"Why … are there … so many … stairs?" Mineta winced. His tiny legs weren't meant for this torture! "It's…so…long…!"
"It's like the sixth or seventh time I've had to run something so tall, and that's not including Bunny-sensei's work out plan." Iruma told one of his many contextless tidbits of his frankly horror story of a life.
"This is bullshit! You're buff as hell, Ochako is light, and Iida is a walking train. What's her excuse?" He asked the new hot chick.
"Adrenaline! I feel excited, we never have this much adventure here!" Oh, they were dealing with a danger-junkie… that was a bit of a turn on. "Is this really what it's like for you guys back in Japan all the time?"
"Pretty much, although we've haven't dealt with anything of this scope before." Uraraka explained."
"But we fought the brain man and Stain." Iruma spoke naively. "This seems pretty easy if it's one guy."
"One guy with an army of robots and goons." Iida added in. "Don't forget that the main objective is to free All Might and the other heroes. Once we accomplish that, we leave everything else to the professionals."
"I'm just glad I can help out for once. I'm usually way behind you guys when it comes to these situations." Uraraka chimed in.
"Yeah, that's something I hope stays the same for me once we get back home." Mineta liked his friends, but he couldn't handle the stress of being the only sane guy of the group. Well once sane, Iida lost that privilege. "How many more floors?"
"We're on floor seventeen." Thank god. "Out of one hundred." FUCK GOD!
Denki slapped himself. "Get it together." He was fighting metal men-robots. They were called robots. Damn it, his brain is already not working well. "Keep it straight. Yaomomo, you're still good?"
"W-well enough." Momo said with a bit of a heave, aiming the cannon she made. "I just need to make some soft ammo. Tsu, Jiro, can you cover me for a quick second."
"On it, Prez." Jiro sent her jacks into the ground while Tsu snagged a robot with her tongue and used it as a wrecking ball.
"One … and two … and three!" He began zapping some more robots, letting them conduct for him. "Oh wow, my brain is fuzzy." He could barely feel his thoughts now.
"Denki look out!" Ji-ji-ro leapt into the fray and pushed him out of the way of a robot behind him. How nice. He had such great friends. "You fried your brain again, you brave little dummy! Don't scare us like that!" So many nicer words than she usually said.
"Kyoka … niice." He gave her a smile. "Your…ears…cute…"
"Wh-wh-wha…" Her face was getting all red. Huh, did he say something wrong? Should he say more nice things? That should make her feel better, right?
He heard a battle scream, Mamomo came in with a spear and stabbed the robot, oil coming out and spilling on her face. "Aaaamazon!" He screamed out. She was litke a battle princess.
"Now's not the time for flatteries, sweetie." Mamomo said cutely. Was he sweet? What kind of sweet was he? Was it lemon sweet or chocolate sweet? "Tsu, make sure to keep Denki safe, Jiro, take your hands off him and help me load the cannon." Huh, weird, that last part sounded a little meaner than usual.
"I can't escape this even on the verge of death." Tsutsu rolled her eyes.
"Thank you froppy. You're like a sister I never had. You're super nice to everyone." He smiled and complimented the girl saving him.
The girl blushed a little. "Now I have two Iruma's to look after. I need to get paid for this soon."
Iruma looked at the wall. "Dang it." They must have hit a dead end. "Let's see if the real stairs are elsewhere."
"Don't. We've been lucky to avoid the guard for this long, going another way will probably take longer and alert them to where we are." Melissa stopped him. "I know the structure of the island enough to know on the other side where the wind generators are. From there, we should have an easy enough path to access the control room."
"That's easier said than done, there has to be like six to ten inches of steel and concrete between that." Minoru groaned.
"What about the wall around it?" Iruma looked to the side.
"That'll lead off the building for a couple stories worth of falling to our deaths." Melissa explained.
"Not if we climb it, we have floating and racing powers." Iruma pointed to Ochako and Iida. "With both your quirks, it shouldn't be a problem getting there fast.
"Except I have a limit to how much weight I can make float. The max I can do is two people, anything else and I'll start getting queasy."
"Not to mention I don't have much control over the direction of my quirk in mid air, as demonstrated at the beginning of the year." Iida explained.
"Oh yeah, the exit sign thing." Minoru laughed. "But back on track, there's also a matter of actually getting through the wall again."
"So we need to get floating, control, and a way inside." He looked to his arm, the one still covered in the red gauntlet. "You said that I can go all out with this thing on?"
"Yep, you can handle maybe … two or three of All Might's punches before that breaks. Then again it's not like you can actually hit that hard, right?"
Ochako laughed hard. "Sorry, it's just, you obviously didn't see what happened during the Sports Festival. He can demolish icebergs with a flick of a finger. There's a reason why we call him Bunny-sensei's secret love child."
"He's not! He just found me on the beach and asked me to put all his hopes and faith in me." Melissa laughed. "What?"
"Nothing, it's nothing. So your plan is to launch us there right?" She grinned. "Let's do this, flying through the sky like little einsteins!" What? Apparently this time everyone agreed. "American joke."
"Got it. Climb on my back and hang on." He crouched and let the girl hold on. "Ochako, now!"
"Suddenly I feel really conflicted about this pla.." She started, only for a loud beeping sound to go off. "What the..Robots! I thought they were taken care of!"
"Obviously our classmates have found themselves overwhelmed." Iida responded. "Uraraka, me and Mineta will keep covered so you can concentrate, Iruma, you and Shield get to that control room! We're all counting on you!"
"On it!" Iruma said, lighting up One For All as he felt Ochako touch him. "Energy Suit! ROCKET MAN!" He shot himself forward, using his hands to grip as much of the wall as he could. The claws in his suit would've been so handy right now. "You alright, Melissa?!"
"This is the best day of my life!" … She was alright.
"Hang on tight, we're going to get there soon." He 'ran' higher and higher, until he reached a higher enough spot. "Is this good?"
"Yeah, there should be a stair that'll lead directly to the control room behind this wall!"
"Alright, hold on tight, this might get a little windy!" He felt power flow through his arms he hadn't felt since the Sports festival. He was overcooking the chicken, but it didn't feel like his limbs were going on fire. "All the spoonfuls! Right hook….!" He felt the wind change as he reeled his arm back. "PUNCH!" And the wall broke down like it was made out of paper.
"So strong.." Melissa whispered as they floated into the wall, Ochako's quirk wearing off as they touched the ground. "That felt like one of Uncle Might's Smashes." Yeah, it felt awesome, and this time he didn't even have pain from using it.
"Your invention is amazing, I'm perfectly fine!" The girl flinched. "Are you alright?" He gazed at her hands … which looked like they'd been burnt holding a stove. "What happened? We didn't touch anything out there."
"I..I don't know." She looked at her hands. "When you lit up your quirk, my hands felt warm, but I thought that was normal."
"What, my quirk doesn't affect people like that." He was certain it didn't. Toru and Rabbit-Sama hugged him alot when the Energy suit was active, and they never got hurt. "I-I'm sorry, I should've been…" Guilt started to rise. He was the big brother here! He shouldn't be hurting his fr..
"Look out!" Melissa suddenly pushed him out of the way as a knife suddenly came into view. What? He should've dodged that! Did he actually get so distracted he ignored the danger of something easy to avoid?!
"Annoying brats!" Knife armed bad guy yelled, pushing Melissa out of the way against a wall, her arm…bleeding. "You picked the wrong…"
"PUNCH!" Never before had he had the desire to hit something so violently and quickly before in the face.
"AAAHHHHH!" … Apparently he punched him out of the building.
"He'll … he'll be fine right?" Iruma asked, a bit concerned.
"Not like anyone would care if he isn't." That was…dark. Almost sounded like something Bakugo would say. "Come on, we have to keep moving. They may lock us out again, only this time we won't have the others to help us." Right, he needed to move. No time to focus on other things, like if his friends were okay.
Hizashi's life was a roller coaster. Fancy job, but it's far away. Hot wife, but poor wife. Potentially pyrokinetic child, turns out to be a quirkless brat. Ditching your now jobless and fat wife along with your quirkless spawn for loads of gold, but a sludge villain causes you to burn it all away. Break out of prison, garner mafia debts because apparently they were still a thing in America.
Now he was a part of what should've been an easy in-and-out heist job, but he had to fight against a highly temperamental, highly combat trained explosive kid he vaguely recalled hanging around his worthless son. "DIE!DIE!DIE!" The kid repeated over and over, not having relented a single second the moment the fight started.
"I feel like I should be the one telling YOU that." He groaned, releasing fireball after fireball. "And you're supposed to be the hero here?"
"Where the fuck is Deku!? How come you didn't disappear like the rest of them!?" The boy shouted, launching explosion after explosion.
"I'll do you one better, who the fuck is Deku!?" He created a wave of fire to gather his breath, oxygen low.
"IZUKU, YOUR FUCKING SON!" The brat actually managed to send him flying back a little.
"Oh … well I'm a wanted criminal, so I might as well admit it." He smirked. At the very least if he cared to give him this amount of hell, sending him off the edge might give him an opening. "I sold them."
"Wha-what?!" That somehow made him more concentrated on the fight, shooting himself forwards and launching Hizashi against the wall. "What the fuck do you mean sold!?"
"You heard me. Some pervy old man wanted them, I needed money, so we made an arrangement." Suddenly the entire room went quiet. "He said he wanted the soul of my wife and son, and that I could live the rest of my days in comfort without worrying about them. Unfortunately a villain got me in jail, but I busted myself out with the help of the mob, go figure they're around." He was still surprised by the silence. "So now I'm here, getting enough money to pay them off."
"Dude." He turned to his two partners, actually stopping their fight with the other brats. "That's kinda fucked up."
"Last I checked we're killing kids!" He shouted at the hypocrite.
"Yeah, but not OUR kids. There's standards man."
"I didn't think someone could be worse than my father, but somehow it's possible." The ice-fire kid looked at him with disgust. "Bakugo, go ahead and kill him. We won't stop you."
"Oh come on, you're all heroes in training." He charged up a fireball as the kid was frozen in place. "Do you really think you have the right to kill!?" He lobbed it hard.
"You lost the right to anything when you sold your own fucking family!" The rocky kid got in the way and took the blast head on. "Besides, we're not above brutally maiming in this situation, which Bakubro has done many, MANY times in the past, isn't that right?"
"..." The boy had been quiet and frozen, simply twitching and sweating. "Do you even know … a single thing … about the man you sold him to … did you ever give a damn about what you did …" Sparkles rested on his hands "Do you ever wake up thinking about people you hurt?"
"Not really." He said without remorse. "As far as I know, the brat and the bitch are burning in hell as we speak, and I wake up every day happy I'll never, EVER see them again."
The brat grit his teeth, growling louder and louder. "Bakugo!" They looked around. Where had a girl come from, why couldn't they see her? "Stay calm! Don't let him get to you!" Nice try, this boy had lost it. He just needed to blast his hands right and let the boy blow himself up from shock. Keep distance and he's-
"RRRAAAAAAAA!" The boy launched at him … with explosions … from his feet. "DIE!" Why did he never do it before-shit too close! "DIE! DIE! DIIIEEEE!" He couldn't get a breath in with all the smoke entering his lungs.
"Wow, just…I'm not sure if I'm comfortable fighting these kids anymore." He heard his round partner admit from all the explosions.
"Hey, don't worry about it." The red headed kid spoke, or at least he thought it was. "You two are clearly better people than that guy. How about we all just say we beat you, have you sit over there tied up, and we'll fake our injuries." No, help him you bastards!
"Yeah, that seems fair." His webbed handed partner said. "We'll just say we beat the crap out of Midoriya, so feel free to let loose on that asshole." FUCK YOU!
"Huh, starting to think Iruma-kun has a point about villains." That was the last thing he heard before everything went black.
Just a few more digits and … YES! The safe was open. "We did it." He smiled at the man. "With this we can finally save his career."
"Yes.." Right..it was all about All Might. "We can do more than that. We have the device, we can continue our research in private, we don't have to give up!"
"No, they had a point about mass production, it would be almost as bad as trigger." Damn it, he really didn't want to do this. The man has done so much for him. "But if we can just give it to him we can-"
"Papa?" SHIT! Of all the people to be dragged up here it was her. The little daughter with hacking skill and a key to David Shield's heart. And she brought … some kid looking at everything weirdly. "Wha…what are you doing..where are the villains?"
"Honey, I can explain-"
"EXPLAIN!?" She asked. "You knew!?" Tears were down her eyes. "Did … did you cause this?"
The boy glared, David sighing. Great, now the plan was leaked. Where the fuck was Wolfram? "This device was never meant for mass production, but they locked it up anyway. It was important to me, absolutely vital."
"What could possibly be worth this?" The boy asked, expression filled with a sense of curiosity and vengeance.
"It's a Quirk Enhancing Device. If worn it could exponentially boost a quirk far beyond what it would normally do."
"You did this because you wanted power? That's not the Papa I know." The girl pleaded.
"Not for me … for All Might." The two looked confused. "It's a secret, but a fight got bad. His powers are on the decline, a scan of today showed it worse than ever, his power almost vanishing."
"I…I know." The boy answered. "He's been teaching me for over a year, that's why he's teaching at UA. He knows his quirk's almost gone. Bunny-sensei is okay with it."
"But the world isn't. We can't live without what he's done. If he vanishes, society will collapse." The man gave a broken smile. "But with this I can fix it." That was still gonna be tough to take. "With this I can bring All Might back to his prime, his quirk back in full power and control."
"He … never told you." Sam and David looked confused. "You were his friend … but he never told you."
"Told me what?"
"He …" The boy looked conflicted. "I can't tell you why but his quirk is gone." It was what? "It's not there, he's running on leftover food. Your helmet won't work, there's nothing to boost." That was the most confusing bombshell he's ever gotten.
"No, no, no, that can't be possible!" David was losing it. "It has to still be there! Quirks just don't…fade away! I just need the helmet and give it to him! I don't care if I go to jail after this! I take whatever punishment I'm given, I have to save my friend!"
"Do you care about the innocents!?" Melissa shouted. "Do you care about the people you've hurt!? These villains are trying to kill his classmates as we speak."
David looked confused. The gig was up it seemed. "That's not possible, I hired actors."
Bang
"Yes, and honestly, I think we gave a good performance." The three slowly turned to the man. "But that's just me, I'll look at the criticisms online. Now then, Sam?"
"Oh, yes." He took the case out of David's hands. "I'm sorry, you're a good friend, but you've made this so difficult!"
"Sam, what did you..?"
"I dedicated half of my life working for you, and when our work was taken away, you didn't fight it! You let it happen, let decades of research down the drain, and you're about to do the same thing again! Leaving me behind!" He cried. "I put in so much work. I deserve to be rewarded for my efforts."
"Yes, you do." Wolfram took out a gun and pointed at his head. "Here's everything that you deserve."
BANG