Rule #26d: Everyone is unbeatable until they're not

The silence in the room was awkward, heavy and tense after Ritsu stopped talking because no one really knew what to say to that. Afterall, what do you say to something like that? What can you say after finding out that you were standing in—what was essentially—the cattle farm of both the Hero Public Safety Commission and Doctor Yanagisawa & associates?

Not to mention the ties that bound the Paranormal Liberation Front and the League of Villain to this place…What could you say to something like that? Surely the Paranormal Liberation Front weren't in on this, right? Because their whole thing was the liberation of Quirk users, not the enslavement and harvesting of them. This seemed like a little left field, for them. Unfortunately, the invisible girl could not say the same for the child-hiring, assassin-rearing Hero Public Safety Commission.

In the end, it was the grape-haired hero who was the one to break the silence; but even that seemed like an effort and a half. "Sooooooooo…" Mineta audibly swallowed, tongue thick and heavy in his mouth. "What are we gonna do about…all of this? I mean, we can't just leave them here and we can't just unplug them, either. So what do we do?"

"Now, it would be a good idea to contact les héros" Aoyama decided with a finality and a terse nod as he tried to connect to their counterparts up on the surface. The others did the same as they pressed repeatedly upon the comms that they were given, but to no avail.

"We're in too deep" Toru murmured when all they received back was the crackly noise of static.

"Literally" Mineta agreed with chuff, "So, again I ask, what do we do? This is so wrong"

"Oui, we cannot leave them like this" Aoyama nodded, "It is dommage"

"So what?" Toru scoffed, "We just pull the plug on, perhaps, hundreds of comatose kids, killing them?"

"That is not what I am saying!" Mineta scowled, "Don't go putting words in my mouth—!"

"—Hey! You implied it—!"

TSSSSSS!

And then, whilst the teenagers were all preoccupied with what they were going to do with the sedated children, a gentle hissing noise sounded on the horizon. It was faint—faint enough to be swallowed up by their nervous chatter—but it was there nonetheless. And it was an omen of bad things to come, for the hiss of a pod's doors opening meant the release of the one and only nomu in the adjoining room. The very same nomu whom they had seen only moments before; the one who bore the tentacles of Korosensei and the physique of a hunched All Might on steroids.

"…Uh, mes amis?" Aoyama hesitantly interjected, when he noticed the silhouette of something humanoid in the doorway. He was seemingly the only one, but he didn't like how it loomed over them from the doorway, nor how those beady eyes seemed to watch them with this unnerving sort of intelligence. The Frenchman was of the strong opinion that something forcefully rebuilt in sixteen weeks should not have that sort of look upon its face.

"Huh? What is it?" Toru asked, turning to the twinkling hero with a question in her eye.

"Turn around…!" He hissed, panic clear in his face.

Her brows pulled down into a furrow. "What? Why?"

GRRRR!

"…Oh" Toru squeaked as her eyes blew wide. She spun on her heel, turning around at the noise as her eyes locked with the giant looming nomu behind them. "Nevermind"

"What? Buh—but that's not possible!" Ritsu's brows furrowed as she double-checked the litany of vitals at her fingertips.

"Tell him that!" Mineta squeaked in nervousness as the teenagers collectively backed away from the freshly-awoken nomu.

Now free from its capsule, the nomu was a frightening thing. Unlike that of the nomu in the past, this one stood overwhelmingly tall with tentacles which protruded from the neck and that waved about as if independent from its body. If this nomu were anything like the other ones (or even the other Tentacle Serum users), they were going to be in for a tough time. And that wasn't the fear talking, that was just fact.

Stumbling over her own feet and the cables on the floor, Toru felt her heart rate pick up as the nomu sauntered forward, cracking each individual knuckle until they popped like bubblewrap, and stretched out as much as possible within the limited space. He filled up the room like he was made of the shadows that resided there, and what little spots that it couldn't touch were reached by the tentacles that floated about on a breeze, unfelt. It was a frightening picture, nonetheless.

Toru barely had time to blink before the nomu launched himself through the double doors, across the room towards the clutter of young heroes, with clawed hands outstretched. As her peers' and her own screeches rang in her ears, the invisible girl had a brief moment to notice how the veins on the nomu's thick forearms twitched just so before she was slammed back against the linoleum with enough force to violently knock the air from her lungs.

Her eyes bulged out of her skull at the impact, almost to the point that her field of vision doubled. Although that might've been because of the dizziness that erupted across her vision when her head was unceremoniously smacked against the ground, knocking her brain about in its cranium cage as she scrabbled for even the teensiest breath of air.

Absently, she noted how the lights in the room surged & flickered violently in tune with her panic. Then again, that could've just been her mind playing tricks on her because there was so little air getting to said brain, as her companions tried their best to pry the nomu off of her. "Whoa! What's…going on…here…?" Mineta grunted as he & Aoyama grabbed a hold of the arm strangling Toru, and yanked it back with as much force as they could manage.

"Who…let this…monstre…out?!" Aoyama added as he did the same to the other.

"No clue—!" Ritsu called back from the monitors. "I'll have to check—!"

"Do…it!" The two boys chorused as they continued to heave on the two arms with all of their strength.

It wasn't much, but there was just enough room for the invisible girl to wiggle free and retreat into the safety of the shadows. Toru kept backpedalling until her back slammed up against the monitors behind her, coughing and hacking for breath, as she tried to regain some semblance of clarity. But in doing so, she was forced to leave the others to the wrath of the rampaging nomu. Oh well, she'd feel bad about it later when she was, y'know, alive and breathing.

Across the way, the battle (if you could call it that) raged on as the albino's breath came in wheezing gasps that, mercifully over time, eventually eased out into hoarse, but manageable rasps. She knew that she couldn't hide in the corner forever, no matter how much she'd prefer to do so, particularly as a rather large blast of…something pulsated around the tentacle that stabbed into the ground not too far from her hiding spot. The attack rattled the room—including her little impromptu safe haven—and the invisible girl was, once again, reminded of the fact that neither Korosensei nor Aizawa-sensei, nor any of the Big Three were there to take on the heavy hitter with the usual bullheadedness that they seemed to sport and scrape by, by the skin of their teeth.

Of course, she knew that the other sidekicks could handle themselves well enough in a fair fight (they wouldn't have gotten this far if they couldn't) but this? This wasn't a fair fight, not by a looong shot. Unbidden, her hand reached up to cup the large bruise that was already forming around her throat in an ugly purple as the lights danced about, swaddling her tight in the shadows of the room.

The nomu's hand had felt monstrous around her small throat; like if he had tightened his grip even the tiniest smidge then her head would've popped clean off, like it was nothing more than a pimple. It was terrifying to think that the nomu hadn't really needed to use his whole hand to encapsidate her—the forefinger and thumb would've been more than enough—but it had wanted to use the whole hand. It had wanted to feel the very moment when the life left her, right down to the very last pulse.

If she wasn't already trying to calm her racing heart, she was sure she would've pissed herself…or maybe she already had and her Quirk had just been too hot for it to stick around long enough, drying up almost as soon as it left her bowels. Swallowing down her fears as she accepted that she would never get her heart rate back to normal, Toru rocked up onto the balls of her feet and quietly waited for a lull in the fight.

A beat passed.

Then two more before the time came and Toru flung herself across the room in much the same manner that the nomu had done to her only minutes, previously. She launched herself upwards, grappling the monster around the middle and immediately began to scale the nomu like a tree. Caught off-guard, the nomu stumbled backwards a pace or two, nearly tripping over its own feet now that it was a little more top-heavy than before. But it didn't topple all the over, much to the invisible girl's chagrin.

Slim legs wrapped themselves tightly around the nomu's neck in a half-assed attempt to slow the beast down, but it only served to anger him more as he thrashed about, trying to remove her. Still, Toru clung on. Light burst out from every inch of her body, wrapping the meaty creature up in a heated hug from hell (although, her fingertips barely touched each other as she wrapped herself around its neck).

The nomu screeched and wailed at the sensation as it tried, in vain, to removed her from its person. Toru winced at the noise now ringing in her ears, but she still did not let go. Although, all of this noise wasn't doing anything good to the ringing in her head from that smack against the ground. She probably had a concussion, if she thought about it. Instead, she was more focused on the stench of burning flesh that met her nose in an instant. It made the albino gag as it clawed at her senses, although she did her best not to let go, 'least something worse befall her than an upset stomach or a fall from this kind of height. Afterall, it wouldn't do to be trampled underfoot or worse.

Toru grunted in pain, legs loosening when the nomu slammed her up against the closest laboratory walls, in an effort to pull her off. But she persisted—badly, but she persisted. Unfortunately (and predictably) the nomu was stronger than her, even for a being that was regrown in a mere sixteen weeks—especially so—and—even without her newest injuries—she could only hold on for so long.

Eventually, the invisible girl's grip began to fade—on both her Quirk and the rampaging nomu she held onto—and she was shoved from its nape without much fanfare. Exhaustion easily slipped into her bones and her body's command to sleep was only aide by the bright red gas that had been dispersed through the air vents and gathered in the room like a thick smoker's fog. Toru's eyelids felt heavy despite the racing of her pulse in her veins that would beg otherwise. And then her eyes slid shut against her own will.

Toru slumped forward, folding in on herself long before she even hit the ground for a second time, where she laid out in a puddle of limbs and surging lights. The last thing she saw was the laboratory door hissed open once more, the flutter of a white coat and the gleam of a gas mask flashed across her vision before the darkness claimed her fully & wholly.