Hello! Here is the third chapter, I hope you will enjoy it. Although I must apologize, I am absolutely terrible at fighting scenes. I hope you will find it enjoyable nonetheless!
Fencer29: that's exactly what happened ^-^ Thank you again for reading and reviewing 3
Chapter 03.
"Shigaraki, glad you came", the rabbit heroine said.
"Why don't we skip the chit-chat and get to the interesting part?", the man replied, looking fairly annoyed he had to be there.
"Before you get all the information, we need to get the compromise ready. I'm not giving you anything unless I'm sure we're getting something in return."
Momo glanced at Spinner and Dabi. The first one had a hand on the tilt of one of his far too numerous blades, and the second seemed completely disinterested. However, Momo had no intention to underestimate him. He might look aloof and relaxed, but she knew he was very alert and would react quicker than anyone could anticipate it.
"We all share the information. Names, locations, quirks, everything, the day we find out. I want the boss for myself, but you can have all the glory of capturing the rest and have the media suck your hero dicks. We make a team of specific people approved by you and me to take them down. With the right players, we'll crush them. They're just a bunch of NPCs, with maybe some shitty mini-bosses."
"What will you do to the leader?", Mirko asked.
"Depends on how annoying he is."
"I can't let you torture someone, no matter how monstrous they are!", Momo heard herself say vehemently.
Had she gone mad? She clasped her hand on her mouth, regretting her words. The silence was deafening, only broken by Shigaraki walking towards her. He was only 5'9 and she 5'8 and yet, but she felt minuscule as his blood-red eyes fell on her. They were unreadable and did not betray anything, devoid of any life. Momo repressed a shudder; how could one's eyes become like this?
"Yet that's my condition, little girl… Are you willing to sacrifice one asshole to save some of your precious citizens?", he purred.
Momo glared at him, thinking of a response. However, she was saved by Mirko.
"I am", the woman said coldly. "We're not here to talk about philosophy. The leader is yours, Shigaraki."
After one last glance to her, the Paranormal Liberation Front leader returned to Mirko and shook the extended one with his half-gloved one. They had a deal. Momo felt her heart clench and her stomach twist painfully. She hated this. She felt like they had sold their souls to the devil, and he would one day come back for his prize. She shivered, dreading the moment he would do so.
"Now that we're done with the tutorials, how about we get to the actual game?", the villain said, crossing his arms on his chest.
"The people behind this are the Ashuva cult", Tsukaushi said, stepping forward. "It appeared with quirks, and its members believe that their god is trying to incarnate themselves in a human body."
"So, what, they need sacrifices or something? That's why they're attacking my facilities and burn everything?"
"No, it's because of your quirk."
"What the fuck?"
"The Ashuva cult wants their god on this world. God created the world, but he also almost whipped out mankind several times. God creates and destroys. Your quirk is complete annihilation for anyone or anything who falls victim to it. So, you're one half of what they're looking for. The other is Creati, here with us."
Shigaraki fell silent for a few seconds. He was obviously not expecting this type of adversary. Maybe a former enemy, like Overhaul, having escaped from Tartarus – although it was impossible – to get his revenge on him. After all, Shigaraki had destroyed his arms not so long ago, when the yakuza had been captured. On that day, they had lost several police officers and the pro-hero Snatch at the hands of the men standing before her. She clenched her fist. How she hated being unable to apprehend them! The villain glanced at her quickly, and Momo refused to look away, despite the weight of her stomach and the thundering of her heart. He seemed to be assessing her like she was a mere object and stared at her for a good minute before turning back to Tsukaushi.
"It doesn't explain the attacks", he said.
"They want to lure both of you out. You, by attacking your facilities. Creati, by going after the citizens she protects. They're probably going to try to capture you and use you to create their god."
"Well, that's some new level of fucked up", Dabi snarked.
"How would they even do it?" Spinner intervened.
"Nōmus based on us, probably", Shigaraki shrugged. "But that would fail, we're the only one able to produce them."
"Reproduction would probably work", Dabi shrugged. "Quirks are often a combination of the parents' ones."
"Oh, hell no", Shigaraki snarled. "I'm not fucking a hero!"
He had spat the word, and Momo crossed her arms on her chest, seeing red. How dare he behave as if she was repugnant? He was a murderous sociopath leading a terrifying terrorist organisation! It was simply out of the question. There was another reason too, but she did not want to think about it. She could not, or she would go mad with grief.
"Don't worry, I have no intention to welcome you in my bed anytime soon", she seethed through clenched teeth. Dabi snorted, clearly amused by her repartee.
"I don't think they'd take your feelings into consideration, to be honest", Mirko said. "Plus, they don't need you to actually have sex; in vitro fecundation could work too."
Momo shivered at the thought, disgusted. Instinctively, she put a hand on her stomach and grabbed her bodysuit, clenching the leathery material. The idea of being used as some kind of incubator for these madmen and to carry Shigaraki's child of all people made her want to throw up. Even Dabi's would be better. She wanted to be a mother one day and raise her children with a kind-hearted and devoted man who would love their family, but she had no intention of being used like this. She would stab herself in the stomach and make herself barren before being forced to endure a pregnancy she did not want. No one would take her bodily autonomy away from her.
"Alright, now that we know what they want, let's build the team", Shigaraki said.
Mirko seemed about to reply when her right ear twitched.
"Incoming!", she exclaimed.
Immediately, Momo created two gloves with brass knuckles on her hands which also functioned as tasers. Then, she made two smoke grenades and two flash ones and hung them to her belt. They made themselves known quite fast, for a woman landed about six meters away from them. She looked like a doll, with perfect features and not a hair out of place, with clothes reminiscing of the pictures illustrating the 1950s. Momo frowned; who was she?
"Good evening", the woman purred. "I'm here for Mother and Father. The others ought to leave before we must remove them."
"Decline your identity", Mirko ordered, stepping forward.
The woman looked at the heroine for a few seconds, a disgusted look on her face. Her eyes then traveled through the rest of the groups and fell on Spinner. She gasped, a hand on her chest, looking appalled at what she was seeing.
"Oh, poor Mother and Father, being surrounded by corrupted demons…", the woman lamented.
'Is she talking about… Mirko and Spinner?', Momo thought, horrified. Her mentor had a furious look on her face, and the black-haired heroine could only imagine what she was feeling at the moment. She knew people having mutation suffered from discrimination all across the world, but she had never witnessed such crude and open hate before this very moment. More than disgusting, it was infuriating. Were humans unable to judge their peers for who they were and not what they looked like? How repulsive.
"I said, decline your identity", Mirko seethed.
"I'm one of the four Archangels of the Ashuva Church, you cursed monstrosity. Now step aside less you would rather be divinely judged."
In one jump, Mirko was kicking the woman in the stomach, sending her flying against a nearby tree. They all stood in silence, waiting for the dust to fall to the ground and reveal the woman. Soon, Momo heard a queer mechanical sound, and the woman emerged from the smoke, her limbs jerking back into place. A few seconds later, she was in perfect condition and if it was not for her ruffled hair, no one could believe she had just been kicked by the strongest heroine.
"I see you prefer the divine judgment."
As if she had blown a war horn, sounds of different vehicles could be heard. 'How did they find us?' Momo thought, counting the vehicles approaching. From them, about fifty people came out, some armed, some not, but none had a mutation. Apparently, the Ashuva cult hated mutation quirks; Momo seethed in rage. She had another reason to despise them. She heard Dabi cracking his knuckles, chuckling.
"I'm definitely going to enjoy burning these guys."
"These are not the words I would have chosen but the feeling is mutual", Momo confessed to the villain. "Mirko?", she called out.
"Kick their asses."
The battle began almost immediately. Momo jumped at the first group launching themselves at them, ignoring the unhinged look in their eyes. She could not afford to be destabilized by madmen. She slammed her knee in the stomach of one of the men, punching another in the nose. She was not a powerhouse like Bakugō or Midoriya, but she had trained hard with Ochako and Kirishima to better her hand-to-hand combat abilities.
"Mother, please come with us!", a woman begged, but Momo tasered her in response, repressing a shudder.
She would not follow cultists anywhere. They had all gone mad and lost their mind, allowing their beliefs to control them. She was sad that they had fallen victim to their leader's manipulation, but it did not excuse their actions. Two hundred people were dead in the attacks, and she would not allow them to claim another victim. As long as she breathed, she would stand between the Ashuva cult and the citizens of Japan.
Suddenly, there was a deafening gunshot. A scream erupted, and Momo turned around. Spinner had been shot by the woman calling herself the Archangel. The Paranormal Liberation Front leader yelled the name of his lieutenant, slaughtering about ten people to get to the lizard man without a hint of remorse or care. 'I have to help him, I'm the only one with the most medical training', Momo told herself. Being able to generate every object in the world was fairly useless if one could not use them. Kicking away another assailant, she rushed at the duo. Shigaraki seemed too busy trying to keep his lieutenant safe from his assailants to tend his wounds, and Momo carefully avoided his destructive hands to join them.
"I'll take care of him, but I can't be distracted", she told him.
He grunted in response, which she took as a yes. She rushed at Spinner's side and examined the wound. It was situated near his liver, and Momo breathed deeply. It was bad, and he might be suffering from internal bleeding if his organ had been touched, but she could not dwell on that now. She had to put him in a stable state until an actual doctor could take a look at him and dispense correct care.
"Spinner-san, have you been touched anywhere else?"
"No…", he groaned between laboured breaths.
"Good. Stay with me, alright? Deep breaths. I know it hurts terribly, but you have to focus on staying awake. I'm going to remove the bullet and stitch the wound. Alright?"
He nodded while Momo was removing her fight gloves, replacing them with sterile ones. She also created the needed items and went to work. The bullet was lodged right next to the liver, miraculously avoided the organ, and Momo sighed in relief. She was not knowledgeable enough to deal with this kind of thing. Spinner groaned in pain the whole process, and she was impressed by how well he handled the pain, never allowing his body to jerk instinctively. He was biting the scabbard of one of his daggers, and Momo finished the last stitch, he breathed out in relief. He tried to sit up, but the heroine put a gentle but firm hand on his torso.
"Don't get up now. You've lost a lot of blood; you would pass out. What's your blood type?"
"B –…", he replied.
Hers was A+; she had to find someone else. She turned around and hailed Shigaraki, who was currently dealing with a few emitter types who attacked from a certain distance. The long-distance fighters were causing some problems to the white-haired man, although Momo was willing to bet lots of money that he was repressing his true strength. Otherwise, he might just obliterate the whole place and everyone else.
"What's your blood type?", she asked when he landed next to her after quite the impressive jump.
"No fucking idea."
"How can you be unaware of your own blood type?"
"Does it look like I take regular trips to a doctor or something?", he deadpanned and Momo almost cursed. Almost.
"Then get me someone with O – or B – blood, please, I'll keep Spinner-san safe in the meantime."
The albino grunted, and Momo donned her combat gloves as the albino dashed in the crowd, who was still calling him 'Father'. He decayed one of the most fanatical, and Momo was not sure she could blame him. Whenever one of the cultists called her 'Mother', disgusted shivers ran down her spine. She did not have to lose herself in her thoughts, as a cultist launched himself at her. He seemed to have a hardening quirk and some military training; she found herself having a hard time hitting him. She narrowly avoided a right hook reminiscing of Bakugō's ones, but a bit slower. Bakugō was absurdly fast, after all.
"Mother, please, I don't want to hurt you!", he pleaded.
"Then surrender!", she snapped.
"I can't, sweet Mother."
"Stop calling me Mother!", Momo snarled, throwing a punch at the man's solar plexus. He staggered back and the heroine-in-training stood tall, slowly taking a few back toward Spinner. "My name is Creati!"
"Oh, poor, poor Mother and Father…", the man moaned, standing back up. Momo glanced at Spinner. He was breathing heavily, but he was. "Are you worried about this vile creature, Mother? You truly are the purest of all, Mother…"
A sudden burst of blue flames turned the man into a pile of ashes, and Momo almost threw up at the nauseating smell of burnt flesh. She put a hand on her face, trying to block the smell, and turned to the scarred villain.
"Boss said you needed B – blood. What for?"
"You're on blood duty", she said. "He needs a blood transfusion."
"Oh, fuck me", he groaned, sitting next to Spinner. "Damn, you look like shit, Bowser."
Momo created what she needed and sat in front of Dabi to pierce his offered arm but froze when she saw the scars. How could she have forgotten about them?
"Hum… your scars, is it okay to…?"
"Yeah. I don't feel a damn thing", he shrugged.
Momo nodded and got to work. The scarred skin felt quite queer under her fingers. It was smooth and tender, clearly more fragile than unharmed skin. She forced herself to pierce through the skin despite her strange apprehension, heart beating faster. She did not know why she felt so weird doing so, but she did, and she disliked it. As the blood was transfused and Momo bandaged the stitched wound, the battle around them quieted. Dabi had made sure no one came to bother the process, blue flames burning wildly around them. Mirko, Naomasa, and Shigaraki arrived a few minutes later, the first dragging the so-called Archangel behind her. Momo finally removed the needles from the two men's arms and looked at the small heterogenic group they were forming. Three villains, a heroine, a heroine-in-training, and a detective, all united in a fight against a cult trying to create a god. They were quite the group.