A/N: Well, folks- we did it. We are officially at one hundred entries for Your Hero Academia! If you've managed to stick with the story this long, you have my respect for your perseverance, and my gratitude for your support. I hope that we have many more chapters to enjoy together- even if the format for my content release may be about to change a bit (more details about that in the omake).
Gonna be putting up some new artwork in the spirit of the Christmas season featuring a few of our power couples from this series, and I do hope that you'll enjoy them on my Instagram: the_red_swordsman
Merry Christmas, and I'll be seeing you again on New Year's!
Phase 6: Chapter 8
Three Musketeers
"Alright guys, you ready for this?" Kai asked as he glanced either way at his friends. "Anyone who hasn't had One For All, your quota's about five hundred apiece- think you can handle them?"
"Screw that!" Ground Zero snarled as his hands hissed with smoke. "I'll take five hundred and one!"
"That's the spirit."
"We'll handle the flunkies, you go make sure those bombs don't get the chance to blow," Ashid Queen assured him. To Deku and Chronoa, she added, "I'm counting on you two- keep my man safe, would you?"
"With my life," Chronoa answered as lightning blazed in her eyes, even as Deku's aura swelled like a star amid the storm around them.
"This time, let's all go home smiling, together," he declared while the closest Humarise members managed to take up vantage points to open fire on them.
"If we're quite done with the pep talk…?" Myrtenaster huffed impatiently.
"Right, sorry," Kai apologized as he took a couple of steps forward, black lightning sparking rapidly across his arms. "I'll get things going and give you a head start against these ass hats." Before anyone could ask what he was planning to do, he raised his fists high above his head and then slammed them into the ground as hard as he could while roaring, "Malgus SMASH!" The earth rippled before him, sending Humarise members flying up in the air and clearing the field of any obstacles for nearly a half-mile.
"Move!" Freezer Burn shouted as he skated forward on his ice, not wanting to waste another second. They all knew the parts they needed to play- now it was time to see it done, and turn Humarise's ambitions into nothing but a bad memory.
"Don't give me orders, Icy-Hot!" Ground Zero bellowed as he shot up, Myrtenaster following him quickly on a series of speed-enhancing hexes, even as Ashid Queen slid through the newly-altered terrain on trails of acid.
She did take a second to call over her shoulder, "Mind giving your girl a little push?!"
Kai, immediately taking her meaning, bolted after her in tandem with Chronoa and Deku, shooting a tendril of Blackwhip to snag around her waist before he yanked it forward, instantly increasing her speed so that she overshot Ground Zero in less than a second, prompting a shout of outrage from the blond hero, even as she tore into the closest group of gunmen, her fists flying to knock them down while her acid ate through their weapons with unnerving precision.
Following that, Kai took to the air, combining One For All with Float so that he could properly fly above the army of acolytes while he hurled dark lightning bolts at the outliers, forcing them to scatter and break ranks, even as Deku unleashed starlight straight in front of him, carving a path that would allow him and Chronoa an unobstructed way into the large entrance to the base that had been carved out of the mountainside. The girl, meanwhile, was using rapid-fire air bursts to pummel any acolytes who were stupid enough to show their faces over the smoldering holes left in the rocks by her teammates.
"You sure Rody's gonna be okay back there?!" Deku asked her as they began to run up the incline that led to the entrance.
"I set him down a few miles away!" she replied quickly. "He's nowhere near enough to get hurt by anything the others do, and there weren't any Humarise members in the vicinity!"
"Good work, but I'll feel better once we've finished with the bombs and can get back to him!" her predecessor admitted.
"Then let's not keep him waiting!"
Kai took that moment to land next to them, a grim look on his face as he tapped the side of his scouter. "We got incoming, and by the looks of things, they've got strong quirks," he informed them.
"Send them our way!" Freezer Burn's voice came in over the earpieces that they had managed to hold onto for the mission.
"You're sure?!" Deku asked him.
"Ha!" Ground Zero snorted. "All these idiots have are a few lame-ass quirks, sticks, guns, and no strategy! I'm already getting bored, so let's make this fun!"
"You need to work on your definition of fun, Katsuki!" Myrtenaster scolded him, followed by what sounded like a small avalanche in the background.
"We can handle them," Ashid Queen affirmed. "You guys just focus on the main boss." Despite her claim only days prior that she would never let Kurai out of her sight again, she knew that this was no time to be selfish or joke around. The three of them with the most power stood the best chance at making it to the mother computer in order to trigger the kill switch, and with little more than twenty minutes to go until Armageddon, they couldn't afford to be slowed down by their teammates. So she would once again place her faith in Kai's skill and determination, while also choosing to trust that Chronoa and Deku could keep him alive long enough for them to celebrate together afterward. Her instincts were screaming at her that it was a mistake to let him go on without her, but she squashed those feelings with a steel grip- it was time to be nothing less than a hero trying to save the world, personal sentiments be damned. He was trusting her to keep any backup from coming to their leader's aid, and she would not fail him and their friends.
With all of that in mind, she added, "Go on, stop the bombs. We've got each other's backs out here."
"As you wish," Kai replied with a grin. "Here we go!" The enemies that he had mentioned were now coming into view, two smaller figures in cloaks, and a hulking, pale brute that hardly resembled a humanoid. Kicking One For All into a higher gear, he shouted, "I got the big guy!"
"Eri, go right!" Deku shouted as Kai called on the powers of the Sixth. They had just gotten into position when a cloud of smoke exploded from his body, obscuring everyone's line of sight in the process.
About two seconds later, there were some shouts of surprise, followed by three figures flying out of the smoke cloud and away from the mountain to crash into the battlefield, bowling over a number of the robed acolytes in the process. Emerging on the other side, into the tunnel that would lead straight to the mother computer of Humarise, were the three heroes, unscathed for all the obstacles that their enemies had thrown at them thus far.
"Did they get through?" Freezer Burn asked as Ashid Queen slid to be back-to-back with him.
"Affirmative," Myrtenaster answered as Ground Zero shot toward the largest of the three villains that had been deposited on the ground between them. "We just have to keep these pests from giving their leader any further backup."
"Pests, huh?" sneered one of the smaller villains as he and another like him got to their feet. "Is the kettle calling the pot black?" He was small in stature, with blue hair, serpent-like yellow eyes, and what looked like a pair of fangs peeking out just underneath his upper lip.
"You better watch your mouth before I decide to kill you instead of big ugly!" Ground Zero shouted as he slammed into the pale behemoth of a villain with a vicious explosion. "DIE!"
"He's gonna be one of the loud ones, isn't he?" asked the third villain, whom the heroes now realized was an exact copy of the second young man in every way. "Excellent- I was worried we'd have to deal with one of the strong, silent types like half-and-half over there." His and his twin's arms quickly transformed into a pair of sharp, extendable blades that looked hard enough to cut through just about anything. If the sinister grins the two were wearing were any indication, it seemed that they intended to do just that.
Freezer Burn elected to ignore them as he noticed a new group of gunmen coming toward their group, his eyes narrowing as he did. "We've still got the regular acolytes to deal with," he announced. "Who's taking on who?"
"Bakugo's already got the big guy, so I'll handle Thing One and Thing Two," Mina asserted as acid coated her arms while she sized up their smaller opponents. From the smell and the way that it was eating at the ground it touched when it fell from her hands, it was clear that she wasn't about to hold back.
"Ha!" Ground Zero smirked as he glanced sidelong at the pink girl. "Don't think that taking on two of these losers makes you any better than me!"
"I've got something to handle the acolytes coming from the south, so we'll leave the rest to you, Todoroki," Myrtenaster added as she whirled her rapier, conjuring a half-dozen hexes of varying colors around Ground Zero's gauntlets, whose opponent was now snarling unintelligibly.
"Got it," Freezer Burn nodded as he reaffixed his eyes on the north, where he could now see many gunmen taking aim at him and his friends. "Good luck, everyone."
"Go!" Ground Zero shouted, springing into action as some kind of weird tentacle-like appendage shot out of his chosen enemy's head, though it failed to ensnare him in the process.
Once again, the young heroes of UA exploded into action, with ice blasting out in both directions while Ashid Queen hurled highly-corrosive acid at one of the twin serpent villains when they tried to extend their blade and stab Freezer Burn in the back as he skated away to deal with the other acolytes. He let out a scream of pain, but she had no time to celebrate the fact, having to use her natural and practiced flexibility in order to dodge a blow from the twin. She was able to use the shift in momentum to perform a sweeping split kick that shot acid at both of her opponents. Having seen what was happening to his brother, the second one beat a quick- but still close- retreat, his yellow eyes glaring at her with hatred while the other nursed his injured appendage, having been forced to revert it back to normal in order to inspect the damage.
It wasn't pretty. With that single attack, she had done enough damage to burn away multiple skin layers and eat at the muscles in his fingers so that three of them were completely limp, unusable. Seeing the look of surprise and horror on his face, she decided to take advantage of the confusion in the moment and ask, "What're you two doing with Humarise, huh? Their goal is to take out everyone like us, ya know."
"We have been personally chosen by Flect," hissed the uninjured brother. "In the days that follow the cleansing of the world, there will be those such as us who serve to remind humanity what must never be allowed to rise again, if they truly are to flourish as they once did."
"Huh. So you're cowards who signed on to avoid being part of the hit list, huh?" Ashid Queen snorted. "Of all the reasons to join these people, that might just be the worst one. If you'd gone about your normal lives, you wouldn't be about to go to jail for the next eighty years after I kick your asses."
"We also get to kill a lot of people who get in our way," her enemy said with a decidedly serpentine smile that showed his fangs a little too well.
"And there it is," she muttered, her ears picking up on the sound of something metallic clinking behind her, in the direction from the wounded brother. Without a second of conscious thought, she leaped up and twisted to the side while hurling another glob of searing acid at her enemy, not wanting to give him a chance to get a surprise attack in. Given how effective her acid had been on him last time, she didn't expect that he would be up to taking too many hits from her, especially if she could hit him somewhere it could really hurt.
Much to her surprise and sudden dread, however, even though her acid made contact and produced the stench of burning bone, the blade she had struck appeared to be only lightly damaged by her efforts- and now there were not just two, but six extendable blades coming out of his arms and back, all of them appearing far harder and sharper than before. One look was enough to tell her that it would only take a single swipe to cut her in half. "Trigger?" she fumed as she noticed that the villain's face had become even more snake-like than before. "That's just cheating!"
"Cheaters or not, when this is all over, we'll be alive, and you won't," chortled the more talkative of the brothers, even as he jammed a green syringe into his neck. His face and body immediately began to transform to match his twin's as he hissed, "It's as simple as all that, little hero."
"Buddy, you have no idea what it takes to kill a hero from my friend group," she replied as she conjured even more acid, allowing it to swallow her entire body until she was coated in her Acid Avatar. "The last guys to try it had a knockoff All For One on their team, but if you think you're really a match for guys like them, then bring it on!"
Thunder crashed across the sky as the three of them leaped at one another, done with the warmup. It was time to begin this contest of wills in earnest.
"You filthy animals deserve the dirt!" screamed a Humarise member brandishing a spear that Huntsman shunted to the side with his shield, followed by a quick slash from his sword that severed the steel head clean off. He followed this up with a reverse pommel strike that slammed into his attacker's jaw, knocking them out cold in an instant.
"Jeez, you'd think that these guys would be out protecting the bomb or trying to stop the heroes from getting to 'em!" he gasped, his muscles and lungs burning as he strove to keep up with his classmates as they continued to repel armed intruders.
"I suppose Hikari's challenge was more than a little aggravating to their leader," Axios mused as she put her back to him and took aim at a woman who was menacing Rule, quickly putting three bullets, one in her leg, the other two in her arm.
As the other girl waved her hand in apparent thanks, the teenagers had the opportunity to look further up the road, where Crow Branwen was absolutely demolishing every member that came against him with his monster scythe. Huntsman personally thought that it was like watching Ruby go to work whenever she got really fired up, except that… Well, it was weird.
Crow's movements were decidedly more sloppy and off-kilter than his niece's, but he somehow struck with far more power, speed, and devastation than even her Petal Burst quirk allowed. The boy thought that the man's own quirk (coupled with a few decades of experience) must have something to do with his effectiveness in battle, but seeing as Crow never let anyone fight too closely alongside him, other than Taiyang and sometimes his nieces, nobody else had even the slightest clue of what his powers were. All that people knew about Crow Branwen- for those who did know him- was that he was perpetually drunk, always irritating to have in a room, and terrifying as all hell if you happened to be on the wrong end of his scythe.
Long story short, the kids were glad that he was on their side when two-dozen fresh gunmen dressed in white drove up in a bus.
The path to the computer terminal was fairly straightforward, and the guards between them and it were of no consequence to Deku, Chronoa, and Kai, but it would require them to pass through the gathering room for Humarise's most faithful, where his Danger Sense was warning him of a grave threat that lay in wait. "When we get in there, punch first, ask questions later," he said while keeping his gaze on a rapidly approaching set of massive double doors.
"We know Flect Turn has a quirk, but not what it is," Deku replied before he looked over at Chronoa. "You wouldn't happen to know anything about him, would you?"
"Just that Shigaraki stole his quirk before he killed him, but he was stealing so many powers by then that it was pretty much impossible to tell which one belonged to each victim," she answered with a negative shake of her head. "Whatever his power is, it doesn't matter. We've got ten minutes to get past him and stop the bombs."
"You go for the terminal," Kai told her as the door drew near. "Once you've done that, come back up and help us kick his ass!" The last word was combined with a grunt as he slammed his right foot into one of the doors, sending it flying into the room with enough force that it buried itself in the wall, shattering several bookcases in the process.
It also narrowly avoided crashing into a man with shimmering blue skin, dressed in heavy robes. He was instantly recognizable as Flect Turn, the founder and leader of Humarise, and he looked very displeased as the three teenagers barged into his sanctum.
"You…" he muttered as he levelled a glare at Kai, who returned the dark expression with a cheeky smile as a greeting. "You have been a barbed thorn in my side this past week, boy. Here I stand at the cusp of-"
"Don't care, dodge!" The last word was shouted to his teammates, even as several pillars in the room suddenly popped out turrets and immediately took aim at them. Lightning erupted in the room as Kai and Chronoa took evasive maneuvers, avoiding injury from the laser bursts that were directed at them, though Deku failed to move at all. Instead of trying to evade the attacks, he simply willed his power to flare harshly, the resulting aura disrupting the trajectory of the projectiles before he swung his fists across his chest in either direction and filling the air with a hailstorm of energy bolts that annihilated not only the incoming blasts, but also the firearms creating them. In spite of the seemingly reckless movements, none of the blasts he unleashed came even close to hitting either of his friends.
Some did, however, fly true to slam into Flect Turn, who took the impact without flinching while Kai's Danger Sense increased its feeling of foreboding. "Guys, I think that may have been a bad-!"
Before he could finish the sentence, blue electricity crackled across Flect's body before energy blasts of the same color ricocheted back toward Deku, who narrowly dodged the projectiles, though he also failed to emerge from the resulting dust cloud. "So that's his power," he said grimly as his purple eyes narrowed with thought. "It seems like it reacts automatically without him needing to do anything."
"Very astute, boy," the man said as he took measured steps forward, shedding the heavy outer robe that he wore as he did. From behind his back popped out a handful of what looked like reflective lenses attached to spindly, robotic arms. "You cannot defeat what you cannot strike. I suggest you make your peace now, while you still can."
"Energy blasts are one thing!" Kai shouted as he used One For All and Float in rapid succession to bound across the room in a rough octogram pattern above their heads so that he could build up a frightening amount of momentum before he shot straight at Flect Turn while preparing to throw a staggering right hook. "Let's see how you handle this: Kenobi SMASH!" He grinned when his knuckles nearly brushed the man's cheek, but the expression was quickly replaced by one of worry as Danger Sense screamed in his head to get away from him.
He managed to use Blackwhip to pull himself to the side and disengage just before he was hit by a reflection of the momentum and force he had applied to his enemy. He was still hit, just not with a direct recoil like Flect had probably expected. Cringing at the bruises already forming on his knuckles, he rolled backward onto his haunches and growled, "Well, that's not great."
"You held back," his enemy said, almost sounding disappointed by the fact. "Where is the might that you displayed so readily in Kanto? The strength you used to weed out the cowardly unfaithful in Humarise?"
"Be glad I did," Kai snorted as he clenched and unclenched his fist to make sure that nothing was broken. "I almost hit you with that one- next time, I won't be using kid gloves."
"No one can touch me," Flect replied in kind as a hateful sneer creased his face. "No one has ever touched me, from the time I was a child."
"Well, with an attitude and delusions of grandeur like yours', I can't say that I'm really surprised," his younger opponent shot back. "Who wants to be friends with the lunatic who dreams of Armageddon being the salvation of the world?"
The blue man gave him a deadpan stare before he rushed forward, his feet not even reaching the ground as he slammed into Kai without touching him, lightning crackling between them as the boy struggled to hold him back with his own strength, but being unable to do so without any way of actually making contact. This ended with him being pinned to the wall as Flect sought to actively crush him with nothing but the pressure of his own quirk. "See, boy?" he snarled. "I have never known the touch of another person in my entire life. Thanks to this power, like many of the others that you heroes and simple-minded citizens rely upon so easily, I am deprived of the experience that is being human at all! These 'quirks' are not gifts, as society would have you believe! They are curses that must be eradicated if humanity is to ever have a hope of surviving at all!"
"You think… that having a quirk, in of itself… is a curse?!" Kai grunted as he strained to be able to work some kind of leverage between him and the oppressive field keeping him pinned to the wall, with no such luck. In fact, the harder he pushed, the more the pressure seemed to increase. Even so, that didn't stop him from growling out, "Oh, cry me… a river!"
"What was that?!"
"You heard me just fine!" Kai snapped, refusing to concede the struggle just yet. "You just… took on the mentality that quirks… are the problem… because you didn't want to admit… that you are in the wrong! So that you could justify your self-hatred!"
"Blasphemer!" Flect shouted as he took another step forward, trying to crush the life out of Kai as his face twisted with hatred. "You desecrate our cleansing of your home, and now you speak ill of the very ideals that will secure Earth's future?!"
"You got that right!" Kai answered through gritted teeth. "My quirk…! Used to cause me all kinds of pain…! Nearly… killed me… more than once! But that didn't stop me… from living life… as a human being!" Fixing one eye with hatred on his enemy, he managed to get out, "Your outlook… is the real problem… And I would have more to say about it… if I wasn't running out of air!"
"Then get out of there!" a familiar voice called from above, drawing Flect's gaze upward, where he saw Deku perched on one of the bannisters, holding two large balls of light above his head, one in each hand.
Before the blue man could fully realize that he had forgotten all about the other boy until just now, Blackwhip shot out of Kai's right arm and snagged around a pillar to yank him away from his enemy's crushing hold. That's when the light above increased rapidly, the luminance growing so harsh that it was impossible to look at directly. Flect Turn was forced to shield his eyes on reflex, even as Deku yelled from up above, "Every quirk has a limit to what it can take, and you've left us no choice but to go all-out! I'll hit you with starlight so intense, your quirk won't be able to reflect it fast enough! GEMINI FLASH!"
Pure energy filled the room in a concentrated beam that built up in pressure so rapidly that it wasn't three seconds before the area completely exploded.
Come on, come on, come on… Akarui thought as he wiped a sheen of sweat from his brow with his right hand, while his left continued to clack away at the keyboard on the office space he had set up in the Support Course Lab. Please let this one work… Dunno how many more of these ideas I've got in me.
He had left his dorm with the computers running under the supervision of a new (but still somewhat-untested) AI program that he had been developing for the school defenses. The school had some rudimentary artificial intelligence that had been implemented into its drones, but as far as the barrier went, the countermeasures had largely relied on facial recognition and reactionary sensors that engaged fully defensive measures. As far as he was concerned, that was not good enough- so he had immediately set about creating actual counterattack weaponry.
One of the first things he had made sure to lay into the program was to prioritize the safety of the students and pro heroes, so any weapons on the UA Barrier targeting the villains would automatically lock up and cease fire anytime one of them came within range. He would have loved to have had more time to fine-tune the parameters, as he had designed some of the weaponry to rival Lady Nagant's precision (though not her range), but he simply didn't have the time, given everything else that he had been working on as of late.
Just was he felt his hand start to cramp viciously due to the overuse of his digits, his monitor flashed green three times in quick succession. "Holy-!" The boy jumped up and out of his chair, knocking the furniture over backward, and startling one Mei Hatsume. "I can't believe that compound actually worked!"
"Hey!" she yelped as she nearly dropped an active blowtorch, setting her sleeve on fire in the process. "I was just about to finish the prototype mainframe for the-!"
"Not important!" the boy said with a grin as he turned his bloodshot eyes on Mei's equally worn visage.
"Not important?!" she screamed indignantly. "Not important?! How dare you call our baby-?!"
"Okay, less important than this for the moment!" he cut her off as he pointed at the flashing screen. "I did it! I made a counteragent for Trigger that be aerosolized on a massive scale for when the bombs-!"
"Uh, why'd you bother with makin' that in the first place?" Hatsume inquired blankly, cutting the boy off in her own turn.
"Why would I-? Did you not hear about-?!"
"Some whackadoos tryin' to kill everyone with a quirk?" the girl interrupted again, apparently not noticing the flames crawling up her right arm. "Yeah, so what?"
"So what?!"
"I mean, your brother's on the job, right?" she said with a shrug, bringing the flames ever closer to her frazzled pink dreadlocks. "He's got this. We don't gotta worry. We just gotta work on our baby so everyone can do their jobs better than ever. Besides, seems like it's kinda late to start makin' that stuff when the bombs go kaboom in like an hour."
"They go off in five minutes, and that kind of complacency leads to our cities getting gassed by terrorists!" Akarui growled as he reached for a gauntlet that he kept close to his desk ever since he had first observed the girl at work. Slipping his hand inside, he aimed his armored palm at the girl and unleashed a spray of white foam from it just before her hair really did catch fire while growling, "What I just did ensures that superhuman society has a way of countering chemical warfare set aside exclusively for us!"
"Meh."
"Don't 'meh' me when I'm making a-! Wait. Did you seriously use the word 'wackadoos'?"
Ground Zero was in the middle of peppering his opponent with an Auto-Cannon barrage when the mountaintop behind them erupted, a huge blue laser rocketing skyward until it pierced the clouds above in a brilliant flash of power. His eyes widened slightly as he realized that even if the color was off, there could only be one person with a quirk capable of generating so much light in one moment. "What the hell is Deku doing?!" he snarled as he beat back another set of the tentacles that were coming from the villain's head and left hand. He had quickly realized how physically capable his enemy was when he saw him shatter a house-sized boulder with a single swipe after a mistimed blow, and had thus decided he would be better served by keeping his distance.
"Hopefully they disabled the bombs before they did that," Freezer Burn replied over the radio, sounding somewhat stressed for once. "I don't think we can prevent their activation without that terminal."
"I got it done." Chronoa's voice sounded a little flustered, but her signal was coming through relatively clearly. "Does anyone copy? I disarmed all of the bombs." Even as the conversation carried on, Ground Zero bat his enemy's appendages away with nitro-powered elbow strikes.
"We copy," said Myrtenaster, sounding relieved. "Thank goodness you lack the same carelessness as your predecessors."
"I resent that!" Kai grumbled. "Also, good job, Eri. Will you be back up to join us soon?"
"I'm… kind of stuck," she admitted.
"What?!"
"Whatever that blast was, it caused a cave-in before I could get out," she explained. "I'm alright in the room itself- seems it was designed to withstand impacts from even nuclear armaments. Problem is, the way out is completely sealed off."
"Eri, I'm so sorry!" Deku panted worriedly. "Are you hurt?!"
"I'm fine," she hurried to assure him. "More importantly, did you guys defeat Flect Turn?"
However the conversation went after that, Ground Zero would have to be filled in later. His enemy rushed him with a bestial snarl, ignoring the fire and concussive force that his explosions were generating so that he could swing a full-powered blow at his chest, which he narrowly avoided. Unfortunately, he didn't have quite enough time to also evade the tentacles that shot out of the brute's fingertips, so he quickly found himself being snatched up and then swung downward with enough force to split his skull if he struck the ground.
This'd better work! he thought as he managed to aim his left palm at his enemy while using his other hand to pull the pin on his heavy gauntlet. The instant that he had, one of the hexes that Myrtenaster had placed on his gauntlet flared pure white, and instead of a huge blast of fire rushing out of the grenade-like armament, a miniature hailstorm of ice pelted his enemy, sticking into his flesh and cutting through the tentacles that had ensnared him. Working his way free with an explosion that changed his direction at the last second to avoid getting slammed on the ground, he landed on his feet and left hand, even as he aimed his right palm at his skewered enemy while another one of the hexes glowed yellow.
In the next instant, the frozen shards shone with a similar color before they all detonated, lighting up the stormy mountainside with an ominous glow as the beast-like villain roared in pain and rage. Ground Zero watched this with a confident smirk, satisfied that the combination of his power and Myrtenaster's hexes had produced the exact desired effect that they had been working to achieve.
That smile was gone as soon as the villain let out another roar and charged out of the smoke, burned and bleeding, but still unwilling to concede the fight as lost. "Stupid villain!" Ground Zero snarled as he took to the air again. "Stay down if you know what's good for you, dammit!"
"Remember, restraint is the better choice when other heroes may be present, save in the event that there is no other option left to you."
A figure cloaked in red gave vent to a soft snort of derision before touching the earpiece that had delivered his employers' words so that he could respond, "You've got cleanup crews, don't you? Not to mention that memories can be altered, if not replaced."
"True enough in your case, but even so, questions can linger in the minds of those whose thoughts tend to wander," came the reply, leading the shrouded figure to shrug his slim shoulders as he observed the approaching train with a practiced eye.
"Fine," he muttered as he sensed the movements of those travelling with his intended target. "But if the other heroes end up dead because you ordered me to hold back, that's on you."
"I doubt it will come to that, given all of your assurances concerning your skills and capabilities."
The pale figure's mouth curved into a slight smile as he drew a scarlet blade from within the crimson cloak, holding it aloft as he prepared to take the leap out onto the rapidly-moving train. "You've got me there," he chuckled before tapping at the communicator with his free hand, followed immediately by a leap that transformed into a roll as he slid across the roof of the car containing the bomb set to end of every superhuman life in the vicinity. "Guess I better be ready to deliver."
Just as he had predicted, the roof of the train car was soon swarming with Humarise members armed with rifles and quirks- none of which posed a tremendous threat to him. Eyes burning silver and sword at the ready, the cloaked young man known only as 'Shadow' bared his teeth in a savage approximation of a smile before borderline growling, "This all you got?"
"Do not mock us," snapped a robed acolyte whose hands were decorated with red sparks of lightning. "This battle is for the salvation of all humanity, and you will treat it as such!"
"Battle? This isn't going to be a battle, you damn Quirk Nazi," the Red Swordsman sneered in reply, even as the man's hands were suddenly snapped backward by an invisible force at the elbows with enough ferocity to splinter the bones. "This is pest control."
"Did we get him?" Kai asked Deku in response to Chronoa's question as he looked around at the destroyed landscape that had once been a cave in the mountaintop. Everything that had been in the room was nothing but smoke, save for the two boys.
Deku's new ultimate move had looked as though it was going to overwhelm Flect Turn for a split second, but as soon as he had stopped pouring energy into the attack, Kai's Danger Sense nearly had him soiling his pants. Humarise's leader had sent the attack right back at its caster, and the only reason that Deku hadn't been vaporized was because they had both retaliated against the returned lasers. This had caused the energy to build up in the room and then explode outward instead of in a singular direction, resulting in the volcano-like destruction around them.
"I doubt it," the green-themed hero replied as he clambered over a pile of loose rubble to stand next to Kai, who had just gotten to his feet. "If we had, his quirk wouldn't have pushed back like this."
"So then, where'd he go?" Kai muttered as he looked around the destroyed mountaintop. The rain had stopped falling in the immediate vicinity for a moment due to the explosion, but now it was beginning to return, obscuring their vision as the two heroes sought their enemy. Danger Sense was telling him that Flect Turn was still somewhere nearby, but it seemed that unless he had a mind to directly attack them, he would not be able to pinpoint his location.
There was a sound of mechanical breathing, and the two boys whirled around to see the blue man glaring up at them from around a jagged boulder while he dropped what looked like an inhaler away from his face. "You will both pay for your trespasses against the true humanity," Flect Turn hissed angrily. "So long as there remains a single quirk in this world, I will not rest. The time of heroes and villains destroying this world must come to an end, before it's too late!" As he spoke, the air around him shuddered while the ground beneath began to tremble, loose rocks hurrying away from his presence as he began to levitate until he was above them.
"Still beating that dead horse?" Kai deadpanned, refusing to be intimidated by the cult leader, even if his already-problematic quirk had just received an insane boost in power. "It's over, Flect. Your bombs have all been disabled, thanks to Eddie Soul."
The blue man regarded him coldly before he looked down at something on his wrist and replied, "Have they, now? You're certain of that?"
The way he said it gave Deku and Kai pause, leading them to look at one another before the Guardian Hero tapped his scouter and said, "Eri, come in."
"I heard the whole thing," she said before he could ask anything. His stomach dropped when she added, "Oh no… The countdown is still on! The kill switch program has been loaded, but the broadcast was interrupted by the blast you two caused! The com relays are damaged, so they need a clearer signal before it can be uploaded across the world!"
"Which we have less than four minutes to do," Kai muttered, his face going pale. "How do we clear the signal?"
"You two figure something out, I'll keep him busy!" Deku told his friends before he rushed at Flect Turn.
"I can still broadcast the kill switch from down here, but there's too much rock in the way to allow the signal through," Chronoa answered as one of Deku's reflected blasts neared Kai, only for him to bat it away with his bare hand. "If I had a clear line to the open air…"
"Can't you just tunnel your way through the mountain with One For All?" her predecessor inquired while Deku continued to hurl numerous energon blasts at their enemy, who had continued to rise higher in the air, and subsequently dodging the returned shots.
"I can't risk any rubble falling down and damaging the equipment in the process," she replied. "If I were able to clear the rocks above me in one blow, it would work, but I can't do that if Flect is right above me."
He was about to ask why that was, but then it hit him. "If the rocks and wind pressure hit him, he'll just reflect it back at you and the computers," he realized aloud. "So we need to get him to move, and we can't even touch him."
"Kai, you have to find a way," Chronoa urged him. "We only have three minutes until these bombs go off, and more than half of the people in the world- not to mention every hero who's gone out to stop them- will die!"
"Then it's time for a lesson in heroics, Eri," Kai said as he glared up at Flect Turn, who was still apparently preoccupied with keeping Deku at bay from within his quirk's protective barrier. Black lightning shot up into the sky as he leaped high, thunder crashing in his wake as he roared, "If we can't find a way, then we make one!"
Have we got enough stored up, Third? he asked silently.
"More than that," he felt the vestige murmur in his mind. "In fact, I'd be careful not to go overboard with it. Move too fast, and you might end up as a splat mark on the mountainside."
Duly noted, the boy acknowledged, though the preparations he was executing didn't fill the older incarnation with much confidence that their heir was taking his warning seriously. He could feel their collective trepidation at the thought of him using a new quirk that he had only just learned the mechanics of, but now it was far too late to change his mind.
One For All… Kai added silently as he set aside the uneasiness the others were generating while his white hair stirred atop his head, and his veins tingled and burned with anticipation. Fifty Percent!
Deku saw the action that he had taken and started to ask, "Kurai, what are you-?!"
"Fa Jin- First Strike!" Kai bellowed, drawing Flect's gaze upward just in time for the Guardian Hero to punch the air so that a cannon blast of wind slammed into his back, only for the slipstream to be scattered in multiple directions by the man's amplified quirk. Humarise's leader turned to give the young hero another disdainful look, but he was somewhat startled when Kai was not where he was supposed to be.
"Second Strike!" Before the winds from the first blow had even started to die down, another wind blast laced with dark thunder slammed into Flect Turn from Kai's boot at a perpendicular angle, catching the cult leader up in a cross stream of weaponized air pressure.
Flect grunted with irritation, but he held his quirk back for the moment, allowing the kinetic force assaulting him to continue building up in power so that he would be ready to flatten these irritating heroes the second that Kai slowed down. His suit's mirrors angled toward his body, further intensifying the pressure that he was preparing to release- until one of them bent further than it should have and snapped clean off.
His eyes widened in surprise, but he had almost no time to fully process the implications of this development, because Kai's voice accompanied another aerial attack. Even faster than the last two strikes, the hero vanished and reappeared in yet another space while shouting, "Third Strike!" Now the winds were positively shrieking in distress as they whirled and collided around Flect Turn from every direction, preventing him from making any kind of movement whatsoever.
By warning of some unknown instinct, Flect turned his gaze upward just in time to see a black-and-white blur hurtling toward him like a lightning bolt from on high. "Fourth Strike!" Kai roared as he threw the hardest jab he could, his fist stopping less than a centimeter away from his enemy's face. "Grievous BARRAGE!"
Fa Jin on its own was not an incredibly impressive ability, as it merely stored up the potential energy of repeated motions in order to be released in sudden bursts of speed and power at the user's choosing. Using it allowed one to magnify their physical capabilities temporarily, but it could only work off of the person's natural strengths- unless a quirk like One For All was adding to that person's base power. The ability to essentially double- or even triple, if enough potential energy was stockpiled- the velocity and impetus properties of punches that All Might would have envied made Kai's ultimate move capable of shaking the earth for nearly a hundred kilometers, and that was without even making direct contact with the ground- or suffering any of the physical backlash that normally came with One For All's full force.
Even so, avoiding self-injury in this case wasn't the only way that the old quirk's recoil could harm him- his enemy still hadn't gone down!
In the same instant that Flect began to unleash the potential energy he had been storing up, there was a flash of yellow light from below that heralded the arrival of Deku. He mirrored Kai's final movements and lashed out with every ounce of his awakened power, pinning the blue man between the two of their fists while the pressure in the air fluxed violently. Their furious displays of power collided in a single point with Flect Turn as the epicenter while his quirk forced an identical strength back at them in a series of implosions and explosions that the five senses could barely keep track of.
The final result was another earth-shaking blast that tore a hole clean through the clouds above, scattering the rain far and wide away from the mountain where veritable titans had chosen to do battle.
Ashid Queen hissed as her vision swam in and out of focus while she glared at the two serpent villains, both of whom were giggling and practically hopping around her with glee as they moved in for the kill from different angles. The blades sprouting from their bodies had some burn marks on them, but nothing that could be called crippling, while her own body was losing blood rapidly from several lighter cuts and three deep gash marks that had been carved out of her neck and the right side of her abdomen. It was all she had been able to do to keep dodging their attacks, given that the earlier rain had made it all but impossible to maintain her Acid Avatar, which had been pretty much her only defensive measure against the twin freaks.
Now that the rain was gone, she could more easily conjure it again, but she also knew that it wouldn't be enough to stop their crazed bloodlust, especially in their drug-addled state. Only one way out… she thought sluggishly as her dark eyes narrowed and her fingertips began to burn fiercely. These wounds wouldn't stop Kurai, so they have no business stopping me! The sudden spike of pain was enough to sharpen her senses just in time for her to slide under the first twin's latest attack and move in closer, inside the sweeping range of the extendable blade, even as her fingers trailed little strings of acid, each one no thicker than a strand of her hair.
Before she could close the distance, the ground beneath groaned and rippled, some unseen force disturbing the soil down to the bedrock that had remained untouched for millennia. The two serpentine villains let out cries of surprise before using their blades to lash at the boulders that were erupting from beneath their feet and threatening to crush them where they stood while Ashid Queen's feet carved gouges in the tremoring earth as she continued her mad rush to finish the job, having realized that if she didn't press the attack now, her blood loss would rob her of any more chances. So in spite of the roiling dirt and stones beneath her legs, she rocketed forward, using the flying debris to obscure her movements until one of the insane twins was just within her attack's reach.
Her target hardly had time to notice that her fingertips were bleeding before she growled, "Ultimate Move: Rough Silk." Then she was a blur, springing off a boulder that had erupted from deep within the ground, slamming her boot into his stomach while she wove her fingers in an almost intricate pattern behind her body so that the threads of acid fell across the blades that had been chasing her until now.
There was a half-second where comprehension did not register with what had happened to the villain, but Ashid Queen wasn't going to wait around for him to figure it out. Leaving him where he had been thrown on the now-settling ground by her strike, she spun toward the other brother, eyes keeping track of his advance while he resumed his insane, high-pitched laughter.
That laughter was cut off by a piercing scream that came out of the mouth of the first villain as he looked at the ground in front of him, where the six blades and the portions of flesh attached to them that had once been a part of his body lay in pieces, the putrid smell of acid and burning human meat filling the air in place of the earlier falling rain. The worst of these wounds were deep gash marks trailing along the back of his neck that told even a casual viewer that the odds of the villain ever being able to move anything below his neckline were slim indeed. The sight and sound were so unsettling and unexpected to his brother that it wasn't until Ashid Queen was less than two feet away from him- bloodied fingers still trailing the shockingly potent acid- that he realized he was about to be next.
"Tell me, 'heroes'," Flect Turn said as he looked down on the two struggling boys, who were each roughly a few inches beneath his feet, their battered bodies pinned down flat on the ruined ground by the amplified force of his triggered quirk. All of the mirrors on his suit had been destroyed, but it no longer mattered- the end of their world was finally at hand, and he could revel in his accomplishment. "How does it feel to be proven wrong? To feel so desperately that your cause is the true and just one, only to have it revealed as nothing more than a fabricated series of lies implemented by those who wish to maintain the current status quo? To know that you were doomed to lose from the very beginning?"
"I dunno…" Kai grunted as he craned his neck painfully to look up at their captor with great defiance while Deku strained against the automatic reflective barrier. "But… I hope I'll remember to ask you… in about thirty seconds." He was out of stored power from Fa Jin, and even if he'd been capable of using any, his brain was still somewhat scrambled by the speed he had utilized, as well as the impact from the backlash of his enemy's quirk.
"Insolent boy!" Flect raged as he shifted his weight to press down harder on the mouthy teenager. "You are beaten! Your ideals are lost! All of your efforts are worthless! The very powers that you have relied on your entire life have failed you, and doomed the rest of your kind to extinction! How dare you act as though you still have any semblance of control?! Grovel! Submit! Beg for mercy! Act like the stupid child you are!"
"Kai… isn't just some kid!" Deku raged as he flexed his sore muscles even harder. His hair had started to fade back to a darker green, but now it flared back up with a yellow hue. "He… is the greatest hero… in the world… who lives today!" His declaration drew the surprised attention of his peer, even as his body began to fiercely glow once more. "Kai… is… the hero… who saves… everyone, even other heroes… He stands his ground… against villains like you! No matter the cost!"
Before Flect Turn could tell him to shut up, the ground behind them ruptured, throwing hundreds of tons of rock in every direction as wind and lightning screamed from within the mountain, almost like a volcano that spewed aerokinetic force instead of lava. From within that swirling maelstrom, Chronoa emerged, her eyes blazing and her horn glowing fiercely as she stared at the cult leader with a mighty rage. "Kai's ideals are not in vain, old man," she said in a menacing tone as she touched down on the ground, just outside the range of their enemy's quirk. "Thanks to all the explosions he and Deku have been using your quirk to create, I was able to clear the path from down below in a single strike- which means that Eddie Soul's virus has just been uploaded worldwide, with a whole six seconds to spare."
"Brothers, sisters!" called one of the Humarise acolytes currently being held up from the ground by a wickedly-smiling Magnhild, even as Axios drew back her shield as if to throw it at the dangling target. This did not stop the cultist from shouting, "The baptism is upon us!"
Even in spite of the maddened flow of battle that left little room for thoughts concerning anything outside the conflict, the declaration was enough to give all of the student heroes pause for the briefest moment. All of the Humarise members who were present and still capable of fighting turned their heads toward the southwest, many of their masked faces failing to contain the glee that they felt in knowing that their 'salvation' was at hand. Some even raised their hands up toward the heavens, as if expecting to see the face of God Himself revealed in the clouds of green smoke that were sure to erupt any second.
Except…
"Uh… did we miss something?" Welder inquired of no one in particular. "I kinda expected a bigger bang."
"What's happened?!" asked one of the acolytes currently pinned underneath Huntsman's boot and sword. There was panic in his voice, which was all that the students needed in the way of confirmation for their half-formed suspicions.
"The bombs failed," Tempest said with an uncharacteristically bright grin that he directed at his teammates. "Kai's team- they did it!"
"Alright!" Magnhild cheered, casually tossing her victim twenty meters into the air, having seemingly forgotten about him in the process. As the Humarise members began to cry out in despair at the knowledge of their failed plans, she added, "Score another one for the good guys!"
"Nora, catch him!"
"Why?"
All Might and Goodwitch looked at one another in a moment of stunned disbelief before a pair of broad smiles creased their faces, even as the room around them erupted into cheers of celebration and acclaim for the young heroes who had managed to save the world. In a single second, every one of the Ideotrigger Bombs that had been detected across the globe had been deactivated. Already, reports were coming in from their agents in the field that the devices appeared to have been remotely shut down and no longer presented an immediate threat.
"I suppose you did well, this time," the blonde woman said as she adjusted her glasses so that she could peer more clearly at the former number one hero.
All Might's smile became more sheepish as he rubbed the back of his neck while saying, "I wasn't able to do much more than have faith that Young Midoriya and Young Hikari would be able to carry the day."
"Ozpin has told me more than once that the mark of a true teacher is not in how you aid your students while they are under your wing, but in knowing when the time is to step back and trust that you've taught them what they will need to know," she replied, maintaining her smile as she did. "Your students did well, All Might. You should be proud."
"Thanks, Glynda."
"That's Professor Goodwitch to you!"
"Right, sorry!"
Ground Zero was everywhere at once as his enemy swung every tentacle it had left in its arsenal in a mad rush, enraged that for all the blows it had landed on him, the stubborn hero would not give in and perish like he should have the second they came into contact. Likewise, the explosive hero was furious that something so dumb and so reliant on drugs to enhance its strength just wouldn't accept its weakness and concede the fight as long since lost.
"I told you to die minutes ago!" he snarled as he positioned himself directly overhead, his palms facing one another, even as the last two hexes that Myrtenaster had gifted him freed themselves of his gauntlets and positioned themselves so that they were between him and his quarry.
The villain fixed its demonic, yellow eyes on him as the hexes glowed alternating shades of black and orange. "You shoulda stayed down when I told you," the explosive hero said as a familiar, manic gleam entered his swollen, bloodied eyes. "I really didn't wanna have to resort to this move, but now you're not just gonna die- I'm gonna erase you from this entire freaking timeline! AP Shot…!" The air between his gloves blazed with an unbearable heat and light before he aimed both palms at the suspended hexes while he screamed, "RAILGUN!" A single beam of fire erupted from his hands and struck the first hex, intensifying the temperature before sending it down to collide with the second sigil, which amplified the impetus properties of the attack so that when it finally collided with the drug-enhanced acolyte of Humarise, the resulting explosion ripped away most of his skin and all but shattered his upper skeletal structure.
Ground Zero hit the dirt and rolled a few times to divert his momentum before coming to a stop with his hands aimed at the glowing crater that had come about as a result of his last attack. He had to wait a few seconds, but at long last, the beast-like villain emerged from the resulting smoke and scorched ground while letting out a wheezing groan and collapsing on the ground, unarguably defeated.
Not long after that, Myrtenaster trudged up the new rise that had come about after an explosion had rocked the mountain range all around them, cracked sword in hand, and bleeding arm held against her side, but unwilling to stop until she could stand next to the hunched-over hero, who was wearing a slightly demented grin as he continued to watch his opponent for any signs of movement. "Is he down?" she panted once she had come to a stop.
"Yeah," Ground Zero nodded as he lowered his hands and used one to staunch the flow of blood that had been streaming from a stab wound in his right leg for some minutes now. "Yeah, he's toast."
Myrtenaster nodded silently a few times before she told him, "Todoroki confirmed that the area is clear of hostiles. Apparently Ashido beat those creepy twins, but she'll need an airlift to a hospital, ASAP. He's already done first aid and called All Might, so the alliance is sending reinforcements from his father's agency, since they're closest."
"Sounds about right for Saiyaman's sidekick," the bloodied teenager smirked as he finally sat back on his haunches, no longer possessing the strength to stand on his own.
The Regal Heroine eyed him critically before she started to ask him, "So would you like to inform Hikari that your finishing move was inspired by his Kamehameha, or should I-?"
"Alright, fine!" Ground Zero scowled while turning away. "Ashido kicked ass! Ya happy now?!"
"I would be more so if you could clean up your vernacular, but I've rather given up hope on that particular wish," she replied with a slightly superior smirk of her own.
"You good, Eraser?" Vlad King inquired as he regarded his coworker, who was blinking rapidly as he lowered an eye dropper from over his head.
"Fine. How are your kids?" Finished blinking, the haggard-looking hero looked over the other man's shoulder as he posed the question.
"Heh," the silver-haired man chuckled as he turned to look over at his Class B students, who were in the process of either dragging the unconscious bodies of their enemies into one gathering, or else forcing the last of those still awake to their knees. His smile widened as one of the acolytes started to mouth off to Rocket, but immediately cowered when Magnhild appeared behind the horned girl to silently menace him with a raised war hammer. "Better than great," he replied. "And last I checked, they accounted for twice as many villains as yours' did."
He aimed his grin back at Eraserhead, only to be thoroughly disconcerted by the sight of the man smiling evilly at him. "Only twice as many, huh?" he said in a dry voice that was also somehow dripping with condescension. "That's funny, considering you had more than twice as many students to help you."
Vlad King did a quick series of mental arithmetic calculations, then set his face into one of the deepest scowls he'd ever given. "Class B!" he barked as he moved to unleash his blood crystals and bind the last of the villains in place. "As soon as this rabble is on its way out, we're doubling down on your time in Gym Gamma!"
"What?!"
"Why?!"
"We just took out a terrorist squad, Mister Khan!"
"And you'll be able to take out a thousand by the time I'm done with you!"
"Yeah!" Magnhild cheered, her threatening persona gone as she turned to face her horror-stricken classmates. "We can't expect to save the world without thunder thighs, can we?!"
Everyone else- Vlad King included- turned to look at the girl with no small measure of incredulity. "Valkyrie… That's… kind of a derogatory term, isn't it?" Spiral asked as he regarded her with the air of someone questioning his neighbor's sanity.
The orange-haired girl's response was to lift up her right leg and then slam her heel down on the back of one of the Humarise members that was trying to cut her way out of the blood prison with a small flame from her fingertips, producing a loud shattering sound as the bindings crumbled and a pitiable wheeze from her victim, who promptly passed out. Locking eyes with the paling Spiral, she then replied, "You tell me."
There was three seconds of silence before Vlad King announced, "Valkyrie's running drills in P.E. starting Monday!"
Even Axios let out a groan of despair as Magnhild began to cackle like a woman possessed.
"You have cost me a number of setbacks, I admit that," Flect growled as he alternated his glaring between Chronoa and her two comrades. "But the bombs are still in place. I still have operatives who can detonate them manually- men and women who would gladly give their life for the cause of salvation."
"If you're really so stupid as to believe that the heroes won't have found all of your bombs by now, then you had no business setting yourself against us," Chronoa shot back, lightning stirring her hair up around her head as her eyes and horn glowed ominously. "It's over, Flect. We've stopped your bombs, so all that's left is to stop you. We'll destroy your filthy cult, right here, right now, and unlike the way you operate, we're gonna do it personally!"
Flect shifted his stance to better prepare for the attack he knew was incoming, but in doing so, he diverted his attention away from Deku and Kai, who both took the opportunity to get out from beneath his barrier and power their quirks back up to maximum. A nimbus of light and dark thunder surrounded the Humarise leader, while the remnants of the mountaintop glowed like a star, even in the broad daylight under which they stood. From within this maelstrom, Kai called out, "You're so hell-bent on returning the world to a time that you've idolized- a time that had just as many problems as the one around us now! Quirks aren't the scourge, Flect! People like you are!"
"You already think you've won, but you cannot defeat me if you cannot touch me!" Flect Turn shouted, but he looked less sure of that statement than the last time he had uttered it. Even now, he himself still had yet to be struck, but they had gotten in close enough to damage his support gear. If he didn't plan his next move carefully, things could-
"You've barely been holding two of us back, even with your stupid cheat code of a drug," Kai snorted as he assumed a ready stance, bringing Flect's distracted attention back to him. "How do you think you're gonna do when you're up against the Three Musketeers of Japan?" His onyx eyes were gleaming brightly, and his white hair had come to stand on end while his entire body radiated black lightning- an omen of unparalleled power come to fall on this maddened transgressor.
"For real heroes… It's not about just beating whoever's in our way…!" Chronoa growled in a very Bakugo-like fashion, her own hair stirring upward in the raging winds and bio-lightning yet to be unleashed. "We fight to protect that which can still be saved… Which is why…!"
"Which is why… We will DEFEAT YOU!" Deku shouted, his eyes raging with a violet flame. "RAAAAAAAH!" The air around him burned with starlight, obscuring him from view.
Chronoa didn't give the villain an opportunity to respond again. With an ear-splitting thunderclap, she launched herself at him, aiming her fist at his midsection. Less than an instant later, Kai landed a vicious kick that was stopped a mere finger's breadth from the small of Flect's back, followed by Deku striking from above with a fist enshrouded in yellow starlight. Before he could even have his quirk repel them, the three disengaged and flew about to strike from three different angles, somehow with more force than the last blows they had dealt. They broke off and did it again. And again. And again. And again and again and again and again, until he could no longer make out his surroundings through the myriad of different lights that they were casting off from the strength of their blows.
"To overcome the crisis in front of us, by giving everything we've got!" Deku shouted as his latest strike singed their enemy's hair.
"And saving people, no matter the cost to us!" Kai roared, black lightning sizzling as it touched upon Flect's skin where the boy's fist brushed his cheek, causing his eyes to widen as the skin split from the contact.
"That's what makes us heroes!" Chronoa cried as her boot made solid contact, sending him reeling from the blow to his left kidney.
For the first time in his memory, Flect Turn was terrified as he realized there was a power that existed capable of outright overwhelming his own cursed meta ability. "All of you, be gone!" he shouted at them, forcing his quirk to release every ounce of the kinetic force he had been absorbing. He didn't care that such a blast would wipe out everything in the base that hadn't already been annihilated. It didn't bother him that he would basically have to restart Humarise from scratch. As long as he killed these horrifically powerful heroes and made his escape, he could begin anew.
Unfortunately for him, the three young champions were more than ready for the final push against Humarise.
"Trifecta…!" Chronoa growled as she crouched by the lip of the ruined mountainside.
"United…!" Deku seethed while preparing to leap from the rim opposite to her.
"States of World…!" Kai snarled as he flew down from above.
"SMASH!" All three of their most powerful strikes collided simultaneously with Flect Turn in the middle. Within less than two seconds, his quirk gave out and allowed the blows to land so that lightning and starlight surged into him, sending his mind into a dark oblivion before he could even feel the impacts on his body.
Thus he also missed the monstrous tornado that sprang up from the point of impact, tearing the mountain apart and laying it open, down to its very foundations. Rocks the size of city blocks were tossed far and wide, crashing into the surrounding terrain, even going so far as to be hurled into the sea.
It took everything that Myrtenaster and Freezer Burn had left in them to shield their comrades from the devastation, as Ground Zero and Ashid Queen were too injured to keep fighting. That didn't stop the Bombing Hero from trying, but a warning glare from the Regal Heroine actually saw to him giving vent to one curse before ducking back under the shelter that the two ice-wielders had managed to erect for them.
"This is just like Nabu Island all over again!" Freezer Burn grunted as he focused on using his left side to keep them warm while also aiding Myrtenaster in working to lower the temperature of the ice above them so that anything coming into contact would have its integrity compromised by the subzero conditions. She wasn't as good at temperature regulation as he was, but she also lacked a power that would keep them all from freezing to death, so he had no choice but to divide his attention and trust that she could take up the slack on his behalf.
"Last time, it was just two of those walking powerhouses we call our friends!" the pale girl responded with a yelp after a boulder hit their shield, though it promptly froze and broke apart on contact. "Now we have three forces of nature on the battlefield! This is much worse!"
"Hehe…" Ground Zero chortled weakly as he looked around at the destruction that had been wrought. "Nah. This is way better than last time." Before Myrtenaster could berate him, he added, "This time, Kai walks away with his life, not just the win. I say that's a victory for all of us."
When he put it like that, there wasn't a whole lot that his classmates could say to correct his line of thinking.
Akarui and Hatsume were nearly in each other's faces when the boy's phone began to ring with the tone, "A phone call is here! A phone call is here! A phone call is-!"
"Timeout," Akarui said as he held up a hand to Hatsume's face. The girl immediately paused mid-rant with a crescent wrench in hand as she watched him snatch up the phone and accept the call. "Got good news," he said to the person on the other side with a confident grin as he turned toward his computer. "Just finished the-"
The boy froze mid-sentence, his smile suddenly becoming far more mask-like in conduct. "Say again?" he inquired in a borderline sinister tone that sent a shiver down Hatsume's spine in a way that Power Loader never could. There was a brief pause before Akarui let out a sharp giggle, followed by the words, "That's hilarious; I coulda just sworn I heard you say that you didn't need my anti-Trigger compound not five minutes after I finished completing it. But, hehe, that can't be right, can it? Because, you know. I've slept maybe twenty hours in the last week?"
Hatsume felt a cold sweat drop slide down the back of her neck as Akarui's aura became positively murderous. The sentiment was confirmed when he suddenly screamed, "I will rip your lab rat government facilities to pieces, and ADD YOUR SCREAMS OF DESPAIR TO MY THRICE-DAMNED SPOTIFY LIST WHILE IT DO IT! I'LL MOUNT YOUR DOG'S HEAD ON A PIKE AND WEAR ITS SKIN LIKE MY MOM'S PASHMINA!" Hatsume felt her mouth begin to go dry as Akarui snatched up his sonic disrupter glove while he went on to rage, "I WOULD ROCK THAT LOOK, AND YOU KNOW IT!"
It took almost a full minute for the freak tornado to finally settle down, and for things to stop flying about as a result. Amid the ruins of the once-hidden mountain base, four figures were strewn about on the ground, one of them practically comatose, and the other three battered from head to toe.
"So…" Izuku groaned out from where he lay. "Who wants to tell the alliance why Otheon's mountain range got a major remodeling?"
"I vote you," Kurai grunted.
"Why?!"
"Otheon already doesn't like you," he said with a pained grin as he forced himself into a sitting position. "Not like we can lower their opinion of you any more than it already is."
"I can get back in their good graces if I'm able to tell them that we saved the world, though!" Izuku protested. "You tell them!"
"I saved your ass at the border, you owe me one," Kurai tossed back cheerfully. "You take it."
"You threw me through a window, you still owe me for that!"
"My vestige made me do it."
"No one is buying that, and you know it!"
As Eri lay quietly on her back, staring up at the clear sky, a little smile worked its way across her face as she listened to them bickering in a friendly manner. It was a new sound to her ears, this competitive speech mixed with laughter and good cheer. In her future, almost every argument that had taken place was in earnest, and not for entertainment among friends. The sound of it brought joyful tears to her eyes as she closed them and thought, I did it, Akarui… It took a while, but I managed to bring your brother back, not just to life, but to himself… Thank you for giving me the chance…
Even as she had the thought, she drifted off to sleep, having been worn down by the tumultuous events of the day.
Somewhere, miles away from the site of the battle, a very shaky Rody peeked his head out of the hiding place he had managed to find, both his and Pino's eyes as wide as saucers as they took in the destroyed landscape around them. "…Man, Midoriya could've killed me when I ran from him the first time!" he breathed out as he forced his wobbly legs to work. "I need to seriously reevaluate my criteria when I go looking for work… Heroes are insane!"
Pino could only squawk in agreement as they started making their way toward the now-quiet battlefield.
"Sorry, why can't Young Hikari come to the phone?"
Mei Hatsume cringed as she heard another blast coming from up the hall in the support lab, along with the tremors in the floor that confirmed something else of a mechanical nature had just met a messy fate. "I think he's… going through something, I dunno," she answered uncertainly as she heard a number of words coming from the same room, though she had no idea what they meant. She thought that he might speaking in German, but it was also probable that it was nothing worth repeating to the teacher who had just called to check in on the young boy. "He got a call that said he could stop working on the anti-trigger stuff, or whatever that was, and then he started yelling stuff I don't understand while he walked around throwing random stuff, and now there's explosions in the lab… And I mean, like, way more explosions than when I'm trying to get my babies to work."
"Oh dear," All Might said on the other end. "Is… Has anyone been injured?"
"Well, I was the only other person in the lab, and he kicked me out right after he started yelling, which was pretty rude, if you ask me, but I think that this might be the first time that I actually don't want to be in the lab…" There was another, louder explosion that shook the windows before she said, "Yeah, he's scary when he hasn't slept in three days."
"Ask me to work overtime for a global emergency, and then tell me my work isn't needed again; see what happens!" Mei's ears picked up on the first intelligible phrase that the boy had uttered in the last few minutes. After that, her earlier thought about words that didn't need repeating turned out to be surprisingly accurate.
"He's really mad," she reiterated to the teacher. "Mister Power Loader may not have a lab by the time he's done."
"Can't you stop him?!"
"Mister Power Loader said I wasn't allowed to test my babies on people without getting their permission first."
There was a brief moment of silence on the other end before All Might sighed heavily and said, "Miss Hatsume, just this one time, I am clearing you to incapacitate Young Hikari- and I don't want him to suffer any permanent injuries. Can you do that?"
"Permanent injuries?" Mei grinned devilishly. "Sure. Permanent marks? No guarantees."
"Miss Hatsume-"
BOOM!
"What was that?!"
"I think it was one of the 3D printers."
"No permanent injuries, alright?!"
"Cross my heart and hope to die," Mei cackled before she hung up Akarui's phone and put it in her pocket. From her other pocket, she pulled out what looked like a classic western revolver. "Alright, mister grumpy lab hog…" She giggled as she stalked closer to the damaged door, where smoke was pouring out from inside. "You are getting very sleepy…"
Kai: So... someone's back in action?
Mataras: Not gonna lie- that felt pretty good.
Deku: Umm... I almost hate to ask, but what did you do to those Humarise members?
Mataras: What was necessary.
Kai: ...They're still alive, right?
Mataras: Maybe.
Akarui: Okay, let's move on before these guys blow a fuse. You mentioned something above about how you're going to be changing the format for our content's release. How's that going to work?
Mataras: Due to requests from some of my more consistent readers, I am going to be dividing my attention between two stories- this one and another. This means that Your Hero Academia will be releasing once a month, as opposed to the bi-weekly schedule that I have been keeping for the last few years.
Kai: Wow. Feeling the burnout, are we?
Mataras: Not at all. I'm very excited for what's to come, but I get the feeling that there are a few people in the audience who want to see something new, and that's okay. I'm up to the task, though I will put my foot down here and now by saying that I will not be taking on more than two projects at a time.
Deku: Wait, what even is coming next? Are we going to be moving straight into the War Arc from here?
Mataras: No, actually. A little while back, I was remembering how Kurai's internship with Gang Orca was well-received as a mini-arc that fit well within the canon, so I decided to do something a little similar to see if people would still enjoy such content.
Kai: What, more gang fights?
Mataras: Nope. Rescue mission.
Deku: Really?
Mataras: Really. A lot of Kurai's journey thus far has been devoted to one battle after another, with very little in the way of rescue (other than the licensing exam and getting Eri away from the Hassaikai).
Akarui: Even those had a load of fighting in them.
Mataras: Exactly. This seems like a good time to shift gears a little. After the reunion.
Kai: Reunion? Didn't we already-?
Mataras: You've been working with a few friends, yeah, but you haven't been back to UA since you went to the hospital, remember?
Kai: Huh. You're not wrong.
Akarui: Next time- Aftershocks
Deku: We've saved the world, and showed that Kai can still Go Beyond!
Kai: Plus Ultra!
Mataras: By the way, 2024 is gonna be getting hella dark.
Deku: Wait, wha-?!
?: Notes
Malgus Smash: The user powers up One For All to forty percent at the moment of impact to strike the ground, sending forth a radial burst of kinetic force that tears up the ground beneath his target's feet. This move seems designed to throw groups of opponents off-balance, though the indirect physical damage that it could inflict should not be ignored.
Kenobi Smash: The user utilizes Float and the One For All's physical prowess to rapidly build momentum within a confined space before striking a single target with a fist. Seems to use a relatively smaller portion of the quirk's raw power to enable more precise movements, as opposed to the blistering speeds that higher percentages could yield at the potential cost of accuracy. Unlikely to be used when engaging with multiple opponents.
Gemini Flash: Energon's energy output is increased to its maximum capacity and gathered into a pair of condensed orbs that are then released at a target. Has been utilized against a singular opponent, but the namesake of the move, as well as the nature of its preparation, suggests that it could be used against two targets simultaneously. Should be considered one of Deku's most dangerous ultimate moves.
Grievous Barrage: The user gather potential force with repeated motions while utilizing Fa Jin before powering up Full Cowling to fifty percent. Three blows are then employed from a distance, weaponizing air pressure to crush (or at least restrain) a target in the cross-streams or the resulting winds, one from each limb. The final blow is then delivered directly to the target, with enough force to well surpass All Might's United States of Smash. Should be considered one of Kai's most dangerous moves.
Rough Silk: Ashid Queen reduces the pH factor of her quirk to the absolute minimum that her skin can tolerate while increasing the viscosity to create strings of acid that extend from her fingertips to reach lengths of up to eight feet. The resulting liquid appears capable of cutting through almost anything, even weaponized material enhanced by Trigger. Despite the fact that it seems to harm the wielder, given her dexterity and apparent precision with its use, this technique should be regarded as one of (if not the most) dangerous of Ashid Queen's ultimate moves.
Trifecta United States of World Smash: An apparent homage to All Might's most powerful attack, Chronoa, Deku, and Kai power their individual quirks up to maximum output before striking their target with a barrage of punches and kicks at a speed that may well surpass the speed of sound. This is finished by focused blows from each of them coming from different directions in order to pin their opponent in place and ensure that the kinetic force has nowhere to go but into the body of the target. It should be noted that Flect Turn likely only survived due to the fact that he had enhanced Reflection well beyond its normal capacities with Trigger. It is doubtful that anyone, even All for One at the peak of his power, would be capable of surviving such an attack without similar aid.
Next time on your Hero Academia...
"You're using your old costume?" Todoroki asked him curiously.
"My new one got kinda torn up during the fight," he answered. "Besides, these are the colors people are used to seeing me in. Might as well put them to use one more time before I make the full transition in public."
"I wonder if eventually stores will sell figurines with this costume, like how some still carry All Might's Young Age," Izuku murmured as they exited the lounge. "Maybe they'll run it as a limited-edition event, seeing as you won't have been using it for very long compared to the rest of our careers that are ahead of us, though it is what you were using when you first became big news, so there's always the possibility that…"
"And like that, we've lost him," Kurai chuckled while Todoroki simply rolled his eyes at their friend, even as they were rejoined by the rest of the group outside of the lounge.
"Keep that smile up," Mina told him as she approached with the others, looking a little apprehensive. "There's a lotta reporters out there."
"How many are we talking?" he asked in response.
"Looks like every major news station and even some of the local channels," Gran Torino told him. "You made a big splash in the world of heroics with that video stunt."
"If I recall, I only came up with the idea for that after you pointed us in the right direction," Kurai replied, his grin becoming a slightly more snarky one as he did. However, he grew more serious as he then asked, "Do either of you know what I'm in for when they start firing questions at me? Has the Public Safety Commission said what they want?"
