Here we are! Sorry for the delay, this chapter is quite the big one.
(xx)
The location that had been selected for the meeting between the League for All and the so-called True League was a crowded mall in East London. The place had several floors of stores and restaurants. Definitely not the place where they wanted to start a fight. 'Is that true for them too, however? An organization that claims to be on the side of good should at least pretend to care about civilians, but then again they basically stated they would murder Power Suit's children if they got a chance. Not exactly subtle.'
Shoto grimaced. The True League had at least something to attract his interests, given that their choice of an enemy seemed built to fit All for Deku. Problem was, he would much rather risk it with the League, a humane organization, than sell his soul to the devil.
That was the crux of the problem that had already been raised by Mariah: how did they convince so many people to join a group that openly promised to murder children?
Shoto took a deep breath. No, no reason to worry about that now. What they were about to do was already dangerous without pondering questions only the True League's members could answer.
"Hello!" A familiar voice said, Kinoko sitting on the bench opposite to them. They were in the center of the mall, designed to look like some sort of city part, including some greenery and a small fountain. Not far from them was a candy store whose children enhanced the feeling of a public park.
Today Yui wasn't with her. Instead, she had brought Shiozaki and Yanagi. That said, after the last time had proven they had some way to make what happened around them unnoticeable, Shoto didn't trust his senses. He glanced around, but no one was behaving oddly. Still, that could be entirely a ruse.
He looked at his companions. Mariah's expression had turned sour, and it took him a moment to realize who she was watching. Ibara Shiozaki was her grandmother, after all. Silly of him to forget for even a moment with the vines that formed Mariah's hair. He looked at Shiozaki, but she showed no particular reaction to her, him, or the other people present. Reiko's eyes in contrast were entirely focused on Bakugo, and there was no doubt about what she thought of the man. Her grimace was more eloquent than any word.
"So." Kinoko started, clapping her hands to get their attention. Shoto noticed the lack of reaction from the crowd at the loud clap and wondered if she had done it on purpose or if she just didn't care about them knowing they were being hidden by something from the passer-byes. "I see you brought three Founders of the League for All, one of them being Mariah. I hope this is about an agreement then."
Shoto looked at Mel, the one that stood up. Melissa Yagi looked at them all, then back at the True League. "There will be no deal. As much as I can agree with your complaints about the League's inaction, you are embarking in an hopeless mission that will make thousands suffer across the Multiverse." She glared at them, "I suggest you give up. Now."
Kinoko's smile turned into a frown in less than an instant, a complete change in expression that betrayed a unique mix of anger and contempt. "Cowards. You all agree with this?" She asked, looking behind her at the others, "I mean, of course Mariah does, it saves her life, but what about Shoto or Bakugo. Or maybe we should also ask the two Itsukas hiding back there?"
'Two.' Shoto noticed, without changing expression. She didn't know about them all then. "I do. You are a good chance to get rid of All for Deku, I'll admit, but I'm not about to start murdering children for it just because they are called Midoriya."
"I don't give a shit about your petty crusade." Bakugo summarized. He didn't hear any other answer. The Itsukas were likely staying hidden to intervene if things went badly.
Kinoko took a deep breath once again. "Very well. I guess this means our little charade is over already." She stepped forward, but before she could Mariah's vine extended forward, quick like thunder, grabbing the three from the waist.
"You are not going anywhere." Mariah said.
"Dear." Kinoko asked, "Do you really want to do this? Here? There are a lot of people around that are trying to spend a happy weekend. It would be such a pity if they found themselves involved in our fight."
"Maybe I want. You went on and on about the fact Midoriyas are all evil, aren't you contradicting yourself if you now claim I would care about those civilians?" She asked, and Shoto hoped, really hoped she was bluffing. The part of his mind that was still rooted in his preconceived notions screamed that he shouldn't have been standing there, standing next to a Midoriya, as she put the lives of all those civilians on the line, but he had to believe he made the right choice.
"Well, that's unfortunate. I suppose I shouldn't expect anything less from a Midoriya." She pulled her wand out of her sleeve, and Mariah immediately opened her hands, her eyes shining yellow while Mel charged forward. Every person in the mall, at least within sight, was surrounded by black fog, the same one Kurogiri and All for Deku used, and quickly fell through the portals. Shoto looked with eyes wide. How much control did it take to do that? Even All for Deku could only create ten or so portals at once, as far as they knew. This was hundreds, even if each was only large enough for one person. Mariah's eyes kept shining yellow.
Kinoko, Reiko and Ibara seemed surprised for just a moment, but it was all Melissa needed to rush in and punch with a One for All powered fist… only for Ibara to pull out her own wand out of nowhere - no, out of her sleeve, Shoto realized - in the blink of an eye. Her wand was made of thorns, and the girl with green hair moved it quickly. The fist impacted a wall of thorns, and Melissa winced, before Kinoko unleashed her own spell.
A rain of spores emerged from it, a blizzard that surrounded the three woman. When it touched any surface, be it the walls, the floor, or Mariah's vines, the spores instantly started to grow into mushrooms.
'So their magic is directly related to their Quirks? In that case…' Shoto launched a stream of fire forward, burning the spores still in the air and making Kinoko flinch, before Reiko used her own magic. His fire stopped moving normally, instead reshaping into various orbs above the girl's head.
"Thank you. I can use some good material." The witch quipped, before unleashing the five orbs. Shoto hastily put up a wall of ice, but the orbs of compressed fire melted it in an instant. He took a step back to make another but felt the ground shake and turned to see the Amazon rush forward, her red mane flowing in the air as she moved her sword to cut the fire orb. Shoto didn't know what to say, because he couldn't comprehend the sword cutting the orbs cleanly in half, and then both sides seeming to flow into the blade, that shone bright red for a moment. The girl smirked and turned the blade around.
"Fire to water." She said, and immediately the orbs of fire she had just cut shot out… except now they were orbs of ice. Unbothered, Reiko Yanagi took control of them.
"Is that all?" She asked.
"Yes. I had to remove the fire." The Amazon grinned, and then something emerged from Reiko's shadow. The red eyes and pale skin of Itsuka Quanteng, the Ironblood, became recognizable a second later, as she lunged at the girl's neck. Her bite made Reiko scream, but Kinoko didn't seem bothered. She raised her wand, and the mushrooms started to coalesce into a single form. A colossus made of mushroom soon stood above them, the creature's eyes shining of unnatural purple light. The vines did the same, forming a smaller but equally hulking puppet of vegetation. The giant stomped on the vines holding the three magic users, breaking them apart, and then tried to punch toward Bakugo and Jiro, but the latter got him out of the way by teleporting with her suit, reappearing a few meters from them.
"Shit." Mariah muttered, finally regaining control of herself, panting a bit, "Sorry, that took a lot out of me, but now the entire mall is empty." She retracted her hair. Reiko meanwhile had turned the orbs of ice into spikes, and immediately directed all three at the Vampire still latched to her neck. The woman in response dragged her neck and dragged both of them out of the way, slamming Reiko's head on the floor. However, where she was expected to slam on the ground, instead she seemed to faze through it. The Ironblood's eyes widened for a moment, before she regained control, but it was enough for Ibara's spell to grab Reiko by the leg and drag her toward them. The Ironblood didn't pursue, instead stepping back and reaching for a shadow, vanishing into it.
"Have fun." Kinoko said, grabbing once again both Reiko and Ibara, this time vanishing for good.
Their monsters didn't, instead charging forward. Shoto, before anyone else could react, slammed his hand on the ground, freezing the giants solid. The ice creaked as the constructs tried to break them, and his eyes widened as large cracks started appearing on it. Those things were stronger than a High-End.
Before he could do anything, the Amazon charged forward, and slammed his sword forward, to cut through the leg of the vines giant. The plant was chopped cleanly, and then the 'wound' started to wilt and crack, bringing him down as the ice failed to hold him up and cracked with him. The Amazon raised her sword and passed it cleanly through its head. Like the leg, it instantly started to wilt, the creature disbanding in meters and meters of vines. Before it could fell on her, Mariah raised one hand and a burst of blue fire rushed forward, dissolving the ice into steam and the plants into ash.
He focused another burst of ice on the bigger mushroom colossus, but that was when Bakugo charged in, pulling out from his bag… was that C4?
"Die!" He shouted, throwing the explosive at the creature's head and then detonating it with a press of a button. A large chunk of the monster's head exploded off, raining mushroom chunks all around, and then another stream of blue fire set its head ablaze. It thrashed for a bit, but Shoto's ice was more than enough to keep it trapped completely until finally the head entirely burned away and the rest collapsed on itself, destroyed and nothing more than a mass of frozen mushrooms.
"What the hell…" Shoto muttered, "What was that?"
"First blood, I suppose." Itsuka the Amazon replied, putting the blade back in its sheet, "Though the only one that really got blood was the Vampire."
Shoto nodded, looking around for any sign of the woman in the Victorian dress, but there wasn't any, seeming to have vanished into thin air. Or shadow, he supposed. He did notice that someone was missing as well, however.
"Where is Itsuka Kendrick?" He asked.
"I think…" Mariah started, then she froze, as they all felt the ground shaking. They turned around to see the mushroom colossus regrowing, standing back up, like it had never been felled. "Oh, you have to be shitting me."
-x-
My name is Zuzu-9-Beta. This qualifies me as the second copy the League made of the original Zuzu-9 AI, warrior of justice that protects humanity in its artificial world.
I will not retell every detail about my home, since my sister Zuzu-9-Gamma already provided such details to any wanderer that passed through the Star Tower. However, I will mention that my role is protection of the Headquarters of the League for All.
In conjunction with my sister Zuzu-9-Delta, I'm in charge of defending its inhabitants and defense of its secret.
I'm Zuzu-9-Beta.
And there is nothing else I will ever be.
Being a humanoid AI made Zuzu-9-Beta a unique being, in terms of mindset. Or well, as unique as it could be when she was derived from the same mental processing programs as her sisters.
One could believe that being an AI, she wouldn't have a proper understanding of what made her different from humans, but that was not the case. Her original program, after all, included the secret 'civilian' identity of Izumi Midoriya, the girl that would turn into the defender of justice Zuzu-9 to defeat the evil machinations of the Lord of Evil. She would have called juvenile, but her mother and programmer, Inko Midoriya, had always said that even if it was just a façade to keep the public safe and happy, thinking they were just watching made up fights, instead of battles that determined the fate of the human race.
This role as Izumi that had been cast on the original Zuzu-9 came with cerebral pattern, heightened experiences of all sorts of human feelings, and even conspicuous knowledge of social constructs of human society. Zuzu-9-Beta was an AI, but she was an AI that understood what it meant to be human, what it meant to be a person of flesh and bone.
Which was why she despised people that would hurt others. Sure, she didn't have a body, so she would be fine, but those people of flesh and bone, those people that could actually feel pain, hurt and suffer in real time, rather than in a simulated effort, dared to damage their own bodies? To even take a precious life?
She hated that.
Her time in the League had been interesting. As the second oldest sister, she had seen the creation of Delta, Gamma, the unfortunate failure with Epsilon, and then her youngest sister Zeta. Even if she never met Gamma and Zeta after their creation – since they were assigned to other universes – and if she had a difficult relation with Epsilon due to her 'problem', she still considered all of them precious.
However, she considered more precious the people in the League itself. While she considered her true mother the Programmer Inko Midoriya, who had won the competition to present the AI that would replace her predecessor Yaya-8 with her project, meaning that, in a very real sense, she was the one that had brought her to life, Beta considered the Founders of the League her family. Miss Mariah, in particular, was to her akin to an older sister, and she didn't make a mystery that her demeanor had been shaped by her peripheries to show she felt admiration for the woman.
All this was to say that Zuzu-9-Beta despised the thought of someone, anyone, trying to put the League in danger, and especially someone that would try to harm Miss Mariah. Of course, she knew she couldn't think otherwise – she was, after all, programmed to care about people – but she had no interest in questioning whether her care was genuine or merely result of programming. She believed that she would follow the example of the Founder and put the people above herself, like Mister Midorikawa and Mister Togata had done.
Her sensors pinged her to the first floor of the facility, and she examined the area. On the normal cameras, her eyes, nothing seemed amiss, but she knew that her pressure sensors said otherwise. If someone with magic, powerful cloaking devices, or a Quirk thought that they could just pass through, they had another thing coming. With the speed of thought, all sensors on the cafeteria floor were raised to the highest sensitivity. She could now feel every movement, the air conditioning's breeze hitting the floor tiles, a small bug crawling toward the kitchen – she discreetly sent a bot to pick it up and take it outside – or the steps.
Four people. Four people that had somehow made it through the door and up the stairs, before they were found by her sensors. Unacceptable. She would have to do a full examination of her defenses on the ground floor. But for now…
She appeared in front of them, even if she still couldn't see them, in holographic form, a stern look on her face. "Stop. You are not authorized personnel. Identify yourself."
She felt them freeze, but still no answer. "Identify yourself, I repeat, or I will have to activate the Headquarters' defenses." In truth, they were already active, merely hidden, but they didn't need to know that. The AI was running a subroutine to try and find any bug on her ground floor sensors, but they seemed to be working correctly.
'Everything alright, sister?' Delta asked from the lower floors. Their shared memories meant that they both knew what the other was doing, so she didn't need to ask the question, but it was a way to tell her that nothing seemed wrong on the lower floors.
'Just infiltrators.' She replied, and then shook her head. "If there is no answer, I will have to consider you hostile." She replied, and with that she engaged the defenses.
As she did, one of her most important program, the Transformation Sequence Subroutine, engaged. She had no problem with it. While others, like Epsilon, found it embarrassing, to her it was just an obvious and natural thing to do. With little in the way of emotion on her face, she let her clothes change in puffed skirts and frilly green clothes worth of a mahou shojo protagonist. She liked them, given the design was the reason why her mother had won the competition, and after all they were entirely aesthetic.
"AI Warrior Zuzu-9, ready to engage!" She shouted, without putting much emotion into it. "Amaterasu Fire!" She added, and the walls opened.
In her world, Amaterasu Fire was really the command she used to debug a digital building program that had been damaged by the evil viruses she had to face regularly, though it came disguised as her punching the representation of the creature with a fist covered in flames that extended into a pillar of fire.
Here it was the command to unleash several machine guns from the surrounding walls. The hail of rubber bullets tore through the point where those people were hiding, and three of them moved out of their cloaking to run for cover.
As it turned out, one of them was an alternate version of Izuku Midoriya, wearing some sort of visor over his eyes. That alone was reason to rise a number of questions in Zuzu-9-Beta's mind, even if she decided to save them for interrogation. The second one was a version of Nirengeki Shoda, a stocky man with short ice blue hair, a short beard of the same color and attire similar to the Hero costume seen across several worlds, a black armor that was shaped so to emphasize his musculature. However, he was missing the visor, interestingly. Moreover, her sensors were telling her the individual was several times heavier than his constitution would suggest.
Third one was a Tooru Hagakure, the woman still invisible but now perceivable in clearer details, visible to the heat visors installed within her cameras. She could guess Hagakure was in her mid-twenties at the least because of her height compared to other versions of her across the Multiverse, but finer details were harder to pick apart. Finally, whoever the fourth one was, they had remained under the cloaking device, where she could only see their weight information. Heavy, really heavy.
She sent a copy of herself to the higher floor to ask her reinforcement to stay ready to fight but not rush downstairs unless it was requested, one to the lower floor to inform Miss Uraraka, and a message further down to Delta to seal every floor and especially activate all sensors around the prison and the servers. It would be very difficult to protect the place if they deactivated her, and if they destroyed the servers completely, or deleted them… 'Well, I might be interested in many human things, but death is not among them.'
She lashed out with more gunfire, studying her opponent more closely. The invisible one – the actually imperceivable one, not the Hagakure that had overturned a pair of tables and was huddling behind it in a makeshift fort – wasn't moving at all, even when she focused one of the guns toward him, the rubber bullets rolling on the ground after supposedly hitting them. It was hard to say, because whatever spell they were covered with was messing with her cameras to make analyzing the shape of the impacts impossible. Was he immune to gunfire somehow? That would have been another possibility to keep in mind. Her other sensors gave her nothing under the dome of invisibility, except the movement… that was unnaturally still.
'Some sort of humanoid machine?' She guessed, considering all possible explenations. If it was that, it made sense rubber bullets weren't deterring it.
Nirengeki Shoda had meanwhile also taken cover, and she noticed they had placed themselves in a good position. They had most likely figured out they didn't want to risk a stray shot to hit the kitchen, so they had placed their back toward it and covered the front with two tables they had upturned, crouching low.
Beta used that time to process all information she was collecting. Her microphones were all set to the higher possible sensibility, so she would catch any word exchanged between them, and the cameras all over the room were equally set on their hiding spot.
"Goddammit Technician, you were supposed to deal with it." Hagakure said.
"I can only do so much!" The Midoriya – Technician, she supposed – replied, his hands flying in front of his face like he was tapping on air. Ah, the visor, he probably used some augmented reality, "I'm a technomancer, doesn't mean I can just miracle away an AI without access to her." He replied.
Beta felt a slight twinge of fear from her emotional directory. Technomancers weren't an unknown across the Multiverse. Magitech users with the ability to control technology were something that existed in a few worlds. The JTO had one under contract to routinely improve their server defenses, and her mind was quickly given information from the League's Database on possible versions she might be looking at. Useful, but not conclusive. The problem with the Multiverse was its vastity, as always.
"Well then get access!"
"Oh, wow, I never considered that. I must be an incredibly dumb idiot, thank you, witch from a world whose highest technological discovery was the printing press, I am sure your input is what I need right now!"
She gritted her teeth, and Beta decided to change tactics. Keeping them pinned down was fine for her, given she had an almost unending stream of bullets to throw at them and no issues with time, fatigue or risks of direct attacks, but if the technomancer needed time, she would deny him that. She sighed considering the expenses, and then pointed her hands forward, thumbs crossed, and fingers spread. "Net of the Wind Hawk!" She shouted, once again with an expression on her face lacking any real emotion to accompany the shout. In her world, this would have created the animation of a wind bird turning into a net made of air grappling the monster she was 'fighting', while she solved more programming damages.
In this world, it meant that two small holes in the walls opened, and Spider-Man's web shot out, grabbing both tables and suddenly pulling them aside at her command, in time to create an opening of the guns to fire. Shoda, however, the larger man with light blue hair, put himself in the way. The bullets impacted on his body, but they only seemed to do light damage and… stuck to him.
"Repel." He said, and the bullets flew back, smashing on the walls. No damage to her, but her sensors informed her the impacts were several times stronger than from her guns. She guessed this was likely his version of Twin Impact, whether a Quirk or some sort of magic or tech. "Can you do something?!" He shouted, as he stood to be hit by more bullets.
In response, while the AI tried to switch her aim to shoot the man, the Technician looked left and right, before he got an idea, slamming the hand on a tile on the floor. "Come on, come on…" He said, his metallic glove breaking it and allowing him to…
'No!'
"Yes!" He grabbed onto the sensor he had found underneath with the metal-gloved hand.
'Warning, unauthorized entry in the sensory system detected.' An alarm declared in her mind. Beta knew already, trying to increase gunfire even more to no avail. The bullets seemed unable to strike anyone but Shoda, and he seemed able to take it. 'Some sort of impact absorption?' Her brain supplied as a theory. She acted quickly however, detaching Delta's systems from her own first, before the technomancer could access them too. It meant Delta and her couldn't share what they were perceiving any longer, but it also prevented the man from breaking through. Then, she quickly detached evry important part of herself from the sensory system.
Not a second too soon, as a moment later all of them started to fail. Had she been human, it would have meant losing her eyes, ears, nose and so on. The sensors seemed to turn off first, followed by heat receivers, cameras, and microphones.
She was blind, deaf, unable to feel anything. 'Dammit!' She said, trying to figure out a way through the darkness. She kept the machine guns firing, but she wasn't stupid, and knew full well that they would likely move out of target as soon as possible. After sending a message to Delta to explain the situation, hoping her sister could receive it despite the cut of their connection, she then accessed her database. If she couldn't fight herself, at least until the self-repairing subroutines fixed the issue, then she would make sure the others would.
-x-
Lissa looked up from her bed. Why had the holograms of Zuzu-9-Beta vanished all at once? She had been there a few seconds before, informing her that yes, they were under attack, but no, she should have stayed away, the AI would deal with it. Clearly, things were not going to plan, if suddenly every contact they had was gone.
She risked stepping out of her room, and at the same time her phone buzzed. She looked around. The second floor was filled with empty rooms, she knew. Mariah and Mel had decided that since there was a non-zero chance that the enemy had a way to access their base, they couldn't risk their combat power, the Wanderers that had already collected there, to be destroyed all at once, not knowing what the enemy was capable of. They had been therefore put safely on the One for All, Jiro's ship, and sent away, the ship being directed by none other than Himiko Hatsume, the engineer Lissa had befriended over her very forced stay at the base. Apparently, she knew how to control the ship, which was pretty amazing, so she was a good choice, provided she didn't try to dismantle it to analyze the alien tech. Making Jiro go with Mariah and the others was entirely so they wouldn't think that the Wanderers had been taken off to the One for All, but to the Star Tower, where Star Might and his Sidekicks would be waiting along with Zuzu-9-Gamma and probably some other Patrollers. Technically, a perfect trap, but with one wrinkle: if the enemy had informers, they wouldk now.
That's why they had been asked to stay at the base to better sell the ruse. The intention was to make them think the base was being used as a stepping point for the non-combatant Wanderers to transfer to another world. Not a lie a Patroller would have bought, but a vast majority of Wanderers had no knowledge of Multiverse travel. All they needed to sell the ruse was a few people to 'guard' the base while the non-combatants passed through. Not many, mostly Uraraka and three or four others. Lissa had offered immediately. Why, she couldn't really say. Melissa Shield was a strong fighter, but more importantly she owed the League. They were helping her go home, and she would soon. She wouldn't leave them in their time of need.
Battle Fist, the older Itsuka Kendo, walked up to her. "Anything?" She asked, while Lissa pulled out the buzzing phone.
Melissa shook her head, as she looked at the message. It was fairly clear. "They are coming. Four of them. Invisible, but tangible. I will make sure to let you spot them. Beat them up. Beta."
It was unusually direct of Beta, but she supposed there was a reason for it. She looked up in time to see Itsuka Kendo, this one the sixteen years old girl that carried a pen in her pocket at all times and otherwise dressed as a completely normal civilian, unlike Battle Fist that had put on a full Hero costume. Lissa did wonder what the former would do when she found herself against the enemy. Write them to death?
'I just hope we are enough.' She thought, as they placed themselves in wait. As they watched, a series of tripwires shot out of the walls, mostly around the stairs but also all over the corridor, undoubtably Zuzu-9-Beta's plan to help them spotting their target. They stepped back inside Lissa's room, keeping the door open enough to look at the stairs.
Sure enough, soon after one of the wires, the one closest to the door, moved, slightly vibrating, and then another, and another. Battle Fist didn't miss the direction the enemy seemed to be moving forward and attacked first, moving fast thanks to One for All coursing through her body. Her gigantic fist filled the corridor entirely, clutching onto something and slamming it against the wall. Three figures had managed to roll out of the way in time.
Lissa gasped. "Izuku?!" She asked, seeing a man wearing a visor, green hair and freckles, making him clearly recognizable as her past friend. She gritted her teeth. No, this wasn't Izuku Midoriya, not the one she had known. Neither was the girl next to her Hagakure, or the man they were standing behind Nirengeki Shoda. All three were acquaintances or friends back home – or had been – but here they were enmies.
"ByTwo!" Izuku shouted at the same time.
"Alright, this is important then." Battle Fist decided, holding tight on whoever – or whatever – she had caught with that first attack.
"You two go ahead. Technician, you know your job." The man with light blue hair said, "The ship is the target, not some Wanderers."
Lissa rushed forward, charging One for All, and punching without hesitation. The impact slammed against the older version of Nirengeki Shoda. He winced, pushed back a few steps, then grinned. "Repel." A burst of concussive energy shot back from him, making Lissa fly back in turn like she had just been hit by One for All in turn. The younger Kendo caught her before she impacted a wall and helped her up.
"Thanks."
"Don't mention it."
Shoda cracked his neck. "No one is getting past me." He replied. "Certainly not some traitors that can't see the bigger picture."
"That's the pot calling the kettle black." Battle Fist said, slamming her captured opponent into the wall again. The sizable dent in the wall was taking a worryingly human shape, but still there had been no reaction from the individual she was holding. Had she killed them by accident?
For a moment, Izuku seemed uncertain, like he wanted to argue with Shoda and Hagakure, then the man sighed. "Alright, we are going, Hagakure…"
"I know."
A moment later, whatever invisibility field was protecting the target turned off, and Lissa could see who Battle Fist was holding. A robot made of black and grey components, with shining white eyes, that didn't even look dented, and whose design was clearly reminiscent of…
"Twice?" Of course. ByTwo. Twice.
The machine stared at them, and then there was a final shout from the Technician. "Fight!"
ByTwo's eyes lighted up completely, and he grasped the wall, throwing a chunk of it at the heroine. She slapped it off with her other hand, but then the robot sunk his hands into her enlarged limb. She shouted as a large gash wound opened on the hand, and reflexively let go. The machine darted forward, beginning to attack her with boxing moves. Kendo, clearly a martial artist, managed to deflect the blows away from her body and face, though her expression made it clear it wasn't an easy task. Lissa made to rush forward, and the same did the other Itsuka, but Kendo spoke first.
"I'll take him!" She shouted, punching with a hammer fist that slammed the robot through the floor thanks to a generous dose of One for All. "You two take them!"
She followed the robot downward, no doubt to prevent him to cause more damage, and Lissa and Itsuka could only turn toward Nirengeki Shoda. "Heard that kids." He asked, "Take them."
Lissa shot forward, aiming a One for All powered fist at his face, but her arm changed direction all at once, impacting the man's gut instead. "Release." He said with a small gasp, the only hint of the damage he must have felt, before Lissa was shot back once again.
"My turn!" The other Itsuka shouted, pulling out her pen.
Her pen that ended with a planet with the symbol of Jupiter on it.
And this was the Itsuka from the Sailorverse.
Lissa was speechless as the girl cried "Jupiter power, Make Up!" And was surrounded by electricity, coming out wearing a white, pink and green high-school sailor uniform with a miniskirt Lissa found a bit excessive, a golden tiara on her head, green thigh-high boots and pink ribbons. Oddly enough, she also looked different. Lissa couldn't quite put her fingers on it, but there was something that made her feel like, even knowing this was Itsuka, and even with her face completely clear to see, she looked unrecognizable. If she had turned behind a corner and transformed there, Lissa was fairly sure she would have thought a different person had just come in to help.
"You are Sailor Jupiter!" She shouted.
"That I am." Itsuka replied, chuckling, "Still weird to think people around the Multiverse know about it. Anyway…" She crossed her arms at the wrist, raising her index and pinky fingers while an antenna emerged from the tiara on her hand. Electricity crackled. "Supreme Thunder!" She shouted, and a lightning covered the distance between her and Shoda in an instant, slamming into the man, who cried in pain, thrown back through the corridor and away from the stairs. "I'll take him! You follow those two!"
Lissa wanted to argue but she could tell that they had to do this. While there was no ship for them to capture, thankfully, they still could do a lot of damage, and capturing them was still important. She rushed for the stairs.
"Repel!" Shoda shouted, and electricity shot out of his body, but Lissa launched Blackwhip to move herself out of the way. The electricity tried to jump, but the railing of the stairs absorbed it before her body could, and she rushed upstairs, leaving behind the shout of 'Supreme Thunder' and another shout from the man.
-
Itsuka Kendo punched with all her strength. If she was a normal person, the strength of the impact on the metal would have broken her wrist, but One for All took care of that. The robot however planted both feet on the ground. ByTwo – that's what they had called him – was resilient, scarily so. Nedzu would have cried at the thought that this thing could have thorn to shred every single bot at UA, and Battle Fist didn't doubt for a second that.
It was barely dented from several attacks with One for All, after all. While she couldn't use them at full strength, not without leveling the building she was trying to protect, the bot was still getting it with several thirty to forty percent – enough to have thrown away the furniture on the whole floor, much to her chagrin. She really hated fighting indoors with a power like hers. Unfortunately, she didn't really get a choice.
The ByTwo's eyes locked on her, and then it charged forward again. She hit with a giant fist this time, but the robot blocked with a cross guard and managed to only be shot back toward the counter of the cafeteria, before standing back up. His arms were now a bit ruined, but far from completely out.
'Tough costumer, this one.' Daigoro Banjo's Vestige commented, 'Think you can take him?'
'It's not really an if. I can only do it.'
'I'm probably useless.' The Sixth commented, 'A machine will probably have ways to deal with the smoke.'
'And you don't need Float indoors.' Nana added.
'Which means it's up to Blackwhip, Fa Jin and Danger Sense.' Kendo concluded, 'Guess we will do something dangerous.'
'Are you going to be alright Kendo?' The caring voice of All Might asked. She smiled fondly. Her mentor had passed away a few years before she ended up in the Multiverse, but he lived within her, and for that alone she was grateful to One for All.
The woman smiled. 'You are here. Am I right?'
'Always.' Her mentor replied, and the other Vestiges all agreed.
'Then let's do this.'
Kendo rushed forward, while moving her right arm in fast circles, like a child 'charging' a punch. Except that she actually was. Mentally apologizing to Beta and Uraraka for all the damage she was about to do, she covered her arms in Blackwhip, and punched forward. The machine seemed to expect the move, dodging and unleashing a perfectly timed counter, but Kendo's Danger Sense let her know it was coming and she enlarged her other hand as a shield.
She grimaced at the impact – again, what kind of strength did that bot have? – and she backhanded him away… only for the machine to stop her enlarged hand.
"Analysis completed." The machine declared, "Switching parameters."
And with that it started to transform. She would have pointed out this was more of Toga's specialty than Twice, but a moment later she was staring at a robot with the appearance of the same Nirengeki Shoda the girls were likely fighting above.
Kendo didn't let that stop her, punching forward with her fist back in normal shape. At the last second, she enlarged her fist once more, to the biggest size possible, big enough to scrape against both the floor and the ceiling, and consequently about as strong.
It didn't do anything. Or well, ByTwo was thrown back, but it didn't show any outward damage. "Release." It said, punching forward in turn. The concussive force sent Kendo rolling back, her hand growing to stop herself and block the impact with the wall.
The robot's right arm however hadn't taken well the recoil. It had bent like an empty can in the section that formed the forearm, the limb inert.
"You know, it stings a bit that you would do my job for me." She replied, and then she punched forward, using the accumulated strength of the Fa Jin together with the One for All powered punch. "Also, you didn't really analyze anything."
Kendo's battle style was entirely about amassing power up. Her native Quirk, Big Fist, meant that the larger her hands were, the stronger they were. No it didn't make sense in terms of conservation of mass, but Mount Lady had already proven that clearly that law wasn't a law anymore. Then, on top of that, she added usually One for All, further boosting her punches. And then, above that, she could add Fa Jin, cumulating kinetic force to further speed up and strengthen the attack.
The robot clearly could tell the incoming attack was several magnitudes stronger than the ones before, and tried to step back to limit the impact of the blow, but Kendo knew he would do that. It had been its solution for this long. In response, she launched two threads of Blackwhip from her wrists, the shadow coiling around her enlarged fists and holding the both turned into Shoda by the sides, preventing him from moving away.
The fist slammed, enlarging to full mass. This time, even the transformation clearly wasn't enough, ByTwo turning back into its original form as whatever factor determined the transformation came undone.
"Analysis: output several times above maximum capacity." The robot declared, "Error."
"Nope. It's correct." She moved forward and fainted with her fists. When the bot tried to block them, she surprised him by kicking.
What? Martial arts didn't mean just using her giant fists. She had finesse too.
The One for All-powered kick sent the robot flying toward the wall, where it however didn't stop. Instead it spun midair, landing on both, the remaining arm gripping the wall.
"Oh, you are a tough bastard, aren't you?"
The robot stood back up, then he stopped, frozen in position.
And then it turned around, kicking a hole in the wall.
-x-
"Supreme…"
"Thunder, yeah, I got it!" Nirengeki Shoda shouted as another of the girl's lightnings shot toward him. "I hope you know those are lightnings, thunder is the sound!" He released the electricity once again, while charging forward, one fist flying downward toward the girl…
That then popped up a second later behind him, hitting him in the side of the head with a punch. "Ok, since when can Sailor Warriors teleport!" He shouted.
"Sailor Uranus and Sailor Neptune thought us how."
"I fucking hate the Multiverse with a vengeance." Shoda commented, dashing forward. He punched again, but this time she jumped, kicked on the roof with both feet and came down with a white gloved fist that hit him on the back of the head, sending him down into the floor. "Repel!" The impact was shot back outward amplified, sending her staggering back once again.
Itsuka at this point had figured out the pattern. Shoda could absorb impacts of any kind, only getting hit with side-effects of the attack or if they were stronger than a certain threshold. Once he absorbed enough, he had to release the cumulated impacts, that shot out with added strength.
"Flower Hurricane!" She shouted, razor sharp rose petals shotting out cutting Shoda's skin. The man grimaced, covering his face with his arms, using the armor to protect himself. She grinned. So, cutting attack did more damage.
'In that case, I can use…' She started, but then Shoda just looked puzzled for a moment, his hand flying to his hear where, she noticed, a very small earpiece was visible.
Then he looked at her. "Seems you got lucky."
-x-
Lissa moved past the empty second floor and up to the gym, finally reaching the roof. Here, as expected, she found the two, looking around to find the spaceship. She grinned, dashing forward toward Izuku using One for All.
The man turned around, and for the briefest of moments she hesitated. It was dumb, but for just an instant, seeing the face of the friend that had died in her arms, Melissa Shield failed to continue her attack. And that was enough for him to answer without hesitation, punching her with his metallic-gloved hand. Lissa staggered back, but her body reinforced by One for All was strong enough to take a punch like that without issue. She attacked once again, aiming for the woman this time. The witch shouted as she was hit, then murmured something in a language Lissa couldn't understand.
Suddenly, everything went dark. She couldn't see anything. 'Did she just blind me?' She wondered, 'Oh god, I can't see!'
"Get her!" Tooru's voice shouted, the invisible girl having moved, or more likely staggered, a few steps back.
A metallic fist, no doubt the Izuku, hit her in the side of the head, sending her rolling away in the dark. She blinked a few times, but her eyesight really was gone. 'This would be a really good moment for Danger Sense to kick in…' She thought, instead extending Blackwhip around, trying to feel them when they touched the darkness tentacles.
She felt the first step of one of the two over the substance and shot in that direction, propelling herself with One for All and extending Blackwhip like a net, counting on the threads more than her body to catch the pray. In that instant she heard a step from her right, and a second spell hit her, or so she guessed based on the same weird sensation that impacted her.
Her sense of touch vanished, and Melissa gasped.
"Should we catch her?!" Izuku asked.
"Forget it, we are just here for…" There was a buzzing sound, something like a phone, and she paused, "Alright, we have everything. Half our objectives is better than none."
Lissa shot toward the voice, lunging forward in hopes of hitting something, but was kicked in the stomach from below, hissing in pain.
"Don't even think about it." The witch said, "Next time, we won't be this nice."
Then she heard two explosions shake the building.
-x-
"So, to summarize, the robot, the Shoda and the others escaped." Uraraka said, sighing as she looked at the disaster that were the first and second floor of the League. She could look at both thanks to the hole in the ceiling that Battle Fist had opened, much to her chagrin. Lissa, whose sight had returned after a few minutes, sighed in disappointment.
Apparently, both Shoda and ByTwo, the robot, had hightailed it by bursting through a wall and rolling into the street, where they joined the two people that had somehow survived a jump from the roof and then vanished into thin air.
"It makes sense." Battle Fist said, "They were after the One for All." Lissa glanced at her, and Kendo coughed, "The ship I mean, not our power."
Uraraka grimaced, "I see. Beta, are you there?" She asked, waiting for a response. Beta nodded, appearing next to her, "My sensors are repaired. However, I can't seem to reconnect with Delta."
Uraraka frowned. "When did you notice?"
"Just now. I finished repairing my sensors and tested for lingering effects, then I tried to reach Delta, but she seems to have closed me off."
Uraraka frowned, opening the elevator – that somehow had managed to not break in all the fights, proving once again it had been wise to build it at the far end of the building – and signaling the others to follow her. Moving downward, they reached the lower floors.
What they found was a battlefield. Delta suddenly appeared in front of them, turned in her magical girl attire, looking like she was battered and bruised. Considering Delta was a hologram, that had to mean that she was putting it up to show overall structural damage, "Miss Uraraka, are you ok?" She asked immediately.
Uraraka looked around slowly, taking in the damage. Lissa did too. It was absurd to see the League in this condition, and yet, after a single battle, it was already in this much disrepair, "Yes, they didn't seem to be interested in attacking me. What happened here?"
"They took them, ma'am." She pointed to the stairs, "The prisoners."
-
Mariah panted, burning the last mushrooms. Whatever that spell was, it had proven extremely annoying. While they were strong enough to take care of it, the oversized colossus of mushrooms had been persistent, continuously reforming itself from the thousands of fungi Kinoko had created before disappearing. Whatever spell she had used, it had either run out of whatever energy or had been made inactve by the lack of new materials.
"Fucker." Itsuka the Amazon said, spitting on some of the few remaining mushrooms. "Never again."
"We probably will have to do it again, considering they escaped." Shoto noted.
Mariah grimaced. Right, they did that. They had escaped and it had been mostly her fault really. If she had used All for One first, she could have absorbed their magic and maybe blocking them from escaping. But as usual, she had hesitated. She had the excuse that she had helped all those people escape the store, but if she had acted sooner, she could have done both. She looked around. "Aren't we missing someone?"
They all looked around, only to notice it was true. Itsuka Kendrick and Ironblood were both nowhere to be seen.
Then the phone rang, Mariah picked up the call, and Delta's voice gave her the news.
She dropped to her knees.
"Fuck…"
-x-
"Seriously? Mina Loveberry? Terror of Monsters? No?" The Green Scar sighed, leaning back, "I hate this game. I always lose."
"Who's that is as complex a game as it is cruel." Canary sagely replied, nodding.
The group was sitting around a campfire, drinking and eating after a long day of travel. By their estimation, they were keeping up the perfect pace, and would arrive to Mikona in a few days at most. Then, they would have to fight. Itsumi looked up at the starry sky. This mission had really turned upside down, when it came to their objective. They had thought they would have to capture Arkin, take him in and then return home his captives, but those were just supposed to be the three or so he had left. Now instead they were going to fight his whole group, including those they had somehow managed to defeat already.
"And this time we don't even have Izo…" She murmured. Well, they did have more people, but she doubted Arkin hadn't prepared. Even if he had no idea they were coming – and that depended on Hawks keeping up his cover – he would have to be dumb to not have prepared at least some defenses. He probably hadn't chosen an abandoned city by chance.
"Itsumi?" A voice asked next to him, stopping her thoughts as she looked to her left. "It's your turn." The Green Scar said.
"Oh. Uhm…" She thought a moment, "Katsumi Bakugo." She said.
"Who's that?" Canary asked, followed by Dekiru, the Green Scar and Spider-Man.
"I've already met some Katsumis, but my world only had a Katsuki." Itsuka said.
"Same here." Ojiro added.
"Ugh. Is my mom that rare?" Itsumi asked.
"I don't want to think about the fact your version of me married Katsuki." The Green Scar shivered, "No offense to your mom."
Canary nodded, "Yeah it's terrifying. He must be the bravest Izuku in the Multiverse."
"That's my mom you are talking about." Itsumi grumbled.
"Yeah, and…" The Green Scar frowned, pausing a moment and glancing at Itsuka, who also seemed to have noticed something. "So, it's your turn, right Itsuka?" He asked.
"Right." Itsuka nodded, standing up, "So… The person in the bushes." She said out loud. The Green Scar lunged, using One for All to propel himself toward the bushes before the enemy had a chance to strike…
"Wait, wait, wait!" A voice shouted, and a familiar face emerged from the bushes. He wore a black hat over blonde hair and a white coat, and had a large bag at his flank. "It's me! It's Dekirn!"
"Kaminari?" Izuku asked, stopping his attack.
"Dekirn?!" Itsumi shouted, "Oh my gosh, it really is you!" She waved. Dekirn had been one of the people that had fought against Lord Arkin, and seeing him again was quite the surprise.
"What do you want?" The Green Scar asked. Even at twenty-one, the Green Scar still managed to look intimidating.
"I want to join you." He said, "I was planning to follow you and join at the end, but I guess I got reckless."
Alright. And why should we trust you?" Izuku asked, straight to the point.
"I want to get back to the people that killed my friend. Is it that unbelievable?" He asked. The Green Scar sighed.
"Well, we can't have you go back, you'd probably follow us again. And if you already fought Arkin…" He glanced at Itsumi.
"I wasn't with him, but I know Izo said both of them defeated Arkin's men. In fact, without him, Izo would have died." The teenage girl chimed in.
"If he was following us for some nefarious reason, he probably had the means to not be found out." Ojiro added, "According to Izo, Dekirn once stole the royal crown, and we know for a fact he snuck in the castle once more when he investigated Arkin. If he wanted to harm one of us, or all of us, he had plenty of opportunity, and if he wanted to inform Arkin, he wouldn't be following us."
Izuku shared a look with Canary and Itsuka, who didn't seem worried anymore, and then a glance to Dekiru and Spider-Man. The latter shrugged; the former just didn't seem to have a strong opinion on the matter. The Green Scar sighed. What could he say? The thief was already following them. Short of killing him on the spot – something he wasn't inclined to do – the only other options were inviting him to join them or sending him away. The latter meant Dekirn could then just run away to Arkin, if he was on the summoner's side, or continue following them.
"Very well. You are coming with us. I suppose you know that if you turn on us-"
"I don't need that kind of advice." The thief shook his head, "I really am here to take care of unfinished business. Arkin has killed Kikora and Tenro helped him. I will cut both of them down."
The Green Scar frowned. He didn't like people motivated by vengeance. They had a tendency to take stupid decisions when the prize was close at hand. How many monsters had rushed to their death because Mina Loveberry or Solaria were within striking distance, abandoning whatever plan him and the Rabbits had come up with? Too many to count.
Then again, he couldn't exactly tell Dekirn to forgive and forget. He took a deep breath again. 'When did we go from being the problem child to taking care of them?' He wondered.
No one gave him an answer.
-x-
Deku had watched the hours tick by, one by one, as the day of the first half of the Preliminaries passed. It had been remarkably fast, all things considered.
He was seating in their changing room. While today he didn't have a match, and neither did Huanli, Izumi had to prepare herself for the fight in the second half of the day. She didn't know her opponent, of course, because telling her would have meant disqualification, but both him and Huanli did. And while they couldn't tell her, they had given her all the help they could to prepare.
"Do you have a plan to deal with them?" Huanli asked.
"I have plans to deal with most A-Listers, at this point." Izumi replied, "Provided it's not one of you." She added, and they looked away. For some stupid reason, they couldn't even confirm or deny that, despite it being obvious they wouldn't pick a fight with her of all people. Izuku glanced at the fighting plan of the day Epsilon had saved. Not a picture, of course, but the AI had just committed the information to memory and replicated it. Of course, she hadn't shared it with anyone. Again, they didn't want to be disqualified.
The first match was between two fighters from the Arenaverse, Honenuki and Todoroki Touya. Izuku knew Todoroki had a deceased older brother, and apparently this Touya was just that person, if they had never died. After that was Ruin, the Tomura from another universe, and Ashido. He did his best to pretend the idea of watching Tomura fight Ashido one on one didn't bother him. His only reassurance was that the organizers were going to be very strict, but given what he knew about Ruin's power when Epsi had shared that information he worried, stupid as it was considering this wasn't even his own Mina.
After that, were the matches of Captain Kamino and Revenant. The idea that if both won they would fight in the following round was worrying, because both of them wanted to win the whole Tournament. Which kinda raised the question on why Revenant had picked Kaminari, the God of Thunder, as his first opponent, but he just wouldn't say. He had, however, called on Izuku's hand of the bargain for a few extra weapon, and judging by the folder he had seen him deliver to the JTO with his field request, Izuku couldn't help but think the so-called God of Thunder was the one at a disadvantage.
Argali was three matches later, fighting – though he was still unaware of it – Ryukyu. Or well, the Ryukyu from this world, but still, her Quirk was Dragon all the same. A sheep fighting a dragon sounded frankly terrifying for the sheep.
Izumi's match was the tenth, and Izuku could only hope she could adapt fast. The eleventh was Arsenal's, the Lady Nagant with One for All, and Izuku promised himself to keep an eye on it. Even if in a very… direct way, Arsenal had offered him advice for the future, even if he had no idea whether it would be useful.
The following matches were interesting, including the one where Chojuro Kon – the one he had trained with, because as it turned out there were two, the other fighting the next day – would face Rokuro Nomura, the fighter named Six Epsi had warned him against. Koichi, the man he had fought, came in the match right after.
And then, of course, there was the Battlemaster fighting Shinomori. That one had been hard to not tell his predecessor, and he did feel a bit guilty, but what could he do? They would definitely be able to tell if Shinomori walked in and wasn't surprised by Rappa being his opponent.
As the Announcer entered the field, accompanied by the explosions of fireworks and surrounded by enough light to blind an adult man, explaining the rules and introducing the first competitors, Izuku couldn't help but feel nervous.
He really hoped this went well for his new friends.
(xx)
So, guests this chapter:
Kendo Itsuka/Battle Fist is from Sheep go to Heaven by Dramatic_Spoon
The Green Scar is from The Green Scar worldbuilding thread by Quantum01 and The Green Scar by Pro-man
Canary is from Canary by cloud_nine_and_three_quarters
Panic at the Leagues, this one. This chapter was quite the fun one to write, especially when I got in a combat writing funk. The amount of powers was quite fun to juggle together, and I'm sure there were quite a few surprises.
So, first fight with the True League for All, and quite the complicated situation. The mall team has taken care of it, but not without losing just enough time for someone to break in and do what they had to. My, almost like this was planned...
The Multiverse skirmishes are always entertaining to write, be they an AI fighting a Technomancer or a Sailor fighting a guy with absorb/repel impacts powers. In the structure of the overall conflict, this was an appetizer with the matches getting interrupted, but I'm sure you are interested in what's to come.
Meanwhile, Dekirn joins the anti-Arkin squad and Izuku is getting nervous for the Tournament. And he isn't even fighting today. Am I going to write every single one of those fights? Of course not, but you will definitely see the most interesting one.
See you next week!