Month 3: Week 1: The Storm Part V
Going Ape in W-city: Tank Top Group
Shoji was out this time again with half of his usual pose that he normally works with, but this time the half he was accompanied by was Tank Philosopher instead of Tank Girl, who was in the hospital with still some of the recovering members from the hero hunter assault. Part of him still felt bad for not just telling the rest of the class in the group chat instead of just ojiro, which was transpiring that day. When he was helping tank cop and some of the other tank tops handle some busy work revolving around finances, not that he knew much, he was just moving boxes and separating files into the designated bins. When Tank Top cop received the call, apparently the police had found someone skulking around Z-city that matched the description of Garou and wanted to report it to them while it wasn't a complete confirmation. Tank Philosopher was right when it came to Tank Vegetarian, and his wanting to take revenge on the sighting might as well have been confirmed as he headed straight for Tank Master's office and told the man of the news. Tank Master, for his part, likely didn't care if the sighting was a bust or not and wanted to support his protegee as best as he could, but his demeanor also hinted that the man also did want to fight this person as well.
As they were leaving, the tank philosopher mentioned that maybe all of them shouldn't be out at once and that they should keep some people back in reserves in case of another emergency. This immediately caused him and the tank doctor to but heads again, uttering that the mere suggestion indicated that Tank master might lose in the coming conflict, but before it could begin, Tank master agreed. While Master didn't completely believe in tank top philosopher, he has proven to be more right than wrong, and he was correct in the fact that something could happen elsewhere and need the tank tops to be there, and having everyone there would draw too much attention and may scare the person off, so he agreed that out of the 15 of them there in the establishment, he only took 12 of the other members. It was a sufficient force, but likely unneeded, tank doctor remarked, as he wasn't one of the chosen to accompany him. The master asked the tank philosopher if there was anything he would like to inform him of. The man merely said that he shouldn't hold back whatever they were about to encounter out their bodies, a bad omen for anyone who decided to travel there. He couldn't make out or see what would transpire or happen, but it wasn't good, so he wanted him to be cautious.
Tank Top Master acknowledged his concern and continued forward with it under advisement. Shoji, for his part, was told very much the same, so Tank Top Philosopher advised him to only tell his friends that it pertained to the utmost importance. After that, they waited, and he informed Okiro, and he attempted to inform Midoriya later, but he was already informed. This made him relax at least somewhat given that midoriya was able to scare him off before so he should be able to do so again there was still a lot of worry in his system that the other tank tops could pick up on but they only told him that everything would be fine except philosopher who merely said things were going to be "ok." but didn't elaborate eventually a 1 hour passed and shoji was just about to head home when tank philosopher got up completely antsy and told the remaining three of them two follow him and that they were headed towards Z-city as well only remarking that the fog seemed to have lifted and he could see more but barely but whatever happened the group of 12 tank tops + master needed help and all of them didn't hesitate to take off towards the scene.
When they got there, it was a devastating sight. All of the tank toppers were scattered about in heaps of bodies on the ground; even the tank top master was unconscious as well, but what made matters worse for him was Ojiro. He was badly injured and hurt, Toru was crying over him, and Midoriya was there, along with Jackie, Charanko, Bomb, and Bang. He could already guess what had transpired here but wanted to know what happened anyway, so after waiting for the paramedics and Toru was able to calm down again as well as stop her from straight up mauling Charanko, the three of them walked home as she explained what had happened. Shoji had visited his friend a couple of times throughout the previous two days, but he hadn't woken up yet, and it always made him feel angry.
Ojiro was always a standup guy and one of his better friends in the class, and to have that done to him for essentially no reason always ground his gear, even when he asked Midoriya what the hero hunter's reason was given that he spoke to him, he reminded him of those extremists back home. Things weren't going to change from violence if anything; they would only worsen in that same instance. It was because he understood their pain and the lack of progress being made that caused people to lash out, and that went triple for a place like this where monsters were completely hated and despised, but that was for good reason here; he could understand the monsterphobia. usually, every monster encounter was predicated previously by some just some random acts of violence for some reason other than it existing those monsters he felt no pity for while he wouldn't kill them when other heroes did he never was affected at all by their deaths. Now this wasn't always the case some monsters were more peaceful than others although they also received the same amount of scrutiny that violent monsters did which he even felt a taste of when he arrived. So he understood Garou, at least partly, but he simply didn't understand where hurting heroes played a role in his goal or message. People likely just thought of him as a psycho-maniac, not whatever he was trying to prove.
Shoji and his squad were assigned to W-city this time around, together with Tank Philosopher and Tank Demon. The city was mostly quiet this time around as the three of them went about their patrol. Shoji was surprised by how small this "city" was in comparison to the others and how the jurisdictions came to be; it seemed like whoever did those did not like the letters w,x, and especially T. Talking to the other two about it, they didn't know much either; they simply knew that for some reason that city, despite how small it is, draws in a lot of trouble having 15 heroes present most of the time, which was half the roster of U-city. Although U-city also contained two S-class heroes, it was one of the larger cities around, so that was to be expected. The jurisdiction was created long ago, and they barely changed since then. There had been rumors of T-city containing a population of people that considered themselves "pure" humans and wanted to segregate themselves from other "diluted" human species, so that's why T-city was so small to accommodate that clan of people and simply left them to their own devices to avoid potential conflict. Well, that was just how the legends go, but it's been unconfirmed for the moment. Shoji simply nodded and made a reminder to not be assigned to T-city if he could help it. He couldn't imagine people who discriminated against their very own fellow people's thoughts when they heard of him and his friends.
Tank philosopher simply chuckled and replied that the tank top army rarely deploys them unless someone from the top makes them, mostly because even heroes stationed there are a handful to monitor and contain, and switching heroes or introducing new ones agitates the situation. Well, Shoji found that to be a relief, at least somewhat, but he didn't know that coddling those types of people together would be such a good idea in the long run, but he wasn't one to make those decisions. They continued their patrol and decided to stop to get something to eat. He was curious how tank top demons would eat, and he still wore his mask while doing so, only raising it before depositing the food in. Tank Top philosophers started to talk about the uniqueness of Tank Top Demon. He explained that the mask was something peculiar to the rest of them, but like all of their names in the tank top army, it held some semblance to what they did with the power of the tank top. Originally, Tank Top Demon was just a normal recruit who had proven himself and wanted to join the army. He had proven himself by being inducted straight into the A-class of the hero association and thinking that the tank tops that they wore were pretty cool.
He was one of the newer members about three positions before him. He was unique in the fact that something strange happened when he was first gifted his tank top. He exploded with a surge of energy and started tearing up the place, even with eight other tank toppers there; they couldn't restrain him. Logically, the next question that was asked was: How were they able to defeat him then? It was a humorous tale that the event had taken place during nightmare day, so there were numerous masks around, and amid the fighting and flailing of bodies, one of them, which was handcrafted by tank stitches, landed on the man's face, and he became docile again.
Shoji was always skeptical of the man's stories revolving around the tank tops, and this was no different, especially when he started to explain his theories about what was happening with the man. His initial theory was that the tank top power that he channels was simply too strong for his body to process. His second theory was that perhaps the tank top force or spirit in itself was trying to possess the man and speak to them directly, and only true masters of the tank tops could understand him. The third was somehow even more outlandish, saying that potentially it's something that is diluting the tank top energy being filtered into him like a demon of sorts. After that, Shoji was fairly done with the conversation; he didn't know what to believe and he didn't much care to give it too much thought, but he was curious what the tank doctor had to say about it as well, but that was for another time.
Shoji was walking around with the group keeping an eye out while simultaneously looking at the concert that Jiro was supposed to be starring in with sweet mask it was coming down to the last part of the event where she or more precisely her hologram would take the stage when a rumble was felt underneath the ground and from his enhanced hearing he could tell the direction but their tremors seemingly seemed to start originating from everywhere at once making it almost impossible to tell where these things were going exactly so instead he just focused on the closest tremors to their group which seemed to arrive in a spectacle a couple blocks away things started to get out of hand straight away as multiple monsters started to spring up from the ground and assault the city and populus at large the number of monsters were completely unprecedented shoji for all his time being here have never seen this many monster together and working together no less but upon closer inspection he recognized a few of the monsters or at least similarities to the monster he saw in K-city in some of the parks, which lead him to the belief that this group of monsters were directly related to the group of monsters that they have been learning about so far.
A lot of the monsters attacking the town were not very strong if anything, even to Shoji; they were fairly weak in that regard, but he had inadvertently spoken too soon. Things started to ramp up even more with more deadly monsters attacking everywhere, even more in the next towns over. They started small, but now he realized that was likely to just soften the heroes up for the second wave. These monsters, each of which was likely tiger level or above, weren't just mindless beasts like the wave prior. These specific monsters had an objective as they moved past the crowds and headed straight for the heroes participating in the battle. There weren't many heroes present in W-city that were above the C-class, only four in total, 2 B-class and 2 A-class normally, but with them included, that would be three A-class for the day, but even that may not be enough as the monsters continued to evade and destroy all seemingly without a rhyme or reason. Shoji had held out a small amount of hope that this monster association wouldn't be a completely hostile force but just a group of similarly minded monsters that took safety with each other.
Of course, that was only a pipe dream for this world, but maybe it was for that reason that it was happening a retaliating strike against humanity against their "oppressors," as heteromorphs in his world would call it, at least those that joined up with Spinner and the league. Monsters may just be inherently evil, he started to think, but something with this level of intelligence to launch such an attack couldn't possibly be doing this just for that purpose; he thought it would just mean more bloodshed to be spread. Also, it was strange in the fact that in the advent, they came upon a defeated hero, and the monster, strangely enough, left them alive for the most part, just badly injured, although if they needed desperate medication soon or that wouldn't last for much longer, were they hoping on that or did they just wanted the heroes to suffer even more?
So many thoughts raced through his mind as he committed to combating the monster threats that were attacking the police force, which was also supporting the effort of escorting most of the civilians away while their monster hunter unit and the remaining heroes attempted to drive them back. They had just gotten done driving the monster out of one town and carried on to the next. During their transit, Shoji took the downtime to look over his messages and see what was transpiring. He saw the state of an emergency and a couple of messages in the group chat, and luckily for now, during the first hour, things were ok. Everyone was alright, but how long would that last? The next town over was fairly sparse on monsters, but the monsters around were fairly formidable, each at least a tiger. Shoji struggled to even take one of them on, even with the entirety of the police monster hunter unit beside him, but just as soon as all hope seemed lost and the monster was about to kill one of the officers right in front of him, Shoji ran forward, wounded as he was, and called upon the power of his tank top. At that moment, something mystical happened.
Out of the ground next to the monster emerged a large, giant hand that completely eclipsed the monster in size and swatted it aside into the nearest building, making him drop the man he was holding onto the ground, but the hand wasn't just any hand; it was his hand. He was astonished as the appendage seemingly just sprang up from the earth before slowly descending backward and disappearing again. The monster recovered but was dazed but continued its mad charge, this time directly at him, and his body seemingly moved on its own, summoning even more giant hands in front of him—four of them—before each of them slammed down on the monster repeatedly before it became too much, and he coughed and took a knee. Suddenly feeling light-headed, the monster was knocked out, and the police unit used the opportunity to finish it off by combining their weapons directly on the creature's head, killing it instantly. The one that he saved came up to him to see if he was alright, and after a couple of minutes, the dizziness simply faded away. With that done, they went to help the other two heroes in their fights. While they were only taking on one monster, Tank Philosopher was taking on two while Tank Demon was taking on three. Tank Philosopher was just finishing up by the time they arrived, and Tank Demon, whose mask was off, had just torn off the arm of one of the monsters he was facing before using it to smash the head in of the second. He was blindsided by the third, knocking him into a nearby shop, but the combined force of the police and tank philosopher's book throw completely took the creature out.
Tank demon was still conscious, however, and came back through the shop this time through the door. The man was still without his mask, so in his anger, he couldn't tell his friend from foe as he went to attack tank philosopher, who was closest to retrieving his book, luckily enough, the man seemed to have the mask prepared for such an incident, and the man was completely pacified, and his muscles noticeable shrank down in comparison to what they once were. The man seemed to take a moment to recover himself to take a breather, heavily breathing. The next town was supposed to be taken care of by Heavy Kong, the city supervisor, but had gone silent about 10 minutes ago, which caused them to worry, so despite being winded at this point, the heroes proceeded to his last known location before splitting off again. This town was mostly peaceful; not much seemed to be damaged either, but the association city center did explain that a monster was present; it was an ape monster calling itself the Marshall Gorilla, a tiger-rated monster that had fought Heavy Kong for a little over 20 minutes before he was defeated. The police went and recovered the injured bloody hero while Shoji and the tank top split up in search of the monster. Shoji had decided to use the rooftops to search for the monster and found him, surprisingly enough. It would be more precise to say that it found him as he was looking, and the gorilla was surprisingly silent in its approach.
Another surprise was that the monster didn't want to fight him, firstly regarding him as not the "class" of prey he was hunting, and secondly that he was on the "not to kill" list. Shoji immediately inquired about both topics and the gorilla specified that he didn't care much about what the monster association's mission was; he only cared about increasing his disaster level, even going so far as forgoing killing citizens, even though they "stupidly" just stood around and watched as he beat that one hero. He was honestly disappointed in the A-class if they were all of similar strength to him, and Shoji kept the fact that from his knowledge, Heavy Kong was ranked 30th of the 40 A-class members, meaning he was one of the weaker ones. The two talked about the second point, and the monster simply explained that he wasn't paying too much attention to it all, but apparently, those in the non-killing army weren't to be targeted as of yet, and that was all he said quickly before redirecting the conversation back to the main thing he was there for, which was to hunt A-class heroes until the association raised his disaster level.
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Shoji attempted to talk him out of it and persuade him to switch sides with the humans, but the monster simply laughed off his remark, saying that he hadn't seen the monster king yet and that if he did, he would probably switch sides to join the monster in a heartbeat. Shoji attempted to question why he would want a higher disaster level in the first place and what it would gain him. He simply remarked respect from other monsters, he explained that monsters only listen to one thing and that was power if you could prove yourself to be the strongest everyone below you will have to listen to what you have to say and in the new world that the monster will create you going definitely need it being labeled a demon will essentially save him a lot of unneeded stress and certain luxuries not afforded to those that our lower who are essentially just treated as fodder like he was being used for right now by the association it, he harkned that it was likely similar to the reason heroes had ranks and the class system but he wanted shoji to stop stalling and finally tell him what he wanted to know and that was if there were any other A-class in the area and shoji for his part merely pointed in a given direction down a certain street he was lying of course he didn't want to complicate matters and he felt that this monster didn't have to die like the rest so he pointed him down an area which was already clear of people and civilian alike and with that they parted ways.
He didn't see or hear from the monster for the remainder of the assault, which ended fairly after their talk, but a strange text from Tokoyami told him otherwise of a similar monster that the zombieman was following before he switched targets to pursue something else, and after arriving at the location, their marshall gorilla was completely unconscious on the ground. Given that the state of emergency was over, Shoji could currently detain him and send him on his way toward the monster prison.
There is no trouble in Q-city: Watchdog Man, Garou, Tsu
Tsu started her day normally just as she always did she would talk to everyone in the morning before heading over to Q-city to start her patrol or mostly just training at this point, given the recent lax of monster activity watchdog man has now started to set his sights on more human targets such as robbers and petty thieves leaving her with practically endless time on her hands but that didn't mean she wanted to just sit there and do nothing with what's going on back on back home still in the back of her mind along with the hero hunter garou hospitalizing ojiro only signified to her that threats were always still around no matter how peaceful things could be so she continued to train and train as best she could which obviously involved strength training and calisthenics but also experimenting as much as possible with her quirk to push it to it's absolute limits She had asked Midoriya about the quirk awakening stuff so she could get a better idea of what she had to do, which was before Momo announced her going through surgery to artificially unlock it, which she commended the girl for her bravery.
After seeing the results, she was curious enough to be the next one up to mirror it, but part of her wanted to do so by herself, so she continued to practice as much as she could to hopefully draw it out. Unlike the other three that have awakened so far, ojiro, uraraka, and toru had all awakened due to some intense emotion mostly revoked around love, something she didn't necessarily have. She liked all of her classmates very much, but love was something that escaped her. Speaking of Tokoyami, she was also the most recent one to get an awakening, and while she originally didn't plan to ask him, the boy's recent relatively newer closeness to her made it come up in conversation.
While she respected his wishes for privacy on the exact details of it, he did explain to her that it was in a similar vein to the others, and it was mostly just about overcoming his past and letting himself go at least a little bit more. He even bluntly said that it was a large part of why he could more casually converse with the others more often or make his input known instead of just "coasting along the shadows of life." The dark shadow casually mentioned is why he was also getting at least partially closer to her, which surprisingly he didn't deny, but he did get flustered nonetheless. She still didn't know what to feel about the dark teen. She still found him cute, but she feared that their personalities were mostly the complete opposite of each other and that anything between them would just be a waste of time.
Maybe he saw it differently, she pondered. But she guessed that's what relationships were for—to simply test things out and explore what it would be like, so in that sense, maybe it wouldn't be so bad that she could even learn more about herself from it. She ultimately concluded that she would still just wait things out and let Tokoyami progress at his own pace and just enjoy the raven's company whenever he offered it; they may not be too dissimilar from each other once she gets to know him better.
Tsu focused again on her, trying to figure out ways she could get stronger and awaken. The only other person that awakened was Sero, and that too was by artificial means, but those means were mystical given his ghost inside of him at the moment, and the way that ghost infects its victims seemed fairly extreme as well. She didn't feel like getting stabbed anytime soon, even if she could receive a power-up from it. So, after coming up with blanks, she decided to simply train as hard as she could. It was the only other way for her awakening to take place naturally, according to Midoriya, so that was what she did.
She practiced with watchdog man with her hero suit that she strangely continued to struggle over the course of her practice which originally lead her to believe that it wasn't really helping her very much and she questioned watchdog man if that she could maybe change it up a bit for something else but the dog hero surprised her and simply replied that for every five days she got the suit he would increase the weight of it by 1 ton to quicken her improvement which explained why she would suddenly feel off randomly just as she began to get used to it, he also remarked that since she didn't notice is a sign that the practice is working as intended and asui couldn't disagree with that assessment as for reference the dog hero had gotten one of her previous suits and asked her to try it on and he was completely correct the first one seemed almost completely weightless for her to move around in often actually over jumping her leaps as she went to move, it always had taken some getting used when she had to reacclimate to how much weight was on her at a given moment, watchdog man explained that the suit served the dual purpose of strengthening but also managing her strength.
Given the weighted suit and the lack of mobility it provided she needed to carefully measure the strength of her hops to go a certain distance but this same thing had to be done and relearned for herself outside of the suit as well training her to constantly measure her strength and how much of it she would need to go a certain distance it was essentially an homework assignment for her since she never really took off her training suit when she was patrolling and that's a shame to because the upgrades the child emperor made to the original suit was nearly complete as mina talked about her goggles were shrunken fairly heavily and could see in multiple vision options, her slime sluggers on her gauntlets were similar to mina's acid throwers except they were on a fixed position although she still had coverage, her new suit was semi-permeable to her mucus at least so if she simply stored up enough mucus it would start to leak through the suit and coat herself which saved her time with removing her gloves to get at the mucus.
Child Emperor went beyond her expectation in the shoulder of her boot however she just wanted something similar to midoriya but she got more instead not only was the whole foot section reinforced for hard-hitting kicks it also came with the perk of having multiple miniature explosions being able to ring out of them after the attack landed which he termed soccer dribble he remarked that if she aimed for a person's head it was great at causing concussions which he said with at least to much enthusiasm for a boy his age really should but she didn't disrespect the gift she received from him thanking him for his improvements and time spent on her gear.
Tsu was out in the forest again mostly just training with her quirk during her down time, it was still slow and watchdog man was taking care of most of the regular more mundane threats while she was at it, her training wasn't just physical either she also did a lot of research revolving around frogs learning and figuring out there were a ton of frog species out there and if she was a betting girl she would like to say few unique ones to this earth as well. It was in her last few moments of training after her camouflage and stealth practice that she noticed a change she didn't know how or very much why but when she was reading up on some of the frog species and came upon the frog species called horned bullfrog and saw the two large horns on its head she thought that they looked fairly cool and little moment later she felt a weight suddenly grow on her forehead and out sprouted horns of her own she was so shocked as she made her way to stand up before being pressed back down and losing her balance again and face planting into the muck sticking her horns into the ground but she pushed up good enough but still marveled at them as she touched she could feel them at an if touching a nail, and that wasn't all either she miraculously also gained an ear piercing and as she touched she realized and went back over to the book she had and gasp as her horns and nose resemble that of the frog…did she just?
In the next instant cutting off her thoughts watchdog man was there his surprising appearance startled her and made the horns on top of her head suddenly shrink away and disappear, watchdog man remarked that he was there because her smell was slightly off in a way but before she could tell the hero about her discovery he was off again but when he didn't return and the monster sirens in the city started to blare out for a solid minute she began to get worried and started to make her way towards the city… she was about 20 km away and normally she would be able to cover that distance rather quickly but thanks to her new weighted suit that was up to 6 tons at this point the fastest time that she could arrive was in about a minute time. Nothing seemed out of the ordinary and that wasn't for the lack of sirens still going off nor were people really that drastically disturbed from their everyday habits but things were definitely amiss as she closed in on watchdog main plaza, there was a crowd of people that slowly crowded around where the hero would sit on the podium she could hear the chants of cheers coming off the crowd as well as the squelching, shrieking, cracking, and wet sounds of combat coming from past them.
she could only guess what was happening on the other side of it all but instead of simply attempting to muscle her way through the crowd she instead scanned the buildings looking for a perch that she could set herself up in to get a clear view of the area. She found a suitable spot and focused her strength on her legs before leaping up and away as high as she could before shooting out her tongue and reeling herself up the rest of the distance one of the disadvantages of her training suit was that due to not being made with her quirk in mind meant that it did not allow her mutant abilities to shine through so she couldn't stick to walls nor could she camouflage well as it didn't extend to the suit around her just the skin making her stick out more if anything. So when she was finally up enough to get her arms up and over the ceiling she pulled herself up to get on top of the building she finally could look at what the people were so enamored with but she could already reckon a guess.
As she assumed it was nothing but a complete butchery that watchdog man was exhibiting and the crowd just ate it up in praise while the heroes attempted to keep a safety circle around the place where the fighting was commencing it reminded her of a gladiator pit of some kind or those rumored underground fighting arenas that used to go on back in her world but she doubted they would be as brutal and one sided as this was right now, all of the monster seemingly had sprung up from the ground of different sizes and shapes a mixture of demonic animals or things that you would only think of in myth but it didn't matter to watchdog man to them they were just ants as he simply crushed and swiped them all killing them all swiftly while maintaining that emotionless face the entire time which was contrasted by the crowds exotic demeanor it only stood to highlight to her the massive difference in their worlds people and citizens even more.
she couldn't imagine a hero in their world just mercilessly killing villains out on the street and being praised for it even if it was in an obvious case of self-defense as watchdog man was doing right now. As she ruminated over the carnage in front of her and scanned the crowd below, she stopped for a moment at a certain individual in the crowd below, his silver V-shaped hair sticking out of the crowd like a sore thumb. Could it be him? He looked to be similar in build to what was described by her friends and the association bounty board, but it was a shame that she didn't have her phone on her at the moment.
She needed to go and get it but just as she turned her head away to look in the direction of where her things were she turned back around to ensure that she had the right person he was suddenly gone from the crowd below.
"You know how to pick your seats; well, sure as hell beats sticking down there," someone remarked suddenly next to her, surprising her and making her jump backward, and the man with the silver hair was right there.
"Garou?" she questioned just to get 100% confirmation.
"The one and only," Garou remarked before disappearing from her sight again just as her paralysis spray completely missed her mark and she suddenly felt a hand on top of her head.
"Easy now… wouldn't want to end up like your friend in the hospital, would you. I'm not above hitting a girl. All heroes are fair game if they choose to get in my way." the man taunted as he roughly bounced his hand on top of her head in some sort of rough petting before remarking that her costume looked stupid and childish and walking back over to the edge of the building and looking down at the carnage below.
"What is it that you want, then?" asui asked
"What else? I'm here to hunt heroes, but I've got no interest in you or any of the other runts. I'm here for the watchdog, man. I just got through beating that bat-wielding dork, and now I feel invincible." Garou remarked with a smile, looking over the carnage. He also remarked that he wouldn't attack while the hero was busy, so for now he would just sit back and enjoy the show while he learned from the fighting. Asui was concerned for numerous reasons, but the first thing that went into her mind was that he had supposedly beaten Metal Bat already, which meant something might have happened to Koda as well. When questioned, the hunter remarked that he didn't have the faintest idea of who she was talking about, that Metal Bat was alone when he fought him, and that some giant centipede flung him directly.
she didn't know if the hero hunter was lying or not but even if he was she was still worried as he remarked that monsters were attacking S-city as well so she aired on the side of caution and decided to retreat she want to go get her phone and ensure that her friends were ok and get an understanding of the situation along with the fact that she could ping for bang to arrive as well she was sure that watchdog man was strong and him fighting those monster proved that fact even more but even despite garou witnessing it as well he still believed he could win in a fight but she hoped that was just him being overconfident but before she retreated away garou did have one final message for her it wasn't for though it was more precisely for midoriya and how he wanted to fight him again or more precisely he was going to hunt him as well. Asui simply filed that away for later and continued to her things as she arrived. The first thing she did when she got out was to immediately press the button that would notify Bang of a garou sighting so he would be on his way while she got to change while simultaneously looking through her chats to see what's been going on. Hopefully, the watchdog man could manage on his own for a while.
What the hell is with this man? Garou thought as he finally was able to launch his attack on the S-class hero that those monster chumps didn't prove to be much of a challenge for the hero even further reason why that monster association is worthless but they give him at least some insight into how the guy fights and he should have been able to come up with countermeasures at least that's how it went in his mind but as soon as the fighting started he was just in a whole nother league from what he seen previously even when he started using the water stream rock smashing fist it seemed fruitless and if almost to add insult to injury the dam hero started to shake his hand along with each of his counters and he still felt like the guy was still holding back it was all a bad joke to him but after finally getting some room to breath he could start to see the issue, his fist held a weakness that bang never taught him how to overcome even if the man could do so himself.
This was an anti-humanoid martial arts and while the dog hero was obviously humanoid he fought completely differently than how a traditional person would moving around on all fours bouncing and spinning around it looked so amerturish but it got results as he was pummled from all sides all he could do was block and prey for the assault to end eventually which thankfully for a split moment it did he didn't know why but he didn't care as he took the opportunity to get out of dodge he would return one day but for now he'll let this freak have this round as he escaped and ran unsurprignly he felt the wind breeze towards him and realize the dog hero was chasing after him and attempting to come up with some plan he started to scoop up rocks in his hands and throw them at the citizens they were passing forcing the hero to divert and cach the bullet like pebbles from reaching their target and successfully slowing him down so he could get away he didn't have the time to consider where he was going but he knew it was further away from his base of operations and when he finally felt his lungs boil with exertion and hard breath from his wounds and exhaustion he tripped up he recovered as gracefully as possible but he was certain that freak should have been able to catch him and in that moment he believed that was going to be it.
He was going to be caught, but a peculiarity occurred to him as he turned around and saw the watchdog man had stopped following him. The distance between them got wider and wider, and he stopped running as he continued to look at the hero who simply stared back and growled at him, kicking up some dirt and starting to walk away.
Garou was completely confused by the scene but opted not to look a gift horse in the mouth. Remembering what he read about in the hero guide, he wasn't going to take a chance and try and sneak through Q-city again, which was marked as watchdog man's territory, so he will have to take a more roundabout way to S-city and heal his wounds, but despite his loss, he still felt great; things were looking up; he beat another S-class hero, and his loss now just showed him that he still had room to grow; he was having so much fun right now! And just when he thought that he would hate for the day to end, another hunger catch sprung into his lap, and this one may have been the biggest catch of all. He was still able-bodied enough, and while he didn't think he could win if he lost to the dog freak if he could glimpse that pinnacle of power and where it stood, he could get a clear picture of what he would have to surpass, and with that thought in his head, he dashed forward, his eyes keen on his prey's line of sight, center gravity, and posture to predict his next move. King, I will hunt you!
A Harmful Truth, A Powerful Discovery: King, Saitama, Garou, King
Mineta and King were in M-city heading towards O-city, things started off fairly simple for mineta given the laxed monster activity lately he's has been able to get through his standard physical training fairly easily but most of his troubles came from the monster hunter portion of it and to make matter worse due to him complaining to king about his training not being hard enough the man added an time limited amendment to his training which required him to complete both within a set time frame from one another which meant he had to plan things out so he assumed king assigned such a task to work on his thinking skills but along with that he also included quirk training along with it, he likely forgot about his quirk since they weren't from this earth so he didn't take it in mind but he praised him for his efficiency in the matter when regarding his orbs that dotted the side of the buildings that served as his launched pads but he wanted him to be even more thorough in his practice while he looked for a proper teacher for the small boy to learn from as their fighting styles are to incompatible for him to teach him much on how to use his quirk. So in that stead, he simply referred to his judgment and how he used to train his ability, which was just to rip them straight from his head constantly to increase their recovery rate and to harden his scalp before it started to bleed.
Given that basic description, he also wanted the boy to work on his accuracy, giving him his own designated area next to his recent apartment that he could practice on. It was a fairly simple task; all he had to do was hit a few circular training darts, but the targets themselves were fairly small, just the size of a dart board, and on top of that, he had to fire while in the air, bouncing between his pop-off orbs and hitting the target directly. He should learn to not open his mouth so much, but his training has been paying off. He was able to capture a C-class bounty by himself. The man was a serial killer of some kind; they called him the headstalker. He killed with an unorthodox weapon, a spear head—not the entire spear, mind you, just the head—very peculiar, but he didn't give it too much thought but found safety in the fact that he was now behind bars. His next two targets were also on the lower end of the spectrum in terms of threat level, mostly just petty crooks that he stopped combined with a petty purse robber, which was surprisingly unsatisfying to beat given what he's recently gone up against, but that was turned completely around when he received a complimentary hug for his efforts from the woman he got her purse stolen from. It felt incredibly good, but part of him still had some PTSD from his encounter with Tiffany, so he didn't enjoy it as much as he thought he would have, or he was just a different person from how he used to be, which is what he likes to believe more.
Mineta finally was able to finish everything in the given time frame and made his way back to King's apartment, but things seemed to heat up as there was a large crowd of people crowding the doorway to the lobby, which could only mean one thing, which was that someone had inadvertently found King out and leaked it online, and to confirm those thoughts, King pshhed him over to a secluded alleyway where he had his bike and his full-on incognito get up, which mostly was just a surgeon mask mixed with shades of some kind. He explained the situation to him and explained what had happened, so now king was relocating to one of his many "secondary" homes, spending time with the strongest hero really showed to him that being the strongest man on earth wasn't all it was cracked up to be as king tried to explain people would constantly crowd around him in the streets and by the mob invade his personal space, king admitted that originally it was great but now it he found it mostly just annoying and a nuisance which he could see as they simply made their way down and into the subway to make their way to O-city where another of his secondary him he remarked in the fact that at least they came at a decent time given the circumstances he needed to go out and wait in line for a new video game releasing soon and he would likely have t wait around in line for it to release mineta was momentarily taken off guard by such old school thinking questioning if why he couldn't just purchase the game online but he had to remind himself that gaming in this world wasn't as advanced as their world going by the games and console still reaching around the PS2/xobx era of gaming so it made more sense.
So as soon as the two of them got off the train in O-city, they went straight for the closest video game store and began to wait in line. It was mostly boring just standing there waiting, given that he wasn't that invested in the game series, so he didn't have as much enthusiasm as the others around him, but hiding from the assumed it must have gained some sort of following seeing as some people were even dressed up in cosplay for it. The celebration made the wait a little more tolerable as they finally were able to get into the store, buy the game, and make their way over to King's second home. This was another apartment complex, but it was even smaller than the one he had in M-city, but he found it comfortable enough to live in and discrete enough to be in. Funnily enough, he still had numerous game consoles stored in there, so he could continue to play his game without worry. The two of them played around for a moment before the monster alarms started to flare outside.
King seemed content enough to ignore it, which Mineta hesitantly followed. He then received a phone call from the association, but he told them he was "busy" and he was fighting and defeating a boss at the moment, which they were doing in a game. Mineta knew that King was a heavy gamer, but to throw off work for the sake of it seemed completely unheroic. Is that the reason why, despite being the strongest man on earth, he was rated lower than others? Or did he seem to think that the threat was likely so beneath him that some other hero should be able to handle it? The two continued to play games for a moment before Mineta's phone pinged with a notification, and he was shocked as he read the state of emergency information along with several of his classmates in the group chat speaking about what was happening.
After figuring out what was happening and turning to King for their next move, he was surprised by the man's indifference to the entire situation. The monster alarms haven't stopped at all since the hour or so they have been inside his apartment, not doing anything but waiting for them. Mineta tried to encourage the man to come out with him, explaining the emergency situation that the entire world was in and that he should do something about it—at least something. He couldn't just sit back and play games, doing nothing. Mineta begged the hero into action, putting King in a hard spot. He didn't know if he should come out right now and tell the boy that he was a fraud right now or if he should come up with an elaborate ploy of some kind. He constantly flip-flopped on what he should do with his hero career, weighing the cost and benefits of it. All people will surely be angry with him, and all the adoration could morph into something worse. People will try and deny it. So much could transpire with a single slip of the tongue. Not only would his reputation be tarnished, but he could find himself in a lot of trouble, not just with the authorities but also with the people he "protected." Every time he felt it start to weigh in on him, he just became more and more famous. So many people mistakenly looked up to him, and how many people would be saddened by revealing he's a fraud? King's lack of reaction or reply during the situation lasted for five minutes, which proved too long for the teens liking as he excused himself to go out there and help others while King simply pondered his thoughts some more regarding what he should do.
Mineta quickly rushed outside and continued towards the sights and sounds of danger he didn't know what was happening currently and without king around he didn't exactly feel safe going off on his own to fight what seemed to be a wave of monsters attacking the city concurrently the mineta was off he didn't know when or where monster would strike out from but still went forwards their would be some of other heroes in the city surely and correct he was he had ran into a couple heroes on his travels and one surely made an impression for a single shred of a moment he thought dabi had appeared as wave of blue fire came brushing over the next rooftop of a building he was passing by not leaving things to chance he had immediately used his pop off orbs as a springboard to jump up and over the building to take a peek of what was happening down below as the flames died down they seemed to have originated from a man in dark hair and a dark blue kung fu suit but what drew his attention was one of his arms it was entirely replaced by a mechanical flame thrower of some kind that was just widning down, the monsters he had just incenerated were almost completely identifiable nothing but charred flesh remained of them which mineta found equal parts cool and scary. He scaled down the building and found that the hero was simply named Blue Fire. His name was strangely familiar to him, and then he remembered that he was one of the heroes that Garou had beaten up when he first introduced himself. He shuddered for a moment, thinking about whether Garou was the one responsible for the robotic arm, but he tried his best not to stare at it as he pulled along with the man.
The hero recognized Mineta as well, regarding him and his friends as a part of that "fake hero group," to which Mineta took offense, but after having a minor spat with each other about killing monsters, Mineta simply remained quiet, especially after the destruction being caused around them by said monsters. Blue Fire had just gotten off the phone with his superior silver chain, although he spat out once the phone call was done that he hated taking orders from someone who was below him in the ranking. He had to give the girl credit; she had already swept up the monsters in 2/3 of the city and would leave the rest to him as she was needed elsewhere for the moment. So Mineta and Blue Fire went to work searching around for monsters, which wasn't hard given the problems they were stirring up. They were joined by fellow heroes before dispersing out again. Each hero took their path to better get the most coverage, and the monsters seemed to be retreating. Mineta had taken the opportunity to go back around and circle back to where King's apartment was. On the way, he checked around multiple street corners, bouncing around his launched Popoff orbs, before arriving back at the apartment complex. Now, Mineta had hoped that the strongest hero would not be there when he returned and instead had left to defend the city on his terms. Maybe his stage fright was more severe than he thought or that his power could not be witnessed by anyone; therefore, he needed to fight alone, which made sense given that even on hero guides and articles, nobody knew how the man fought. Could it be like some sort of curse that killed anyone who witnessed it? He thought, and in that way, he started to understand at least partially his reluctance to fight in large cities, but as he opened and saw that the man was still in there playing his dumb game, his thoughts immediately went out of the window, and a small anger filled his chest as he went to angrily address the "hero" in question.
Mineta quickly turned off the game the hero was playing, and this time he wanted answers and he didn't care what happened next even if he heard the king engine start to roar he wanted to know why the strongest man, the best hero in the world was sitting in his room while the world outside was on fire, while people were dying, why he was sitting in his room trying to pretend that it all simply didn't exist escaping into video games to hide from his responsibilities someone that was essentially the all might of this world doing that just felt inconceivable in his mind, all might would have been the first one out there at the scene, his successor midoriya would do just the same maybe even more and that's the reason he looked up to them and hoped to be just as courageous as them one day and he had hoped that king would be able to teach him to be that someday but when he thought about he hasn't learned much of anything from the man.
King said nothing he was speechless and despite his heart beginning to pound in desperation the teen wasn't stepping down, which meant he was serious about this and king knew he couldn't hide it from the teen for much longer given their close relationship he knew it was bound to happen sooner or later and part of him did dislike lying to the kid as he was fairly fun to be around as they had similar taste disregarding all the hero stuff that was and now his lies has caught up to him once again just like that time before just like saitama before him and just like that time just as he was about to tell the truth loud crash and grinding was heard down below him which was quickly followed by the screams of multiple people down the hall but the teen didn't say anything he simply grabbed him by the arm fairy roughly and was about to drag him out into the hall he was going to force him into conflict, King heart was pounding a mile a minute and he finally managed to find his voice he yelled for the teen to stop pulling him and while he didn't at first when he finally admitted that he was lying the teen fully stopped and in that moment he let everything out, the truth about himself about how his hero life was a sham, how when the association forced him to pick him the true reason why he chose him everything and after he was done breathing king had to take a several wheezing breaths as he caught it after his reveal.
King didn't look up at the small teen as he felt him let his arm go before soon after he heard his door scream open and then slam shut. King sat there, letting the sound ring out from the apartment, and hoped for the boy's safety. As Mineta stepped foot out into the hallway to see what was transpiring, his thoughts were numb. As he moved, there was a large gap where the building was originally connected, signaling that something large had run through it. This large monster was still close by and, luckily, only passed by through the complex. Neighbors were already helping their neighbors out of the wreckage and doing what they could, allowing Mineta to run after the monster. It was a large iguana of some kind, judging by the tail, but as he persuaded, King's voice rung in the back of his head, and deep down he knew it.
It was so obvious: why would the strongest hero ever take him under his wing with such a lackluster ability as his? He wasn't like Todoroki; he couldn't produce ice or fire, or even someone like Kaminari who can produce lighting, and he wasn't fearless or hard to break the stone wall that was Kirishima, but as he saw the monster turn over a moving car and about to take a bite out of the side, he knew at that moment what he was, and despite all of his deficits, he was still a hero. So he launched his pop-off orbs at the monster, multiple of them, and to his shock, as the first landed, it erupted into a field of ice casing over the top of the monster's back, making it drop the car in reflex. The second orb popped open in the form of fire that stuck to the monster and continued to burn to force the creature into a roll, revealing its underbelly. The third one struck, releasing a current of lighting that completely shocked the beast to its core. The last ball completely missed as the beast went down, but the ball hit the side of the building, indenting into its frame. Mineta was so taken aback by everything that he couldn't believe what just happened, but he threw a fist into the air as he believed that he had just awakened!
()
Mineta was at a loss for words but seeing as how things were seemingly dying down he immediately went to his phone to tell his classmates the news as everyone was telling each other their status so he opted to wait and just show them in person so that left him on what he should do next and despite his misgivings for the man at the moment he ultimately decided to go back and join back up with king, he still was in partial disbelief that the man was a complete and even part of him held out some hope that somehow mysteriously king could foretell what was going to happen and he simply told him all that to manipulate him and allowed him to achieve his awakening but he knew deep down that king at that very moment was likely telling the truth and suddenly a lot of things started to make sense for him.
Why did he never fight and always run away when monsters appeared? Why did the man seem rather timid around practically anyone he directly faced, especially his fans? It ultimately answered why he would always cancel association calls or make up some excuse why he couldn't help out, but that just made it all the more awful and, not only that, dangerous. What if they needed him for a mission assignment and no one else could be there? How many lives would be lost just because of his lies?
As Mineta got back to the apartment complex, everyone was still clearing out the damage, and King remained there with his bike, disguised. Upon noticing Mineta, he seemed to breathe a sigh of relief, which was immediately turned into a pitiful, lowered head of obvious discontent. Mineta stared at the man and continued forwards towards him, still considering the words he wanted to say, but he guessed that since he was making a good move, he would start easy by asking the man what he's going to do now. He simply remarked that he's going to go back to his home in Q-city and asked if he was going to be traveling with him.
Mineta nodded and added that the walk could give them time to talk about a lot of things, and she heard an audible gulp from the man in question, but he offered nothing in refusal, and the two started to walk away. The first few minutes of their journey were completely spent in silence before mineta open up with his first and most obvious question of why king attempted to give his best efforts to the explanation of why he hasn't told anyone and for the most part it was essentially a fake it to you make a story, he had no skills other than gaming and was working mostly dead-end jobs that didn't pay well and only fueled his gaming habits so when the association suddenly came upon him offered him a high-rank position with equally high pay he just rolled with it, the net question was of how and for that king simply didn't know what to say he either had the worst luck in the world or the best luck as every time a monster attacked near him things would just suddenly work out somehow and he would be the one to receive the credit for beating said monster as the person who did so didn't stick around and king confirmed that man was saitama his friend that he plays games with.
Speaking of the man in question, the hero just happened to start running past them when King got his attention. The three of them started to talk, and Mineta questioned why Saitama allowed King to steal his title as he did, and Saitama remarked that he simply didn't care enough about titles or ranks, and that's not what he wanted out of being a hero. Mineta found that somewhat inspirational, but King noticed the unusually down tone that Saitama had and asked the hero about it. Saitama explained how currently, despite all that had happened, he was just feeling numb. He wanted to become a hero to fight strong opponents to feel that rush of adrenaline and stimulus that came with a hard fight, but now he was realizing just how strong he was.
No one's fought has ever posed as much of a challenge to him that he couldn't even remember the last time he was hurt. It made it feel like he lived on an entirely different plane of existence in comparison to the people around him, and in that plane was only him, so he felt lonely. King offered some other options in life that didn't revolve around fighting, but Sasama was completely uninterested in any of them; it seemed like he was only a hero for the thrill-seeking of combat. Mineta wondered if Bakugo was in the same position, would he feel similarly? But he left that train of thought for later, after King started to speak again, he began to harken his thoughts about how the saitama definition of being a hero just for fighting wasn't the entire truth, and just because he is the strongest hero doesn't make him the greatest hero, and until he figures out what that meant to him, he still has room to improve.
The three of them started to walk more, and King was again baiting Saitama into challenging him to video games, and Minta was confident that even when only using two fingers, he would still beat the guy. The atmosphere between the three lightened slightly from their talks as they continued, that is, until the sudden sound of a broken wall startled both Mineta and King, the two of whom did not even notice that a man was hurtling towards them at extreme speed until he was unceremoniously kicked by Sitama into a wall, which left a strange imprint that Mineta immediately picked up and ran over to investigate while Sitama and King discussed what all the monsters were about for the day.
Mineta's scream of surprise quickly drew their attention back to the person saitama kicked into the store, and mineta remarked that the weirdo thug in question was garou himself, the hero hunter. While mineta was relieved, saitama seemed even more disappointed learning that fact as the hunter reminded him of himself. A way back in his training days, he had hoped that he would be different from the rest, but he guesses Suiryu was right about him after all. All that about martial arts was just a waste of time. After all, he said, saddened as he changed his mind on playing with King and just walked home. King opted to go home as well as Mineta opted to stay near the unconscious hunter and pin him to the floor with his pop-off orbs. Given the time of day and his slack of meal, it would only last around 5 hours, but he was confident that bang and bomb would get there by that time.
Given what he saw on the phone, they were in Q-city with Asui, so coming here should be a snap, and 5 minutes later he was correct. He assured them over to the garou-shaped wall and presented the unconscious man to them, all trained by many pop-off orbs resting over his entire body. He had entered in and out of consciousness during the said time, and given his predicament, he wanted him to do him a favor before the "old man" arrived. Bang looked at his fallen apprentice with disbelief but quickly turned around and thanked not just the boy but he wanted him to leave a parting message to all of his class for their help in wrangling his lost pupil. Bomb was the one who asked how Garou was defeated, and King name was at the tip of his lips before he corrected his error as said that it was saitama, and Bang simply chuckled, remarking that he told his brother of saitama strength.
Bang asked when his pop-off orbs would dissipate, and he told them in about 7 houses that out of the way, the two brothers were going to take the unconscious man and continue towards a secret location. The bomb had cut an area out of the floor that Garou was placed on, and he simply lifted the large boulder, and the two of them were off with one last thanks. Despite the days and events, Mineta was satisfied, at least in part. Now that things were all settled, he only had one last place to go, although given that the transportation was a bit screwed up at the moment, it would take him a while to get there, so he had asked for a lift as everyone was meeting up in B-city.
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The aftermath: Monster Association, Zombieman
Midoriya woke up in a hospital bed with a shocked gasp rising to his legs and, for a moment, panicking, thinking about what was transpiring before he was knocked out. His worries almost faded when he felt a sudden weight on his chest, and the sight of the familiar brunette hair calmed him enough to slightly take a step back and calm down as he returned the hug. They embraced for a moment before Midoriya's worry ultimately won out, and he slowly pushed his girlfriend away and asked for details and the status of everyone. She told him that everyone was thankfully okay for the most part, with Bakugo and Todoroki being the only exceptions. The two of them were extremely hurt and were still unconscious from their injuries. Midoriya being the caring person, he immediately wanted to go check up on them and see for himself, almost completely forging his current predicament, until the explosive pain that flew out of his arm and then soon after rung out through his arm and an equal spike of pain ran through his body as he moved it, which the second confirmed was the result of his quirk gearshift. Uraraka had unintendedly pushed her knuckles into him a couple of times, and combined with the pain and increased gravity, she forced him back down into the bed as she reminded him that unlike in their world, they didn't have a recovery girl. Hence, he had to stay, be patient, and wait for his injuries to heal. The doctors said that it shouldn't take that long and that he would be out in two days on Thursday before releasing the increased gravity she put on him.
Midoirya nodded and got more comfortable as he let his girlfriend explain to him all that has transpired, at least so far, which included the sightings of Garou by three of their classmates, leading to the hunter's ultimate capture when asked about who stopped him. Mineta said that Sasaitama did Genos Master, and Midoriya understood, so at least that problem was taken care of, he thought, and Bang didn't have to kill his former student, which was another plus. Hopefully the two of them could talk things over, and he would be able to meet the man again someday. The next thing was less lighthearted news, as the culprits behind the worldwide monster attack today were caused by the monster association, which was likely the group that they were on the tails of for a moment now. Thinking back on it, something didn't make sense to him, and he wanted the girl to retell him of the person that stopped Garou, and Uraraka did so, explaining that it was indeed Sitama. To confirm even more, he asked if the hero's name was Caped Baldy, which she nodded at with a slight chuckle to boot at his hero title. Midoirya drew a blank and questioned whether the hero was injured at all.
Uraraka didn't know, but from what she heard from Mineta, he didn't seem to be hurt by what he told them. Midoriya was left in pause for several moments as he tried to piece together events before asking where he encountered Garou, and she explained that they were in O-city at the time, and that kind of confirmation confirmed Mineta's thoughts that the man was able-bodied enough to continue to patrol around after having fought and presumably defeated that absolute monster in C-city. And speaking of absolute monsters, he momentarily panicked and then questioned Koda about what had happened to him during this time and what happened to the elder centipede in S-city. As Uraraka said previously, everyone was okay except Bakugo and Todoroki, except a few of them were incredibly tired from using their quirks all day. Koda told them that he was sleeping for most of the fighting as monster spores had put him and Aiki to sleep when the conflict initially started, but Torax and Metal Knight protected them in the meantime.
This led Uraraka back into what she was going into about the monster association and their objective with the attack for today, which was to seemingly take hostage an executive or someone that held power with the hero association. The son of one such executive was captured—the one that Metal Bat and Koda were supposed to be protecting. Things didn't end there; however, as Uraraka got closer and started to whisper the next part, it became apparent from comments that a number of them were overhead from monsters stating how their group, the non-killing army, was on a do-not-kill list and that they had plans for them in particular. This caught Midoriya's attention, and it would explain why that one large monster had opted to attempt to capture Bakugo instead of just kill him.
Uraraka went on and explained that at first they didn't have a way to confirm much of anything, but Torax had seemed to speak with one of them, and they had told them that they wanted us to meet up with them out near the edges of Z and Y cities, given what we know from Saren. who she quickly went over now having a new body and not inhabiting Sero anymore, they could only conclude that they want them to join them and eat what they call monster cells, which would transform all of them into monsters. The meeting was supposed to take place a couple of hours from when he woke up, but obviously, none of them would be going, and not showing up would be taken as a decline to their invitation, so the next time they attack, they won't be getting off so easily, and Midoriya nodded.
The two conversed for some time before they were interrupted by mina coming into to check up on them after teasing uraraka about not letting everyone know that midoriya awake and wanting to keep him to herself she quickly called everyone else over to come check up on their friend, midoirya spotted a mysterious stranger near the doorway and sero introduced that person as saren well at least his new body, before midoriya could comment on it he explained how that things got itself sorted out explaining that the original inhabitant of that body wasn't going to be "around anymore" and therefore he likely didn't need it so saren took the opportunity to take his body for himself and sero definitely added on that then he had to save saren from also not being around anymore or well he would have been cut pieces if he didn't get in the way which the person begrudgingly admitted to, sero also said that he was actually a monster but for obvious reason he couldn't show it right now given their environment. After then, we talked even more to Midoriya about current events revolving around them.
This time there was a more upbeat tone as four of his classmates had awakened during their time during the day. Mineta, Kirishima, Shoji, and Tsu had presumably awakened some new abilities. Mineta could only describe his a as similar in likeness to Momo Quirk; he could think of an element of some kind, and once he threw his orbs at someone, they would pop open into that element he was thinking of, but it could potentially be more; he hasn't had time to work it out really. Kirishima was fairly simple; he could touch people or objects and extend his power into them as he touched Midoriya, and suddenly his body was entirely hardened as well; he simply called the ability pillars.
He was proud if that was all there was to his awakened ability because, in truth, it was all he really wanted. Now he didn't have to just be a singular wall; they all could be a wall to protect everyone, like the pillars of a building. Shoji was next; he was still figuring it out, but he knows that he can essentially use his quirk within a given radius of himself, and he showed this by manifesting a hand on everyone in the room. Buddha; the last one was Asui. She simply grew horns on her head again. She explained that she believed that her awakening may have just been an enhanced version of her frog quirk, and with it, she could actually mimic some of the frogs unique traits she could, even as she demonstrated by shrinking down and becoming smaller, but interestingly enough, her suit didn't shrink with her leaving her just there in her outfit before resizing up again, although she had to make a few adjustments to get everything on correctly again. She simply named it Enhanced Amphibian, and her goal at the moment was to read up on more of the intriguing things that frogs around the world have and see if she could duplicate them.
After some more talks and conversations, the group all started to head out, although all of them still wanted to stay as long as possible for those in the hospital, especially just to wait and see if Bakugo and Todoroki would wake up, given that Bakugo expected him to be up already, but maybe his wounds were more dramatic than what even the previous war in their area had for them. As they were waiting around the hospital, it was Torax, and then Aiki rapidly stood up and was on guard. Koda immediately asked what was wrong and what was happening. Torax explained that monsters were nearby, and one of them smelled familiar—not that he got a good sniff; multiple of them did; he could identify one as Asterius; the others were familiar one way but still different.
So they went to investigate as koda and the two were making moves to leave others attempted to join them but torax replied that they must not draw too much attention and needed to keep a relativity low profile so they shouldn't leave with that many people especially given that they were likely already under suspicions as it stands but there was an unspoken uneasiness with them that torax noticed but didn't speak on, it was a little after the time they were supposed to go and meet up with the monsters and he was the only one to talk with them on somewhat equal terms given what he was, he didn't fault them for such thoughts he didn't fight them, after all, he held no wounds which lead to speculation about his allegiance at least to the boy's father who was taken and likely koda himself but despite that, the boy still did defend him in this regard as well his kindness was very intriguing he thought.
Ultimately, he decided to bring just one more person along with them. This person was Kaminari, remarking that this vague, familiar scent seemed similar enough to someone he should know. With that out of the way and the mystery of the monster outside the four of them left out and upon sniffing the open air the scent became more clear without a doubt asterius was their but he was with others that he didn't recognize at least completely and to almost confirm his thoughts he spotted a familiar bird in the skies above it was farukuro and it seemed to want them to follow after her as she at first circled amongst the night sky before abruptly changing course and flying in a different direction, torax followed along growing bigger and letting the other climb on and jumping up and away onto the rooftops where they could more easily keep track of the flying bird and after traveling a couple blocks away they saw it crash down with incredible speed into an alleyway, torax leapt down into the spacious alleyway after it and together they all went into an underground parking complex given the time of night it was fairly empty barely any cars in sight but that only fueled koda's worries.
As the four of them stepped into the lights and progressed, they were suddenly halted as Asterius made his presence known. He was larger than they remembered, forcing him to hunch over, but even then, the horns of his head scraped along the 8-foot ceiling with ease as he moved into the center. Torax held Aki down before she could run over to the large minotaur.
"You're looking better than ever," Torax said first in greeting.
"As are you; it seemed that the explosive warrior was not trying to deceive me after all," Asterius remarked simply, picking on who he was talking about and remembering what Midoriya said. Koda quickly spoke up next.
"Thank you for saving him, by the way," Koda quickly uttered, to which the minotaur simply nodded in response.
"So what brings you here? I'm assuming this is about the fact that they stood you all up." Torax said, and again, the minotaur nodded.
"Yes, they sent us ahead just to confirm your thoughts on the invitation to ensure that you weren't simply held up elsewhere given that two of your numbers were too injured to join us."
the minotaur remarked and as he said that the other monsters began to step out as well, they were all familiar to them in some ways as the farukuro had emerge from around the corner next to another monster this one was a another humanoid type his head was misshapen into weird angle and his ear were pointed up almost like and elf from myth and his fingers were replaced with sharp claws instead but going by the clothes he wore along with the farukuro by his side indicated that this monster was originally Chemonille he said the person name and he confirmed it by answering as he lowered his head to not meet the boys gaze, that would also mean the floating almost specter like flame monster beside him and the shrouded frost monster next to him must have been enjoe and brut as well which they confirmed as well they explained what had happened to them during the day and how they were given the option of turing into monster and how it would help their abilities It was here that they fully admitted their original attention to being heroes was not to be heroes; what they really wanted to do was use their powers for their own gain, and with the monsters, they were going to get right back to it and hoped for them to join them, but they had a turn of heart due to their experience as heroes. Not because even once turned into monsters, the monsters themselves showed them no respect and still thought they were weak and pitiful; they added on in thought.
~()~
Koda didn't really know what to say, but he suddenly got a stunning headache. He started to see things that weren't their visions of some kind. He saw three of them; it seemed like they were in a forest of some surrounded by fighting him, and Aki was fighting both Chemonille and Farukuro. The scene immediately flipped. This time, Koda was fighting both Chemonille and Farukuro, along with Aki. At the same time, it was near some sort of abandoned street; rotting buildings dotted the landscape, and it was not just him. As he looked around, the rest of his friends were fighting as well, but they weren't holding back. The monster fell around them, not unconscious but dead, and Koda was prepared to fight, as he was about to...
~()~
Koda quickly shook his head, his thoughts cleared, and he was back at the scene at hand, looking at the three individuals in front of him. His feelings were all jumbled up from what he just witnessed, but he cast them off for the moment as he addressed them. He didn't hold against their initial reasons for wanting to get stronger; their actions mattered more than their intent, especially in this case. The lights started to suddenly flicker, and as they saw that the monsters were confused as well, Torax ruled out that this was planned but got ready anyway just in case the next one to show up appeared behind them, and it was Asterius that reacted first, not knowing of this monster in question, but before they could react, Kaminari held out an arm as he examined the monster in question and tilted his head to the sight.
"Volten, is that you?" Kaminari questioned. He knew he felt a large electricity source nearby, but he didn't think it was him, and he was the last person he expected to take the monster cell.
"But… why?" Kaminari questioned him as he looked at the man.
"There were many reasons, but the three prevailing drives were bitterness, jealousy, and fear. You weren't there, but the monster that had attacked C-city was truly frightening; its strength was almost inconceivable in my wildest imagination. I believed that no one would be able to stop it, but it offered me an out, and on top of that, it promised not to harm my students if I accepted.
I was supposed to be the one to lure you towards the meeting point, and I really might have if I hadn't stuck around to ensure that his promise held while he did hold up his end of the bargain. What changed his mind and made him believe that humanity may still have a chance was the ensuing conflict, not just between his friend Midoriya but the hero afterward, the bald hero that fought and won against a behemoth like that, inspired me to not give up just yet on humanity if a human was capable of that. Although it was too late for me, I still want my students to reach the heights that I saw of that man today, whoever he was." Volten finished, and Kaminari nodded in understanding. He was simply trying to protect himself the best way he knew how, and he couldn't blame the man for that.
With that out of the way, the ten of them wanted to talk about their next steps and what they should do next. Torax correctly summarizes that Asterius wasn't feeling ok with the monster association given the day's attack on the helpless, even going so far as to help their friend, although the minotaur wrote that off as simply repaying a debt. So they questioned what were the five monsters going to do now well more specifically what asterius would do now given that all of the others had agreed to still fight along with humanity and the heroes there was a moment of pause where asterius decided his answer ultimately becoming undecided although he stated that while he may not fight fully along with the heroes he could act as a spy of sorts in respect of the explosive warrior he had told him that his life is his so if he wanted him to fight alongside him then he would do so he would have liked to challenge him again but seeing as how he was injured he would hold off for the moment besides the other monsters would get suspicious if they did not return demon level monsters were not to be looked to down upon given their rarity there were about 12-30 of them in total among the association numbers. So each of them was prized for what was likely coming.
The conversation was put on an abrupt hold when Saren made his appearance, which Asterius labeled Kirigiri instead, which Kaminari guessed was his original name, but Asterius reaction being one of almost submissiveness tipped everyone off that this guy was a big deal, and after explaining what Saren is and how Haragiri was gone, when the Minotaur finally relaxed again, he explained that Haragiri was considered an applicant to be one of the executives, and to even be considered as such meant that he would at least have to have the role of Dragon, and Torax explained that's the reason he felt such a shiver down his spine when he first encountered him. Well, their friends were listening in on their conversation with the talisman that was placed on Kaminari's inside of Kamianri's jacket which he pulled out which saved them a lot of time on explaining to him the situation but upon closer inspection the three of them noticed that Saren body was missing an arm and held an artificial leg which was made out of a stomp before they could question it he agreed with the monster plan to spy of the monster association and given his current body and its importance he could do so as well, his bodies appearance was a fabrication of his magic he made it this way due to more easily fool the monsters he did have an encounter with atomic samurai it would have been foolish to believe he would have managed to escape unscathed. So the seven monsters agreed to return to the monsters, especially given that they were about to take too long to return. Torax offered to go with them as well, surprising both Aki and Koda, but that would have to hold off for later as Koda got a call from Tokoyami telling him that the association was looking for him and the two monsters that attended with him, and with that affirmation, he ended the call and informed everyone that they had to go as well. The two groups parted ways, and Koda hoped for them to be safe out there.
The three of the slowly made their way back towards the hospital where they were met with a rather strange sight, not only were all of their abled body classmates outside waiting for him but in the street lied a large vehicle actually it was the monster transport bus he could see as they drew closer along with another vehicle and about three men in dark black suits but what gave koda pause was the four A-class heroes that were with him death gatling, one shotter, stinger, and heavy tank loin cloth were all their and once the large tiger had landed almost all of them instinctively drew their weapons in the monsters direction to much of the disgruntlement of his classmates who physically came between them the heroes let out a tsk of annoyance but stood down for the moment all except for death gatling his chain gun didn't completely rest by his side and was still slightly elevated in the monsters direction Momo noticed, but she said nothing about it, and part of her was actually tempted to mirror the hero, creating her own weapon, but she stayed her hand for now; she didn't have the fat stores to make many things, and she wouldn't want to escalate the situation. Shoji, Tokoyami, and Oiro all rushed over to Koda, who was just dismounting Torax, and explained the situation to him. Essentially, he was being detained for the moment and brought in for questioning regarding the day's events and the executive son, and while they didn't admit it, the class summarized that a good deal of the conversation will revolve around Torax and Aki as well, which is likely the reason the four A-class heroes were their "for insurance," they remarked, and Koda slowly nodded his head in acknowledgment.
Koda, Aki, and Torax all proceeded along with them without argument or fuss. The heroes were antsy around the monster given the day's events, and even the cooler ones, such as Stinger and one shotter, were not taking any chances with either the monster chaining their legs together or placing a muzzle along their mouths before directing them into the modified monster shuttle. Some of the class wanted to join koda but the hero association men refused to allow them to and they begrudgingly allowed them to leave with their classmate in toe while koda was likely to be ok, they worried for the two monsters if things got bad then torax would defend himself which the heroes will inevitably look at as an "attack" and use it as an excuse to put them down the day was not only physically exhausting but also began to take a mental toll as well especially with the monsters having had made a secret agreement about them, momo was partially surprised that all of them weren't being taken in for questioning given that some heroes knew of the monsters were treating them differently but she guessed to the association that the executive was more important than they were not that they needed in more drama from to today and speaking of drama saren's seemingly lifeless body began to speak to them.
The man, or rather ghost, at this point had decided to perch himself into a corner of the room before he decided to do his "spirit clone" ability. Everyone was more than a bit surprised by the action, but after explaining his reasoning, he calmed down, although while he was like that, he needed them to protect his real body as it would be nearly lifeless for the moment, and Iida had to wade off more than once some of the more playful members of the class when they tried to take that to their advantage, but Jiro was the one to notify them that it was speaking almost in hushed murmurs that only she could pick up and hear with her quirk. They had confirmed that some monsters—he counted around 20—had been waiting for them at the meet-up point. All started to move on to a new location, they concluded, which screamed to them that it was a definite trap of some kind for that many monsters to be there, but they were curious about who was their Kirishima did tell them that several monsters had escaped the prison, so they assumed a lot of them could have been from there, hoping to return the favor.
The actual reason Saren started to speak, however, was much more interesting. He told them that on the floor of a given alleyway they lay a woman of some kind; she was bleeding out heavily as the monsters passed her by. Maybe some infighting had occurred or something, but if one of the quicker ones made it over, she could probably be saved and give some vital information given how she was betrayed by the monster's association itself. With that out of the way, he said that they would be gone by the time they arrived, so they should move quickly if they wanted to save her life.
This left the class with a major dilemma. At first, it was obvious if this was a trap or not; they didn't entirely trust Saren now that he was free, especially given the body he currently inhabits belongs to a higher-up in the monster association, but Sero couched for him, offering to go personally, and despite their misgivings, they didn't want to just leave life to die out on the cold, dark streets, even if she was a monster, but that lied in the second problem: who will go and how? Todoroki, Bakugo, and Midoriya were bedridden, Iida was still on cooldown, and Kaminari was not only still out of balance and loopy but didn't have any lighting charges left, which only left one person left, which was Tokoyami. While Shining Light was faster, Dark Shadow was still plenty fast on his own, and it was dark out, so he wouldn't be even faster. He was the only one who could do it and accepted the assignment.
Now it was a question of who would go with him, and Mineta was the first to volunteer. Given the person they were trying to rescue, it came as no surprise, but they allowed it. Given his recent behavior, he seemed to honestly try to help, and given his quirk, it could be helpful in at least pacifying the pain. Sero wanted to go as well, mostly due to their distrust of Saren. If the ghost was leading them into a trap, he didn't want others to be hurt because he trusted too much, but ultimately they wanted him to stay there. If the ghost came back to his real body, it would be wise to have someone he knows most to be around. The third person to go was Toru in the advent.
It was a trap; she could cloak them inside of her field and help them escape danger while being invisible, and with that out of the way, they were off and away. Tokoyami, using his black fallen angel, flapped his wings, and as the group got closer to their destination, Toru used her quirk to hide them all as they landed before they searched the nearly abandoned and broken street, looking for a sign of some kind that would let them know what alley to best look at. Mineta was the first to see something interesting and dashed forward towards it. The signal, or at least he believed it was a signal, was the rapidly blinking on-and-off light that was hanging off a little ways from an alley. Kaminari had mentioned that his master was a monster now, so he assumed that could have been his doing.
Toru and Tokoyami didn't speed their way there as fast as the small boy; his small size and speed could potentially keep him from being seen, but when he had turned the corner and they heard yelling and scuffles between him and some other individuals, they abandoned their slow approach and sped their way into the alley. Mineta had engaged with several men in black suits and metal spears of some kind; they weren't monsters, however, but humans, and there were four of them, but two of them had their heads frozen over, no doubt from Mineta.
Mineta dodged a spear strike from another before using his pop-off orb to stick his hand to the wall and using his quirk again to splash water in another charging man's face, which tripped him up, allowing Mineta to use his ice to stick him into the ground. Mineta had subdued the four men quickly before turning his attention back to the lady on the ground. The group of three ignored the three men, all calling them traitors to the human race, and their leader, Acel, was correct in being hesitant towards them, but they continued to ignore them for now as they focused on the person on the floor. She looked like a typical human of some kind, but her teeth showed otherwise being razor sharp like a shark, just like Kirishima's, and her heart-shaped glasses were something that seemed fused with her face.
The duo slowly rolled her over to show a gruesome sight. Something had nearly disemboweled her; they could see the bone on some of the skin, along with some puncture wounds around her chest and two shoulders. It was a miracle she was still alive at all. All of them had limited first aid experience, but this was out of their depth. They had to do something, so the first thing they did was clean the wound. Going over the list of things Momo gave him for instruction, he allowed Mineta to craft medical alcohol to clean the wound. For the punctures, Toru quickly vibrated her light, getting it hotter and hotter so she could cauterize it. The moment it touched her, the monster jerks viciously and lets out a yelp of pain and anguish, but a dark shadow restrains it, holding her down.
The large wound on her stomach would take something else, however, than just cauterization. With the information given and some help from Momo over the phone, Mineta was able to make a chemical compound mix similar to that of a medical sponge, but in foam. On top of stopping the bleeding and clotting the wound, it should also enhance regeneration of the tissue and bone. But that was all the in-field work they could do; she was no longer in danger of bleeding out but likely still needed medical treatment to make a full recovery.
Now that she was stabilized, they turned their attention back to the men; they were still stuck and would be for the next hour given Mineta's estimates, and while he could have freed them sooner, he truthfully didn't want to give what they were about to do and what they had continued to say about him and his friends. The men had gone quiet however when toru had produced three vials of some kind she told the men that this was from that same "untrustworthy group" it was anti -venom for the poison that had afflicted three of their number during the day events mian had given them to her since there was a chance encounter and despite their attitude she would still follow through with her friends wishes only remarking that this "accel" should actually try to get to know them before judging them and leaving with the two other guys and being on their way with the monster, given the condition they couldn't exactly fly at full speed dark shadow having to carry them three of them in a large ball of light just so the monster wasn't receiving to much pressure on her wounds but she had fallen unconscious some time later but getting her to the hospital was just part of the solution given what just transpired they couldn't tell them what she actually was so they played it off with her being "related" to kirishima and the infused glasses being a weird fashion statement she as doing.
When it came down to putting a name, however, there were at a loss for words. Given how naming conditions work in this world and everyone has a single unique name, they would have had to come up with something good that either wasn't taken or someone just happened to look like her, but Asui boldly and suspiciously confidently told them that her name was Clair, and surprisingly, that worked. Although there came the second problem of the woman being a criminal, that was a lot less drastic than being regarded as a monster, so they took her in and would help her, but she would be transferred over to the association instead of being released, which they were completely fine with. The obvious question was how Asui knew what the girl's name was, and she admitted that she made a guess because her glasses and look were similar to hers.
She and Shoji had an encounter with her, but she ended up getting away. Shoji vaguely remembered that happening and complimented her for her good memory, along with dark shadows adding on, which meant that she was taken by the monster association and turned into a monster as well, so they were taking people and monsters; it seemed they discussed in hushed whispers. The class stayed for as long as possible and were permitted to stay after hours for some time due to the help of a doctor, but eventually, they all had to go back home, and they did so by carrying their real bodies back with them, being careful not to disrupt the man's concentration and hoping that he and the monsters were going to be okay, but as they all got home and realized that a member of their group was still not accounted for, they worried for Koda as well.
Monster association
Asterius, the mediocre group, Saren, and Volten all made their way down into the sewers. They proceeded along with many other monsters; the twists and turns seemed nearly endless, but eventually, they came into a large opening, and the new arrivals were greeted by a spectacle. It was a large arena or stadium of some kind. There were multiple rows, and each row was chalked full of monsters. As a small group of a little over 20 monsters headed inside the large colosseum, they were suddenly stopped as Gyro-Gyro went to address them as the large green, multi-eyed monster went to speak. The sounds of the monsters inside the place all started to die out almost completely. Saren did his best to remain out of the spotlight; he didn't want to be revealed just yet.
"Judging from the looks of things, I'll assume that the non-killing army didn't show up." Gyro-gyro remarked as he looked at them. It was the Phoenix man who was leading the group that replied first, taking a mock bow before doing so, but likely not in respect to him but to the giant behemoth behind him that sat at the center of everything.
"You would be correct in that assessment; they didn't even show up for the drop point, in fact," the Phoenix man remarked.
"So they have chosen their side; very well, it is of no bother or concern to me personally to those that had been hoping for them to sympathize with us. I hope you realize now that despite their mutations, they are still undoubtedly human and will still stand with human beings to the end, and to that end, they will be crushed just like the rest of them."Gryo-gryo stated that he was starting to speak to all the monsters in the area, receiving cheers in response. Some even commented on why they stopped the attack prematurely and how they could have crushed the heroes today if they attacked in full force, but Gyro-gyro stopped that train of thought as that was what led to the monster falling in the first place.
Their overconfidence would lead to their downfall, but not this time. This time they would gather more forces, and with the hostage bait, the heroes would be given the hostage, and with that, the upcoming battle would be on their terms. The hero association would likely commit their main battle strength, and with that gone, there would be almost no one left to protect humanity from the monster threat; it would be their turn to rule the world! While humanity is either extinguished in its entirety or they will be forced to hide and scurry in the darkness like they have been forced to, they will bring about this change in society with Orochi as their king!
The monsters were getting more and more excited as Gyro-Gyro spoke, but that was until he mentioned that last part, which the advisor took distinct notice of, questioning if they would not serve Lord Orochi. None dared speak for several moments until someone small monster near the top spoke up, stating that they were only present to get rid of the hero association and that their alliance officially ended. After that, there was no talking as several monsters waited with bated breath to see what would transpire next and if the monster king would speak. He did so with a deep, raspy voice, but it completely ignored the monster that spoke up.
"Why... are there defeated among us?" Orochi questioned, and as quick as the words left his voice, the tentacles on top of his head completely lashed out at lightning speed, embedding themselves into the upper rows, and then recoiling back in his having gored a monster. This black beetle-type monster, identified as the gyro-gyro, kicked and screamed as the puked-up blood from the speared tentacle passed through his stomach. None of the other monsters even attempted to stop what was transpiring but just gazed upon the spectacle with nothing but shock and fear as the monster king completely consumed the cockroach monster. Gryo-Gryo then counted DO-S as being the next to be consumed, failing in her task of capturing Tatsumkai's sister. Even though she was a mere B-class and he was a demon-level monster, the only thing that stayed in the monster king's hand or tentacle was that her ability was useful and that unfortunately, her student was even more incompetent than she was to have been killed off sometime during the day's events.
That left only one other person that was defeated and decided to show up again but gyro-gyro was surprised when the person in question had actually charged at him saren knowing that his time was likely up decided to strike first hoping to at least cut off the monsters associations intelligence before taking his leave, multiple tentacles dstrucked down from the monster ig which he avoided mostly each of them but one struck his "wounded" leg destroying the makeshift prospect but he was already pushing off with his other leg jumping through the air and he had hoped to slice Gyro-Gyro in half but he was suddenly halted as he was surrounded by sicily glowing energy completely halting his attacks, gryo-gryo taunted him and his pathetic state even after he was so sure of himself that he could kill atomic samurai but ended up failing and running away instead a swordsman without missing an arm wasn't much of anything at all so he held no more value to them or the organization so gryo-gryo simple started to twist and turn his body as saren struggles with the effort not because of the pain but the effort of maintaining the clone he coudln't let go until he was swallowed he felt the pain of this clone even at his real body but he bore with it as his bones were crushed and broken before mercifully being thrown into the monsters stomach and in their he finally relinquished his hold te last things he heard was that it was a shame that an potential executive was such a waste.
Taking Haragiri as an example Gyro-Gyro looked back up directly to the first person to speak up about not serving orochi, black sperm, and remarked that anyone not wanting to serve under the monster king was fully able to challenge him even at that very moment, and if he managed to beat him then they would follow their lead instead, and the small black sperm only responded that that was fine but didn't jump down to engage in combat, proving his subservience at least for the moment. Speaking of the cadre had gotten Orochi thinking as he shifted his eyes around the room. All the monsters he caught the gaze of scaredly stood back or huddled together.
"Where is Goketsu?" The monster king remarked suddenly that this got Gyro-Gyro's attention as he noticed and then proceeded to feel around when he couldn't feel his presence in the base. He was also confused as he replied to Orochi about how he didn't know either before he sent out his mini for himself and wasn't surprised when he could no longer find his body, but there was a sign of him being present. The destruction of C-city was only something a cadre was capable of. Gyro-Gyro was interrupted from his viewing when one of the monsters piped up into the room. Revealing that Goketsu was dead, if it wasn't for him just finding the large creature's body without its head. The vocal individual would be dead for such a claim, but for now, she wanted details levitating the electric monster up. Oh, this was one of the martial artists he believed, so it lent credence to his claims at least somewhat, but if that were true and someone was able to kill even Goketsu, then things would have to change. incredibly ordinary means would no longer be an option. The eclectic monster that went by Volten explained that Goketsu, after having engaged the Green Savior, had another encounter with a different hero. He couldn't make out the battle, but it was someone bald, but it wasn't darkshine. The person was too pale for that and wore a yellow suit of some kind, but that was all he knew.
Gyro-Gyro thanked this volten for the information, and now they knew that the association was hiding some sort of trump card up their sleeves, but going by the monster testament, the battle was a near thing, so while troubling, it was ultimately of no concern since they still had orochi, but they still could have even more in reserve. Perhaps they needed to scout for more information first. Either way, they made their name known not only to the public but to other monsters at large. More monsters will join their cause over the coming months, and then they will launch their trap. This bald man does bring him to pause. There was someone on the mountain as well who was pale and bald. Was he the one who killed the male wooly mammoth creature? Maybe he was just overestimating the threat; no one could beat Lord Orochi, so any unknown variable was pointless in the face of his overwhelming power.
Interrogation Room, Hero Association HQ
Koda sat silently as he was taken towards the hero association headquarters the rout was paved with twist and turns along with a couple of detours as they traveled along the path towards A-city the reason being due to the numerous amount of either destroyed or obstructed roads from the monster attack during the day all of which was a reminder of the reason he was being taken away he looked back towards the bus carrying both aki and torax as they traveled forwards thankfully they were still falling them for the time being but his paranoia always had him checking back every 10 or so minutes just to be sure that things stayed that way and it did for the entire nearly hour long journey in nothing but silence, once they got on the road to the association however it was mostly smooth sailing which surprised koda given that he would have thought the monster would have struck their first but maybe they had a reason of some kind A-city was mostly just a desolate wasteland other than the one City that lies at its center and it didn't completely gone un attack kirishima and momo told them about a monster break out that had occurred but he was somewhat relived that both game-berus and scaledon didn't run away which told him that maybe he had actually gotten to them in someway a brief moment of happiness flutter through his system before it vanished as the care came to a stop ad the people in suit demanded that he step out fo the car and proceed along with them and koda did so proceeding along as quickly and effecitntly as possible to be as cooperative as he could be even despite that the person behind him did rudely shove him once but he let it go and he told aki to not make in sudden moves as he heard the bear girl growl out form behind him.
The next thing koda knew was that he was in a dimly lit room, the dim light combined with the dark walls made the atmosphere more spooky but he guessed that was the point as he was asked to sit in the chair in the room across from a large table, thankfully both aki and torax were allowed to stay in there with him although both of them remained in chains and muzzled although he could still communicate with them at least somewhat, aki was confused about why all this was happening and torax was just unamused with what was happening exclaiming if the chains and things of that nature were really necessary but koda quickly got the tiger back on topic and wanted him to explain again what had transpired while he was unconscious and what had happened to the executive son given his attitude he didn't bother to remember his name which given the circumstances likely could be fairly suspicious of him but hopefully they wouldn't hold that against him that much he thought. The three of them waited for them for what seemed like forever, and in truth, it was an hour and a half before another man entered the room. He didn't expect it to be anyone he knew of, but in truth, he should have known they would have sent her to her field.
It was Exma, the person in charge of training and punishing lower-ranked heroes, who technically put him under her, given his protege forest general. The woman stepped, and the lights flashed brighter, momentarily blinding him, although seemingly not doing anything to the woman herself as she stepped and sat down across from him. The authority she commanded from just a glance and her icy tone when she began sent a slight chill down his spine, but the predictable topic gave him some peace of mind.
The women asking him to retell events from his perspective and he did all that he known from up until the point where he had fallen asleep and she nodded her head pleased now came the difficult part what happened next, koda remarked that he didn't know what happened next but the two heroes pineapple and mohican had explained in their report that the tiger monster had taken all of them and attempted to flee although upon being cornered by three more monster had frozen now they speculated that maybe the building crashing over the tiger head had overridden the orders you had given it and put it in a default state where it did not move or attack forcing them to fight against the monsters which they were unsuccessful in and where knocked unconscious, koda nodded the women than asked if he would like to add anything that was missing and koda attempted to take most of the blame away from torax adding on that it was because of his order that was likely the reason torax gave away the child the last thing he ordered was for torax to protect him and he decided in that moment the best way to do so was by abandoning the son, who was the monster mian objective and why they were chasing us in the first place koda explained but this brought a new line of questioning.
She then started to question how his powers worked in the event that he was unconscious or separated from the monster; she didn't believe or wasn't informed that his control extended to that extent, but before Koda could reply, she continued, stating that it was an interesting discovery that two of the monsters that he most visited were also being rather obedient, despite him now having control over them during the outbreak, not leaving their cells even though they could have, and on top of that, another monster that is visited by another number in your group tape Weaver also did not leave its cell during said outbreak, and she asked if he could control the monster from so far away or was it a device that he had a metal knight install into them that would dispense his voice to calm them down, and Koda shook his head no, which the women found interesting.
She had pressed a button on the table, and all of a sudden the door opened, and rolling inside was a large black cage. Whatever was inside was angry and definitely hated humans, as it cursed their names in a number of expressions that he knew and didn't know about. But the woman was unphased by it as she carried on with her questioning. She wanted to see his power in action against this extremely violent monster, which she had hoped to pacify, as she began unlocking the clamps slowly, one by one, but Koda didn't even let her get halfway before he finally admitted that he couldn't control them and that it was a lie. If the girl was surprised by the revelation, he didn't know, as her posture or demeanor did not change. She merely filed that away on a notepad before continuing to the next topic. While she pressed a button on the case, it slowly lit up orange. The screams of anger swiftly turned into pain as the monster was burned to ash right before his very eyes.
Koda gulped as he turned his attention back to both Torax and Aki and then back to the woman, who stared at him for several moments before saying that she was waiting. It was at this moment that Torax finally just decided to start speaking about the situation himself; it was about him after all. The woman wasn't completely baffled by the tiger suddenly talking, but it did slightly throw off her cool as she hastily turned her attention its way before settling back down in her suave persona again and allowing the monster to speak its truth. What torax wasn't all too different from what koda told her only that he admitted that any action he had taken was one of his own volition, the reason he didn't fight the monster was because they seemed fairly strong at least as strong as himself, the reason he pointed them towards where metal bat was is to increase the chance of him being able to escape but the rhino was fairly powerful as well likely stronger than him by a small margin let alone him trying to protect four passengers at the same time so he settled for what was best for koda as he said he would and he added on for a personal record he didn't like the kid very much which corroborates the story of the father saying that you attempted to kill him previously to the attack but torax scoffed at that a merely scared him if I wanted to kill him he'd be dead torax replied although koda again doesn't like when he says things like that especially right now the tiger needed at least a little more tact in situations like these he thought.
The three of them discussed a bit more about the situation and were about to conclude the session that they should probably deal with the mole you have within the place as he smelled a monster when he was coming in here, this caught all of their attention as exma wanted him to explain, torax would have shrugged if he could but he said again that he smelled a monster scent coming from one of the members a light skin man with dirty blonde hair and a striped tie, he could show them if she would let him and despite herself exma looked to the tiger than looked to koda who at the same time received a message from his phone which was on exam side of the table it read that there was a mole in the hero association somewhere as well, now this made the women take action while she didn't trust the tiger yet she wanted to believe in the teens connections just this once as she released the tiger but not the cub, only remarking that if he was right about it than they would release the cub as well and if not then you both will die, Torac snarckly replied that he would be sure to take her with him in that case. As they exited the room, she was solely in charge of the questioning, and seeing her with Koda put others off for the moment. They went through the halls of the association, twisting and turning, but when they passed one person, in particular, Torax gave the signal to Koda, which in turn gave to Exma, and with a quick twist and snap kick breaking the man's leg and a concealed extendable electric baton hit to the head, it completely took the man out and unconscious. The competition drew attention, but given the person who did it, no one questioned it and followed the woman's orders to take the unconscious man to an inspection table for a diagnostic check.
With that out of the way three retreated into the interrogation room as they waited for the results, koda was fairly nervous but torax was confident in his sent and the aura the man was giving off and after 30 minutes they got their answer, and torax correct inside of the man in question was a large parasite of some kind that was located in the man's chest she ignored all further questions and simply asked to be left alone for the moment, the women fulfilled her side of the bargain unlocking aki which let out a big stretch but they weren't out of the woods just yet, she wanted them to explain to her how their friends knew of a spy in the association as well and this was where it got real dicey but she tested him this far maybe she could trust him just a little bit more? As he revealed to her that they had a mole multiple insides of the monster association hideout, hearing that news completely flattened the woman, and this time she didn't recover quickly; she just mentally took a moment to reset herself as she guessed what these moles were doing, but she merely commended him for his efforts, and that given the time of day and everything that happened, she would let him off early for the moment, but he could guarantee that she, the rest of his class, and likely stitch, as she suspected that he likely knows great deals will be having discussions about everything. Koda simply thanked the women, and together they all left the headquarters. She drove Koda and the two monsters back to their residence.