Pestilentia was there, sitting behind a glass desk, on a goddamn office chair. Toga took a second to look at the super villain, then sent a throwing knife directly at his face. Her right hand was intact, and her throwing technique was superb…why didn't she hear him yell "Ow, my eye!" or "The pain! I´ve been killed?" She saw her knife stay in place about three meters away from Pestilentia before falling to the ground.
"You obviously didn't believe I wouldn't have another card or two under my sleeve, did you?" he pointed to an unconscious middle-aged woman sitting on another chair at the edge of the desk. "My little sister, though a mere civilian, she knows the value of family. We Krasnovs have Quirks activated by our own sleep…my dear Svetlana has a strong self-defence Quirk; when a person is most vulnerable, she is mighty. A bubble shield of kinetic energy, with a radius of three and a half meters, and an outer thickness of a further five meters…You are in, young ones. And the barrier is extremely good for conducting electricity!"
A small crackle sounded before lightning filled the air, criss-crossing and catching Toga and Izuku with uncountable volts of electricity. It wasn't enough to knock them out, just to knock them down to the ground, beaten. "You motherfucker" rasped Toga, her throat dry and her body aching, in particular her severed fingers. It was like a flame was touching the stumps of her cut digits, but she could swear she had felt them when the electricity was used.
Izuku was already trying to get up, pushing the ground with his fist. Of course, a tazer that could knock down Toga wouldn't be enough for Izu-Izu! "I would advise against getting up, young Midoriya. "Toga", it grieves me enormously but I´m going to have to call up our failsafe." Taking a deep breath, the red eyed man started speaking again, every word increasing the dread in Toga´s mind. She knew this combination of words "Blood Eagle. Onion. Allegiance. Heir…" NONONONONO, NOT THESE WORDS, NO! "…Island. Storm. Throne. Ninety-Eight. Activate."
"…Ninety-Eight. Activate." When Pestilentia said the last word, Toga started screaming, her eyes rolling back into her head, her limbs flailing all around her, hitting the floor every time. Her left hand was bleeding again by the impact. It was just like Nejire had described Shigaraki had reacted after interacting with All for One in Tartarus before the supervillain escaped. "Himiko! HIMIKO!" yelled Izuku as he crawled towards her. He could prevent her from hurting herself, hold her until the seizure was over…
"The after-effects of one of All for One´s Quirks and my own brainwashing, he insisted we give 98 a more "malleable" persona for his League of Villains…with a few correct words anyone can activate the agent, make them fulfil a mission, bring out their hidden identity…Right now she´s fighting inside her own mind. 98 will kill this "Toga" and return to us. Without even having to use my Quirk on her, isn't that neat?"
"I…I will take you down, villain!" yelled Izuku, fighting through the pain as he reached Toga, holding her so she wouldn't thrash around. She was still screaming. The sound broke Izuku´s heart. "Fight, Himiko! Win, you have to win!" he said in her ear.
"I really don't have enough time to monologue out here, Midoriya, so I´ll just take over your mind now, agreed?" The villain stood up, looking down on him, and withdrew a syringe. That liquid…it was Trigger! Pestilentia injected himself in the neck, cursing in Russian at the pain of the shot, and looked directly into Izuku´s eyes.
The red eyes were completely red. Blood red sclera, dark red irides…even the pupils were a dark crimson. As red eyes faced green eyes, Izuku felt himself being forcefully torn from consciousness into a dream.
The dreamscape was barren; a ruined temple of some sort, perhaps a cathedral or a Parthenon…the walls were too crumbled to really tell. A slate grey sky, covered in a symmetrical array of clouds, dominated the vision. A figure made of shadows and darkness materialised in front of him, its eyes fire and blood. A whip of flame and a sword of darkness emerged in his hands, and he spread misty wings behind him. With a roar he was upon Izuku, striking with the sword, a scimitar of gigantic size and razor-sharp edge.
Deku was fast and agile, and evaded the blow, jumped over the flaming whip as the demon tried to coil it around his leg, rolled to evade a swipe from the sword. In instants he had a plan to fight the creature; the demon didn't appear to be using the wings to fly or aid in jumping, but they seemed to catch some wind as he moved around, the whip would connect them, hurting him, but connecting them nonetheless…if he was caught he would have to be fast or the sword would cut him in half.
Deku readied his right hand, took a telegraphed step towards the right, and, as the whip snapped around to catch him, he moved in to be caught at the abdomen. The flames coiled around him, causing him blinding pain, but not enough to make him miss. "Delaware Air Force SMASH!" the gust of wind knocked the demon´s balance off just when he started to pull Deku towards him, and the hero was given a golden chance to capitalize on the mistake. Deku grabbed the flaming whip and pulled, bringing the demon right up to him. Lightning-fast, he grabbed the creature´s wrist and, using 100% of One for All, I already died in your nightmares, I am not going to hurt myself just doing this, he closed his fist. The demon´s whole hand came off, and it bellowed in pain like a wild animal. The moment his hand was cut off, it started to make a replacement out of the changing substance it seemed to be made of, but Deku was not about to give it any chances. Moving from the arm to its face, Deku punched him as fast as humanly possible, the full power of One for All behind every punch. With the last punch he broke beyond the limits, just like he had needed to when facing Muscular "SMASH!" he yelled, his arm going right through the thing´s skull.
I guess I never used this much power against you before, did I? "Is this all? Face me, Pestilentia! Come and fight like a man!" This has to work, Shinsou… Two creatures formed out of the mist, each one with a dozen arms. Again, formed out of a black substance, at times fog, at times petroleum, at times the void of space, and with burning red eyes. Pestilentia´s avatars.
Deku fought against wave after wave of enemies sent by Pestilentia, and the villain started using the dreamscape against him as well. Earthquakes, tornado winds, lightning…Deku was fighting through it all, putting down demons and monsters. "You can not defeat me, Pestilentia!" he yelled. And then the dream collapsed.
Izuku was falling, the ground removed from existence. He felt the artificial feeling of fear, of dread for the fall…Pestilentia was trying again to get inside his brain, even deeper than before. He fell. "I am trying to make the world a better place Midoriya. The world, its people, their minds broken and moulded by my hands, mankind reborn as my servants…Lovely thought, wouldn't you agree? Under my enlightened rule, mankind would conquer the stars, reach new horizons…but for that I need to have complete control, and five billion and a few hundred people are simply too many. I had to become the Pestilence to humanity, young Midoriya, so I can rebuild the small remaining pieces to something actually useful. A single nation, under an eternal emperor!"
Didn't he say Himiko would be his heir? "Eternal? How would you ever achieve that?" If I play his game he will reveal his cards… "That is a little secret I will only tell you if you surrender, young one."
"Alright. Tell me how you aim to become immortal." Izuku was torn from the fall and brought to a dry grassland. Pestilentia was in front of him, and he spoke "All for One found a Quirk that could, in theory, transfer a person´s conscience to a new body…The Quirk was found in China, days before All for One´s escape. Shigaraki…that useless kid, he once met my underling, Nazzaro, and we slipped in some of my cells. I gave him a few nightmares, nothing serious, just to keep tabs on him. When we secured the transfer Quirk, Shigaraki had his jailbreak idea, just in time, I didn't even need to prod him. "
Izuku was stunned. A Quirk like that could bring chaos to society, or if the technology for cloning were invented, could allow the terminally ill a new chance… "The Quirk is on a baby, called Xinsheng by her mother, now, she is Number 0. She is one of my safeguards, the other is the Pestilence, a virus harvested from the corpses of all my failed children. If I´m right, it´ll kill millions, whether you stop me or not. And you could never live with yourself if a baby died because of your actions, would you?" Pestilentia smiled. The fucker smiled.
Pestilentia thought he had won. Good. Izuku summoned One for All in its purest state inside his brain, the energy swarming every cell inside. In a second every previous wielder of One for All was beside him, All Might to his right side, Nana Shimura to his left. Faster than the blink of an eye they were upon Pestilentia, the previous wielders holding him down. "What is this…One for All is not supposed to work like that, All for One said…he said!" Pestilentia screamed as the holders of the Quirk immobilised him. The original One for All took Izuku´s hand and placed it on Pestilentia´s forehead.
Light seemed to emit from Izuku´s hand, brighter every instant, while Pestilentia yelled in agony. "I am destroying every one of your cells inside my brain and using the connection to your brain to end you. You are done, Pestilentia! This is for Himiko, villain!" The light glowed blindingly, and Izuku heard a slashing sound.
Izuku felt himself falling down on the floor, slamming his face against the metal panels. Inside the forcefield, Pestilentia collapsed, holding his head in his hands. On his radio he could hear Freya anxiously yelling "There´s a baby in the upper office, we need medical attention, now! She is ill, hurry!"
Beside Izuku, Himiko had stopped moving.
Himiko Toga had fought herself in several nightmares. Pestilentia seemed to have some creepy enjoyment of having her kill her counterpart, a bit creepier when her other self was dressed in her schoolgirl uniform and sweater she had worn with the League. But this was different. The Toga before her had dead eyes, no expression in her face at all. The other Toga wore a palette swap of the sexy, stylish sneaking suit the Agency guys had given her. And most angering of all she didn't even cut her hair with bangs. It wasn't Toga. It was 132798.
Was this going on inside her mind? She wasn't sure. A sense of urgency pervaded the dreamlike atmosphere, a sense that the consequence of losing the fight would be worse than death. Then she remembered: Pestilentia had said the trigger words, the sleeper code which would bring out her memories of the Left Hand, the memories of her lost twelve years. The code that would make her 132798 again.
She wasn't about to let that happen. Her body was hers, for fucks sake! That bitch 98 could keep those 12 years, Toga would kick her ass!
They met, knife against knife. 98 seemed to be slightly more skilled, but Toga had almost six years of extra experience. And inside this dream…vision…thing…Toga still had all her fingers! She would win, she would fucking win! Their knives danced, their offhand catching the forearm to check the other´s attack; a game of musical chairs almost, except the chairs were successfully parrying your evil clone´s dagger, and missing the chair when the music stopped would mean getting shanked.
Toga heard a voice encouraging her, echoing in the distance, so far away… "Fight, Himiko! Win, you have to win!" That gave 98 just the opening she had needed.
Toga lost the game, 98´s knife cutting her arm at the wrist. But she had new tricks 98 had no way of knowing, such as a sweet little shift of right hand to the left when using only one knife. Even as 98 cut through her wrist, severing her tendons, Toga caught the knife with her left hand and jammed it straight into 98´s eye.
An explosion of sensations rocked her nerves. She felt the phantom pain of her severed fingers. She felt her brain cells on fire, her synapses lighting up, she felt like she was in a tidal wave of cells crashing against another group of rotten, cancerous cells, overwhelming them, defeating them. She felt the pain in her eyes from the tension of them rolling upwards into her head. She felt her throat, sore and numb by her screaming. Her muscles cramped by the seizure. The pain from the electricity.
But after the explosion, she could feel herself in control again. She had stopped moving. Toga opened her eyes.
Before her, Pestilentia clutched his head, bleeding from his ears, nose and eyes. Izu-Izu was beside her, trying to rise with great effort. "Izu-Izu!" she said, her voice hoarse by her screaming. She tried to move towards him, but all her limbs were cramped and in pain for all that tension. "I defeated him, Himiko! I beat him!" Izuku managed to say, as he got to one knee.
Inside the forcefield Pestilentia thrashed about, trying to reach his chair, but he knocked it over, sending the seat crashing unto the "sister". The middle-aged woman was hit by the office chair and fell to the ground, wheezing in pain as she fell with a cracking sound. She broke a bone?
As the "sister" awoke, the forcefield dissolved to nothing. In Russian, she muttered "Where am I? Why am I here? Can someone call a doctor?" Toga spoke into her earpiece, glad it hadn´t been fried by the electricity, that Hatsume girl can make tech, I´ll give her that, relying the situation to the rest of the team "Pestilentia has a hostage, we need medical down here fast!"
Izuku struggled up to his feet, moving towards the super villain, who had steadied himself against the table, looking afraid and angered. "Pestilentia, you are under arrest." The hero staggered closer and closer, a pair of handcuffs already in his hand. But Izuku hadn't noticed Pestilentia´s hand reaching for a gun hidden beneath the desk, an old Soviet Makarov pistol, pulling it out in a split second, aiming between Izuku´s eyes.
Izuku could probably get out of the way of a bullet in better circumstances. Battered and on the brink of exhaustion, the shot would have made its mark. But Toga had seen it coming in Pestilentia´s eyes; the second Izuku had stepped towards the desk, Toga had reached for her last throwing knife, releasing it as the villain pulled the gun on Izuku. A beautiful throw. The blade sank completely, going through the red eye and into Pestilentia´s brain. With a spray of blood, he fell down to the ground. The sister was screaming in terror, but Toga could barely hear anything. Everything seemed…muffled. Sound, pain…even her vision was fading. How odd…it is all going away…
Girolamo Nazzaro watched the security camera footage coming from Pestilentia´s offices on his laptop, placed lazily on his hotel bed, a luxurious king size that dominated his suite. As he saw the knife end his boss, he smiled. Not only was the top hotel in Bogotá treating him well, his criminal life was going much better than expected.
He pulled out his smartphone and started a conference call with every other ranking boss in Pestilentia´s organization. "Gentlemen, the King is dead. I wish to submit his "deadman trigger" plan to a vote. All those in favour of releasing an epidemic harvested from the cells of dead child soldiers and mutated swamp beasts, say "Aye"." No one spoke. "All those in favour of splitting this criminal empire among ourselves, staying allied if beneficial, going our own way if not, say "Nay"." The response was unanimous. Nay it was, and Nazzaro was quite happy with his little slice of the pie; Italy, France, Spain, a few Greek Islands (which included his favourite town outside of Italy, Santorini), Colombia and a few Central American countries, and the city of Cancun, of course.
Someone knocked at his door. Through the eyehole he could see a man in a bespoke suit, his hair combed elegantly, and his moustache manicured with care. "Garcia, I trust everything is ready?" "Si, the doctor is waiting for you." The Mexican bodyguard, a Sicario from the Villarreal Cartel, had been chosen to protect him in the mission to ready the "Pestilence", and now that the big boss was gone, Nazzaro was his authority.
Exiting the hotel, they climbed into a bulletproof SUV. They expected no danger in Bogotá, but it was better to be cautious. "The doctor should have called us after rush hour, we´ll be on the street for a long time." Nazzaro said in annoyance. "It means they found the man and the doctor wants to do this now" replied the bodyguard. The Cartel had selected him among their Sicarios as the deadliest, Garcia was known to massacre entire towns wearing a skull mask, just because they had fucked with the Cartel. Apparently, his Quirk had something to do with his instincts, like a sixth sense for danger, almost, but one wouldn't know at first, since the Sicario had started calling his Quirk his street name, "Santa Muerte".
"So where did they find someone as handsome as me, anyways?" The body double as a decoy had been Garcia´s idea, a splendid one, Nazzaro thought. "The doc didn't say, Jefe, but I guess at least the hair and build was close enough."
"Anyway, Garcia, does the Villareal Cartel have people in Cancun? I just won it as my super villain inheritance and would like to hire trustworthy people." Garcia took his hand from the steering wheel to scratch his moustache, and then said "It´s Galindo territory. We can take over if you want to work together there." They spent most of the commute planning the annexation of Cancun, and some plans for legit businesses to launder the money made.
In a state-of-the-art surgeon´s office, on the north side of Bogotá, Nazzaro met the doctor, a man named Hernan López. The doctor had a visual Quirk that made it easier to perform complicated plastic surgery. "My assistant has already prepared your new papers; would you like to see them? The forgers gave us a choice of a Mexican or French passport." A nurse brought him two folders to chose from. He picked the French.
"Jean-Baptiste Saintclaire…this name offends my Italian side, but I can always pick a different one later. A year younger too, that is good. Could we perhaps make the chin a slight bit thinner?" "Sure, "Jean-Baptiste", sure. Would you like to see Mr. Nazzaro first?" "I would, doctor." Nazzaro walked with López to a room with a security door, which the doctor opened with a retinal scanner.
Inside, sleeping on a stretcher, was a man who could have been his twin. Same height, build, hair colour and texture. Surgery scars on his face were already healing. "He has the same blood type, too. I also burned off his fingerprints, so the police will need another means of identification. While you are under the knife, we will take some blood and set up a transfusion. By nightfall, this man will be Girolamo Nazzaro."
"Good thing I booked the hotel room, huh?" said Garcia. Then he added "My boys already found him a driver and a car. Good luck on the operation table, boss." Nazzaro was dressed in hospital scrubs and led to the operating theatre, laying down on the bed, the nurse put on the anaesthetic mask. "Count backwards from 10, please. 10…9…8…"
Jean-Baptiste Saintclaire awoke with an aching face. It felt stretched out in a strange way, but he would get used to it. He switched on the TV, and it was already on the news "…This is Canal Capital Noticias, we have a reporter live on the scene where a police pursuit caught a criminal fleeing on a sedan after exchanging gunshots with a team of detectives, Maria what can you tell us?" The reporter, an attractive young woman with feathers instead of hair, answered "Hello Carlos, we are here on Avenida Jimenez, the police have set up a perimeter around the crashed car. After a brief gunfight the two criminals were taken down by the police, and the scene is secure, I will stay on scene to report back when we know more, Carlos. Nos vemos luego, Maria out." The presenter then kept going, starting the sports section without giving it a second thought.
"I guess I am free to rule my little kingdom now, sadly I must do so with a French name for now. Garcia, lets go back to the hotel, I wish to have some arequipe delivered as room service. Oh, and be sure to start an auction for those Pestilence bombs, someone might pay good cash for them."
Holy Diver rushed through the underground tunnels, a team of Delta Force medics behind her. The baby upstairs was under Freya´s care and had been starting to calm down as Anna heard the request for medical support underground; Midoriya and Toga were injured, Toga was unconscious, a hostage was in shock and needed the medics.
They passed through a series of knocked out enemy troops, as they journeyed deeper into the tunnels the soldiers and assassins they found defeated looked deadlier and more deranged. A few had died of their injuries, but for the most part, Midoriya and Toga had done their best to capture them non-lethally. The Delta squad leader called for some reinforcements to further secure the enemy casualties, and they kept moving forward.
In a larger room with a smashed lateral wall revealing a secret anteroom, they found two more downed enemies; a dead infiltrator in a dark sneaking suit and a super soldier cuffed hand and foot in an improvised hogtie. "Corpsman, check that man for vitals" ordered Anna to one of the medics. "Faint signals, ma´am, he is still alive. But I don't know if he´ll make it, there´s massive head trauma and damage to the trachea, and who knows how many broken bones. And looks like a severed brachial artery at the arm, from a knife wound meant to cut through the tendons and disable the lower arm. Guy was probably high on steroids and stimulants to keep fighting through all that. You want us to save him?"
"Please try to, corpsman. The rest, on me." Through a central gate and a short tunnel, they reached a chamber that was arrayed into some sort of doctor´s office, the psychologist style recliner gave Anna that opinion at least. A few meters away from the glass desk at the centre of the room were Toga and Midoriya, the lad crouched over his girlfriend protectively. Close to them sat an older woman, her terrified eyes darting around the room, zip cuffed by Midoriya for her own safety. Anna approved; hostages were unpredictable, could be enemies in disguise or just affected by Stockholm Syndrome.
"We´re here Midoriya, you can step away from Toga now, let the medics check you both." The young man nodded, he looked about ready to collapse of exhaustion. "This is Holy Diver, target is KIA, I repeat; target is KIA. Securing operations playbook now." The upper level office had contained half of the operations expected, labelled as "Right Hand", reports for a "Pestilence", a global scale attack that his underlings would launch. The Agency was using every last resource now to stop it from happening.
Plugging in a decryption device to the super villain´s computer, Holy Diver examined all the files therein. A detailed file on Toga was still open, very thorough and complete, including a final portion of "assumptions" of her activities with the Agency, with terrifying accuracy. A folder labelled "Left Hand" showed the assassins recalled to protect Pestilentia in his final hour, almost three quarters of them. "Support, I´ve got more data for you, uploading now. Send it up the line, we have to catch these fuckers before they can act. Holy Diver, out."
As the decryption device uploaded the data, Anna examined the room again. "Corporal, secure that room beyond the door, it is probably Pestilentia´s bedroom. If it is a security room get all the footage you can, we can use it for PR." "Yes, ma´am." Anna took out her phone and photographed the scene; Midoriya still ready to protect Toga with the medics around them, the wrecked furniture and Pestilentia´s corpse, Toga´s last throwing knife stuck up to the hilt. Upon further examination she also found his ears bleeding and signs of cerebral trauma, she would need to ask Midoriya about it later, as the boy had finally passed out.
On her radio she heard the support team relaying information "Two of the Left Hand agents have been caught, one was embedded in the President´s Secret Service, the other one was a mid-level operative in the FBI. MI6 has caught one of the bosses in Cardiff, a Pestilence bomb is secured." Mission accomplished. It was now beyond her hands, all their allies, even friendly rivals like Russia and China, now had the information, and the Witch hunt for Pestilentia´s organization could begin. Undoubtedly some criminals would escape, regroup and keep being pieces of shit, but they had a golden opportunity to sweep in and destroy the organization and reduce the power vacuum left. Anna was fucking ecstatic, the only way her day could be better was with some Chicago pizza, an ice-cold bottle of red Gatorade, and some alone time with Freya. "All callsigns, this is Holy Diver, Command Actual. All objectives completed, lets go home, boys."