Izuku POV, one week later
An alarm blares. I close my laptop and climb to my feet.
"Kurogiri, portal to the war room."
I step through the black miasma and wait for the others to arrive. Hitoshi is the first, likely the one who called the alarm in the first place.
"Izuku, we've got an interesting situation. One of our warehouses in Hosu has been attacked. Most likely a rival gang, but our contacts are not responding so it could be anything."
"What kind of warehouse is this? Do we have anything important there?"
"It's an arms depot. Rifles, handguns, and a hell of a lot of ammunition. Nothing too valuable. The stock was meant to be sold to some Chinese traders next week, but clearly, someone learnt about the deal. Should be a simple kill and retrieve job."
Aki and Eva arrive. I give the two a moment to get their outfits sorted before gesturing to Hitoshi.
"Hitoshi, describe the battlefield. We'll head out after that. Kurogiri should be able to drop us off remotely as usual."
Hitoshi takes his phone and pulls up a satellite view of the site.
"Alright, the warehouse is on the Hosu City docks. It's 2AM right now so there shouldn't be any civilians around. My plan is simple, we warp into the middle of the warehouse, kill whoever's attacking, and then retrieve whatever stock we have left."
Hitoshi turns to address Eva.
"Eva, try to keep this clean. We don't want to cause a noise complaint at 2AM, that risks bringing in Heroes. No punching people through ceilings and absolutely no mass-scale property damage."
She looks vaguely offended but has enough decency to nod. With that out of the way, I fasten my bone-white mask over my face.
"Kurogiri, we're ready."
My dutiful servant bows lightly.
"As you wish, Master Izuku. You will arrive in the centre coordinates of the warehouse."
The portal opens. I step through the swirling mist with my comrades at my side. I'm immediately greeted by the sight of a half dozen Heroes surrounding us.
We've walked right into an ambush.
Ah.
I take a quick count of the Heroes before me. Endeavour with his son, Edgeshot, Gang Orca, and Kamui Woods. Heavy hitters. They've probably realised that bringing along additional cannon fodder would achieve nothing more than increasing casualties.
They must be expecting collateral damage. They've likely evacuated everywhere nearby. Perfect, I won't have to hold back too much.
Endeavour interrupts my internal monologue with a grunt.
"The Elite. So we meet at last. We've jammed all communication frequencies, so you can't call in your teleporter. If you come quietly you may leave today without broken limbs."
We're surrounded. The only way out is to fight.
I smile behind my mask.
"Well, this should be mildly entertaining."
The Heroes tense. Endeavour lets out a bark of laughter before turning to his son.
"Now Shoto, watch as I teach these fools a lesson in humility-"
There's a sonic boom as Eva uppercuts him through the ceiling. She crouches for a moment before exploding upward in a motion so fast the shockwave tears the roof from the warehouse entirely. The room is suddenly plunged into moonlight.
"GET THEM!"
The Heroes begin their attack. A wave of ice rushes forward while Edgeshot and Gang Orca make for a frontal assault.
Aki splits the incoming ice with a wedge-shaped barrier.
The glacier forms a wall between us and the Heroes. Then, Gang Orca lets loose a sonic attack. A hole is blasted straight through the ice wall and drives me to my knees. A cloud of ice shards and dust blinds me momentarily.
I realise their plan the moment the ice fragments clear. Edgeshot is standing mere metres away from Hitoshi, the armoured boy turning with his rifle in hand.
"Armaros!"
Hitoshi opens fire, but Edgeshot is just too fast. He transforms into a paper-thin whip that weaves between the incoming bullets.
Edgeshot hits an orange barrier centimetres before he would have reached Hitoshi.
He's fast. Too fast.
I need more quirks. But, I need to be subtle. I can't just activate my entire brute loadout and smear him across the pavement.
I activate Hyper Reflexes, alongside two speed enhancement quirks. My perception of the world slows.
Edgeshot crouches. He activates his quirk. A thin red thread zips to my left at supersonic speed, before suddenly changing direction directly at me. No normal villain could react to such rapid movement.
Unfortunately for him, I am hardly your average villain.
The thread stretches out toward my neck. I need to attack faster than Edgeshot can change direction. I wait for it to get within arm's reach.
Now. I snap out a hand and activate Decay.
Direct contact.
"EDGESHOT!"
The Hero untransforms and stumbles back. His costume has been shredded, a torrent of blood pouring onto the concrete beneath his feet. His arm has been mostly stripped of tissue. His ulnar and radial bones are visible, with wet tendons and veins hanging in the air.
He wavers on his feet.
"H-how?"
I make no effort to move toward him. There is no point. He is already too injured to continue fighting.
Edgeshot is a noble Hero, one who focuses on saving lives above all else. Killing him would be a mistake. It would result in nothing more than allowing scum to take his place.
I take a step back.
"You are a good Hero. You do not deserve to die."
Edgeshot regains his composure and transforms, dashing away. I deactivate my additional quirks and slot in durability quirks once again.
The Heroes recover quickly. Gang Orca begins throwing chunks of concrete at me. I lazily disintegrate each incoming projectile with a wave of my hand. Todoroki's incoming ice attacks are continuously split by Aki's barriers, spilling out and knocking down the walls of the warehouse.
There's a continuous sound of gunfire as Hitoshi dumps thirty rounds of armour-piercing ammo into Gang Orca. The bullets seem to be causing him discomfort, but not enough to seriously harm him.
"YO FISH BOY, YOU STINK! TAKE A SHOWER!"
Gang Orca responds with a rather furious sonic attack that is easily blocked by one of Aki's barriers.
"C'MON HEROES, AREN'T YOU ANGRY? MAD? RESPOND TO ME!"
To their credit, the Heroes have enough brainpower to ignore the obvious taunts. They clearly know of his quirk.
"RAAAAAAAAAAH! I'M GOING TO SHOOT YOU IN THE DICK! TALK TO ME YOU FIN-FLAPPING GILL-GAPING WATER BREATHING FISH HEADED BOOTLEG DOLPHIN LOOKING MOTHERFUCKER!"
It takes a lot of willpower not to activate Sound Bubble. Instead, I just do my best to tune out Hitoshi's yelling. It's almost meditative once you get used to it.
Kamui Woods sends out a Lacquered Chain Prison toward me and I disintegrate it with a flick of my wrist. He seems rather lost, perhaps realising that his quirk is of little use against us. Aki's barriers are perfectly capable of cutting through his wood as well.
There's a lull in the fighting as the Heroes reassess the situation. Endeavour is gone, and Edgeshot is out for the count. None of their ranged attacks have been achieving much of anything, and their melee fighters can't get near me. It's a stalemate. They're going to need-
The ground shakes. An earthquake? Ah, that will be Eva. I can only hope that she hasn't broken too many of Endeavour's bones yet.
Eva POV, one minute ago
Endeavour floats overhead, blood pouring from his face. His costume is torn and his body is shaking. He's weak.
"YOU ARE JUST VILLAIN. YOU CAN'T DEFEAT ME. I WON'T ALLOW IT. I. WON'T. ALLOW. IT."
Endeavour lets out a scream and fires off another Hell Spider attack. A dozen beams of thermal energy arc through the air toward me. I dodge to the best of my ability but one or two still strike me, leaving mild burns on my skin.
Even without Energy Stockpile active, Endeavour is simply too weak to pose much of a threat. Activating my stockpiling quirk would be extreme overkill. Izuku would be very unhappy if I accidentally killed him, the politics would be tiring.
I flick my arms behind me and accelerate straight at him. The Hero dodges mere moments before impact, playing right into my hands. I kick a leg out and use the air pressure to flip me around to be directly behind him.
He twists, just in time to face me. I snap my hands out and grab the front of his costume, pulling him close. The two of us stare eye to eye. His fire warms my skin, unable to do more than discomfort me.
For a moment, we float in silence. The only sound to be heard is the whistling of the wind.
I glance down at the building directly below us.
"Do not worry. You will survive this. I am reasonably certain of it."
I kick both of my dangling legs straight up in the air. The wind screeches as we plummet toward the building that is now rapidly approaching. I hear Endeavour scream as he realises what's about to happen.
"NO!"
His back impacts the 50th floor in a collision that shatters concrete and steel. He makes contact with the ground floor just over a second later. The building groans, now cored out like an apple.
Endeavour crawls to his knees. His eyes are wild, bloodshot and full of hatred. One of his arms is limp, undoubtedly broken. He looks half-dead.
"N-no. This can't be happening. T-this can't be happening."
I take a step back, looking down at the man panting before me.
"I thought you would be stronger. I have not activated my quirk even once throughout this fight. I am forced to hold back to avoid accidentally killing you. Pathetic."
He staggers to his feet, wavering like a leaf.
"No. No more. I REFUSE TO LOSE. TO YOU. TO ANYONE."
My eye level is above his head. I look down at him.
"Childish. Weak. But what should I have expected from a man who has failed to ever compare to All-"
His fire turns blue.
Izuku POV
Todoroki is forced to hide behind his ice once again as Hitoshi opens fire with his rifle.
"Todoroki-kun, are you okay? Come on, you can trust me! I just want to know that you're safe!"
Todoroki seems rather annoyed at Hitoshi. Or maybe he just looks that way in general. He seems like an unhappy person.
I hear the sound booming sound of thunder in the distance, followed by the distinct high-pitched cracks of lightning. Is Eva using her Energy Stockpile? Endeavour shouldn't be strong enough for that to be required.
Perhaps she is simply showing off? She might be bored. This fight has been rather tiring, maybe I should follow her lead.
I turn to my companions and raise my hand to my ear. I open and close my hand twice in quick succession.
'Going loud.'
I slap both palms to the ground and push Decay outward. There's a dull grinding sound as a chasm is carved in the direction of the Heroes.
Kamui Woods manages to grab Gan Orca and save him from plummeting into the growing abyss below. Todoroki skates away and avoids the expanding ravine entirely. In less than ten seconds I've managed to carve out a pit beneath the Heroes.
Before I can begin monologuing, the air raid sirens start going off.
The Heroes freeze. Air raid sirens are only played during national emergencies, or S-class villain attacks with extreme collateral damage. The last time these protocols were used would have been when Nine attacked Fukuoka City. The fight we are currently in does not qualify by any means.
What on earth is Eva doing?
The ground shakes. I hear deafening explosions intermixed with cracks of lightning in the distance. Something is wrong, Endeavour should not be putting up this much of a fight. Hitoshi grabs my shoulder.
"Azazel, what on earth is going on?"
I shake my head.
"I have no idea."
I can see the Heroes furiously talking into their intercoms, probably trying to determine what is going on. Then, the flashes of lightning stop. There's silence for several seconds.
The smell of ozone fills the air.
Eva lands next to me, instantly shattering the concrete beneath her feet. She looks… ragged. She's covered in burns and most of her outfit has been melted into her skin. She's producing lightning, meaning she has all six of her quirks active.
"Change of plans. Endeavour has undergone a quirk awakening. He's heavily injured, but I can no longer overpower him. We are currently in a stalemate. We need to leave."
I blink. I blink again.
"I'm sorry, did you just say that the number two Hero has undergone a quirk awakening?"
I hear the sound of a plasma torch. Endeavour streaks overhead before coming to a stop perhaps a hundred metres away.
He's fast. Much faster than normal.
Instead of the vast ball of red fire he normally has, he is instead wrapped in a tight corona of sapphire. It's almost beautiful.
He's blurry. Hazey. The heat emitting from his quirk is enough that I can feel the moisture on my lips evapourating.
"Villains… I… will…"
He hovers shakily in place mid-air. One of his legs seems to be broken, while one of his arms is entirely limp. There's a gash across his chest that goes so deep I can see the white of his ribcage poking through. It's a miracle the man is even conscious.
"I… w-will…"
He spasms, vomiting profusely. The liquid is turned into superheated steam the moment it leaves his mouth.
Endeavour raises a hand, clearly beyond words.
Blue.
So very blue.
Neon plasma strikes against Aki's bubble shield. The beam splits, dividing in all directions. Buildings are reduced to slag in an instant. Concrete is turned into liquid. Asphalt ignites. Magma pours and laps at the edge of Aki's barrier in waves.
The rest of the Heroes are forced to run for their lives as the air temperature reaches unbearable levels outside of the dome. Endeavour does not care about collateral damage.
Aki is forced to drop to one knee as her barrier strains under the sheer force of his attack. This is an order of magnitude beyond anything I've ever seen him emit. The chasm I formed with Decay is immediately filled in as the terrain is turned into the mouth of an active volcano.
He's powerful. Too powerful. If Eva is locked in a stalemate with him, then the only way to overpower him would be...
For me to go all out.
But I can't reveal All For One. Not yet.
I watch molten lava flow around us as it begins to submerge Aki's dome barrier. We need an exit plan.
"Apollyon. I need you to distract him. We will retreat east. Armaros, how large of a radius do you think the jammer has?"
"Probably four or five kilometres. I'm guessing they have it somewhere near the warehouse. If we sprint, we should be out of range within two or three minutes."
"Perfect. Keres, drop the barrier and reform it around you three. I will disintegrate the magma on my own. Apollyon will fight Endeavour and group back up with us at the boardwalk."
Everything outside of the shield has become nothing more than a sea of molten lava. The liquid has risen, covering the barrier in its entirety. There's no way of knowing just how much molten rock there is beyond the barrier. We could be under an ocean by now for all we know.
"On my mark."
The others group up together. I push a hand out in either direction and clear my mind.
"Three, two, one. Mark."
The barrier drops. The air is pulled from my lungs. The sweat on my face evaporates instantly. My eyeballs become unbearably dry. I activate three durability quirks out of reflex.
There's a roar as a city block's worth of molten concrete rushes toward me.
I activate Decay.
The lava is divided in the same way Moses split the Red Sea. Thousands of tonnes of red hot liquid is turned into clouds of ash and dust. But it's not enough. The lava pushes further and further as Endeavour's attacks enter the mix, forcing the lava to pour faster and faster.
I can't keep up. I feel a pressure build up in the back of my head as Decay is pushed into overuse.
I fall to my knees as the last of the lava disintegrates. Aki drops her final barrier, exposing all four of us to the air.
"NOW!"
Eva leaps at Endeavour. She blocks the incoming turquoise beam with a punch. For a moment, the night turns to daytime. The shockwave drives the air from my lungs.
The three of us sprint in the opposite direction as Eva faces Endeavour in one-on-one combat. In times like this, I wish I could use all my quirks. Go all out. But secrecy must be maintained.
Hitoshi is forced to duck under a piece of shrapnel. He grunts.
"Do you think she'll be okay?"
I twist my head around. Endeavour delivers a gut punch that causes Eva to double over. She responds with a kick that sends him crashing through a pillar of molten lava. The sky lights up as plumes of magma explode into the air.
"I think she'll be fine. The better question is, will the city survive this fight?"
The three of us reach the docks and turn. The Earth shakes beneath us as the terrain is rapidly torn apart in the battle. The water around the docks is visibly beginning to boil.
I pull my cellphone from my breast pocket and thumb at it. No signal.
"Come on, come on, work you stupid thing!"
Signal.
I tap on Kurogiri's icon.
A portal forms several seconds later.
"Armaros, go! Keres will guard the portal, I will wait for Apollyon!"
I look up and scan the horizon. Flashes of light cast shadows in the thunderclouds overhead. Are they… fighting above the cloud layer?
Endeavour drops below the clouds. He's punted into the ocean like a stone cast from a sling. A cloud of steam the size of a city block erupts as he hits the water. He probably just caused an ecological disaster by cooking half of the fish in the ocean.
Eva streaks over and lands beside me. She brushes pieces of charcoal from her mostly liquified outfit. She has bruises on top of her bruises, and her skin is peeling like an onion. Without Resilience she would have been cooked like a baked potato.
"Apollyon, are you okay?"
She rolls her shoulders. I try my best to ignore the distant sound of Endeavour's raging.
"I am in a remarkable amount of pain. We should go, I am running low on stamina and Endeavour is rather upset."
I feel the temperature of the air increasing, indicating the Heroes approach. Endeavour rockets toward us. I take a moment to give the man a wave, before stepping through the portal with Eva at my side.
The last thing I hear is a furious yell before the portal closes.
Mirio POV, six hours later
I stand behind Sir as he sits down at the table. We're at the police precinct performing interviews. Sitting across from Sir is Shoto Todoroki, Endeavour's son. He seems remarkably unshaken, all things considered.
"Todoroki. My name is Sir Nighteye, and this is my assistant Lemillion. I will be conducting a brief interview today to get your statement regarding the incident."
Todoroki purses his lips but does not speak. He seems uncomfortable. Perhaps embarrassed?
"Now, first of all. Could you briefly describe what happened during the fight?"
"We were in the warehouse waiting. The villains teleported in through a black portal. Father started monologuing to me when the girl hit him."
"How would you describe her?"
He pauses.
"Strong. Her speed and power reminded me of All might-sensei. She could have killed us all if she wanted to. Father wouldn't have been able to react fast enough to stop her in time. I… I didn't realise that villains could be so powerful. It scares me."
Sir scribbles down a note. 'investigate Apollyon quirk'. He underlines the sentence several times before looking back to the pale boy.
"Thank you, Todoroki. Could you continue with your recap of events?"
He nods.
"After that, the fight started. I stayed at range and kept sending out icebergs, but it wasn't doing much. Azazel's disintegration quirk was too strong for me to overpower with my ice. Keres and her forcefield were able to block Gang Orca's attacks, and Edgeshot… wasn't fast enough to dodge Azazel. The fight became a stalemate until Apollyon and Father came back. At that point, we were forced to retreat when Father did his usual thing."
Sir scribbles down some more notes.
"Thank you. What is your analysis of the fight overall?"
Todoroki is silent for several seconds.
"I was useless. We were all useless. We lacked a win condition. None of our melee fighters could get near Azazel. Edgeshot went in to attack but Azazel reacted almost inhumanly fast and took him down instantly. We lacked the ranged firepower to get through Keres and her forcefields. If Father did not have a quirk awakening the villains would have beaten us with little effort. I'm not good enough."
I immediately make a mental note to refer him to Hound Dog. The poor boy is taking this hard, he needs counselling.
"Todoroki, you did your best. You are just a student, we do not expect you to be able to defeat professional villains so early in your career. You should not have been there at all. Your father used his influence to allow him to get around the normal internship rules. Is there anything else you wanted to add?"
"There is one more thing. There was something odd I noticed when Armaros used his quirk. I was told in the briefing that it only worked when you responded to it, but every time he spoke to me I felt a… compulsion to reply. I almost did at one point."
Sir pauses. He pushes his glasses up his face, an obvious tell that he is surprised.
"Could you confirm what you just said? That you felt a compulsion to reply to him when he spoke to you? Do you believe that this could be the work of his quirk?"
Todoroki shrugs lazily, either not sensing the intensity of Sir's inquiry or simply not caring.
"Yes. I felt like I could trust him. It felt like a friend asking me a question. I was able to resist, but it would be easy to have a lapse of judgement. The information we had on the villains was clearly out of date. I was told they were A-class villains, not S-class."
Sir tightens his grip on his pen. He is still for a moment before suddenly giving a sharp nod.
"Thank you, Todoroki. You may leave now."
Sir stands and gestures for me to follow as he takes us further into the precinct. I match his stride and walk beside him.
"Mirio, analysis. What are the ramifications of Endeavour's quirk awakening?"
Ah, another test. Time to put my brain to work.
"Well, it was unexpected. Quirk awakenings are extremely rare, having one occur to the number two Hero is exciting and will be a frontline talking point for months. It should provide a much-needed morale boost for other Heroes as well."
"Public reception?"
"The commission will spin this as a victory. They will explain his failure to capture the villains as being due to all the injuries he gained beforehand. They will imply in interviews and headlines that Endeavour would have won if he were not already injured. It might even be true, we do not know enough about his new quirk awakening to know for sure what his limits are. Endeavour's popularity will shoot up. They'll plaster his face on billboards, talk shows and radio advertisements. The HPSC will try to use him as a symbol."
"How will Endeavour react to his new power?"
"... I imagine he would be happy? He's always had the goal of being the number one Hero. Toshinori is rapidly losing his strength, so there will likely be a period where he takes that place. I've never met Endeavour myself but I'm sure he would do a fine job. He certainly has the "fire" power for it now. Heh."
Nighteye hums.
"Mirio. I am proud of you. You will be a fantastic Hero."
Mirio POV, four hours later
I pause the video. The footage is too distant and blurry to make out the figures in any real detail, but it's more than enough to get a sense of power. I lean back and get a good look at the number one Hero.
"Toshinori, how do you think Apollyon compares to the USJ villain that you faced?"
The skeleton of a man makes no effort to move. He stares at the screen.
"... Toshinori?"
He leans toward the monitor, eyes locked to the blurry image of Apollyon floating mid-air.
"Mirio. Tell me everything you know about this villain."
.
.
A/N:
A lot of people will be confused about why I gave Endeavour a quirk awakening. The answer is actually extremely simple.
The power levels in MHA are fucked up. Seriously, how many Heroes are comparable to All might when he was running on the last embers of his quirk? Star and Stripe (who is probably comparable to prime OFA?). That is literally it. The series is so stupidly top-heavy that I just can't make Hero society make sense. I want this AU to actually have some characters that are reasonably powerful in order to actually flesh out this universe. I promise I won't do this too much, but I'm not going to have All might and Mirio do LITERALLY EVERYTHING for the entire story while every other Hero stands on the sidelines. That's bad writing.
Also Endeavour vs Eva was partially inspired by Jogo vs Sukuna. It's a cool fight.
I'll see you all next time :)