Chapter 23: Rescues and Rampages
Bakugou grasped his hand onto Muscular's face, desperately, and unleashed as big of an explosion as he could muster. But even over the roar of the blast, he could hear the villain's guffawing laughter. The larger man grabbed Bakugou's hand through the smoke and flames, and crushed the boy's fingers with ease.
As Muscular increased muscle mass along his right arm and punched Bakugou across the jaw, the explosive teen began to wonder just where he was going wrong. Every explosion Bakugou leveled at the villain, the larger man would just grow muscles to shield himself from the blast.
The force of the punch sent Katsuki flying back into the mountainous wall.
"Heh," Muscular chuckled, "For all that bluster and gusto, all you can do is just make some pretty fireworks, can't you boy?"
Bakugou pulled himself out from the divet in the side of the mountain and spat blood at his side. "Shut up." He did his best to glare daggers at Muscular, despite his left eye being almost swollen shut.
Muscular laughed. "You're a little too big for your britches, kid. You aren't even making this fun for me. Why don't you run back home, and I'll just take that kid."
Behind Bakugou, Kota made a squeaking noise of some kind.
"You think I care if this is fun for you?!" Bakugou seethed, propelling himself forward with explosions, despite the pain in his shattered fingers.
Muscular swiped for the explosive teen, but Bakugou diverted himself over the top of the villain and landed on his back and shoulders. Using both hands to throw the monstrous behemoth to the mountain path and blow himself backwards, he landed on his feet and shook out the pain in his wrists. "I'M A HERO, YOU DINGUS! THAT MEANS I DON'T LOSE TO SOMEONE LIKE YOU!"
Muscular snapped back to his feet and turned to Bakugou, wiping off the scuff mark that had appeared on his cheek. "A Hero, huh? You think that title MEANS anything?"
Bakugou looked around, trying to formulate a plan. He needed a distraction of some kind.
As he did, the villain's mouth contorted into a sick grin. "How many Heroes do you think I've killed? The title did nothing to save them! And once I kill you, we'll kidnap that stupid Midoriya kid AND KILL EVERY LAST HERO HERE!"
"Kidnap Deku?" Bakugou grunted in confusion.
Muscular ignored him and lunged, but did not move. He looked down, in shock and anger, to see a rope of water had attached itself to his leg.
Behind him, Kota was shaking, but had his hands out. "It... it does mean something."
"What?!" Muscular huffed.
"...my parents were Heroes!" He cried.
"YOU'RE FUCKING RIGHT YOU LITTLE TWAT!" Bakugou screamed, rocketing forward with a plan.
With Muscular momentarily stopped, Bakugou landed in front of him and exploded the part of the mountain ledge he was on. Muscular immediately began to fall down the side of the large hill. Taking a chance, Bakugou continued to explode the side of the mountain, sending chunks of boulder and rock down to bury the villain. The sound of the blasts drowned out the sickening thud of Muscular hitting the ground, as well as the crash of stone all around and on top of him.
Finally, after a few minutes, Bakugou collapsed back onto the path, breathless. "Fucking...Muscle Shit..." he gasped.
--
Asui Tsuyu propelled herself forward with her powerful legs to dropkick Toga, but the villain sidestepped the amphibious hero and made a beeline for Uraraka with a knife in hand.
Uraraka was no slouch though; her training with Gunhead allowed her to wrestle Toga to the ground. But before she could fully subdue the blonde, a tooth came zooming towards her. She rolled away - as did Toga - barely avoiding getting pierced.
Above them, deranged serial killer Moonfish used his teeth to tromp over the girls' battlefield, not even bothering to see what he snapped as he used his growing teeth as stilts to traverse the woods. "FLESSHHHH! MUST! CONSUME!"
The distraction was long enough for Toga to tackle Uraraka against a tree and raise a knife to her. Before she could plunge it in though, a tongue came flying through the clearing and wrapped itself around Toga's arm.
Without even pausing to see what grabbed her, Toga sprang backwards off of Uraraka, threw a knife that pinned the brunette's sweatshirt to a tree, and in mid spin, threw a tubed syringe back towards Asui that just barely missed the frog-like girl's thigh.
"Stay put Ochako!" Toga giggled towards her trapped prey, "I'll be right back to chat!"
"You can chat with my fist!" Uraraka scowled, struggling to get the knife out of the tree.
Toga charged at Asui again with another knife, but Tsuyu decided to play defensively, jumping backwards and clinging to a tree.
"Tsu, come on, that's no fun!" Toga beamed, drawing more syringes that were attached to tubes on her person. "Come play with me!"
Tsuyu's normally stoic face contorted slightly into a scowl. "Don't call me that!"
Toga didn't answer immediately, but threw two syringes at Asui. Tsuyu vaulted from the tree over Toga and landed in a somersault past the villain.
"Why not, Tsu?" Toga giggled as she followed the Hero with her eyes.
Himiko was already charging to attack, but Tsuyu sprang up to her hands and thrust her feet back to kick the villain. Toga collapsed back to the ground, and Asui took off running to help Uraraka free herself. "Only my friends can call me that, kero!" Asui ribbited without looking behind her.
Before she could make it, a syringe sank into the back of her thigh, and she fell to the ground herself.
"TSUYU!" Uraraka yelled, struggling further against the knife, her sweatshirt beginning to tear.
"Suck suck," Toga chanted, as some of Tsuyu's blood began to travel up the syringes tubes to her own reserves. "That's pretty mean, Tsuyu...suck suck. Because I think you and I are similar."
"Kero?!"
"Suck suck... I can feel it in your blood..."
--
"Is the gas stopping?" Setsuna asked from under Midoriya's arm.
The God of Thunder had taken to the ground in order to keep Mjolnir spinning above his head. This allowed him to create an air pocket - or miniature tornado around himself - to push the gas away from himself and Tokage. He knew she would be extremely susceptible to it as just a head.
But as she made the comment, he dropped the currant slightly to find she was right - the gas was gone.
"Someone else must have gotten to it," Midoriya shrugged. "I need to get back to wherever the smoke - WHOA!"
Midoriya jumped backwards as a large, white blade slammed into the ground where he had just been. That looks a lot stronger than one of Stain's swords!
"YOOOUUU!!!" Moonfish crowed from high above where Midoriya was.
Hurriedly, Midoriya rushed over to some bushes, dodging more of the villain's teeth, and tucked Setsuna's head under a bush.
"Get help!" He hissed to her.
Usually a motor mouth, Setsuna nodded, and began to levitate her head back to her body.
Izuku turned to see a tooth shooting towards him as an extended blade. He swung Mjolnir, shattering the tooth, but the base just extended further pushing him against a tree. He could feel his hardened skin start to give way, so he swung Mjolnir down again to break the tooth, and took to the air to try and distance himself from Moonfish.
His mind raced - he'd remember seeing a news special on the deranged cannibal villain, Moonfish before he started U.A. He was familiar with the villains infinitely growing teeth, and how much trouble he had given the Pro Heroes in capturing him.
"WHY..." Moonfish rasped, teeth bending at odd angles to chase Izuku, "WHY DIDN'T THAT TEAR IN TO YOU?! I MUST CHEW YOU!"
"THAT'S DISGUSTING!" Midoriya yelled, heaving his hammer with all his might. It zipped through the air and smashed Moonfish directly in the face. The bases of his teeth snapped, and the villain fell in to the trees.
He recalled his weapon, and no sooner had he caught did teeth begin erupting from the tree tops after him.
"Damn," he breathed, "now I can't see him..."
Midoriya weaved in between the teeth and landed in the clearing, where teeth began to zigzag around him. He threw Mjolnir in front of him and spun it in a circle around him, shattering teeth and scanning the trees for their origin point.
Before he could though, a loud, rushing sound akin to a freight train gave both the student and the Villain pause. Without any further warning, a gigantic Dark Shadow came bursting through the trees, destroying all the teeth and ripping down any trees in its path.
The entity plowed into Midoriya and sent him flying into the woods. He smacked into the trunk of a tree and lost consciousness.
--
Mandalay was pretty sure that this Lizard-like boy she was fighting was a) a big fan of Stain and b) a giant nerd. Who else would think that fighting with a giant sword made out of small swords tied together was a good idea? He had almost impaled himself and his partner, Magne, as errant knives and short swords were flung off the monstrosity. Still, it made fighting him difficult considering blades were almost constantly falling from the sky.
"OI, CAT TEACHER!"
Without warning, a student from class 1-A came bursting from the sky, using an explosion to scatter break Spinner's swords, sending knives everywhere.
Mandalay stepped back in surprise - it took her a minute to recognize the student as Bakugou Katsuki from class 1-A. His face and upper body was bruised and bloody, and it looked like his fingers had been crushed as well. But she ignored this as Kota hopped off his back and ran over to her. "Kota?!"
Taking advantage of a break in the action, Spinner threw a blade at Bakugou, who used a small explosion to knock it away.
"Can you get a message out to everyone?" Bakugou grunted to Mandalay.
--
"Hey! Hey, Midoriya, wake up!"
Izuku could hear a familiar voice, but his eyes didn't want to open. It sounded like a girl.
"Students!"
That was... Mandalay's voice. It was in his head, and it was making the headache he was feeling all that much worse.
"We've received confirmation of what the villains want! They're here to kidnap Midoriya Izuku! Please report to the main cabins as early as possible!"
"Wait, what?!" Came a male voice. It was familiar too.
"Hey! Come on, you need to wake up!" Another male voice.
"Hang on," the girl said, "let me try..."
Without warning, Midoriya could feel a tongue slowly drag across the side of his cheek. His eyes snapped open and he saw Setsuna Tokage from class 1-B smiling down at him. "Rise and shine, cutie!"
Midoriya immediately slid backwards and sat up against a tree, shock and pain mixing as his headache returned in full force. "W-what?!" He raised his hand and Mjolnir flew to him. Immediately, relief began to come for his head pain.
He looked up to see Todoroki and Shouji were there as well. Setsuna stood up and scratched at the back of her head. "Sorry, needed to wake you up somehow."
Midoriya briefly rested his head in his palm. "So... that message from Mandalay wasn't a dream either then?"
"Good... you heard that," Shouji sighed.
"Thankfully, Setsuna found us after Mineta ditched me," Todoroki added. "Though it looks like we missed the action."
"Yeah... what happened?" Midoriya asked, rubbing his head. "It looked like Dark Shadow, but wasn't Tokoyami with you, Shouji?"
The three looked towards the masked boy, who turned and looked at the destroyed clearing in shame. "It... well, we were going through the test of courage when a man who looked like a magician attacked. I was in a bad spot, and Tokoyami used Dark Shadow to defend us... but..."
"... he lost control in the darkness?" Todoroki asked.
Shouji merely nodded. "I... I don't know if I'll be able to forgive myself if something happens to him."
"Not to make you feel worse, but considering what he did here, I think you'd need to worry more about what he does to anyone else," Setsuna said. She levitated one of her eyes above the trees and let out a low whistle as it floated back to her a moment later. "Looks like a T-Rex went through here. But we need to get this guy to the front of the camp, right?"
Todoroki and Shouji exchanged glances, and nodded solemnly.
Midoriya hesitated as he climbed to his feet. He looked towards the devastation in the clearing; the torn limbs strewn about the woods, the cracked tree trunks and shattered rocks. His imagination immediately flashed to what could have happened to his classmates if they had been the ones thrown into a tree and...
"No." He replied. He swallowed hard and gathered his wits. "We get Tokoyami first. Then we go to the front."
"Midoriya, are you sure?" Todoroki asked. "They're looking for you specifically."
"I know, I know," he assured his friend, "but Tokoyami could really hurt someone. And if Dark Shadow is weakened by light, my lighting and your fire are the best shot we have to weaken him. Even the teachers couldn't do that, right?"
Todoroki took a second to rub his chin and consider this. "I suppose that makes sense. But we do this quick and then get to safety."
Shouji exhaled, relieved. "Thanks, guys."
Setsuna laughed. "Guess you 1-A guys aren't that bad after all. What's the plan, hammer man?"
Midoriya spun Mjolnir overhead to levitate above the ground. "Follow the destruction. Come on."
He flew off after the direction Dark Shadow had rampaged down, his friends following.
From a few feet away, Dabi watched amongst some bushes with Kurogiri and Twice.
"Ugh..." Dabi grunted, boredly. "We were so close. Damn kids, getting to him first."
"Aw, we probably could have taken him!" Twice said. "Why'd you tell us to wait?!"
Dabi thought back, seeing Todoroki's face in his head briefly. He shook the thought away. "We need to outnumber Midoriya, Twice. Get Compress over here. I have an idea."