The speakers cut out and silence fell over the gym. Then the three other doors leading out of the spacious room opened and hounds poured out. The group started to fall back to their entrance, firing all the while into the horde of monsters. A few of the weaker hounds fell easily, but for the most part, the bullets only slowed them down. The group ran into the hallway and slammed the double doors.
The double doors had small windows in them and Izuku along with everyone else nearby smashed the windows in and everyone started chucking what grenades they had through the windows. It didn't matter what kind they were, they threw everything and anything. Explosions, flashbangs, and smoke grenades erupted within the horde. Several hounds were blown to pieces while others suffered injuries, some started staggering around and were disoriented by the flashbangs.
The hounds slammed into the doors and a wolf-like hound covered in an exoskeleton tried to slash at the people through the window. They pulled back away from the window and two infantrymen with machine guns started firing into the horde. The metal doors had pieces of them steadily gouged out and the group desperately shot through every new hole that emerged. It was fortunate that these hounds were relatively mindless, as they hadn't tried to break down the doors, merely content in trying to kill them from behind the doors.
It didn't last forever though, a more humanoid-looking hound with octopus arms shot its tentacles through the many holes and just started ripping the doors and housing off entirely.
"Fall back to the end of the hallway!" shouted Ahmya as she continued to fire into the horde. The group started to run back to the end of the hallway, and moments after they started moving the doors, were ripped out of their housing and thrown back into the gym. Hounds ran into the hallway and were met with a hail of gunfire and a few quirk attacks. The first oncoming hounds were cut down but more quickly took their place.
One of the heroes in the back of the group stopped running and turned around. He threw his arms out towards the hounds and shouted. His eyes glowed blue and down the hallway to the now destroyed doors, waves of blue energy rolled over the oncoming horde and the hounds started to move in slow motion.
"Turn!" shouted Ahmya.
The group skidded to a halt and spun around, the group started opening fire immediately and as their bullets passed by the hero the bullets started moving in slow motion. Daichi loaded his grenade launcher and started firing round after round at different elevations. The group took as much time as they dared to aim their shots, and before long there was almost a wall of bullets and some quirk attacks, all moving in slow motion.
"Start pulling back to the end of the hallway, Slo-Mo drop your quirk and move!" Ahmya shouted.
The hero shut off his quirk and staggered backward where two infantrymen grabbed him and started dragging him back to the end of the hallway. Meanwhile, the wall of bullets and grenades immediately resumed their original speed and shot into the horde. Bullets ripped through hounds, grenades blew holes into the group, and shrapnel shredded any that were not armored.
Most of the hounds were killed off immediately but a few survived and started limping after them while the last group in the far back pushed forward. The group got to the end of the hallway and slammed the door shut. It was fortunate the hounds weren't intelligent enough to press the button on their side to open the door. The hounds slammed themselves into the door over and over again but it held without issue.
The group caught their breath and slummed onto the floor when it became clear the monsters wouldn't get through the door. Izuku detached the large containers on his back and put them to one side, then slid down along the wall until he sat with his back to it. No one said anything, they just took the time to rest, and drink what water they had brought with them. As they refreshed themselves they slowly got to their feet.
They checked weapons, armed themselves, and spread out in a concave around the door. Ahmya looked over to Slo-Mo and nodded. The hero walked over to the door but as he was about to release it the energy barriers that had separated them before shut off. Everyone looked around in confusion, then they saw the massive doors at the front of the room open. Light shined into the room and a figure walked into the room.
When the figure saw them he started, doing a double take.
"Well, well, I wasn't expecting anyone to be here. I suppose the hounds proved too much for you. No matter, I will deal with you a lot then move on to the other group which is making considerable progress." Said the man.
Izuku recognized the voice as belonging to the lord of the hounds. Izuku spun his rifle to aim at the man, as did most of the others when he heard the door separating them from the hounds open. Even as his momentum carried his rifle to aim at the man, his eyes looked back at the door and saw the hero Slo-Mo turning to look behind him.
The hounds killed him immediately. Izuku spun back to the hounds as they ran into the room. He fired a quick burst and gunned down a wolf-like hound but it was too late. The room devolved into chaos almost immediately. Several of their group were torn to pieces in seconds, but even so, they still outnumbered the hounds. Izuku backpedaled away from the madness, firing at whatever hounds were closest. As they started to take control of the situation, the lord made his move.
A giant limb of undulating flesh shot across the room and slammed a hero into a wall crushing him. Izuku looked to the lord and saw his form had changed. He was still humanoid but he now had many limbs and appendages. His head had mutated and multiple eyes and mouths covered his body and his lower half was just a giant mass of flesh. Izuku fired at the mutant but the bullets did little, in fact, he just ignored them as they sank into his malleable flesh. The monster slid across the floor, shooting large monstrous appendages out like javelins, impaling everything in its path, hounds included.
The group scattered across the room, the infantryman with the bone appendages scaled the walls and fired at the thing from above while one hero flew around it attacking from all over.
Izuku and Ahmya were together on one side of the room, firing uselessly into the man's flesh. Like an unstoppable force, he squelched across the floor picking them off one by one. Then an explosion erupted along the man's back and he toppled over. Izuku saw Daichi loading another round when the bottom of the man's torso rippled and a boney spear shot across the room and impaled Daichi to the wall. Even so, he didn't falter, Daichi grabbed the spear protruding from his chest and started to pull himself along its length. When he pulled himself off, he fell to the ground as blood poured out of his wound. He ripped off all of the explosive ammo he had on him and holding all the explosives out in front of him started running at the monster screaming like a madman. The monster turned just as Daichi reached him, and he slammed into the creature's mass of flesh. Then an explosion that would rival even Bakugo's strongest blew everyone off their feet, and bits of flesh went everywhere.
Izuku lay stunned on the ground for a moment before he dragged himself to his feet. He looked around and saw Ahmya staggering to her feet as well. He helped her up then they looked to where a giant smoke cloud hung.
Then a cold chuckle emanated from the smoke. The man walked out of the smoke, pitch black flesh covered him, and as they watched it sloughed off like a snake skin.
"I'll admit, it was a good attempt. But I am the pinnacle of all hounds. Only Aria, the progenitor of all hounds could match me. While her blood is key to ensuring the mutations remain stable, it's my quirk that does the heavy lifting. Mutate, the strongest enhancement quirk in the world, and when combined with Aria's blood, the key to generating viable hounds. You cannot win." He said with a smug smile on his face. Then his flesh rippled and he started to mutate before their eyes. His flesh turned black once more, his right arm changed into a giant hulking mass of flesh with a giant boney scythe on the end. His feet elongated into points that he balanced on and his left arm mutated into a bony structure with a hole on the end. Without even looking he aimed up and an array of boney shards shot out and riddled the hero flying behind and the scout. They fell to the ground and the man's smile morphed into a horrid display of shark teeth that stretched on one side of his face all the way to the top of his skull.
The fighting resumed once more and it wasn't even a contest. He ignored everything they threw at him and cut them down like wheat before his boney scythe until only Izuku and Ahmya remained. They'd used up all of their ammo, explosives, and anything else they could think of. With no other options, Izuku reached to his back and pulled out the blade he had made for fighting Zeus while Ahmya pulled out twin combat knives with brass knuckles attached. Izuku stripped the cover off the blade and revealed the super-hardened glass blade with an edge so sharp it felt like he might cut himself just by looking at it. At that moment he was no longer Izuku Midoriya, he donned the mantle of The Hunter and focused his entire being on defeating the monster before him.
He ran at the monster, flipped over the barrage as Ahmya rolled to the side, and kept running. As they got closer he stopped trying to gun them down and swung his scythe arm at them. Izuku deflected the blow upwards with his glass blade, and he felt his arm nearly snap from the force behind it. It served to give Ahmya the opening she needed however and was able to jump onto the man's chest and try to stab into his neck with her knife. Her knife scraped against his blackened skin, but it did leave a mark nonetheless. The man's chest exploded outward and Ahmya was blasted off of him, along with pieces of his flesh. She hit the floor and rolled for a bit before leaping to her feet and sprinting back.
The man morphed his projectile arm into a giant mass of barbed tentacles and tried to ensnare Izuku. He tried to keep out of range of the mass of tentacles but by doing so he was forced to contend with the giant scythe arm. He side-stepped toward the tentacle arms and baited a few of them toward him, then danced backward at the last second, severing several of the tentacles as he did so. Black blood spurted out of the ends and he heard an inhuman sound of pain before the man's horribly stretched mouth opened and he unleashed a noxious gas toward him. Izuku ran to the side, trying to avoid the gas.
Ahmya stopped just short of the gas and then started fake coughing while moving in the opposite direction of Izuku. She ran to a nearby body and removed the combat knife still in its sheath and turned to face the grotesque monster. It was facing away from her, the intent of trying to eliminate Izuku. She ran to the side of the creature and as she came to its right side, threw the knife into the side of his head where the mouth extended up to that side.
The knife lodged itself in and the gas cut off as block blood spewed everywhere from its mouth. The monster reached up and ripped the knife out of its mouth and tossed it aside, but it was the distraction Izuku needed. He ran at the creature and slashed across its face. There was another shriek as two of its multitude of eyes were sliced open and blood gushed out. However, the eyes retracted themselves into its head and its mouth shrank. Izuku went for a follow-up swing as Ahmya came up behind it and tried to jam her knife into its armpit.
Izuku's attack was deflected but Ahmya's knife sank deep into the less protected area of its armpit. Blood gushed onto her arms and she withdrew the knife with a twisting motion. Then she jumped backward as it spun around trying to cleave her in half with its scythe arm. The blow came perilously close and as she stepped backward she slipped on some of the creature's black blood. Her back hit the floor, knocking the wind out of her. She tried to get up but the side of the creature's scythe slammed into her and sent her flying across the room and into one of the walls. She felt something break in her shoulder and after a few moments of agonizing pain blacked out.
Izuku screamed in rage and rushed the creature. The mad rush seemed to surprise the man as his left arm, which had turned into a giant spiked club of flesh and bone, was too slow to intercept him. Izuku leaped onto the front of the creature and he grabbed hold of the man's head with his left hand as he prepared to send his blade up through the top of the man's mouth and into his brain. Yet, as he lined up the strike he hesitated and allowed the man to explode his chest once more and send Izuku off of him.
Izuku hit the floor and only barely got his blade up in time to intercept the scythe, and rather than be split in half, was sent sliding across the floor until he hit the wall beside Ahmya hard. He turned his head to look at the creature as it raced toward him and he struggled to get to his feet. Yet his legs felt weak and he only succeeded in propping himself off the ground with his arms as the creature raised his spiked club arm high.
Then the creature grunted in sudden pain and before Izuku's very eyes the mutated flesh was sucked into the man and he toppled to the floor.
"What?" The man asked in confusion.
"WHAT THE HELL IS HAPPENING?! WHAT HAVE YOU DONE!" The man demanded of Izuku, turning his head to look at him.
Izuku could only stare back in similar confusion until they heard the sound of steel boots on the floor. They turned their heads toward the noise and Izuku felt his blood turn to ice, his face went pale with fear, and what strength they had left him.
Stain strode toward them, every step echoing across the room until he stopped next to the man. Stains eyes never left Izuku's.
"You! What are you standing there for, help me and kill those intruders!" the lord of the hounds demanded.
Stain looked down at Izuku, and without a word drew and slashed his blade downward. The lord of the hound's head rolled for a few centimeters before coming to a stop, an angry expression still etched onto his face.
"You..." Stain said quietly.
"Are still weak." his eyes narrowing and a sneer forming on his face as he sheathed his blade.
Izuku's eyes flicked to the severed head, then to Ahmya's unconscious form, then back to Stain. He started to shake.
Stain turned around and started walking to the large open doors the lord of the hounds had come from.
"If you are still so weak when we next meet, then I will kill you myself." was all Stain said as he walked into the blackness.
Izuku stared after him as Stain's footsteps faded into silence.
He wasn't sure how long he lay there, but eventually, he got to his feet. He went to Ahmya and looked her over. No fatal injuries, but she had a broken clavicle, humerus, and likely a broken or at least fractured scapula. Brain injury was also very likely, as she had yet to regain consciousness.
He needed to move her, get her help, but carrying her would make things worse. He carefully moved her into a straight position on the ground and then went to the lift. Power hadn't been severed, fortunately, but the controls had been locked down. He retrieved a combat knife from a corpse and with it pried open the maintenance panel. It took a few minutes, but he eventually managed to bypass the remote controls and restore manual control to the console.
He went back to the field of corpses and grabbed some of the larger bones the lord of the hounds had fired at them and managed to create a makeshift stretcher that he tied to Ahmya. Then he dragged her onto the lift and went back down.
When the lift stopped, he was greeted by dozen rifles pointing at him. Upon seeing his armor however they lowered their weapons.
"Half of the assault team has been wiped out, a trap split us up but most of the heroes survived within one group but they're cut off from us by energy barriers. I and Gunsō Ahmya are the only survivors of our group, but one of Zeus's lieutenants was killed in the battle." Izuku said mechanically.
They called for medics and Ahmya was quickly taken away. When he was assured of her safety, he keyed the lift again.
"Where you going?" called out one of the guardsmen.
"I still have a job to do." He said.
When he got back to the top, he retrieved his gear for fighting Zeus and followed the path Stain had taken.
