenaries, and a small group of hounds that looked to be a cross between a black mastiff and a Gila monster with molten lava for saliva
Momo opened fire on the mercenaries who were making things difficult for Todoroki. One was erecting barriers around the hounds, and the other was ripping bones out of his arm and then throwing them at Todoroki like javelins that also exploded on contact. Caught flat-footed the mercenaries went down easily, so she switched targets to the hounds. She managed to kill one, then one of them broke off their attack on Todoroki to come after her. It lept to the side of a building and started running along it, spitting globules of burning saliva as it went.
She ran sideways, avoiding the burning saliva and keeping her line of fire clear. It proved more dexterous than she anticipated, skittering along the building wall, before making a mighty leap at her from several meters away. She rolled to the side, barely avoiding its flying tackle. She lifted her rifle to shoot point-blank when it flicked its tail and knocked her rifle out of her hands. She immediately dove at the creature, wrapping her arms around its torso and then swinging herself up onto its back before it realized what she had done. It tried to buck her off immediately, she held on for dear life as she materialized a knife in a free hand. She put herself flat along its back, and using the hand with the knife reached as far down as she could and started stabbing it in the side over and over.
It hissed in pain and started spitting lava saliva everywhere, some drops got on her armor but cooled quickly in such a small amount and just singed her. Then she felt a searing burning pain in her hand that was stabbing it and she brought her hand to her face to see that its blood was sizzling on her hand. She desperately tried to wipe as much of the blood off on the creature's scaly-like fur. She was forced to jump off the creature to create a cloth and wipe her hand clean. The skin had second-degree burns, and she had to run from the creature as it turned and attacked her. She evaded its attacks, with one hand disabled it limited her options. She created a grenade and pulled the pin with her teeth, cooked it for a couple of seconds, then spun around and threw it at the creature's face. To her surprise, it went straight into the creature's mouth. It closed its mouth reflexively, then the grenade exploded, taking its head with it. Momo was forced to jump through a window to avoid the shower of blood and gore which set fire to the surrounding area. She grunted in pain as she cut her injured hand on the broken glass. She moved away from the glass and inspected her hand for shards of glass. When she was satisfied, she materialized gauze and started dressing her wound. Then she ran out of the building to help Todoroki once more.
Izuku brought his knife up and into the underside of the hound's jaw, killing it instantly. Then rolled to the side to avoid the tail that smashed down where he had been moments before. The cross between a kangaroo, gecko, and gorilla had proved to be very difficult to take down. It was slow though, so Izuku had been able to fight other hounds at the same time. The gun he had borrowed for the initial assault had been melted by the hound's acidic blood. So he had resorted to using his old trusty combat knife, he didn't want to break out a majority of his kit until the fight with Zeus. The hound had also broken up the squad, with Izuku being chased by it and a small number of other hounds, leaving the others to fight off the remaining hounds and a few mercenaries. Now though, he had succeeded in finishing off the rest of the hounds chasing him, and so he could now focus on the big one without distraction.
Instead of continuing to run, he ran straight at it. It tried to crush him with its large arms and long muscular tail, but he easily dodged around it. He put a cut across its chest and then slipped behind it, putting another slice along its back before jumping back to avoid the spray of acidic blood. This hound appeared to have been given Mina Ashido's acid quirk, but he had noticed that all the hounds displaying actual quirks had not manifested them the same way the heroes' quirks did. The quirks appeared to be mutant alongside the hound, likely a result of the process by which a hound was created.
The hound turned around and charged at him, trying to grab him. Izuku ran at it again, but jumped over it, using one hand to use one of its hulking shoulders as a handle as he whipped his knife across its face as he passed. His feet touched the ground for a second before its tail slammed into his side and sent him rolling across the ground. He regained his footing midroll and used his feet to make an awkward jump. During his jump, he got his feet under him, and when he landed his feet skidded across the ground, bringing him to a stop. He looked up and saw the hound making another charge, this time roaring in rage, blinded by rage and pain. Izuku threw his knife at it, cleanly impaling it through the forehead. Despite the fatal blow it kept coming, and Izuku was forced to avoid it as it crashed into a wall.
Izuku waited for a few seconds, but when it didn't move, he went and retrieved his knife with some difficulty. He saw with relief that the knife hadn't melted, the metal stronger than the acidic blood of the hound. Izuku saw that the blood was sizzling when it contacted the ground, so he backed away and made his way back to the others.
When he finally retraced his steps back to the others, he was relieved to see that everyone was fine. Ahmya looked up and gestured for him to hurry over.
"This was the last fortified position along the perimeter, the heroes and the rest of our forces are making steady progress in securing the camp. I've been talking with the other squads and it looks like a lot of Zeus's forces have retreated into the mountain. All that's left are a few pockets of resistance and a good number of those damn hounds just running amok. Once it's all cleaned up, we'll set up a base camp, call for reinforcements, then breach the mountain. Our current casualty rate appears to be estimated at 20%-25%." She said to the assembled group.
"Well, at least things went moderately to plan." Said Daichi, grunting as he furiously cleaned some kind of gunk off his rifle.
"We'll take a minute to rest here, then we'll head to the building Zeus's forces used as a sort of admin building, it also has some kind of half-buried building next to it, not sure what that was used for," Ahmya said, sitting down on a piece of large rubble.
Izuku sat down on the ground and leaned back onto the corpse of a large furry hound that he couldn't identify. As he took a moment to catch his breath and let his heart rate come under control, he wondered what Ochako was doing.
