Izuku observed Bakugo blasting trees to splinters while sweating like a hog, Todoroki alternating between freezing and boiling alive in a tiny wooden tub, and all the other students grinding themselves on the metaphorical whetstone to sharpen their skills and glumly wished that his own workout was as physically taxing as theirs. Instead, he sat in a ring of electronic devices, as if performing a seance to summon some spirit of technology, while he tried to identify and locate everyone in the forest.
"Momo and Sato are both by the tables, Kirishima's still fighting - no wait, he just got tossed into a tree. I think he's stuck. And Kota is… pretty far from here. Are you sure that's safe?"
Mandalay shook her head. "It's fine. We patrol this area regularly and there aren't any dangerous animals around here. Ragdoll's also keeping tabs on him."
As the training progressed, Izuku got the sense that he was feeling more than simply the electrical impulses in a human body. Electrons didn't wish death upon every tree within a hundred kilometer radius or feel nauseous at the thought of eating another hamburger. Looking over his shoulder, Izuku asked, "Aizawa, mind using your Quirk on me for a moment? I have a theory."
"Fine, but you better make it quick."
Izuku felt the electric thrum in and around him gutter out. The sensation of other presences, however, felt far sharper with the background noise stripped away. Izuku quickly called out everyone's positions before his Quirk slammed back into place.
"You have another sensory ability," Aizawa said flatly. "One that your Quirk is interfering with."
"Yeah, Haki. I was working on it, but ever since my Quirk came in, I haven't noticed it as much. I guess I've gotten stronger with it."
"Well, since you can't turn off your Quirk at will, you're stuck working around it. Let's add a few more devices and spread out a few of the students.
Izuku gave him a bland side-eye look, but in the end, he closed his eyes and tried focusing again. Now that he knew how his Observation Haki felt, sifting through the different sensations went a lot easier. It wasn't long before Aizawa had every device in the camp laid out around Izuku, and he could still pick out individual people half a mile away.
"Now that we've found your limits," Aizawa said. "It's time to push them. You know this ability better than I. How would you go about strengthening it?"
Izuku grinned. "Fighting blindfolded. Preferably against a variety of opponents."
Pixie-Bob conjured a small army of golems, and Aizawa readied his capture scarf. "Focus on disabling your opponents without causing permanent damage. I don't want you picking up Mirko's habits."
"I'll be gentle."
Izuku tied a cloth over his eyes. He turned to face Aizawa and bent his fingers in a classic 'come-at-me' pose. The golems charged. Even without his Haki, Izuku could have sensed their attacks by the sound of their feet stomping the earth and the whispers of wind as their attacks sailed past his skin. Sticking with Kami-E at the moment, Izuku bent himself around their attacks, twisting and folding through the barrage of punches.
The golems fought like a single entity, neatly chaining their attacks and avoiding friendly fire. When Aizawa joined the fray, attempting to snag Izuku's arm with his capture scarf, Izuku finally had to resort to Soru, weaving through the crowd until he escaped the encirclement. Tiger's arms formed a net around the open clearing, and as they crushed together, Izuku hopped up with Geppo. Aizawa threaded his scarf through the trees, and though Izuku could have darted through the minuscule holes in the impromptu dome, Izuku elected to stay inside. It wouldn't be any fun if he simply stayed high overhead and rained thunder upon everything, after all.
A golem came hurtling through the air, interrupting Izuku's thoughts. When another soared by, Izuku looked down. The golems had shifted, some sporting massive arms, rooted in place with buried legs, while others sported nimbler forms, curling up so their larger brethren could catapult them into the air. They had also grown quieter too, darting through the air like owls, making nary a sound as their clawed hands grasped at him. One almost got him when it hid behind a second thrown golem.
Izuku slammed into the ground like a meteor, thinking to rattle the buried golems. To Pixie Bob's credit, the golems barely reacted to the ground rippling like oobleck and instead shifted targets to the grounded Izuku. Living boulders rained down around him as Izuku sprinted straight through the volley and punched a larger golem. It burst apart into neat fragments, and Izuku had to pull himself apart like Buggy to avoid the smaller golems that uncurled and lunged at him.
Izuku swung a scything kick, smashing half of them to powder in one move, while the ensuing whirlwind knocked the rest off course. Sparks leapt from his fingers, tagging them as they fell, though working off of just his Haki as he was, most of his shots went wide.
Changing tactics, Izuku crashed through all of the catapult golems, unleashing a flood of smaller minions. With the entire mob charging all at once, Izuku grinned, inflated his leg to gargantuan proportions, and stomped hard enough to rattle the entire clearing. The golems all stumbled upon themselves. Most of them suffered bad enough breaks to keep them from getting up, and the rest had to clamber over their own fallen to get to Izuku.
Distracted as he was with the golems, Izuku had entirely missed the moment Tiger and Aizawa darted out of the askew trees, arms and scarf entwined to form a massive looping snare. They swiftly bound his arms and legs, then golems rose to pull them tight.
Strung up like a Christmas decoration, Izuku cast his senses across the net, searching for a weak link. He noticed a spot where Tiger's fingers were gripping Aizawa's scarf. Running a current through the fabric, Izuku zapped his fingers.
With a yelp, Tiger let go. Golems rushed to secure the loose scarf, but Izuku moved faster. With a yank of his arm, he swept a whole line of golems off their feet. Whipping the golem-laden scarf like a flail, Izuku slammed the entire assembly into the rest of the golems, shattering the rest and freeing his limbs.
With Aizawa and Tiger still entwined in the net, Izuku made short work of them both by grabbing the scarf and an arm and twisting them until Aizawa and Tiger lay bound in a bundle of their own making.
Once they surrendered, Izuku untied them with a single flick of Aizawa's scarf. Rubbing his arms, Tiger said, "That's a blow to my pride. Three on one, against a first-year student in a blindfold. Are we going to have to tie an arm behind your back to make it even?"
Izuku thought about it. "Sounds fun. Let's do a leg too."
Tiger sighed and flopped to the ground. "Sad thing is, I think you'd still win. What do they feed you kids these days?"
"I ate a fruit once."
Voice dry as a bone, Tiger said, "Of course, the secret to your unbelievable power, eating fruit. How could I have been so blind."
"Must've been on accident while you were shoveling down a mountain of meat," Jiro said dryly as she rubbed her earlobes.
"Hey, it's not like I only eat meat. I eat other things too."
"Really? I guess I never noticed, with how fast it all disappears down your gullet."
"Well of course he eats a lot of meat," Kirishima chimed in. He flexed his biceps and added, "That's what muscles are made out of!"
Izuku flexed right back. "I mean, you're not wrong."
"Hey, did someone mention food?" Ojiro asked. "I'm starving!"
From the picnic table, both Sato and Yaoyorozu turned green from the mention of food. "Please, no more," Momo pleaded. "I don't think I can handle it right now."
"We're all agreed that whatever it is, we're not letting Bakugo season it, right?"
"Are all of you allergic to fucking flavor?"
Aizawa shook his head and gathered up his scarf. "Alright, that's enough for one day. Get cleaned up and eat, we have something special planned for tonight.
That vague announcement was met with more dread than excitement, given how the summer camp has gone so far. Their dread quickly gave way when Aizawa and Vlad explained the night's activities.
"I'll be very impressed if anything they can do could scare me," Izuku said.
Kaminari gave him a sidelong look. "Because you've seen worse on your pirate adventures?"
"Does getting chased by a T-Rex sound worse?"
Kaminari shuddered. "You think one of the 1-B students could do that?"
"Maybe. I could probably manage something if I concentrated hard enough."
Izuku on the power stored in himself, willing his body to grow larger. Making it anything other than human-shaped felt very awkward, like trying to wear a glove with too few fingers, but he managed to make his head look vaguely blocky before his body rubber-banded back into its original shape. "Darn. There goes that idea."
"Don't sweat the other part, dude. I'm pretty sure half the class will wet themselves if lightning struck right in front of them."
"I dunno, that seems too easy. It's not really scaring them so much as startling them, you know?"
"No, I don't. Aren't those the same thing?"
Before Izuku could dive into the finer points of instilling terror in people, he felt a spike of his own. At the very edge of his senses, he felt an entire army spring out of nothing, conjured by the familiar veil of malice and black fog from the USJ.
"Villains," Izuku said to Aizawa. "Twelve Nomu, and sixty humans. A lot of them feel identical. I think there's a duplication Quirk."
Aizawa swore under his breath and gave orders to the other classmates in the area, while Tiger and Pixie Bob immediately went into the forest. Mandalay concentrated and said, "I can't reach Ragdoll."
Izuku focused his senses northward. "Nomu got her. She's still alive, but the warp Quirk's taking her away.
Izuku examined the situation. The villains couldn't have picked a better time to launch their assault, with the students scattered throughout the forest, at night, with minimal wind to disturb the faint hints of gas Izuku smelled. The forest was bone-dry, all the better to fuel the growing inferno the villains made ringing the camp.
Over half of the 1-B students were already out of commission, caught unawares by the encroaching gas, along with the 1-A students that went first. He sensed Momo in the thick of the gas, alive and moving, gathering others to her. Tokoyami and Shoji were locked in battle, with Dark Shadow rampaging against a small army of Nomu and villains, and Todoroki and Bakugo were moving in to help them.
Just as he was about to dive into the fray, he caught a flicker of fear off to the side. Kota had hidden himself away from the camp, and one of the villains had found him.
"Kaminari, give me a boost, would you?"
Kaminari glanced at Aizawa, hesitating. When the teacher nodded, Kaminari said, "You got it, man. Go kick some ass!"
A million volts flooded into Izuku. His body and limbs ballooned outward, but he tensed his muscles, squeezing all that power into a smaller frame. Izuku smacked his fist into his palm, making a sound not unlike a thunderclap, and said, "I'll be right back."
As he was about to leave, Aizawa's capture scarf snapped out in front of him. The hero gave him a stern look and said, "Keep yourself in control this time."
Izuku grinned. "Don't worry, teach. No one's dying today."
Sensing the villain getting closer to a petrified Kota, Izuku darted past the scarf and shot off like a missile. Traveling at the speed of lightning, Izuku cleared half a mile in the time it took Muscular to make a single step.
The villain didn't have any time to react. Izuku's punch rammed into his gut. Muscular went sliding backwards, leaving long furrows in the soil. He remained standing, but he gasped feebly for air as he clutched his stomach.
Muscular fumbled for a radio, but Izuku zapped it out of his fingers. Smirking, Muscular stood upright and stared down at him. "Looks like today's my lucky day. I was hoping I'd get a chance to trade blows with you. Maybe if I'm feeling nice, I'll even let you live long enough to watch me pop the kid like a pimple."
Kota shrieked and scrambled away on the ground, crawling behind Izuku. Izuku cracked his knuckles and said, "I'd love to have a proper fight with you, but there's a whole bunch of other villains I have to deal with, so, you know."
"Big words coming from a high school student. You throw a good punch, but that was nothing compared to what I'm capable of!" His entire body bulked up, until even a Nomu would've barely come up to his chest. Blackened tongue wagging in the air, Muscular said, "Those League assholes gave me the good stuff. There's no way you can outmuscle me now!"
Izuku moved. Muscular had a singular moment of clarity as his feet left the ground. He felt his entire nose caved in, felt a tooth slide across his tongue into his throat, felt a jolt run through his skull as the synthetic eye shorted out. Then time blurred forward into a series of crashes, tumbles, and broken bones as his body gouged a line through the forest. He let out one last wheezing breath, wondering what had just hit him, before he passed out cold.
Once he felt the villain's consciousness wink out, Izuku turned to Kota and offered a hand. "He's gone now, but there's more. Let's get you back to Mandalay and the others, alright?"
Kota glanced between the hand and the line of toppled trees behind him. His hand shook as he reached for Izuku's fingers. He half-expected them to feel tingly like static, or impossibly heavy, but the hand htat pulled him up felt warm and gentle.
"Do you want me to carry you in my arms, or do you think you can hang onto my shoulders?"
Kota tried to speak, but no words came out of his mouth. All too aware of the encroaching circle of fire and villains, Izuku gently scooped up Kota and rushed back to the Heroes. The moment he let Kota's feet touch the ground, the kid ran straight to Mandalay and buried his face against her. She bent to comfort him while Aizawa strode over for a status report.
Izuku felt a blare of alarm, and mid-word, he turned and threw lightning at a portal. The lone portal winked out, but dozens more popped up in its place, spewing a vanguard of lizard mutants wielding jagged, unwieldy swords.
"For Stain-sama!" they screeched in battle cry as they descended upon the clearing. Aizawa's scarf bound six of them, and Izuku's fists lashed out at the rest. The villains turned into viscous mud the moment he struck them.
"I might need to go through a portal," Izuku warned Aizawa.
"Absolutely not."
"If their duplication Quirk doesn't have any limits, they can send endless waves of villains against us. I could last long enough for help to arrive, but I don't know about everyone else."
Aizawa chewed over his words with visible hesitation. "If it comes to that, I'm coming with you."
Izuku amiably agreed. After all, if push came to shove, Eraserhead couldn't possibly stop him.
The first order of business was the gas. A swirling vortex engulfed the forest, centered around a small clearing. Two Nomu flanked half a dozen copies of a villain. Taking a deep breath, Izuku burst through the gas. The six villains felt him coming, and one even reacted quickly enough to fire their pistol. Izuku didn't even bother dodging. A scything kick reduced them all to mud.
The gas didn't dissipate. With Izuku stuck holding his breath, the two Nomu stretched out, widening to form a dome. Caught flat-footed, Izuku punched at the barrier and blasted it with lightning, but the Nomu were made to weather his attacks. Haki could help him break through, but he was already getting dizzy, and he was all too painfully aware of the toxic gas tickling his nostrils.
If punching up wouldn't get him out in time, then he'd simply have to punch down.
Izuku had no delusions about tunneling his way out with his bare hands. He could do it, but it would take minutes he didn't have. Instead, he dug underneath the Nomu, taking its footing out from under it. Its half of the dome fell away, and Izuku darted straight up for a fresh breath of air.
From his new perspective, he could see two lingering portals, nestled within rubbery folds on the Nomus' backs. The six in the center were decoys, meant to lure him in, so the two Nomu could smother him inside.
Heart thumping, breaths coming in ragged gasps, Izuku let static ripple across his skin and grinned. The cloud cover was sparse at best, but the swirling vortex of smoke made an acceptable substitute. Building charge all around him, Izuku pointed downwards and shouted, "El Thor!"
The Nomu gave a strangled screech as their bodies melted. The two portals they bore winked out, and the gas dissipated with them. In the clearing, he found the bodies of two 1-B students, their gas masks damaged and torn from them. One had a bullet hole clean through the center, though Tetsutetsu didn't have a scratch on his forehead. He flitted back to camp to dump them at Vlad King's feet before darting back into the forest.
With the gas taken care of, next came the fire. Lanky villains pockmarked with staples and burn scars stood amidst the swirling blue flames like effigies, fueling the fire even as the flames licked at their own flesh. There was little Izuku could do to control the flames short of destroying the entire forest himself, but with the arsonists reduced to mud, the flames dimmed to reddish hues. Slagging a ring around the camp with lightning made an effective enough fire break to contain the remnants of the blaze.
Gas gone, fires contained, that left the small horde of Nomu tearing through the forest, chasing after tiny flickers of frantic energy that Izuku could barely pick out amidst the roiling chaos of the forest. Izuku darted for the closest Nomu and punched it. He felt a piece of himself forcibly yanked out of his body and sucked into the Nomu's skin. Electricity crackled over its blackened surface, and the Nomu gazed hungrily at Izuku as he backed away.
Shivering from the sensation, Izuku settled for grabbing the unconscious 1-B students and dashing away.
The rest of the Nomu were likewise equipped to deal with his electricity. He found far too many of those rubber chicken Nomu for his liking, and he steered well clear of the gaping maws he sensed devouring every stray spark in their vicinity. Within minutes, he had most of the 1-B and 1-A students laid out for triage. Yet, the hordes of Nomu remained, and they grew ever closer to the base camp.
"Aizawa, is there anything metal I can use?"
"Will the pots and pans work?"
Izuku crushed one in his hands like a snowball. Stretching out his arms, Izuku planted his feet into the ground, aimed at the nearest electricity-absorbing Nomu, and fired. The shockwave rattled the trees, and the impact itself scattered bits and pieces of the Nomu all over the forest.
Izuku snapped a handle off a knife and let it fly. The blade sliced cleanly through trees and bisected another Nomu. He ripped a pot in half and fired each piece, scoring more headshots. Blast by blast, Izuku thinned out the Nomu, leaving the ones he knew he could beat with his fists.
Panting from firing so many shots, Izuku asked, "Is Kaminari up yet?"
Aizawa gently shook Kaminari's shoulder. He babbled sleepily and curled up.
"There's a backup generator. Take it all."
The backup resided in the basement of the Pussycats' agency. When he got there, the door was decayed open. Flaring his power to illuminate the darkened basement, Izuku calmly strode in and looked around. "You're not getting away this time, Shigaraki."
"Funny. That's my line."
Shigaraki leaned against the backup generator. Behind the hand over his face, he grinned. "Looking for this? Sensei said that you'd be running low on power after using that railgun ability of yours. Twenty-five megajoules per shot. I don't know how much power this generator has, but I do know you won't be getting any."
Izuku raced forward, but he was too slow. Shigaraki brushed his hand against the generator, and it collapsed in a pile of metal dust. Feeling exhausted from all the fighting, Izuku kept charging and punched through Shigaraki's chest. The clone collapsed in a pile of mud, leaving Izuku with nothing to show for it.
The moment the fake Shigaraki disappeared, four portals sprang up around Izuku. He threw lighting into one, forcing it to close, but magnets stuck out of the other three.
Izuku's body warped as he felt himself pulled in three directions at once. Gritting his teeth, Izuku tried to plant his arms on the floor, to hold himself together, but the magnetic forces ripped his arms open. His skin grew staticky and indistinct as power rippled through his body. Sparks leapt out, striking shelves and walls. Izuku focused, trying to hold his body together, and a black sheen crept up his arms, stabilizing them. Yet, between his fatigue and the ever-strengthening pull of the magnets, he couldn't hold the rest of himself together.
Izuku flung another bolt, but the magnetic fields bent his shot wide. The shot gouged a chunk out of the concrete wall. Given a sudden burst of inspiration, Izuku funneled all his remaining power straight up. A massive thunderbolt blasted the ceiling asunder, sending the entire agency tumbling onto the portals. With the magnets knocked aside, Izuku was free to claw his way out of the agency's wreckage.
Once he broke through the surface, four more portals waited for him. Izuku Geppo'd straight for one, hoping to break the encirclement, but the magnetic pull tugged him back. With all four magnets in place, Izuku couldn't even twitch. It took everything he had to hold himself together as a fifth portal opened directly above him, and a masked villain slowly descended towards him.
"You'll have to excuse the rough treatment," Compress said. "I prefer a lighter touch with my heists. Some sleight of hand, a clever trick, never a sign that anything was amiss. You, however, are a bit too much for my parlor tricks to handle.
Compress carefully reached down, aiming for the one spot Izuku stabilized with Haki. When his fingers brushed him, Izuku felt the world shrink away. Even in his compressed state, Izuku fought back, punching at the nebulous barrier containing him with Haki. He felt the walls tremble, and even crack a little, but before he could break free, the walls broke of their own volition. Izuku scrambled, but the magnets were already in place, rooting him in the spot while Shigaraki watched.
"Just like Sensei planned," Shigaraki said.
"I can't hold this forever," Magne grunted. "Get him in the machine already."
"Quit whining," Shigaraki snapped. "I've been waiting for this ever since he cheated at the USJ. Not so tough now, are you?"
Izuku hardened his arm and lashed out. He clocked Shigaraki in the face, knocking the hand off and slicing his lip open. Worn out by his last burst of defiance, Izuku couldn't resist the magnetic pull that shoved him inside the massive metal box. As he leapt for the wall, the entire box came alive with an electric thrum. A magnetic field rippled through the space, ripping Izuku apart electron by electron. Howling with rage and fear, Izuku clawed at the walls, hammered at them with every fiber of his being, desperate to break free of his prison.
The walls didn't yield.
A/N: I'm alive! Also completely exhausted, but that's nothing a bit of fast food, carbonated beverages, and staring mindlessly at a screen while scrolling through Youtube shorts can't fix.
So, to summarize the past month of my existence, I closed on the house, which involved a forty minute drive through traffic each way to the bank to wire over the funds because traffic sucks, panicking over being a couple minutes late to the signing only for the sellers to arrive FORTY MINUTES LATE, and that's not even the biggest delay because the bank took another hour to review all the docs and decide to fork over the dough. A couple trips over to said new house to take some measurements, get the carpets and hardwood cleaned, and puzzle over why my garage door won't open. The answer was my house wasn't getting power, so I also called up the energy guys and had them flip the switch. In the background, I was also getting things packed and puzzling over how and where I would get everything in because the house has tiny 32 inch doorways, both of which lead directly into sharp corners.
Then came the actual day of the move, which was today, with Uhaul backed up because their computers weren't working, then it turned out the truck I ordered, a nice roomy 26 footer, wasn't returned on time, and the only one available was 15 feet. I thought we would never cram everything in there and it would take two trips. We did. Tetris skills and brute force for the win. Got my exercise in moving all the heaviest wooden furniture mankind has ever conceived, shoved everything into counters and closets to unpack when my brain doesn't feel like moldy playdoh, and now I'm here. Still have way too much to unpack and find a new home for, and I'm also going on a trip tomorrow to get EVEN MORE FURNITURE. Because the living room demands rugs and a sofa. Oh, also had a random guy swing around with a lawn mower who offered to mow my absolute disaster of a lawn, for pretty cheap, which was honestly a lifesaver. I was not looking forward to that, and now I can actually see my yard!
Also made my first thing in the oven. It was pizza. Homemade crust, nice cheese and jar of sauce, spicy ground pork sausage and sauteed mushrooms. It was heaven after all that lugging stuff around.
And still on my to do list is digging up the dead rose bushes and planting rhubarb and asparagus, getting a technician in to service the air conditioner, getting another guy in to get my bathroom vents working, an electrician to rewire the weirdest power switch I have ever seen. Envision one of those twist knobs or a lamp, jutting out of a metal pipe, towards the ceiling at an angle, to switch on a ceiling light. Yikes. Oh, and getting some tools for that work bench in the garage, using said tools to fix the dresser drawer that spontaneously fell apart when I pulled it out (which I was expecting to happen), getting a wrench to tighten my new toilet seat because THEY LEFT TOILET PAPER BUT TOOK THE GODDAMN TOILET SEAT UPSTAIRS AND LEFT THE SEAT BUT NO PAPER DOWNSTAIRS! YOU MONSTERS! Also getting a new bed, because I wouldn't have moved my old one if free mattress disposal was a thing my area did for people in apartments, then building a new PC because my laptop is running like frozen honey, and going back to deep clean my apartment so my former landlords don't come for me with baseball bats. Considering I lived there seven years and did so much cooking, I am emphatically not looking forward to it. Got the stains out of the carpet and shower (for the most part), but that leaves way too much cleaning for my liking.
And probably even more things I'm forgetting about.
…why did I want to move out of my apartment again?
Oh right, bigger kitchen go brr.
NewMystery356: "The kung-fu mantises made me think of Kung Fu Panda 4"
Bardothren: they made a fourth one? They made a THIRD one!? They MADE A – I'm just kidding, I saw the second one.
Alright, I'll see you all, uh, someday. Mama didn't raise no quitter. I just need to figure out where the happy juice in my brain went. Seeya.