Chaoscontrol85 - Yeah, turns out that you can write five digit number of words per week (some per day lmao) so long until you have enough, ehh xD
Shahryar - 1. Absolutely a gigachad. 2. Absolutely XDD 3. :D
(***)
Becoming an exalted changes a lot. It allows you to withstand punishment that shouldn't normally be possible. It renders you invulnerable to numerous environmental threats - after all, Tokoyami and their comrades didn't have to breathe anymore, so how could a poison gas influence them?
It also made you significantly more attuned with your quirk. However in that field, Tokoyami was still an outlier. Their quirk, after all, was something… special. And, unfortunately, they were now facing people that were special to a similar degree.
Muscular died because he was against something that he clearly didn't understand. Dabi died because he was an idiot.
Then things got sketchy.
Eclipse proved it with her opening attack, separating a significant part of Tokoyami's self before they realized that they were under attack. She then proved it once more by being the one to hold him back, while Beast began to systematically wipe the floor with the remaining templars.
Who, unlike Blackwing, weren't sufficiently special. And while Beast was a being of flesh and blood - not to mention, an asshole and a habitual rapist - he wasn't exactly an idiot. A fact that often evaded his enemies in the past.
This level of the facility was mostly composed of old laboratories, a place that offered him enough cover to move around fast and dodge gunfire. He had ample experience when fighting against guns was involved, and in close quarters he was an absolute menace. His reflexes weren't fast enough to dodge gunfire, but certainly fast enough to disappear before the enemy could target you and pull the trigger.
It's a mess, even if Purity hates him too much for her quirk - the one that can boost quirks and bodies of those she identifies with in the vicinity - to hit him.
It works on Eclipse, unfortunately. Something that Blackwing finds absolutely infuriating, especially when she is firing so many monomolecular blades on him. Basically his ideal counter.
Worst of all, Blackwing needs to be on lookout for any further old PLF members. Mustard doesn't scare him, but Kurogiri might be lethal, even in close quarters. He doesn't think that Gigantomachia is an option, not in such a tight space, but he can't discount it.
And there were dozens if not hundreds of villains merely slightly less notorious, even if you cross MLA members out. Because, well, Re-Destro might have had a ridiculous nose but he also had standards. He would be the first to attempt murder of everyone involved in Armageddon's release.
It was chaos.
Most of his comrades 'died', regenerating elsewhere from the seed that Lady Judgment kept at herself.
Ragdoll almost joined them when Beast managed to draw her attention with such a simple decoy as throwing something to the side, only to soundlessly move elsewhere and surprise her by appearing out of nowhere and slamming her head into a wall.
She might have lost her head, but it didn't really slow her down. She was the second most skilled among the templars when shapeshifting was involved, a fact probably at least partially influenced by her missing out her human component.
The fact that the most human out of all exalted was the one that lacked his human part the most never ceased to amaze Fumikage Tokoyami.
She reshaped her body rapidly, dashing backward and avoiding the follow up swipes. Then, she stopped in the middle of an open space. Before shaping herself back into a humanoid form.
Humanoid, not human. Her clothes, equipment and gun were off, all of them parts of her own 'body', merely made to look like something else. Bullets dropped to the floor - they were the only part on her that wasn't actually her own body.
Ragdoll was now significantly more animalistic. Still of normal human proportions, but she had cat ears, a short fur on most of her body, a much larger set of fangs and nasty looking claws. There was even a tail.
"Embracing your inner animal, eh?" Beast grins. He is towering over her, his body still as massive - yet surprisingly fast - as ever. She is now slightly more animalistic than he is, just a cat more than a wolf. "I must say that I endorse your enthusiasm, you've even taken your clothes off unprompted!"
"I'll move faster that way." Ragdoll glares at him. Her eyes are now fully feline as well. Merely aesthetic thing.
"How bold." Beast smiles. "Please, when exactly did you hear about a cat defeating a wolf?"
"How bold." Ragdoll smiles. "For a person that died in their bed like a little bitch."
That struck a nerve. Beast roars and lunges forward. Ragdoll replies in kind. He is fast, his speed comparable to Miruko, but she is faster. And thanks to her quirk… she knows where to strike.
She even knows how to strike. Her quirk grew stronger when she became one with it.
The attack towards his precious little beast makes him go defensive for a moment. She dodges his counter, leaps off the floor, her fangs tearing through the side of his neck. He reacts fast enough to hit her side with a punch that sends her flying.
It would break her ribs and mess her internal organs if she still had those.
She repositions mid-flight, her claws tearing into the floor and slowing her body down. The cacophony of metal being torn through is almost deafening, her claws leaving long marks on the floor.
Not deep enough. Beast won't bleed out anytime soon.
"You fucking whore." Beast growls. But then, a smile blooms on his face. "That was a good one. Something to really make your blood rush. Nothing better than a good workout before the deed, eh?"
Ragdoll in the past was a rescue hero. A rescue hero that failed to rescue herself and those close to her. The Ragdoll that's standing in front of the Beast shares the fact that she doesn't enjoy bloodshed with the Ragdoll of the past.
Fighting isn't a hobby for her. It never will be. Helping Midoriya find his old companions was the type of work she enjoyed, especially when she did her best to not think about the people she found too much. When she did her best to think of them as the hero trainees she remembered from the time when she was still alive.
She doesn't like fighting. But killing? When it's someone from either the old PLF or someone from working for the HPSC, when it's someone that made things personal? Oh. That she likes.
Besides, he just slaughtered her comrades. She's the last one from the group, aside from Tokoyami. That brings back memories. The bad kind of memories.
Her joints work the way she wants, her limbs work the way she wants. Going down on all fours and moving with speed that would make gepards impressed is not a problem for her.
Beast tries to squash her with a massive downward swing. If she gets hit by it, it'll be bad. But she doesn't.
She briefly understands why Rini Akaguro is so bloodthirsty and warlike when she feels her fangs sink into Beast's throat. That's… exhilarating.
Oops, there goes your trachea, Beast. And probably the carotid artery, judging from the amount of blood that goes all over her face.
He tried to get her off, but… too little, too late. He tears a solid chunk of her body, but she still has some to spare.
She twists her body again and jumps off him, Beast's massive body collapsing on the floor, his desperate attempts to staunch the bleeding being for naught this time around.
Ragdoll has less combat experience than she'd like to. She gets a bit too engrossed in Beast's death, and gets severed in half by one of Eclipse's surfaces, her body finally going past the damage limit and collapsing on itself.
("Shit, Blackwing is going to be an ass about it" is her last thought before her temporary death)
Eclipse wasn't too engrossed in Ragdoll's death. But in a place as dark as the depths of the Tomb of Armageddon, Tokoyami needed her eyes off him for four seconds. She realized that something was amiss five seconds later.
A long line of darkness, his body stretched to the limit, going through the floor under them, beneath both her notice and the shield she generated with her quirk. Then, a ninety degree bend upward, piercing through her gasmask and separating itself into two tentacles.
One goes down, one goes up. The upper half of her head follows the latter tendril, everything above her lower jaw sent flying. A second before she could generate a microshield to block the attack.
Tokoyami decided to be aesthetic about it. The zombie virus would probably get to her without the facemask, but… he wanted to be sure that she was down.
He can't exactly trust the walking dead to be infected by a zombie virus, even if they were wearing facemasks, now can he?
"YOU…" Purity shouts. Tokoyami is exhausted beyond comprehension. But before her charge could lead her anywhere, a dark ray fired from the side pulverized half of her head, her body falling onto the floor.
Fighting in the dark truly gave the templars an unfair advantage.
"Sorry for being late." Dark Crystal announces, stepping out of the elevator shaft. She looks thirty-something, with pitch black messy hair resembling Midoriya's. There is a black choker on her neck, a dark robe and… parts of her body are missing.
Her quirk changed those into dark crystals floating around her that she could use to fire a black laser-like rays.
Tokoyami has always aspired to her level of blackness.
"You have arrived right at the time." Tokoyami replies. "And our comrades returned to Lady Judgment's embrace… temporarily."
"Wait, are those…" Electric is there as well. He must have recognized some of the corpses.
"...corpses." Tokoyami replies. "Corpses of those that lived long before. We'll find our answers deeper into this tomb. Tell the Mechanist to join us… and let us continue the journey." They are going to need him to open doors from now on, not to mention access the computer once they find it.
They really hope that they find some answers, because they are sure that both Midoriya and their goddess are going to have a LOT of questions for them.
And because they still remember Chart mentioning the number of lifesigns in the facility. They are still missing at least three unidentified signals. And right now, only Electric, Mechanist and Dark Crystal are genuinely combat-capable. And they are technically on an escort mission for the cyborg, so they can't exactly endanger him.
Brilliant.
Hopefully things go slightly less… bad, elsewhere.
(***)
If there was one thing that extremely reassures Neito Monoma, it's the fact that Ibara doesn't try to resist. Because honestly, fighting against her in a building clearly full of children would be an absolute nightmare.
She's a solid S-Rank villain by skill level, just not the designation. Sure, they're all her equals (Monoma probably superior), but… yeah, it could go ugly.
Oh, well, she doesn't try to attack them right off the bat. She might have also missed Setsuna doing light scouting work by gazing through several windows with her disembodied eyes.
Monoma decides against just… storming in. It could be nasty, and they're trying to do it quietly. So, he knocks on the door, Setsuna maintaining vigilance over the building's surroundings.
Surprisingly enough, it's actually Ibara that opens the door. Wearing a very modest long dress with faint flowery decorations.
She probably saw them through the visor. But decided to not start a fight… yet. But it's rather clear from the anger on her face that she doesn't want to see them.
"What do you want?" She states flatly, staring at Monoma. Tokage, Tetsutetsu and Yanagi are standing behind him.
"We…" Neito replies. "... want to talk."
"I'm not interested." Ibara cuts back. "Also, I'm busy. Drop by another time." She actually tries to close the door, but Neito decides to risk it and puts his foot there, stopping the movement.
"I want to talk…" He then says, his eyes meeting Ibara's through the gap. "... about Crucible."
There is something of a very faint flinch on her face. She got better in hiding her emotions, but she started from a level so abysmal that she was still far from the point where she could actually fool someone.
"And for now, we're still trying to play it out nicely." Neito then says. He might not be All for One or Midoriya Izuku, but he can be subtly threatening when he wants to. "Please, do not make it any harder than it has to be."
A few seconds of silence. Everyone's clearly on edge. Eventually, though, the doors open.
"Come in." Ibara says dryly. "You don't need to change your shoes." Wow, the amount of hostility she manages to convey with her facial expressions alone is downright astounding.
They walk inside. Cautiously. The corridor is fairly austere, a pair of kids giving them worried (and slightly hostile) stares from the other end of it. Ibara walks through the door to the left, clearly not in a hurry.
"Wow, that's welcoming as hell." Tokage mumbles. Monoma doesn't bother to even acknowledge that.
When they enter the room Ibara walked into, they find themselves in a dining room. Ibara is approaching a chair on the other end of the table in the middle of it, when a small girl (10-11 years old?) runs towards her from behind a couch and grabs her leg. .
"M-mom, w-who are they?" The girl says, her eyes darting towards the guests. Monoma didn't miss Ibara's split second freeze after the first word. Strange, but…
"Guests, Mitsuru." Ibara replies while kneeling to give the girl a reassuring hug. "I'll be back with you shortly, okay? Go to Takumi, I'm sure that he needs your help getting the younger kids prepared for the trip."
She felt surprisingly confident in the 'back with you shortly' bit, in Monoma's opinion.
"B-but…" Mitsuru is clearly unconvinced.
"No need to worry!" Tetsutetsu, the closest one to them, grins. It's the nice type of grin, but somehow Mitsuru hugs Ibara closer, clearly frightened. "We're heroes, here just to ask your mom a few questions. You can trust us."
"H-how can I t-trust you if y-you are h-heroes?" Mitsuru replies, still staring at them with her eyes wide and honesty only known to children.
Wow. Tetsutetsu really looks like he just got slapped in the face. Way to make the mood go sour.
"Mitsuru, go help Takumi." Ibara says again, ignoring the guests entirely. "Have I ever broken my word?"
"N-no?" The girl stammers out. "I-I'll go, d-don't take too l-long, o-okay?"
"Okay." Ibara pats her head with a faint smile on her face. The girl then gives the heroes a final worried glance, before leaving in a hurry.
Shiozaki finally takes the chair. Monoma promptly sits on the opposite side of it, Tetsutetsu to his right and Tokage to her left. Yanagi takes position by the door they entered through.
"So…" Ibara says dryly. "... what do you want?"
Monoma is here to ask the questions. The others are here to spectate and help if things go south. And… well, with a zombie apocalypse out there, Neito is really out of fucks to give. So he goes the shortest way possible.
"Shiozaki, I've happened to obtain some evidence suggesting you to b…"
"Yes." Ibara cuts in. Monoma actually blinks at her in surprise.
"What?" Neito asks.
"Yes, I'm a member of the Paranormal Liberation Front." Ibara replies, her face a mixture of total calmness and barely contained anger. Tokage lets out a faint gasp, while Tetsutetsu looks borderline mortified. "Important enough for Midoriya to organize a surprise birthday party for me last year. Anything else?"
… okay. Monoma is actually impressed. If Ibara wanted to throw him off the loop right at the start of the talk, she certainly succeeded. It's bad enough that it's Tokage that manages to recover her ability to speak first.
"You can't be serious…" She tries to say, but Ibara cuts in once again.
"I assure you, Lizardy, that I'm perfectly serious." Ibara says, the stare she gives Setsuna murderously cold. It hits twice as hard for someone who was an old friend of hers.
Lizardy? It used to be Set. Set & Shio, the two friends from the class. Monoma never figured out how exactly it worked, their personalities just didn't mesh well in his opinion, but Setsuna was conscious enough to set up boundaries and stick to them. However, it ended soon after Ibara turned in her hero license.
"In fact, I helped Shishikross secure the Tartarus command center during the Revival Celebration." Ibara continues. "During which I killed several wardens and a pro-hero. And I do not regret that…" Her eyes narrow down on Setsuna. "... in the slightest."
Setsuna just stares at her old friend, clearly too shocked to speak. Monoma himself isn't sure what to say right now, he expected having to wring knowledge out of Ibara, not her just… admitting the truth openly.
Was it a set-up? Despite double checking the work he did to get here, Monoma can't help but suspect foul play. Ibara just…
"How could you?!" Setsuna finally erupts. It was a given, really. "We've all made an oath after the Training Camp, an oath to become heroes together in Vlad King's memory, and you just…"
Setsuna erupting in anger was a given, honestly. But what Monoma clearly didn't expect was Ibara measuring up to her. Because at that moment, she suddenly explodes, slamming her hands into the table strongly enough to cut Tokage short.
"DON'T YOU DARE SPEAK OF THAT OATH!" Ibara shouts, her eyes filled with fury that Monoma never imagined to see on her. "DON'T YOU DARE SPEAK OF HIM! You have no right to say a single word about the promise that you've all broken long before me!"
"Br…" Tokage looks like she temporarily lost her ability to speak. Tetsutetsu looks torn between confusion and anger as well. "You're a villain and you th…"
"I prefer to be a villain than to be an obedient dog of the Prime Minister." Ibara cuts in, venom dripping off her tongue. "Each and every child in this building went through hell because of the person that you're working each day to keep in power, so don't you dare accuse me of…"
Monoma mentioning the whole 'children protection organization' as a working theory for what Shiozaki was doing let them dodge some… disruptions in that talk.
"You think I like her?!" Setsuna once again speaks before Monoma could even try to open his mouth. This time she was furious enough to actually raise up from behind the table, leaning over it while staring Ibara down. "I know about the things she's doing, why do you think I focus my work on rescue and catching criminals?! What am I supposed to do? Go out there and die trying to kill her?! Is that what you…"
"Yes." Ibara states dryly. Setsuna actually blinks at her a few times.
"What?" She says, still staring at Ibara over the table but for a moment looking surprised more than angry.
"Yes, that's exactly what you're supposed to do." Ibara gives her a death stare. "You're pro-heroes. You were trained to fight. You made an oath to serve this nation. You made an oath to protect the people of Japan from those who do them harm. And you look the other way when children are harmed, because what? Saving them would be dangerous? And you dare to criticize me for trying to help them?!"
"You killed an awful lot of people while doing so." Monoma says calmly, finally getting a word in.
"And I'd kill ten times as many if it meant that children like Mitsuru would have a future." Ibara shoots back. "I made the same oath as you did after we got our hero licenses, but for me, the spirit was more important than the letter. When I saw quote unquote heroes beating people like Miruko and Gang Orca, people I respected, for demanding equal treatment for all, I didn't hesitate for a moment to turn in my hero license. So why are you still having yours?"
"Maybe because…" Monoma replies coldly, Tokage clearly trying to find words to defend herself, but failing. "... we all have families we don't want to leave behind, and with a stigma of being relatives of villains, simply because someone like you wants us all to die in vain. Families that we work to support, despite…"
"Kan-sensei had a family as well." Ibara cuts in. "We're all alive because he didn't hesitate to do the right thing, despite knowing what it would cost him. Go visit his grave and tell him that the hero trainees he saved honored his memory by turning cowardice into virtue."
Monoma opens his mouth only to realize that he has no idea what to say. But Ibara isn't finished.
"Or, perhaps, remind yourself of the man that replaced him as our homeroom teacher." Ibara continues, her voice dry as a desert. "You know, the one that tried to overthrow the government, before escaping overseas and threatening to shoot any dog of our government that he gets to see. I'm sure Snipe would have a lot of things to say if he saw us right now."
"Yes." Monoma finally finds the right words. "Especially about you helping the people that gassed dozens of hero trainees during the attack on Shiketsu." The angry flinch on Ibara's face tells him that the hit connected. "You're under arrest, Shiozaki."
"No." Ibara replies. When Monoma blinks at her in shock, she says. "Mitsuru was with me for almost half a year. Less than ten minutes ago she referred to me as her mother for the first time ever. I'm leaving this country with her and the rest of the children present in this building and taking them somewhere where they can actually have a happy childhood. The only way you can stop me from that is to kill me here and now."
Shit, even 4 on 1, it's going to be…
"Shio, please." Setsuna says slowly, her voice making it clear that it's less asking and more begging. "Don't make us do that, be reasonable and…"
"If that's what you call being reasonable…" Ibara glances back at her old friend, some of her anger temporarily replaced with sadness. "... then I prefer being a religious fanatic and a villain, Set."
The nervous face-off continues for a few seconds, before Reiko Yanagi suddenly decides to make herself known.
"We have a problem." She says calmly.
"What do you mean…" Monoma says, while turning his head towards her. "Oh."
Reiko was standing there, her hands in front of her. Standing beside her was a man in a hoodie, with an Entropy-style hand-mask covering his face. Four fingers of his left hand on her head, fifth one ready to join the remaining four at a moment's notice.
When Monoma looked at him, the man's fifth finger fell onto the alarm clock he was holding in his right hand, the clock turning to dust in an instant. A quick presentation of what he can do to Yanagi at a moment's notice.
"I think…" The new arrival says with a mocking tone. "... that you got a tiny bit too focused on your talk and rolled a one on perception throw."
Shit.
Time since the activation of Armageddon: 9h
Est. number of civilian casualties: 1 760 000
Est. number of uninfected inhabitants of Shikoku: 1 600 000
Est. number of evacuated civilians: 750 000
Sword of Damocles: 85% depleted
Naval Blockade Status:
1st. Escort Flotilla - Annihilated
2nd Escort Flotilla - 10 minutes away
3rd Escort Flotilla - Under attack
Ground Forces Status:
JGSDF 14th Division - 85% casualties
JGSDF 6th Engineering Brigade - 75% casualties.
Shikoku Pro-Heroes: 90% casualties.
Shikoku Police Force: 72% casualties.
Evacuation Status:
Naval: Resumed
Ground: Ongoing
(***)
Don't piss off Ragdoll. She might be all smily and shit, but she bites. Also she and the other 'dead' exalted are going to be back soon, thanks to Aiko's gimmicks mentioned before the deployment started.
And, wow, Ibara. And Mitsuru is really following your footsteps. You two burned them more than Endeavor did the first Eclipse. Let's just say that this might cause some waves further down the line...