Spinner started up the van while Kana got in the passenger side. Dabi took the back seat behind her while Eris curled up in the back next to him. Spinner took off down some backroads and then started towards the coordinates across town, about thirty minutes away. Kana tried to get the radio to at least turn on, but it seemed busted.

"So, do we know anything about this guy we're supposed to pick up?" Spinner asked.

"Not much. He goes by Muscular, and he's wanted for murdering a handful of heroes, including a couple who specialized in rescue missions." Kana responded while looking through her phone at the details Kurogiri had sent them.

"With a name like that, I'm not expecting much from this guy." Dabi said.

"Yea, in these pictures, he looks like every other meathead asshole you'd see on the street. And he can't be that smart if he couldn't lose the cops on his own. He better be worth the effort." Kana said with an exasperated sigh.

They had arrived in the part of the city with the most police patrols out; Spinner had to take a lot of last-minute detours and veered off in a few different directions to keep the cops from noticing their vehicle. Dabi had been quiet most of the drive, but after the third U-Turn Spinner made to take a bumpy side street, Dabi sighed loudly and leaned his head into the back of Kana's seat.

"You ok back there?" She asked, looking back to check on him.

"Just great." He growled in an annoyed tone. His dark hair covered most of his face, as his forehead was pressed firmly into the back of her seat, but she could still see his pained expression. Kana recognized the look and had a feeling she knew what his problem was.

Spinner took another side road with potholes so bad the whole van shook. Causing Dabi to close his eyes and hold his head like he was in pain. Eris also didn't seem happy about the situation and groaned in protest.

After a while, they finally arrived at the coordinates Kurogiri had sent them. It led them to a mostly abandoned industrial area with crumbling warehouses. Spinner parked the van, and they all got out. Kana, Eris, and Dabi stayed by the vehicle to ensure no one followed them while Spinner went inside to find Muscular. Kana signaled for Eris to be on standby mode, sitting patiently while listening for any approaching noises. Dabi looked slightly more relaxed now that they were out of the vehicle.

"That lizard was weaving all over the damn place..." He muttered while crossing his arms.

"He did get us here without anyone following us, though."

"I guess so."

It was quiet for a while; they were far enough from the main city that the typical background noise of cars and electrical humming didn't reach here. The night sky was clear, and a half-moon shone brightly above them. Kana wasn't bothered by the silence, but she was intrigued by something.

"You seemed uncomfortable back there. You get motion sick, don't you? That's why you never volunteer to drive on supply runs." She accused him somewhat playfully.

Dabi looked over at her as he grabbed the back of his neck with his right hand. "What gave me away?" He asked, sounding sarcastic and sincere simultaneously.

"That pained look on your face; I had a friend who was the same way. Here, hold out your arm. I know something that might help." Kana moved to stand side by side with him and held out her right arm to demonstrate.

Dabi narrowed his eyes a little at her but held out his own mostly burned right arm in front of him.

Kana flattened her hand and then, with her left hand, put three fingers under her right wrist.

"There's a pressure point below your wrist you can massage; it's supposed to help nausea." She then put her thumb below where her fingers were and gently massaged the pressure point between the two tendons.

"I don't know how well it works myself, but I've heard it could help."

Dabi copied her movements and massaged the same pressure point in his arm.

"Not sure it'll work on me. I can't feel much of anything anymore. My nerves are burnt to hell. But, it couldn't hurt, I guess."

Kana nodded; she hadn't realized the extent of damage that had been done to him. Looking at him more though, she wasn't sure how he survived whatever happened to him at all.

It was quiet again; almost 10 minutes had passed since Spinner went inside.

"They're taking too long in there. Do we even know if that guy is still here?" Dabi sighed impatiently.

"No idea, honestly." Kana looked around; there wasn't any indication that they had been followed. There weren't even any cars passing through the streets ahead of them.

"If we were followed, we'd have been attacked by now. Wanna go inside and find them?"

"Better than standing around doing nothing." Dabi stopped messing with the pressure point in his wrist and stretched his arms out. The air around him started to get warmer, an effect of his quirk activating to be ready for a fight.

Kana activated her quirk as well. She felt the blood in her body shift and her skin tear as she extended a metal blade from her forearm. Her arm started to bleed a little from where the blade came out, but the wraps around her arm put pressure on the wound and slowed the bleeding as it healed.

Eris took point and led them into the abandoned warehouse, following Spinner's scent. There weren't any signs of life in the building so far, and it was too quiet for her tastes.

"I don't like this."

It was quiet for another beat, then Eris started growling. The fur on her back rose as there was a sudden crash upstairs and what sounded like Spinner yelling something.

There was a stairwell across the room the three rushed for; the sounds of a fight got louder as they ran up the stairs until they hit the third floor. Kana kicked the door down and saw Spinner held up against the wall by his throat. His assailant was a tall, muscle-bound guy with short blonde hair and what looked like a robotic eye on one side, the guy they were here to retrieve.

Dabi threw a blue fireball at the man's face, which caused him to drop Spinner to the floor. Eris ran to his side, standing over him protectively.

The man looked towards his new company and laughed maniacally.

"Looks like there's more fresh meat to kill!" He yelled as he started charging towards them.

What looked like muscle fibers shifted across his arms. Even for her, it was a grotesque sight. Kana waited till he got close enough and then dodged by sliding under his legs and spun to slice at his back while Dabi produced a steady stream of blue flames directed toward the man's face. His muscle fibers had shifted to block her attack, but Dabi's fire seemed to be effective. Muscular threw a punch aimed at Dabi, which he dodged. His fist hit the wall and caused the concrete to crack in spider-web shaped patterns.

"Now, this is fun!" The man yelled, smiling.

Kana ran to Spinner's side to check on him. He was alive, but a little dazed. Eris stood in front of them, guarding the two.

"What happened?" She asked as she pulled him to his feet and handed him his sword that had landed a few feet away. Dabi was still keeping the man occupied at a distance with his flames.

"I told him I was with the League and that we were here to recruit him, then he started going on and on about how weak I looked and how strong he was, and if I couldn't win against him, he wasn't coming." Spinner took his sword and steadied himself to get back in the fight.

"So he is just as stupid as he looks. Well, if he wants a fight, he'll get one." Kana smiled, it had been a while since she had a decent fight, and now that she was with the League, no laws or moral codes were holding her back from going all out.

"Stay back." She told Eris. Between Dabi's flames and Muscular's strength, she didn't want her to get hurt in the crossfire of the battle.

Kana produced another blade from her left arm and sprinted for the guy while he was distracted by Dabi. She slid down to slash at his Achilles' tendons as she ran by, dodging the flames Dabi shot out. Muscular winced, but didn't fall and turned his attention towards her instead. She dodged a few swings of his, stabbing him where she could in the ribs, but it didn't seem to slow him down at all.

"Gotta love a girl who can fight. I'm gonna have some fun with you!" He said in a way that made her skin crawl. He aimed a punch at her that was much faster than she was expecting from the brute. She was too late to dodge it as his fist hit her in the shoulder with all his force, sending her flying and crashing into the wall across the room.

Dabi growled and took the opportunity to scorch Muscular's back with his flames, which finally caused the big guy's smile to fade slightly.

"You guys are serious, huh? Fine by me, let's get serious." The muscle fibers in his arms shifted again, and his entire body was now covered as he turned his attention back towards Dabi.

Kana let out a pained grunt and jumped back to her feet, the side that hit the wall hurt, and her shoulder was dislocated where she was punched, but nothing felt broken. One of her arm blades had broken off, and she winced as she produced another one. The cut from the incision didn't heal as fast this time.

"Our swords aren't doing much against him, but Dabi's flames seem to be giving him some trouble." Spinner said as he approached her.

"Yea, those muscle fibers of his keep shifting to block me from stabbing him. But maybe if we catch him by surprise or just keep attacking until he wears himself out... At the very least, we can be a distraction for Dabi to burn his ass."

Muscular was closing in on Dabi again before Dabi slid out of the way at the last second, Muscular's momentum couldn't slow down, and he collided with the wall, shaking the building's foundations. Dabi shot off another stream of flames at him.

"This really the kind of person we want to join the League?" Spinner asked, readying his sword to attack

"Unfortunately, I don't think we have much of a say in that. Plus, if we get him to join, he'll at least be a good battering ram against the heroes." She said, popping her shoulder back into place.

Muscular laughed and shook off the rubble that had fallen on him from his collision and went running towards Dabi again.

"I guess that's true. Ready?"

Kana nodded, and they both ran to intercept Muscular, slashing at both of his sides. Kana had spent enough training with people with fire quirks as a kid and at U.A. to know how to support them in a fight. She slashed and stabbed at Muscular, staying just out of his peripheral vision so he'd have to turn away from Dabi to focus on her. Spinner kept on a similar assault on his other side, while Dabi used the openings they gave him to shoot more flames without hitting his comrades.

After a while, Muscular began to get a little slower, and the blade slashes from Kana and Spinner were finally slicing through his skin. Muscular's smile never faded, though. He was clearly enjoying the challenge.

Spinner tripped over some rubble, trying to slash at him, and Muscular swung his arm out, slamming Spinner across the room; his sword clattering across the floor a few feet away from Kana. She grabbed it as she rolled out of the way of another punch aimed at her, his fist hitting the ground where she was, making it shake from the impact.

"Spinner!"

He looked over to her from across the room and nodded, seeing his sword in her hands. Muscular turned to look back at him on the other side of the room while Kana took the opportunity to throw Spinner's sword deep into Muscular's back. He turned again, back to her, laughing through the pain. While he was distracted, Spinner sprinted over and jumped up, grabbing his sword, twisting it out of Muscular before jumping back out of his range. This time, Muscular didn't turn around and continued charging after Kana. She kept dodging his punches and tried to keep his attention on her while Dabi continued to blast streams of fire at him. The big guy finally seemed to figure out their strategy and began to ignore her, solely focusing on getting closer to Dabi as quickly as he could, even as Kana diced into his back with her blades. Dabi backed away from him, but ended up hitting the wall behind him, not having enough time to dodge either direction from Muscular's attack.

Seeing the danger he was in, Kana made a hasty, impulsive attack. Stepping up onto Muscular's back, she launched herself above him and, with both her blades extended out and all her weight behind them, stabbed them deep into the hand of the arm he had raised to hit Dabi, giving Dabi an opening to dodge out of the way. The force of her weight and gravity caused Muscular's arm to drop and then collide into the ground, his momentum flipping him into the wall where Dabi was just standing. His body crumpled to the ground, his head hitting the floor on the way down. Kana maintained her stance, her blades keeping his arm pinned to the ground. Dabi took the opportunity to move around the brute on the floor and held both hands on either side of his head, ready to fry his brain with his flames if he moved. Spinner walked over and held his sword against his throat, stabbing it in slightly just to make the threat clear.

"You ready to cooperate, or should we just kill you now?" Dabi asked him, breathing harder from the fight.

Muscular coughed and chuckled. "Fine, fine. You guys were a hell of a fight. I'll join the League. As long as I'm allowed to rampage like that again and take down heroes, I'll do whatever you guys need."

"You're not going to attack again if we let you go, are you?" Kanashimi asked, still keeping his arm held down with her blades

"Nah, I'm done for now. I don't want the cops chasing after us."

Kana sighed and ripped the blades out of his arm; she had made sure the edges were serrated before she attacked, so it'd still hurt a bit coming out, even if he agreed to go with them. She stepped as hard as she could on his hand as she walked away from him.

"You're feisty. I like that in a woman." Muscular laughed while sitting up.

"You really think you're the first person to tell me that after a fight?" She replied, not even looking back at him.

"Shut the fuck up already." Dabi told Muscular as he stood back up and dusted himself off.

"We've got a vehicle outside. We'll take you to our main hideout. Shigaraki will tell you what to do from there." Spinner said.

"The big boss himself couldn't even come out to get me, huh?"

"You weren't worth his time. Now let's get out of here." Kana responded flatly, signaling Eris back over. She gave a low growl directed towards Muscular.

The four proceeded down the lower level of the warehouse and outside towards the van. Kana's blades retracted, but the cuts on her right arm weren't healing fast, and she was beginning to bleed through her bindings. Eris came over and pressed her nose against her hand, the signal Kanashimi had trained to alert her when her iron fell below a certain level.

"I know, girl." She said, patting her on the head affectionately; there wasn't much she could do about it right now.

Spinner and Muscular reached the car first and took the front two seats. Kana noticed she was leaving a trail of blood on the pavement from her arm as she walked; her bandages only had a few spots not soaked through red. The stab to Muscular's arm must have taken more iron than she thought, probably from holding itself together through the weight of impact. Kana stopped walking and took a breath, beginning to feel light-headed. She hadn't brought any backup bindings for what they thought would be a low-stakes mission, but she did have some on her other arm that weren't in as bad shape. She unwrapped the bandages from her left arm, exposing her heavily scarred skin, and tightly wrapped them over the bindings on her right, hoping that would stop the bleeding.

Dabi had come up behind her as she started tying off the bindings on her right arm.

He looked down at the blood on the concrete and then back up at her, giving her a sideways glance. Almost like he was concerned.

"It's fine. It looks worse than it actually is." Kana shrugged and continued walking steadily toward the car, Eris right at her side in case she needed support. Dabi followed behind her.

"That happen often?" He asked.

"My blades use the iron and other metals in my blood to form, and then they have to stab through me to come out. So, if I over-exert myself, I end up like this." She explained, lifting her bandaged arm for emphasis.

Dabi stared for a moment and then nodded in understanding but didn't respond, looking lost in thought as they climbed into the back of the van. Eris was sitting between them, staring at Muscular in the front seat, still on alert.

Spinner started up the van and began driving back to the League's hideout. Muscular started talking again, some story about a village he tried to massacre. Kana tuned most of it out; while the bleeding had finally stopped, she was still light-headed. She had popped her shoulder back into place earlier, but it was still in pain, and Muscular's droning was giving her a headache.

Spinner was giving him basic responses, not listening as much as he could, while Dabi ignored him entirely. Kana leaned her head into the cold glass of the window, hoping it would ease the pain in her head.

While the police presence wasn't as strong as when they had first driven in, Spinner still had to take some complicated and bumpy routes to stay away from their patrols. Kana glanced over at Dabi and saw him absentmindedly trying the pressure point trick she had shown him earlier. She hoped it actually worked for him.

After a while, they arrived back on more residential streets. Muscular had finally shut up, seemingly falling asleep. Spinner broke the peaceful silence that had finally formed.

"I left something important back at my old apartment; it isn't far from here, so I'm going to stop by there on our way back."

"Seriously?" Dabi asked, annoyed. Clearly not wanting to be in the vehicle longer than he had to be.

"It'll only take a minute." Spinner responded.

Dabi shot him a glare that said, 'Get me the fuck out of this van as soon as possible.'

"What did you leave behind?" Kana asked, curious.

Spinner was silent for a moment before he answered. "My desktop, I've got some hacking software on there that could be useful in the future."

"Fair enough."

They pulled up to an apartment complex a few minutes later. Spinner exited the vehicle while Kana, Dabi, and Muscular stayed behind.

"I'll only be a few minutes, I promise." Spinner assured them as he closed his door and left towards the building.

Kana closed her eyes, trying to relax in the silence for a moment.

"Hey! Wanna know how I got this eye?" Muscular asked suddenly, practically jump scaring her. Kana didn't even know he had woken back up.

"Uh, not rea-" Kana started to say, but she was interrupted as he launched into the story, seeming very proud of his robotic eye and how he murdered the heroes responsible for his loss.

Dabi looked over at Kana after a few minutes of Muscular droning on.

"What the hell is wrong with this guy?" He asked under his breath.

"No fucking clue. Spinner better hurry up, though." She whispered back. Dabi and Kana were currently sharing the same headache. Even Eris was getting annoyed, curling up at Kana's side, burying her head to block the noise out.

After a few more minutes of Muscular's story, Spinner returned carrying a large cardboard box with wires sticking out of it. He shoved the box in the back of the van.

"Sorry for the wait." he said as he got back in the front. He looked at them through the rearview mirror, apologizing with his eyes for them having to deal with Muscular for so long.

"Just hurry up so we can get away from this crazy bastard." Dabi said, entirely done with the situation.

"Ha! You're calling me a crazy bastard; you better take a look at yourself in the mirror, buddy. Though with your charred ass, I get why you wouldn't want to do that." Muscular said, trying to get a reaction from him.

Dabi just sighed and crossed his arms in annoyance.

When they arrived back at the League base, Spinner got out of the van, carrying his computer, as he led Muscular into the bar. Eris followed in behind them, still on guard duty. Kana was about to follow before Dabi held up a hand and stopped her a few feet from the door, away from the warm light inside.

"Hold up a second." He paused before continuing again, like he wasn't sure how to word what he was thinking.

"You were good back in that fight. It takes a bit of strategy to know how to work alongside fire like that at close range without getting burned. You've trained with people with fire quirks before?" He asked, raising an eyebrow at her.

Kana didn't understand exactly why he was asking this, but answered nonetheless.

"I have, yea, back at U.A. There were a few people with fire quirks. We had to train to adapt to a lot of situations and support different types of abilities in team-ups."

Dabi studied her for a second before his face relaxed slightly.

"Well...they did a decent job." He said, giving her a genuine compliment.

"Thanks, you were pretty good too." She said, giving him a small smile. They really had been a decent matchup. Usually, in the team-ups she had been part of, there were always missteps of some kind, mistakes that were made. But they had just fought together flawlessly. She had honestly missed feeling the heat of flames in combat, it was nostalgic.

From inside, they could hear muffled voices talking. Spinner's voice was clearer than the others, and they heard him call out to Shigaraki.

"Hey! While we were out, I picked up my desktop. You don't have to play League alone anymore."*

"Oh, really? Nice!" They heard Shigaraki respond; he didn't sound much like the terrifying villain that could turn people to dust with a touch at that moment.

Dabi and Kana locked eyes, a look of annoyance spreading across Dabi's face.

"Did he seriously leave us in a car for that long with that bastard for a fucking video game?" Dabi sighed, exasperated.

"Sounds like it… hacking software, my ass." She said, a little bewildered. But part of her couldn't help but laugh at the situation.

Dabi moved out of the way, allowing them to both go inside to join the others. Kana was still unsure why his question earlier was framed like an accusation, but she quickly let it go as the rest of the League gathered around to talk about their next steps.

Spotify Playlist:

https/open./playlist/7CcmUulAgNAQ2xre9gih32?si=QyHI1m1eTJOAhDqmUzWFEg

Song Inspiration:

One Hell of a Team by AmaLee (really only for the chorus and energy of the song, the rest doesn't really apply)