Week 3
A Sneaking Suspicion: Garou, Ojiro, Toru, and Tareo
Ojiro had been having a pretty tough time voiding off the others question involving his new teacher initially he didn't want to lie and tell anyone that he got a new teacher he wanted to just pass it off as just him going on long patrols late into the night but that excuse wouldn't work as his new teacher made that practically impossible when he kept working him so violently not caring even if he got hurt in the process which was a lot of the time, hiding his injuries from everyone was mostly simple but hiding it from Toru was another matter, his girlfriend and him still often trained together during night time and she was even more excited to train together when they witnessed the power of the the martial arts brothers and how effective that combo technique was she definitely wanted to try it out herself with just the two of them but when they tried it out and his body literally exploded with pain and completely floored him for the rest of that night actually having to make the girl carry him back home on her own, at that point he couldn't really pretend anymore and had to give some sort of explanation for why he was so tired and hurt prior to the incident.
He didn't know how everyone would react to him essentially sheltering Garou away if the hunter had gone back to hunting heroes he was sure that the gig would be up and Ojiro would feel partially responsible for any heroes that the man would hurt in the future and that was part of the reason he continued to go to the man despite his amounting injuries from their practice in fear that he would get bored go back to his old hunting ways despite his assistance on the opposite and him believing had nothing else to learn from attacking heroes under that of the S-class, he was solely focused on honing his skills in his confrontation/rematch against Bang while using him as a punching bag and if he learned anything from it then it was just a bonus.
Discussing with the hunter some more on his eagerness to beat everyone revealed nothing entirely that he wasn't told from Shoji; he wanted to prove society was wrong and that monsters could "win" in the end, and often Ojiro's question was what was "the end" for him, his primary goal of proving the monster could win, and then what? Kill people? Destroy things? He would often challenge the hunter on what he believed his ending would be like, even if he proved that he was the strongest on the planet. What would he do, then? What would he want to accomplish with world dominance? What would his demands of the people be? The hunter never had a proper response to any of his questions, either deflecting from them entirely or beating him up even harder during practice, but he could tell the hunter was contemplating them and he wanted to figure things out himself.
This was evident by him giving him "easy days" where while the two of them would continue to practice as normal, these days would also include mental training and meditation to synchronize the mind and body together, it was here when Garou was at least somewhat more willing to talk but the focus of the conversation was mostly focused on himself more especially the group the non-killing army, he imagined that given that they weren't from the earth it explained why they were so polite to monsters they weren't accustomed to how they operate or were even capable of becoming them themselves but now that they saw how monsters were what makes them still so adamant to continue to defend them he was baffled that they even created a safe haven for them and wonder how different it was from the monster association base and Ojiro could understand the question and he was honest with the hunter and explained that he too didn't know what they were doing.
In their world heroes were almost forbidden to kill anyone no matter how cruel the act they committed it wasn't their job to be the executioner it was up to the government but here and now they were actively going against the government in saving monsters instead of killing them making it somewhat hypocritical of them, it's just the likely truth that they don't think monsters were irredeemable and that they could be helped? Or saved somehow that maybe coexistence can be found between humans and monsters to tolerate each other, and all of them knew it wouldn't be overnight and that when it was their time to leave, they fully expected everything to likely go back to the status quo as if they were never there, but they hope that at least the idea lives and continues to progress through others, and maybe someday in the far future that possible future could happen.
Garou blew the teen off as thinking too optimistically and that monsters would always just cause fear and panic to arise in people, but Ojiro countered that they weren't for him. He grew up to like monsters. Garou simply shrugged his shoulders; he didn't see them as monsters. In general, he killed monsters without a second thought, but it was more that everyone else was against them. Ojiro wanted to challenge him even more so he asked, so if the roles were reversed, say some big, bad monster had struck down and bullied all the heroes into submission, would he then decide to be a hero?
Garou got where he was going with that train of thought and punched him in the face for his efforts. Garou wasn't like them; he wasn't "bullying" heroes; he was just playing his role. He was a monster. Monsters and heroes fight each other. Garou remarked, but Ojiro continued to challenge him and added to the death at the end of his sentence. For all his attacks and assaults, he never killed a hero, but a hero would kill a monster in a heartbeat, so if anything, he was leaning more into being a hero than a monster.
He didn't even kill him when they fought, but when he mentioned that even the monsters of the monster association could see that he wasn't like them and he was different, this apparently struck a nerve on the hunter, and all further conversation was ceased as Ojiro received his most harsh session yet... Not waking up until the very next day, completely bruised all over. He was told by Shoji that he found him just laid out on the sidewalk while he was patrolling around S-city and took him home. Everyone was worried about him, but he managed to wave off their concern and explain that a monster just managed to get the jump on him.
He didn't return to Garou as his class demanded that he stay and rest in bed, and he reluctantly agreed to do so and hoped that Garou was telling him the truth, but he also likely had his hands full with the kid that they rescued from before Tareo had been coming around every once in a while when he could for lessons. Ojiro didn't know why Ojiro decided to take the kid on or their relationship. He had to essentially blackmail the hunter into training him, but the boy simply asked, and Garou agreed, although in a very tsundere way if he was using that word correctly.
The kid was a massive fan of heroes, always carrying around a hero guide with him, which Garou had given to him, but Garou was quick to state that it was only due to him destroying the one he "borrowed" from the kid previously. Tareo didn't know who Garou was, and Garou wanted to keep it that way, which signified to him that while the child wasn't related to him, he still held some type of connection to Hunter, although he wanted to play it off just so he could keep his base a secret. He talked to the kid and asked him why he wanted to learn martial arts. The kid explained that he was being bullied a lot by his "friends," so he wanted to be able to defend himself. That was when it clicked, and that is why Garou kept the kid around. He saw himself at least partially in the kid, so he tolerated him being around, and it also did help that the kid would often bring him food.
He felt somewhat better later on in the day and decided to make his move, leaving the house without anyone knowing to continue with his training. Unbeknownst to him, he had a traveler in his mix; this traveler was none other than Toru, who had long since been both worried and curious about her boyfriend's daily activities. He knew he was hiding something and his injuries were far from normal for any instructor to do to a student at least she hoped so not to mention that she traveled around to dojos within S-city where he was found and none of the dojo masters have even talked to the boy before so he wasn't training in any official capacity at least for those that were in S-city which she found was the place he spent most of his time when checking the association patrol boards so there must have been something else pulling him towards the city and she wanted to find out exactly what it was.
He could argue that it was a breach of his privacy for the second time in their relationship but after shoji found him unconscious she was definitely too worried about him so she stayed back from going to pracitce this time around to see if he made any moves and unsurpsignly he did, he left the hous alone and Toru followed him, she made sure to be extra careful when moving behind him cladding herself in a bubble of light and floating along behind him like a balloon to have no hope of detecting her by the sound of her foot steps the only way the only way one could find her at this point was by ultra-sonic waves or if the wind picked up enough and something smacked along the bubble itself like an animal or newspaper, she dispeled the bubble and followed him inside towards the train station it was risky to get into the enclosed space but she didn't want to loose complete sight of him by going into a separate car so instead she went to the opposite side of the train that he was in and pressed herself into the doorways to stay away from others that maybe in the train during that time which thankfully was not many, as she expected Ojiro had got off when the train went to S-city and he continued forwards.
Toru continued to follow him, and she was surprised to see him run into some kid that she didn't know and that he'd never brought up before. Her mind went to a very funny place: did he have a son? But they quickly perished at the thought, as they weren't there nearly long enough for that to happen. She didn't think that people on this earth had babies in any shorter time than they did on their own, and besides, this kid was too old for that, even if that were the case. A part of her, as soon as Ojiro was shown to be so secretive, instantly thought maybe he was cheating on her, which may speak to something she may need to worry about another day about herself, but the teen seemed to be a milf magnet. It seemed older ladies found him very charming and attractive, and she had caught a few stealing glances his way. Was that it? Was his instructor an attractive woman, and that's why he didn't want to tell her?
Or were some more things happening in these "lessons" of his that he wasn't letting on? The rational part of her brain kicked in and said it wouldn't explain his injuries, and her spicier countered that he could just be into some very kinky play instead, and at that, Toru just shut off all her thoughts. She was just getting antsy as she was going to find out what her boyfriend would be hiding and her thoughts were just trying to get the last of its wild speculation out of the way before the likely mundane actual reason was shared, as the two progressed through the forest she started to float up again just to avoid any of the leaves and sticks that would give have given her away, from above she could see there was a small opening in the small forest and she predicates that was where the two were headed down below was a small shack and she was correct as the two of them started towards the small structure both of them racing the way and Ojiro allowed the kid to beat him there before he started to Bang on the door and out came whoever she was expecting she didn't expect him to be the one there and then things started to come together as Garou stepped out into the opening she gasped a little loud and hoped that he didn't hear which thankfully man didn't.
She was cautious for a moment, observing them intently to see what they were doing, and true to Ojiro's word, he was simply training them, and harshly too. The man seemed to not care for the injuries that he no doubt gave him; she couldn't bring herself to watch the two continue. It didn't even seem like training; the guy was just beating him up while occasionally giving him pointers. She left the scene soon after her hand hovered dangerously close to her phone in an attempt to summon Bang, but she wanted to first talk to Ojiro about this when he got back. Ojiro came back a bit earlier than usual, and he slowly limped his way back into his room. He was spooked when he continued towards his bed, and his girlfriend suddenly manifested in front of him, sitting down on it, legs crossed, judging by the slightly awkward expression, he jumped back from the sudden sight and couldn't even master the strength to properly catch himself, but he was spared a fall as Toru created a makeshift table that he could lean on to stop himself.
"Ummm... what are you doing back so early?" Ojiro commented with a slight smile as he attempted to stabilize himself and walk a bit righter like he wasn't in pain.
"Ojiro … I'm going to give you one chance to explain what's going on with you. Who are you going out to see?." Toru said Ojiro's smile faded, and its place was a confused frown.
"Hold on… I hope you don't think I'm two-timing you; Hagekure, I wouldn't even think of doing something like that to you." Ojiro replied immediately and approached her rapidly to console the girl, but she raised a barrier directly in front of him, stopping him in his tracks.
"I know that you wouldn't mashi, but you're going out to see someone. This "teacher" of yours, is he someone we know or is he someone dangerous?" Toru said, and Ojiro saw where she was getting at and knew he had been caught red-handed as he sat down on the bed beside her.
"Look, I can explain." Ojiro began.
"Well, I hope you can. Why haven't you told Bang yet? You see how devastated he is, thinking that Garou is dead, and here you are letting him just beat you up all day." Toru exclaimed, and Ojiro cringed away from the scathing tone.
"Yes, yes, I know that, and I do want to tell him to trust me. I do, but I don't know. After hearing how he was treated the first time under Bangs Care, I don't think turning him over to the old man would be the best option," Ojiro commented.
"And let him do what? Just be free to hurt more people."Toru asked in disbelief.
"He hasn't hurt anyone so far." Ojiro defended.
"Ugh, have you seen yourself in the mirror lately? Are you sure he's just not using you as a stress ball of some kind? Since he knows he can't get at anyone else or he's going to get caught."Toru asked.
"I don't think that's it... He says that he is not interested in hunting heroes anymore other than the S-class, but given that we would summon Bang there, he wants to train and hone himself so that he could face him and beat him first." Ojiro explained
"And we can trust him because?" Toru asked.
"Garou may be a lot of things, but he's not a liar, and I think I'm getting somewhere with him."
"Is that the morgue?" Toru commented, and despite his injuries, Ojiro partly chuckled.
"Maybe that too, but I mean, I guess I'm getting somewhere about what he's trying to do and what he's trying to be. I'm not just doing this for myself but for Bang too; chaining him up and just denying him will only build more resentment between the two, and that can only end in one way." Ojiro commented drearily, and Toru took a moment to contemplate that he was right, but she didn't know it was a risky gamble.
"Look … Just trust me on this one, alright?" Ojiro asked, clasping one of the girl's hands.
"Huh, fine, but the next time you have to be carried back here and hurt so bad, I'm telling Bang straight away." Toru sighed and replied, and Ojiro laughed.
"That's agreeable. I'll be sure not to antagonize him so much anymore; it was technically my fault." Ojiro commented, rubbing a hand through his hair.
"Good, now you need to go take a shower, and I'm going to be helping you... No butts, if you're going to be going through this much abuse, for who knows how long you need to relax as much as possible?" Toru remarked with a commanding tone, pointing to the bathing area, and Ojiro nodded his head before getting helped up and making his way there.
Bang's dojo
Bomb was finishing getting up the stairs to his brother's dojo. Gosh, would it have killed his brother to build an escalator or something? All this walking was having a hard time on his knees. He stepped onto the mountainside and proceeded to come to a stop. He turned and admired the view of the cityscape before turning and heading inside. He called for his brother as he opened the door, but he found no one inside. He made his way back, calling his brother all the while, and was shocked when he found him. But it wasn't the man himself that took him by surprise; it was his movements. Those were movements he hadn't seen in a long time.
"Now, that takes me back... Are you feeling nostalgic, brother?" Bomb asked
"You could say that... I believe it is time for the wind of blood to make a return." Bang replied that the tension in the air was thick from the implications of that name.
"Oh, dear… I fear for the monster association already; however, does that mean that you have accepted that your lost disciple is truly gone?" Bomb asked, and Bang turned to him.
"As the days go by, it seems more and more likely that this is the case; he is not taking any of the bait we set out for him. The monsters have likely killed him, and I shall return that favor in equal measure." Bang remarked simply as he turned to his brother and approached him.
"Bang … Whatever you're planning, I shall accompany you."
"I've already lost a disciple to the monsters. I will not lose a brother when the time comes to forget about me and go back to your students. You did have a hundred of them after all. I'm sure they all are awaiting your return." Bang remarked, placing a hand on his brother's shoulder and offering a small smile; his brother didn't return it, only giving him a worried look. Bang relinquished his hold and continued forward, offering his brothers some tea, which Bomb accepted as the two went inside.
3 days later
Monsters and test subjects: Metal Knight, Koda, Momo, Midoriya, Torax, and Asterius
All the teens were surprised when they received a night visit from none other than Torax. He was well-trusted by all of the teens, and he was one of the only monsters that held the capability of leaving the preserve of his own free will. It wouldn't trigger an alarm due to him being the only other monster that wasn't chipped, the other being Asterius, and of course, Aki, although she rarely spent the night in the preserve. The large tiger had made his way into the association without much too much difficulty manifesting large wings that it used to bypass most of the people on the ground and directly to their location he seemed to be out of breath and a bit disheveled which signaled to them that something was wrong and Torax explained the situation that was currently transpiring at the preserve.
He explained that at first there had been a voice that played asking for monsters to come over, he told them that the voice almost sounded like a more digitized version of Koda's anivoice some monster went ahead over and he heard fighting in the distance upon investigating he saw multiple machines stomping around the place and fighting the monsters that arrived and capturing them. Koda's immediate question was if the robots were killing the monsters they captured, but he didn't know what was happening to them as he was spotted and multiple robots came his way. The first few were no problem, but they increased in difficulty to deal with to the point where just one of them had hit him pretty hard, and there were more of those machines, so he was forced to retreat and escape through the forest and their hidden route.
Koda had a sneaking suspicion that Metal Knight was the likely one behind the machines in question. The favor he has asked of him for helping in the construction of the preserve was also a weird request for him to analyze his anivoice, not just going with something as simple as drawing his blood to analyze it but also having him use his anivoice to sound out an alphabet in the speech, and that's what he assumed was the digitized voice that the monsters were hearing, but that brought up the question of why Metal Knight would suddenly turn against them. He knew about the preserve, and he knew how they were using it to give the monsters a peaceful place to stay where they could just exist without worrying about heroes attacking them.
If some monsters managed to survive this unpredicted assault, that would mean that this would set back all of the progress they made in building relationships with a good few of them. Most of the monsters in the preserve were contemptuous of just ignoring their presence, but a few of them started to open up to at least greet them when they would show up or speak with them about things that could be improved or to be mediators between two monsters that may have beef just to avoid one of them killing the other if the two were of equal strength.
The group rushed out, but only a small contingent of them this time around were Bakugo, Midoriya, Todoroki, Tokoyami, Koda, and given the time of night, Silver Chain as well. The group made it to the preserve especially quickly and entered the place. Koda made sure to tell Silver Chain not to kill any of the monsters inside, even if they attacked her, given that many of them were probably just confused and maybe a bit panicked about what was happening. Momo used a signal tracker and pointed them in the direction of the nearest robots around, and Bakugo wasted no time in destroying it, which caused a cascade effect of multiple robots converging on their position as the group destroyed more and more of them, each wave getting progressively harder until eventually all of them seemed to be defeated except one.
During the entire scuffle, they had tried to get in contact with Mr. Bofoi the entire time, but there was no response. It wasn't until the final machine was operational that the man spoke, and judging by the tone of his voice, he seemed to have been sleeping. What added to that fact was how he essentially blew off all their complaints and remarked that they could discuss what was transpiring in the morning and that he would be sending in some drones to clean up the mess before signing off and self-destructing the robots. The teens were all left with a bitter taste in their mouths from the action, but Koda was more concerned about the monsters that had been captured. Luckily, they had managed to find them all in one piece, but they were thrown into a heap unceremoniously, like dirty clothes. It made Koda's blood boil just seeing them like that. He, along with the others, took them, laid them out side by side, and waited a couple of minutes as a couple of them came to.
To no one's surprise they had become immediately hostile to them tensing up and growling intently but Koda assured them that they were ok and that it wasn't them that had launched the attack, more monsters had started to gather on the outer edges of where they were, the large monster game-berus had came down along with Asterius he was technically the strongest monster in the preserve still and Asterius wanted his in helping the other monster which took a lot of convincing the minotaur added the monster was angry that it came all that way for nothing his section was in the far corner of the preserve so he was rathered annoyed that all the fighting was over by the time that he got there but he guessed that seeing that the teens didn't completely betray them was good enough he had half a mind to melt open the walls of the preserve and go on another rampage which the teens were glad he didn't do but now that he was their all of the others that had taken part wanted answer on what just happened and Koda assured them all that they will get their answers but they had to wait until morning and everything should become clear or at least he hoped it would and that he was sorry for disturbing any of their sleep and that they shouldn't have anymore problems for the rest of the night, the monsters started to separate and go their separate ways, Asterius remarked that he was saddened that he didn't get to fight but Torax merely rolled his eyes at that before heading off himself, the teens all bid the monsters farewell before leaving and coming back home and resting for the night.
The next day arrived, and Koda, Momo, and Todoroki were all back out at the preserve. Dr. Bofoi was also there in a voice that was as he spoke through his machine, all 60 of the monsters inside the preserve gathered around to discuss what had transpired the night prior. Koda didn't want to hide any information from them to ensure that they maintained clear transparency the entire time and to realize that they were not at all associated with the attack the other day and that Metal Knight did it himself on his own accord, which he immediately confirmed.
"What transpired the other day was simple machine testing, evaluating the strength of my machines against the monsters present in this area," Dr. Bofoi said through his drone.
"Why didn't you bother informing us of this test? Or the monsters themselves, for that matter?" momo asked
"Why would I need to discuss anything with monsters? And as for you all, I do believe that I helped build this facility, so naturally, I can do what I can with the inhabitants." Dr. Bofoi scoffed out, and as Koda translated, there were a bunch of growls and angered shouts in reply from the monster below.
"Monsters have rights too, even if you don't think so. This exhibit was built to not only protect people from them but to protect them as well; such actions as the night prior should be done with the willing consent of the monsters present," Momo argued.
"And how do you intend to enforce that, Miss Neith? Surely you do not suggest fighting; the robots I sent yesterday were non-lethal variants out of respect for your little group, yet you all still destroyed them. If anything, you owe me for that." Dr. Bofoi replied simply.
"I appreciate you taking us into consideration, but I am still adamant about you considering offering the monster the basic right of choice, and while I do not wish to fight and hold no intention that if you wanted to, you could simply destroy this base along with all those in it if you do decide to do so, it won't just end completely in your favor." momo explained
"And why would you say that?" Dr. Bofoi remarked.
"Because you don't know the full existence of my capabilities, I can conjure anything that I have seen before; this would include several of your machines, and I speculate that someone like yourself does not want his secrets leaked." Momo said in threat, and there was a slight pause as the metal knight pondered her threat.
"You bluff." Dr. Bofoi responded simply, and Momo shook her head before creating a large curtain, and using her ability, sure enough, out popped a machine that not only resembled his level one security bot but its very coding itself, he was fairly impressed. He analyzed it using his drone, and sure enough, it was real and, in fact, a replica of model number 259 with the same serial number as well, and suddenly it disappeared.
"I see, it seems that I may have underestimated you; you present a huge security risk to me in that case. Fine, I shall concede to you this time." Dr. Bofoi remarked while thinking internally to himself that if the situation called for it, she must be eliminated.
"Thank you for seeing reason, but we are not saying that you should stop your test entirely, just that you can create a space for yourself for monsters to join themselves, giving them the option. A number of them are bored here, and fighting could be a good chance for them to release some tension. That way, you both get what you want without issue, Momo added, and when Koda translated that, some vocal individuals supported her idea, so she wasn't too off base with that comment to just appease the man.
"And in the event that they do not want to participate at all?" Dr. Bofoi challenged
"Well, that will just be that, but if you want data, I'm sure the upcoming conflict between the monster association and the heroes could prove most useful, would it not?" Momo asked, attempting to shift the man's attention to the monsters that posed a threat.
"I will not be participating in such a farce of an operation; the association is being horrendously inefficient all for the sake of saving one child, but do not take it as them being that selfless; it is only due to that child being the son of one of their top sponsors that they care so much; if it were anyone else, they would not have to bat an eye for me to just nuke the base and be done with it." The metal knight said he was going into a tirade against the association.
"I… I see. Well, be that as it may, what if I use your machines for you in the battle? That way, you get your combat data without sacrificing anything, and as I've just shown you, any physical evidence will likely disappear while the data from the experience should still linger if you upload it somewhere else." Momo suggested.
"Hmmm, yes, that could work, but what makes you so sure that you will be participating in the fighting? From what I can see of the Child Emperor's list of participants, neither you nor any of your friends will be a part of it." Metal Knight said
"Yes, we are aware of that, but we are committed to helping anyway," Todoroki commented, and Bofoi laughed.
"I'm sure my former apprentice won't like that one bit, but as long as I prove it is of no concern, I will take you up on your offer. In that case, however, I do request one thing: there are two robots that I have been interested in that I have seen you create, and I would like to procure one of them. The one that looks like a samurai of the past, perhaps." Bofoi said.
"I … I see, well, if I assume your intentions correctly, you want the original model, not the one that I and Drive Knight recreated, and if that is the case, I can only create the larger one." momo remarked.
"That will be plenty enough; I will send some drones to retrieve it." Dr. Bofoi remarked and held out the robotic hand to shake, and Momo did, solidifying their deal.
Week 4
Monster side: Garou, Monster association
Garou had been going through the motions of his practicing with the skirt and Bang's new apprentice, but something the tailed boy had stuck with him from so long ago that the monsters of the monster association denied him his right as a monster. Why? Because he refused to kill a hero? Was that truly all that monsters were designed to do? Would monsters cease to exist without heroes in their eyes? Or was there something more to it than that?
The monsters association was no better than the hero association in his eyes all they wanted to do was oppress humans and slaughter them, that wasn't what he wanted to do that's not the type of monster he wanted to become not the type of fear he wanted to spread, he wanted to do something else ….to be something but what that was still hard to visualize and whatever he wanted to be wouldn't matter in the eyes of the public with the monster association still kicking around taking away all his spotlight and when he thought about it there was some business he wanted to deal with with the monsters so he would go pay them a visit for some payback and who knows maybe even become their king while he was in the process. So he left a letter for the squirt and tail boy, and he set off toward his objective. He could still find his way; his body knew the direction, so under the cover of darkness, he ventured out to his objective.
Monster association base
Gyoro-Gyoro wasn't too surprised when he felt someone enter one of the tunnels and started to make progress toward the base, however, something about this didn't feel right to him, if he could tell that it wasn't a machine so it was likely either a monster or it could be a forwards scout for the hero association although that wouldn't make sense given that they had mapped this place out using machines instead of in person, Regardless he guessed he should send someone to check in on who that intruder was, the days of the war was steadily approaching and they could use as many new troops as they could get so he sent a telekinetic order to some nocturnal monsters to go towards the A8 tunnels to check it out, giving them the order to invite the person if it is a monster or do whatever they like if it's anything else.
Garou wasn't too surprised to find a couple of monsters on his way towards the monster association base, the large tunnel system seemed to be teaming with their stench which only seemed to increase as he continued down the tunnel, obviously as he didn't think he would just be able to walk in like he was able to walk out they likely thought he was dead so he wouldn't exactly expect a friendly welcome which if him getting jump by those other two monsters was any indication he shouldn't have expected it in the first place even if they knew he was alive so when began to hear the first group of monster brazenly walk up the tunnel system to greet him he struck out first killing three of them on the spot and holding the last one by throat suspended in mid air, he wasn't going to kill it as long as he told him what he needed to know and after it's panic and shivering finally calm down to a tolerable he asked his question it was simple where was the monster royal ripper located in the place and surprisingly without much more threats he was easily given an answer although it seemed to easy and so he shook the monsters around to ensure that he wasn't playing games and that if he was lying to him then he would find him next but the skittish monster ensures that he was telling the truth and that in actuality a lot of monsters hate royal ripper so they would probably glad if he killed him. Garou accepted that and decided to be nice and not kill the monster, slamming him into the wall before continuing onward toward his real target.
Garou found the entrance to the monster association base quickly enough. He didn't think simply talking his way in would be an option, but he opted for it anyway. He went straight up to the front door and demanded to be let inside. There were two large monsters at the gates; each one looked at the other quizzically before staring back down at him. Garou demanded again to be let inside, and he would let the two of them go without hurting them, but if they didn't, he would kill them. Right then and there again, the two large guards looked at each other but ultimately decided to let him through. Now that Garou was formally inside, he needed to find the would-be kiddy killer's room, but despite his bravado, he didn't want to draw too much attention to himself.
He didn't know how many monsters were in the place, but he knew that despite most of them being mostly pushovers, hundreds of them, combined with some powerful ones, could prove to be difficult even for him. So instead, once he entered the base, he started to flow along the shadows, avoiding large groups of monsters while picking off other monsters that were alone. The place was like a freaking maze room, so he had to continuously ask if he was still going in the right direction. For the most part, he was, but other times he had to backtrack and cobble around. There was a time when stealth wasn't an option, and of those times, most of them ended in bloodshed. It didn't matter to him. He warned them, but they didn't listen to him.
Garou eventually made it to his destination and "knocked" on the door to wake the mythical monster up. As the door impacted against the further wall, the monster sprung up with a start. Garou wanted to taunt the creature for a proper match, but for them, words were pointless. As soon as the monster woke up from the loud noise and saw that it was him, he immediately lashed out with his blades, but they were so painfully slow that Garou couldn't help but laugh at the attempt. He swerved out of the way of the attack and launched out with a jab that instantly evaporated the creature's head. The creature's body slumped to the ground, and Garou stepped away to see the body land in the doorway.
He peered inside the monster's body and was grossed out by what he saw before quickly turning around and proceeding to his next target. He crested the corner. Garou spotted a humanoid rat shape in the dark and quickly dodged back as its fist ripped through the wall in an attempt to strike him. A second figure tore through the wall at nearly the same instant, just a couple inches away from the fist, a horn shape that he diverted away from his head, grabbed at its spindly body, and then tossed aside. He recognized another attack headed for him: some liquid of some kind. He managed to avoid getting touched as he moved away from the splash, performing a couple of backflips before standing up again. He didn't know what it was, but he knew one thing: hot steam rose from the stony floor as the liquid settled.
He bounced backward to get whatever it was out of him before standing up and carefully looking at the three monsters that approached him. One was a muscle-looking humanoid rat that was a result of human experiments and also had regeneration powers, a super mouse, some sort of talking faucet that could spray several different chemicals called shower heads, and the last one was a scrawny monster with a longhorn at the top, which it says is "unbreakable," but Garou doubted, it called itself unihorn.
He didn't know why they were explaining things to him because he didn't ask or care for that matter, and since they were fighting, it only served to benefit him in the fight anyway, and he told them as such, which predictably caused them to come and attack him. The horned monster was first performing multiple cartwheels at super speed; his horn cut into the ground and created a small trench as he pressed his way forward toward him. Garou side hop the attack easily enough but continued to watch as the horned monster turned around and came towards him he took a hesitant glance back to see if the others were going to attack him but they seemed to be taking him on one at a time and he chuckled at that as he spun the second rolling spear and hit him with a sidekick to the gut that sent him slamming into the wall.
Once he was out of the way shower head came to attack him unleashing a blast of unknown chemicals, Garou used the whirlwind to spin an air current creating a pocket directly through the liquid and directly at the monster's face where he slammed home a hard punch that destroyed the monsters head the chemicals that poured out started to rain upwards in drizzle. Just as his compatriots were knocked down, the large mouse came in with a hook, and Garou just smiled as he countered again, with the whirlwind catching the attack and sending a swirling wind cutting up through the rat's entire body, eviscerating it and sending it falling in a bunch of spiral pieces.
Unihorn was completely shocked when he finally recovered and found both of his compatriots dead. He was stunned in place with fear. The hunter wasn't a pushover, and they learned it the hard way. He gulped as the hunter got closer and closer to him, pressing him into the wall, and he was even more surprised when the hunter had so casually sliced off his "unbreakable" horn and threatened him with it. Garou wanted the name of the large brown insectoid and if he didn't know it then he would kill the monster so he really advised it to think hard and long about it for his sake and unihorn was lucky enough to know exactly who he was talking about the monster that went by bug god and he told him that he could show him the way but Garou refused and just asked for direction instead and the monster did so before running away but he was suddenly gored through the chest as another monster made its way onto the scene this one he's seen before.
It was that bird creature from before and now that he remembered it was that same creature that captured him before the creature could say anything Garou struck out fast and hard with a kick he felt the thing's ribcage buckle and break as it connected sending him crashing into the far wall where it fell limp blood falling from its lips, the thing twitched a couple of times before falling lifeless and he continued to where his true objective lied but seeing the bird monster also resurfaced another monster he would have to look for that sludge monster..he heard its name before sludge jellyfish or something like that, it used the kid against him and while he didn't care about getting revenge for the kid but he was the only reason that he lost to those push overs the first time. Garou continued through the base and attacked a few other monsters, even a rhino monster that thought itself so big and bad that he cut off its arm and horn and left bleeding out, but all this monster killing did bring him to an epiphany of sorts. Why was it so easy to kill monsters but not heroes? He hated both of them equally, did he not?
As Garou was busy contemplating, he didn't even realize that something had made its way in front of him. The creature was pure black and nearly blended in with the dark exterior of the hallway. If the torches weren't there, he likely would have run into them by accident. It was 20 feet in size, and upon closer inspection, he saw that it was a large dog monster of some kind, but it wasn't just that its body screamed at him as a warning. This "dog" was strong; there was no doubt about that. As it opened its mouth, his body reacted almost instantly and ran in the opposite direction as the ball of energy launched from the creature's mouth and chased right after him.
It followed along after him at a rapid pace, but he was lucky enough to escape the attack unharmed, but he did still end up falling due to how shitty the base was built. Honestly, if you're going to allow something like that to happen around Rome, shouldn't the base be able to support it? He charged the creature and attacked its front right paw multiple times with the whirlwind and water stream but the attack didn't seem to do anything he looked up at the creature's face and saw nothing but death as another energy blast from its mouth exploded outwards hitting him directly in the face the best he could do was raise his hands to block what he could but even with that he still felt the pain soar throughout his body, he felt his body burn but through all the pain it told him that he was alive and as long as he was alive he could continue to fight and if he was going to beat the monster king he would beat this oversized guard dog he thought with confidence as he rose from the ruble out of the ground. He looked up as the dog came to inspect the hole it made in the floor with its attack. Was it that fast to jump back and not get hit by its explosion?
Garou thought, but as the creature opened its mouth, he stopped thinking entirely and started just letting his body drive him as he dogged out of the way of a barrage of blasts from the beast, but the beast was equally fast and continued to launch his explosion at him while running along the walls, matching his pace. Try as he might, he was eventually consumed by the explosions, but he used that as a cover to get above the creature, and he came down hard with an. Fu Jin enhanced the punch, but as he smirked as the dog monster's head bent down, he was shocked as it sprung right back up as if nothing happened. That was his strongest attack, he thought as he tried to press off the creature with a hop, but again showing off its speed, the dog managed to bite down on his foot before he got too far and again blasted him point blank downwards, where he crashed down through multiple floors, where he stopped along and laid under a pile of rubble.
"Ah, it seems that my hunch was correct; the intruder running around the base was you, Garou. You lived, and that's very good. You are living up to my expectations very well now. I want to have a little chat. You've gained explosive growth during your short time away, and your body seems to hold limitless potential, but I fear it is not enough. Right now, you can only be described as a half-monster, but if you come and let me teach you, then I can raise you to be the strongest monster." Gyoro-Gyoro remarked as he picked up the debris that was burying Garou with his esper powers. allowing the hunter to stand up on his own.
"You want to raise me? What are you going to teach me, psychokinesis or something?" Garou asked.
"No, what I will teach you is the secret behind monsterization." Gyoro-Gyoro remarked before going into a monologue about monsters and how the greatest way for a monster to evolve was through death. He showed the examples of both phoenix-man and orochi as examples of this, but it wasn't so simple as to just bring a monster to the brink of death and see if they would survive or not. No, each monster's "death" was something that was tailored to them specifically, and the trouble was just finding that out. Garou questioned how many times he tried this process, and Gyoro-Gyoro simply remarked that it was done countless times on humans and monsters alike, and while he had a few successes, all of them died before reaching disaster level dragon, until there was one subject who became monster king Orochi, and just like in Orochi's case, he sensed the same amount of potential in him—an even greater potential than his—and if he followed him, Garou could truly become the king of monsters.
"Isn't that what you wanted, Garou? To become a monster that wins."Gyoro-Gyoro finished his speech with. Garou took a moment to think about what it said.
"What is your definition of a monster? What purpose do they serve?" Garou asked. Gyoro-Gyoro was momentarily confused by the question but answered nonetheless.
"What is my definition of a monster, eh? If you go by the traditional human definition, it would be anything that wasn't human, but if monsters can evolve from humans, then isn't that a bit hypocritical? No, I see monsters as just the evolution of humanity; humans have run their course and they are holding back that progress, and as for a monster's purpose, it is to kill humans. That's why I formed this association with the annihilation of the human race, which will save this world and usher it into a new beginning." Gyoro-Gyoro explained, and Garou frowned at the explanation.
"So you just want to kill people and be done with it, huh? Such a lame monster... That's not the monster I strive to be, so I guess in your eyes I will always just be a "half-monster," and this half-monster is going to hunt you." Garou remarked simply, but he was surprised when he found himself paralyzed as the monster laughed and mocked him, thinking that he would be able to take someone like him down, someone with psychic power that exceeded that of the witch sisters.
Garou began to laugh too as he started to flex and stretch through his invisible bindings. He could feel it, and his body was adapting to it, allowing him freedom before his body could move freely on its own. But as he turned his head to see the incoming rocks, he soon realized it wasn't just him resisting around that allowed him to do so. He quickly pulverized the rocks headed his way. It was nothing; this advisor was just a joke, he thought before avoiding another larger rock aimed at his back.
"You're nothing special with all that psychic power, and you can't even hold me and attack at the same time? Pathetic … You're not even worth my time; call that orochi here, and I'll beat that thing and be the new monster king, and then everyone here will listen to me, right?" Garou asked.
" You? beat Orochi? You must be confident, but if that is what you want, go ahead and be my guest." Gyoro-Gyoro spoke simply before calling for the monster in question. Garou was surprised when the hand shot up directly through the floor and gripped him. He felt the tight, suffocating grip the large monster held onto him and heard as Gyoro-Gyoror spoke out that he wanted him alive, causing the monster to loosen his grip and drop him on the ground. Garou quickly got a foot under him and caught himself on the long fall, standing up to his full height and cracking his neck and shoulders.
The next thing Garou knew was that the horns at the top of its head extended outwards directly towards him. He noticed and jumped to the side, but the horn followed along, and despite being unexpected, he still managed to use the water stream to avoid a direct puncture wound, only skinning along his arm instead, which wasn't much for what he already endured. The creature seemed to roar with anger at that and shot out even more of its head horns at him. Garou smirked and shot out his hand in a tiger gesture of the whirlwind as the horns got closer. The horns were all but eviscerated, but they continued to come unafraid of getting chopped to bits, and eventually, he had to retreat and dodge out of the way.
He leaped up and away from the wild horns and into the stands of the Monster Association proper. There were others up there, and he decided to pass them by as he moved, but the king seemed to care very little about his subjects as he continued to spear and swipe his horn across the area, killing or crushing them without a second thought. Or does he care too much? He still didn't know what type of monster he wanted to become but he didn't want to be this, some lumbering giant that couldn't do much anything without its teacher telling it to do something he jumped off the wall, the thing was originally human so it must still have the human weakness of can't doing anything without a head so he aimed they're charging both of his fists with water stream and whirlwind about to unleash that combo attack the tail guy told him about cross fang dragon slayer but before the attack could connect he was surprised when the monster's mouth opened wide showing multiple sets of mouths that then shot outwards.
Luckily for him, he was able to find purchase one of the creature's large tusks that formed around it allowing him to use it as a stepping stone to jump off of and change his direction avoiding being swallowed whole as he got on the ground and looked towards the large monster he saw that it's mouth wasn't the only thing that changed, it had dropped down to all fours and multiple tendrils exuded from it in the shape of worm-like tendrils with dragon mouths six of them along with the largemouth all lit up with light and he knew from the dog monster what that meant, as he used the whirlwind in combination with the water stream again this time in a defensive posture creating a small circle safe space front he dragon flames that wrung out around him it was still hot but at least he was not a charred corpse he thought before bringing both of his arms to the left to block a massive punch from the monster through the cloud of smoke and vapor the flames kicked up. He smiled as he successfully stopped the punch but frowned when the monster still forcibly moved him, slamming him directly into the wall, but he was still up and he was still ready to fight.
"Give up, Garou; Orochi is the ultimate being; he is far above your current level," Gyoro-Gyoro remarked.
"Shut it; I'm a genius; you won't keep landing the same attack on me. Just watch. I'm about to turn this whole thing around. I'll admit this guy is strong, but strength is the only thing he's got. He's missing something that will truly make him a monster king." Garou said
"And what would that be?" Gyoro-Gyoro asked
"Terror, he doesn't have what it takes to terrify others... I, on the other hand, will let you experience true terror! Come and be terrified!" Garou proclaimed, setting both of his hands apart, taking a deep breath, and getting into a stance, but he was shocked when the monster mirrored his stance almost exactly.
"Do you think you're the only genius? Your movements and techniques can be copied with one look; Orochi has grown even more thanks to you." Gyoro-Gyoro remarked simply.
"Now let me be the one to bestow it upon you!" Orochi remarked suddenly. Garou let out a chuckle.
"You said that you copied my style, which only means you adopted a compatible style that will make my life easier on purpose. How considerate of you... You'll regret that!" Garou screamed as he launched himself at the monster holding the whirlwind in his other hand, but he was shocked when multiple appendages came out at him, each of which used the water stream. Garou lashed out against the first dragon-shaped tendril and was shocked when it diverted his blow away and returned with one of its own.
He used his leg to counter coming up and kick it away. He turned just in time to stop the second one from coming at him, but it was too late for the third and fourth, each striking home in the gut and leg, but he continued on fighting. He felt a multitude of slashes form on his body as he continued to fight the dragon appendages; it even managed to copy the whirlwind, huh? Well, he knew something else he could do as he began to puff out his chest and increase his heartbeat, but just as he began to get into form, a massive fist flew out into his face, sending him skyrocketing back into the wall, followed by a continued barrage. After the seventh one, he blacked out from the pain and exhaustion.
"You have such an intense obsession with defeating heroes along with an intense desire to become a monster, but still you lack the impulse and lust of a true monster. Garou, are you still clinging on to your humanity? Oh well, it may take some time, but I will fully commit to brainwashing you after everything is over and settled. We can never have too many aces up our sleeves for the coming battle, speaking of which, you just gave me a great delivery system for our engagement." Gyoro-Gyoro remarked as it split off a part of itself and the small eye flew away and out of the monster hideout, but Gyoro-Gyoro was surprised when suddenly something landed before him. It was human-shaped, but its aura and looks were familiar to him.
"Gyoro-Gyoro, it worked. I have transformed by conquering death just like you said, and look, what's more, my power!" The strange yet familiar individual said before shining a bright light, and all the monsters that were crushed by Orochi's tentacles suddenly came back to life like normal again. Gyoro-Gyoro smiled at the sight of Garou, and now this? Things are simply going to get more and more perfect for him.
Saitama apartment
"So... were are not going to go investigate what those rumblings were?" Saitama asked
"It was the monster association; they're probably having a civil war or something," Bakugo remarked
"I mean, in that case, I could just go take care of it now; if they're going to be making a noise like that through the night, I would like to give them a piece of my mind.'' Saitama said.
"Sensei is correct; he should go down there now and get rid of the threat for good. No one should disturb my master's sleep." Genos added support.
"I know that you believe your master is invincible, and he may very well be, but if you're wrong and there exists a monster down there that can match him in battle, what would you be able to do to support him?" Todoroki spoke out.
"No monster is a match for Saitama; it is inconceivable." genos rebutted
"That may be true, but you still did not answer my question." Todoroki replied, and there was a long silence before Genos snapped at Sasama.
"Saitama, in the advent of such a case, what do you think I need to do to support you in such a disastrous scenario?" Genos asked, and Saitama scratched his bald head with a hand before yawning.
"I don't know; I guess get more power?" Saitama shot out, and Genos immediately started to write his words of wisdom down.
"Anyways, it's like a honey maze down there from the map we found; you would probably get lost and not know where to go, so just wait a little longer for the rest of the group, as we said, then you can beat the boss and just go home." Bakugo grumbled, and Saitama reluctantly agreed. He wasn't too interested in getting lost, so if someone could just point him in the right direction, he could just punch the problem and get the thing over with. Genos stopped the conversation when he noted that there was a lifeform approaching, and he ordered both teens to go handle it.
The Rhino wrestler couldn't believe what he was doing, but at this point, he had no choice. If he had returned to the monster association, then he would undoubtedly be killed by either Orochi for coming back defeated or some other monster that saw that he was weak, if he didn't just bleed out due to his injuries right then and there.
He was taking a gamble with this. That tiger was right in a way. he remembered speaking to it and of course, talking in hypotheticals said what his goal was with the monster association of course he told them that he simply wanted to test himself against the heroes, and the tiger pointed out if that was his only goal it would be better to just work alongside them that way he could continually test his skills instead of just dying to the first S-class heroes he find himself up against, he thought that he was invincible since Gyoro-Gyoro told him that he was a demon level threat the only thing stronger than him were the cadre but the cat was convinced that against all of the S-class he wouldn't be much of an issue and he didn't know to believe him until Asterius backed him up and told him how he has been living with the humans so he would know the truth and even remarked that an A-class hero was able to beat him before he was recruited into the monster association and they were just about even in strength.
So he made a random hypothetical that if both the top executives died then he would consider it, and what do you know, both elder centipede and goketsu are both dead, and here he was injured with no place to go, so he would fulfill his hypothetical and seek those non-killing members out and see what happened if he died then so be it, but he hears murmurs of them accepting monsters and taking them somewhere. He wondered if the tiger and minotaur were there, or was it just a ploy? It didn't matter if he went back, so he had nothing to lose.
He wasn't expecting to run into their members so soon after leaving the monster association base; however, were they casing the place out just looking for wayward monsters like himself, or were they just trying to ensure that more monsters don't reinforce the monster association? Either way, it didn't matter. He could guess one of them based on the description Asterius told him about the hero that beat him, and the other one was an S-class hero. He didn't expect the discussion to commence, but they asked him if he was there to surrender, and technically he was, but he wouldn't just surrender without a fight.
Even with him bleeding profusely from his missing right arm, he still didn't want to submit without fighting. He at least needed to see the strength of this supposed S-class before he did so. The humans he fought before were pathetic, so if these managed to impress him, then sure, he could try surrendering and seeing what happened; it was likely better than death anyway. As the rhino wrestler charged at the two teens, he only saw a wave of blue and a very cold chill before his world went dark. He woke up a couple of hours later and panicked. He still felt somewhat cold, and he quickly searched around, looking for where he was. He saw Asterius and Torax both there, looking at him.
"You seemed to have seen better days." Torax quipped with a laugh, pointing to his stomp of an arm.
"Ha, ha, you dumb cat, where are we?" rhino wrestler asked, his arm wasn't bleeding and was bandaged up.
"You could say that we are in a monster forest; you mark the 64th monster to arrive." Asterius replied, and Rhino wrestler got up to a knee, trying to get his bearing right.
"So what? Do you guys just laze around all day doing nothing?" rhino wrestler asked
"Sometimes, but if you're itching for some action, we got some robots for you to fight from time to time. Who knows, if you're good, you may be able to get another arm and horn made for you." Torax remarked with a small shrug. The rhino wrestler got up and dusted himself off with his one arm.
"Well, I guess that's something. Any actual heroes come here to fight?" rhino wrestler asked
"The only heroes that come here are the non-killing army and a female ninja duo from time to time. If you want to fight them, you could, but just be sure to ask ahead of time. This one continues to challenge Dynamite even after losing, I think five times now." Torax said
"Seven, the warrior has grown much stronger than I had anticipated." Asterius remarked simply
"Hmph… I guess if I could fight that ice kid again, I would like that." rhino wrestler remarked
"I'm sure Frozen Phoenix can make time for you; he's here most often when his mate is." Asterius replied simply as the three monsters continued to talk and walk through the forest.
Two days later
Call To War: Bang, Bomb, Midoriya, Ojiro, Toru, HA execs
Midoriya had come in to check up on Bang as he usually did every so often, every time he passed by the man dojo in patrol through Z-city he could feel his danger sense spike with the bloodlust and anger that was seeping from that mountain, he had worked up the courage to go visit the man and see if he was doing ok and despite his best attempts the man never felt like speaking truthfully to him always given him the run around he knew that Bang was upset over his disciple's death and when people were angry it could lead them to do some pretty rash things if had hoped to spare Bang the thought of killing his disciples but having someone else kill him is probably felt even worse for the old man.
Midoirya never called him out on what he was truly feeling; even if he attempted to say that he wasn't upset, he could feel that he was, and it was always pretty awkward for the time he spent with him. Even relaxing together with tea was not as pleasant as it was before, and his older brother seemed legitimately worried for him as well. Charanko couldn't even get through to him on his attempts to re-open the dojo, but he did occasionally want to see his former disciples progress along with his own in the psycho-analysis martial arts. Ojiro didn't show up much, surprisingly enough. Bang took it as the boy taking his practice more seriously, but he said that he very recently got free time since his new teacher has suspended classes for the moment.
Bang and Midoriya were busy meditating outside again when they were approached by a strange being. Midoriya immediately noticed what the creature was and attempted to grab it out of the air. He succeeded, but it still seemed far too easy.
"Easy now, green savior; I'm not going to escape anywhere or attack you," the green eyeball creature said.
"Why are you here, then?" Deku asked.
"I'm here because I want to deliver a message to the hero association, and your group is one of the few individuals that would not have destroyed this avatar of mine outright," the eyeball said.
"Young Midoriya, do you know this monster?" Bang asked as he looked at it. Midoriya could feel bloodlust leak from Bang as he spoke.
"No, not directly. This is part of the advisor of the monster association Gyoro-Gyoro," Midoriya remarked, and the bloodlust that was leaking out broke free like a dam, making Midoriya slightly cringe away as his danger sense went off like a typhoon.
"Bang, your presence is another reason I chose this moment; you would be interested in what I have to say," Gyoro-Gyoro remarked, and at that, the bloodlust dropped to at least a fraction of what it was before.
"Oh, and what is that?" Bang said curiously.
"Ah, ah, ah, but first, I want an immediate audience with the hero association executives." Gyoro-Gyoro said, and Midoriya looked to Bang, and he did as instructed, heading inside to call the hero association headquarters. While he was doing that, Midoriya quizzed her eyeball.
"What's your angle with this?" Midoriya questioned.
"The same as always, our monsters have had enough of being oppressed; we simply want the humans to stop bothering us. Currently, all the monsters in the ruined Z-city are helping each other to live their lives safely. To live fully outside is not our request, only to leave us be. We don't want to interfere with humans' everyday lives, so in return, we only ask that our living area remain safe for us. If possible, we wish to reach out to monsters outside of the association to realize a co-existing society of man and monster. All that is needed is a little bit of compromise from both sides." Gyoro-Gyoror stated, and Midoriya couldn't believe what he was hearing; it seemed surreal given the events that transpired and Bang it as such.
"You say that, but you launched an invasion of the world and even took a child hostage." Bang was the first to mention, and the eyeball floated up and down in a nod.
"Humans would never understand peaceful negotiations with someone that they consider beneath them; we had to show our strength to prove our worth. This deal is to prevent further destruction of both sides; the hostage was so that we could stall for time and open the door for negotiation." Gyoro-Gyroro explained, and even to Bang, he had to admit that the creature made sense.
"Well, you can explain all of that to the hero association. They are sending a vehicle over to pick us up soon. Now what is it that you wanted to tell me specifically?" Bang asked but the monster didn't want to tell him until after the ride had come in so they all sat in rather awkward silence at the bottom of the massive mountain until the car arrived and arrived they did in force as well, several A-class heroes exited the car along with staff, Gyoro-Gyoro, however, refused to be separated from Midoriya even threatening to kill the child if done so which had the adverse of the effect of having all of the heroes present look at him suspiciously he could even feel from his danger sense that some of them viewed his as a threat but eventually they all calm down and proceeded to their destination, they ultimately decided to drive instead of taking the train system likely to make time for the executives to get together.
"Speak, creature." Bang remarked coldly as the first hour had gone by in the car.
"This "creature" has a name, but I guess I do owe you that... Well, I guess I did leave you in suspense for some time, didn't I? Well, remember how I said, Like the green savior here, I do dream of one day coexistence between man and monster, and for that purpose, I do believe that we need an ambassador for such an adventure, someone that can walk both sides. I assume you know who I refer to." Both Midoriya and Bang gave a sharp inhale and glanced at each other.
"Garou is alive?" Midoriya asked
"So you nearly killed him only to drag him back to your base?" Bang followed up.
"Yes, he is alive for now; he's a half-monster at this point, which makes him the perfect candidate to be someone who can smooth such a transition, and as for nearly killing him? No, that was not our intention, as in fact, we let him go without harming him at all. I directly told our monsters not to hurt him but only to follow after him, but one thing led to another, and a fight broke out. But don't worry, the perpetrator has been punished." Gyoro-Gyoro remarked
"You killed him?" Midoriya asked
"Not quite. He was just put on lockdown. Although he did die, Garou saw to that himself. He invaded the base two days ago and ran amok. I sensed him, of course, but knowing his target, I found it fair for him to get his revenge. If he left it at that, then I would have allowed him to leave, but he kept going. He even found his way to me personally and wanted to challenge the monster king, Orochi. Of course, the inevitable result happened, and now he is recovering from his injuries." Gyoro-Gyoro explained, and Midoriya saw how Bang notably relaxed for the first time that day as he breathed a sigh of relief.
"So are you going to be keeping him down there until the negotiations are over?" Bang asked.
"Indeed, if negotiations go well, he and the child will be returned as a sign of good faith," Gyoro-Gyoro explained, and at that, Bang only nodded, and the rest of the car ride was spent in silence.
The group of three finally made it to the hero association. Midoriya walked with the flying eyeball in his hands, but just for extra security, they had the thing assigned to a large butterfly cage while in the facility. Before meeting them in the executive room, Bang had elected to wait outside for the boy while he went in by himself, remarking that such conversations were more suited to him. The room, which was full of rumbling conversation, quickly died down once he stepped into the room, and a lot of the same topics were discussed, giving the monster of the ghost town freedom to live as they pleased.
Gyoro-Gyoro was even willing to create walls to separate the area from the rest of the human populace so things would go even smoother. Midoriya thought the monsters were making sense, and he could see that even Sitch and Exma were at least open to its ideas, but judging by his experience with hunting, all, for one thing, seemed to be wrapping up a bit too smoothly in his opinion.
"Understood, we won't lay a hand on the monster association and recognize the sovereignty of the ghost town to the monsters. In exchange, you give us the hostage back." A dark-skinned man remarked with a sly smile. Midoriya could feel with his danger sense how disingenuous the guy was being; he had no intentions of it, and it seemed like Gyoro-Gyoro had ways of confirming it as he replied.
"Hmph … You sure are foolish to think that we would lower our guard just like that, even if I was being serious. Hahaha, but what I find truly funny is that some of you were willing to accept my offer! Are monsters and humans coexisting together? It was just a joke I came up with to convince this kid to gather you all, but I never thought some of you adults were all equally dumb! Haha!" The eyeball began to say, making Midoriya scowl in agitation.
"What have you done with the hostage!? Is he already?"
"He is alive. The reason we took him in the first place was so that you cowards wouldn't run away. You have three more days to prepare. Gather the best heroes you can afford to offer and come save the brat. There will be no tricks; he will not be killed until after you all are crushed by the monster association under the leadership of Lord Orochi. We will be waiting for you! Hehe, now if you'll excuse me." Gyoro-Gyoro remarked as he started to bulge until he combusted, and silence rang out over the room. Midoriya didn't know what to say. Sitch advised that the boy just leave before people started pointing fingers at him for just being a messenger while they discussed their next steps, and he agreed to proceed outside, where Bang waited to lie against the wall with his head up in the air.
Midoriya told Bang of what happened and how Gyoro-Gyoro was lying the entire time, which may have even included Garou as well, but Bang said that he never trusted the monster in the first place, so it wasn't really surprising to him as the two started walking. Bangs still seemed lost in thought, and before Midoriya could ask what the man was thinking about, he suddenly turned to him and asked if he could speak with Ojiro. Midoriya agreed and dialed the number. His friend answered the phone, and Midoriya told him how Bang wanted to speak with him before handing the phone off. However, the old man was rather rude in taking it, he thought, and he again started to sense a mild sense of anger wave off of the older gentlemen. Bang only asked where Ojiro was at the moment, and after receiving his answer, he suddenly hung up the call, but he did not hand his phone back to him just yet.
"Young Midoriya, do you know who Ojiro was training under during this last month of affairs?" Bang asked suddenly.
"Um, no, not really. He said that his teacher wanted to keep it private," Midoriya explained, and Bang hesitantly nodded.
"I see. Have you seen any stylistic changes in Ojiro's forms or any new techniques?" Bang said, handing the teen back his phone. Midoriya scratched at his chin as he thought about that question.
"No..not really… I think I heard Kirishima talk about some new move he had that made him much stronger, but it often shortens his stamina, so he doesn't do it often." Midoirya spoke mostly absentmindedly, which he immediately switched to focus as his danger sense again pinged as more anger rolled off Bang.
"Is everything...alright, Bang?" Midoriya asked hesitantly.
"Ojiro said that his teacher had suspended his lessons. When did you learn of this?" at that Midoriya instantly realized where the man was going, but before Midoriya could say anything more and say it may have been a coincidence the older man was already gone dashing down the halls of the association as politely as possible and Midoriya went up to 100% full cowling and chased right after him he knew he had no hope of catching up to the man once he got onto the open road but he did have the benefit of flight to dodge over obstacles so while he was setting himself up in to launch himself he needed to know the direction so he called Ojiro again and asked where he was which he told him he was at Bombs dojo, Midoriya only gave the boy a cryptic message of Bang "found out" before hanging up and launching himself in the direction of B-city.
Bomb's dojo
Ojiro was shocked when he read Garou's letters that told him that he was going away at first, he was mildly panicked that the hunter was going to go back on his words and start to hunt heroes again but after reading the letters he was even more concerned because what he was doing could be seen as a one-way trip if he was caught and now his blood would be on his hands he felt awful as the more days past and there was no sign of the older teen and he dreaded having to bring any of it up to Bang so he did his best to ignore the problem at least until he could phrase it right, he felt stupid that he didn't just tell his teacher right away and the fact that he was still not informing him made it worst, he had fully committed himself to tell him on the third day if the disciple remained gone and he would accept any punishment Bang gave him for his foolish actions.
He was in Bomb's dojo with both Jackie and Charanko, mostly watching over his girlfriend's practice but also to get a better handle on those combo attacks, which they still haven't been able to figure out yet, mostly due to him being too sore for them to get any good practice in, but now that he was free, that could change. When Midoriya initially called and told him that Bang wanted to speak, his heart rate spiked, but it wasn't until his second call a few minutes later that he was outright nervous, and Toru instantly took notice of that. The two went off to discuss what was happening; they both knew that he likely didn't have much time, and Toru even offered to hide him away so he could wait for him to calm down. While the thought was appreciated, he needed to face the man; after all, it was his idea.
Bang had slammed open the doors to his brother's dojo. Ojiro could feel the intensity radiating off of the man even without having to look at him. The light coming from behind him hid his face in a cover of darkness, making him even more intimidating—not that Ojiro would know, as his face and his body were planted firmly on the ground in a kowtow so severe that he felt himself bruising his head against the hardwood floor. He heard and felt the vibration of his feet, which signaled to him that Bomb had rushed back into the main room at the sound of the door slamming open. He had told Jackie, Toru, and Charanko to head off to the side and to just stay quiet for the moment while he handled the situation, even suggesting that Toru cloak them all just so his anger and attention would be solely focused on him. Bomb had been away at the moment, and they didn't get the chance to inform the brother what was about to happen, but upon realizing who it was—what's more, his temperament and how Ojiro was sitting—he elected to say nothing and just moved over to the side just in case something too drastic happens.
"Ojiro… Is Garou alive?" The older man remarked simply as he stepped into the room that, despite the clear animosity in his voice, his steps were still as quiet as a breath.
"Yes" Ojiro responded immediately, still looking down on the floor.
"For how long have you known?" Bang asked.
"Since nearly the beginning of the month." Ojiro responded, hesitating for a moment. He heard something to his side from where Bomb was likely just as surprised as Bang to hear the news, but from the old man himself, all he could hear was a deep exhale, but he couldn't be sure; he didn't want to believe that the man had gotten to be that close to him; he didn't even feel any floor depression close to him.
"Why did you not inform me of his whereabouts? stand and face me properly before you respond." Bang ordered it, and Ojiro did so first, raising his head and meeting the man's eyes. He was definitely surprised by how close the man was, being nearly over the top of him, his eyes burying down into his like he was trying to look into his soul with his fiery gaze, but he found the strength in his legs to stand up and take a long breath, but even after, it didn't stop the suffocating feeling he was experiencing.
"I don't have an excuse." Ojiro remarked simply that he could attempt to give off some excuses as he did Toru, but in the end, it didn't matter; Bang wasn't going to let him off so easily as he felt pain rupture through his body, and he hunched over as he was clutching at his stomach, coughing harshly now that suffocating sensation was no longer just a feeling he thought.
"I do not want an excuse; I want a reason. You are hardly mindless, and give your two histories, I find even less reason for you to shield him from me. So I ask again, Why?" Bang remarked. Ojiro could only nod as he tried his best to ignore the pain, get back to his feet, and look the man in the eyes.
"In truth… I just wanted to help the two of you; I wanted to see if I could get to understand him a bit more what he was hoping to do, and if some compromise could be met between you two. If things continued the way they were, I didn't want to see you forced to kill him." Ojiro explained.
"All of them are the Nobel type." Bomb referenced off-hand, but Ojiro didn't take his eye off Bang, who in turn did the same. He did at least feel like the intensity of the man dialed down at least slightly, but it seemed to return immediately upon asking him his next question.
"Nobel..heh...Ojiro, you went to learn under my wayward pupil. Why? What could he have possibly taught you that I couldn't?" Bang said.
"Nothing … It just was the best reason to stick around so that he was too busy to cause any more trouble with the other heroes." Ojiro explained
"And did appeasing him also include stealing from me?" Bang asked, and Ojiro was legitimately confused by that statement.
"I didn't steal." Pain again erupted from his body, this time from both his face and stomach. He flew backward and crashed into the side of the wall with a hard thud. He felt blood pool in his mouth, and some must have leaked out as he heard Toru shout from off to the side, and he felt her right next to him checking him over.
"Miss Toru, did you have anything to do with this? I doubt he would have been able to steal something without my brother knowing." Bomb spoke out again.
"I… I found out about two weeks ago, but I and Ojiro didn't steal anything."She defended him violently. The door to the dojo opened again, this time to Midoriya, but a harsh stare from Bang stopped his movements cold in the doorway. Jackie and Charanko both also came to his aid and spoke of how Ojiro wouldn't steal anything, with Jackie adding that he was too "basic" for that, which, despite the pain going through his body, did make him chuckle internally, but he warded his girlfriend away as he stood up again and stepped forward so that she was behind him.
"So you didn't steal anything, huh? Tell me, young Ojiro, what Garou taught you; demonstrate it for us all." Bang said as he paced back and forth in a line, keeping eye contact the entire time. Ojiro noticeably gulped before getting into position and taking a deep breath.
"Oh no." Bomb commented as he saw the familiar style along with the increased chest movement which highlighted the increased heart rate, the next strike Ojiro received at that moment was much harder than the others directly to the chest it sent him flying, and would have crushed him into the wall probably breaking it Bomb though unfortunately, that was if both Midoriya and Toru didn't mitigate it but he found himself short of breath his breathing coming in short and shallow, he was suffocating like he was drowning from the air itself he felt his lungs burn and his vision was getting blurry but Bang just stood there motionless watching it happen as Toru yelled at him, Midoriya was considerably angry himself but his vision was suddenly blocked from someone else and just as suddenly another impact to the chest and he could breathe again, he took a big gulp of air before he could settle down Bomb had fixed whatever was happening to him and he was eternally grateful for that.
"That technique you were just performing has been locked away for some time now... Bang saw to it himself to bury it forever; the explosive heart released its fist. Only he knows it, so if you didn't steal it, would you mind telling us how Garou got his hands on it?" Bomb asked in the stead of his fuming brother. Both Toru and Midoriya were hesitant when they heard about that and looked at him. Midoriya held some doubt on his face, but Toru held none, only being more concerned if he was okay or not, feeling over his chest and heart from that impact.
"He….he …. I didn't steal anything. He saw it before on his own. He has a photographic memory." Ojiro spoke through a ragged breath. Both Bang and Bomb shared a glance at each other as Ojiro continued to get himself together. It took three minutes, but he finally managed to get his feet under him. As he stood up once again, he put his hand to his chest as the pain still rang out there.
"He also has something else, Midoriya. You know that tactical hero, the taskmaster? He has an ability similar to his quirk." Ojiro explained that as the burning in his chest came back in full force, forcing him to a knee and clutching at the pain, Toru did her best to release some of it, even using her pressure point killer fist to somewhat alleviate the pain. Both brothers turn to Midoriya to explain what they are discussing.
"The hero taskmaster had a quirk called photographic reflexes, which allowed him to copy the skills and techniques of the opponents he fought against. It would explain how he was able to copy my fa jin." Midoriya remarked.
"Wait, does that mean he also knows?"
"Yeah, he's pretty proficient in the whirlwind now as well. He didn't know about the combo attack, though. With that, I kind of let the cat out of the bag. Ojiro remarked as he stood up again. There was a moment of silence that rang around the room.
"Are you not going to apologize? You nearly killed him!" Toru shouted at Bang.
"No, I will not... Do you know where Garou is now?" Bang asked
"He went back to the Monster Association... I didn't know beforehand, to be honest. He never spoke or even suggested that was what he was planning. He just left these letters that told us... I was going to come out to you tomorrow about it, but I guess you found out yourself." Ojiro spoke as he fished into his pocket and handed Bang two different letters, one addressed to Ojiro and someone else that he just called an annoying brat; the second letter was addressed directly to Ojiro himself. Midoriya filled everyone else in on what was happening and how the raid on the monster association was about to commence in three days.
First letter:
Yo, tailboy and annoying brat, I'm going to be stepping out for a few days. I just remembered something I need to take care of. Keep up with your training while I'm gone. If you don't, then you're going to be in a world of hurt when I get back.
Tailboy, echo 5573
Second letter:
Yo tailboy I'm headed back towards the monster association to get revenge on the monsters that got that cheap win against me. Thanks for saving the kid. You're right; I need to figure out what I'm doing and what I want to be. I say I want to be a monster, but think of it like a "role" that I'm supposed to play, so as long as I keep thinking like that, I'll always be a "fake" monster in their eyes and everyone else's, so while I'm there, they might as well look around and see what "real" monsters are like and see what monster I want to be, and I want to challenge this supposed monster king and see how I stack up against it. Wish me luck, and if Bang is reading this... Once I'm done with this monster king, I'm coming back to take you on in a rematch, you old geezer.
Bang gripped the two sheets of paper before looking up at Ojiro, who had approached him.
"I'm sorry for not telling you about him... If I had known that he was going to be doing something so stupid, I would have just turned him over." Ojiro stated, but Bang shook his head before placing a hand on his shoulder.
"It is fine; it has become clear to me that you have connected more with him than I have, and part of me, as his master, is ashamed of that fact... I may have been too focused on trying to stop him and not enough time listening to him." Bang replied.
"Is he okay, though? Going by what Midoriya said, he was captured by the monster association." Toru asked
"I think or rather choose to believe that Gyoro-Gyoro was genuine in telling us that he had captured him; in either case, we will see soon enough in three days." Bang remarked.
"Yes, and we will do all we can to go and rescue him together," Midoriya commented.
"Yeah! " Ojiro and Toru added on in support.
"Count me in! "Well, if everyone else is going, then I'll go too," Jackie and Charanko also commented.
"Are you sure you two? it will be dangerous" Bomb asked the only other non-heroes present.
"I already fought them before during the invasion and helping out the class; I'm confident to go again; my husband is going to be there, and I'm not going to let him go alone." Jackie said it with confidence.
"I wasn't there to help out when Garou was captured in the first place, and I disgraced Bang with my actions. If he wants to rescue his former disciple so badly, I have to help him so that I can redeem myself." Charanko said it with conviction. Bang let out a chuckle.
"You have grown very much, Charanko; I can hardly recognize you... I guess that is too young for Ojiro's influence as well." Bang remarked as he looked at Ojiro with a smile.
"I can't take all the credit; he's been working hard himself to get himself in the right mindset. I was just a Kickstarter, "Ojiro explained.
Bang smiled before it faded again, and he switched the topic back to his wayward disciple. Once they met again, he knew that there was inevitably a fight, but he wanted to at least try to understand the teen a bit more and wanted to discuss it with the Ojiro and Midoriya. Bomb, for his part, went to make some tea for the discussion while Toru and Jackie sat off on the sidelines.
"Do you think I did anything wrong in raising him? Traditionally, in my dojo, the strongest ruled over all. Charanko, do you think there was something wrong with that method?" Bang asked
"Nothing at all, sir." Charanko replied immediately to suck up to his master.
"Don't be scared to give your honest thoughts; Bang is asking so that he can do better in the future. Don't you want him to improve?" Ojiro asked the adolescent man. He gulped but nodded before running a nervous hand through his hair.
"Well, I think as one of the weakest ones in the class, it was a bit disheartening with the special treatment you gave to the best and forgave him for most of his transgressions against the others" Charanko explained.
"I see, I see... I may have been too forgiving in Garou's action and not strict enough due to his talent. Bang said
"I don't think you did anything wrong yourself; from what I could tell, Garou was picked on for liking monsters as a child and wanted to grow strong to defend himself, but maybe there was something there that triggered his dislike of heroes that you missed?" Midoriya commented, and Bang sat in thought as he ruminated on that.
"It may be due to an incident where his father was critically injured in an incident with a monster. The heroes present weren't strong enough to handle the situation, so they ran away, leaving the people to fend for themselves. I believe that I saved him during that incident, but the damage was already done. Garou liked his father more than his mother, and he would often visit my dojo to avoid her while his father was in the hospital." Bang said, reminiscing, and all of the 1A teens scowled at such cowardice; the least they could do was save the people.
"Wait, Bang, does Garou see you as a sort of father figure?" Ojiro asked, and at that, Bang shook his head.
"I wouldn't know." Bang remarked simply.
"Do you see him as a son?" Toru asked from the side, and again, Bang shook his head.
"Not a son, but more like a younger version of myself." Bang said.
"I can second that; I had to beat some sense into him myself to get him to come back to reality." Bomb added, returning with the drinks, which he distributed among them.
"Yes, that you did. I thought that I could do something similar with Garou, but it seems that the more we fought, the further and further away he felt from it all. I would like to return one day to master and student. Eventually, I had hoped that he would take over my dojo from me." Bang remarked as he took a sip from his drink.
"Well… I think that can still happen." Ojiro commented.
"Yes, even if he is a half-monster now or even a full monster, he's still Garou." Midoriya added.
"If he is a monster, then there is no saving him." Bang remarked simply.
"But who says he needs to be saved from that, though? Especially if it's something he wants to be?" Ojiro said.
"I think the first problem you can correct when you approach him is thinking that monsters are inherently evil... This doesn't necessarily have to be the case, just as much as any other person... We have proof of this with some of the monsters we interacted with." Midoriya said Bang and Bomb shared a glance, and Bomb shrugged his shoulders, and Bang merrily sighed.
"You may have a point about that." Bang remarked simply as the group all started to continue their conversation, which soon flowed into their plans for the monster association raid and what their groups were going to do.
Next day
Power Up: Class 1A+, 1A Monsters
The day was a busy day for the class as they had a lot to do and business to take care of, mostly revolving around the upcoming battle between the monster association, as it was assumed to be the case Child Emperor had not messaged or invited any of them on being a part of the assault squad they were forming going off of what Zombieman saw of the initial roster, this was unfortunate but not unexpected from the child hero, especially after what had transpired the day prior with Midoriya and Gyoro-Gyoro sitch and exma both told him of some growing suspicions that some of the executives had of him after the fact, however there was some benefit that came from the meeting, they had gathered some new members in support of their monster preserve however exma wanted to make it abundantly clear to them all that this wasn't some wishful thinking on their part but it was for money, with the breakout happening a number of monsters were killed that simply "shouldn't" have been and that they had "other plans" for them what those plans were Neither of them knew, like with everything, it was on a need-to-know basis for the most part. Of course, the teens were against using their reserves for whatever plans the association had for them, which the two executives anticipated, but they agreed that for the moment it would be necessary for them to operate without too much worry about punishment.
They also spoke about how this also allowed them certain privileges which included access to monster corpses another way that they were able to convince a few more of the executives was by using the monster's association as an example along with their research with the preserve itself they wanted to create a controllable monster king which they could use to suppress and control other monsters similar to the how this orochi was doing from Child Emperor finding he can suppress at least 2000 monsters inside and have them coordinate to such a scale to form the coalition and the problem was who were going to be the candidates and that's what they wanted them to find out, they were offering over the bodies of three dragon level monsters around that they still had in storage and they couldn't get rid of by traditional burning. This was where Koda was to come in; the plan was to use his power to signal for the other monsters in the area and summon them to the area where they would drop the corpses. Given that he could speak with the monsters normally, they didn't want him to demand they come but send out a distress call, and the monsters that arrived would be deemed acceptable to power up.
So in the early morning, the class along with sitch and exma, accompanied by atomic samurai, his disciples, Zombieman, and Bang all went out to the large nature preserve they had found a large clearing in the forest and their Koda sat down in the center of it all, while all the others waited on top near the spectator sections, Koda took a deep breath and used both his anivoice and his horn to broadcast a large signal which just a blanket statement of "help" accompanied by a feeling of distress and pain, while Koda had been here a couple of times, that wasn't to say that he was friendly with all the monsters present a good majority of the now 65 monsters present simply tolerated him being there if not occasional hiss to get him out of their space. Now he was situated in the direct center of the preserve so that all monsters had an equal chance—not that many of them would come in the first place, but the teens did sort of cheat as they included a number of their monsters in the preserve before the event was to take place.
So as Koda called out, the most predictable and friendly monsters arrived first, which were: Torax, Aki, Asterius, Saren, Volten, Forrest General, Furokuro, Flame Dragoon, Frost Raven, Argant Shen (Sigugmund), Porcupine Man, Machine Gun Brawler, Ugly Duckling, and Goddess Glasses. The 12 were all more or less what they expected, but they were surprised when others approached as well, including Lord Great White, who had attempted to hide away in the trees but was called out by Torax, forcing him out into the open. The next two that came surprised them, as two large monsters made their appearance known; this was none other than Game-Berus and Scaledon, and rounding off the monsters was none other than Eyesight herself.
18 monsters was a surprising turnout, with six of them being demons and one being a dragon, which was the likely candidate to be the next monster king, but they didn't just want to put all their eggs in one basket, so they wanted everyone to have a fair shot at just going at it, so Koda explained to all of them, which in reality were only the four new additions, what was about to happen. Eyesight expressed shock about them being able to kill Goketsu of all monsters in the association, given how strong he was, but she would gladly take that power for herself, of course, with Saren's permission. All of the present monsters looked to Saren for a guide on what was going to happen as the monster corpses were lowered into the preserve in between all of them. As the large body fell, all of the monster bodies started to water at the sight, but they were all still patient, waiting for Saren to give the go-ahead.
He was the sort of leader figure of the preserve every time he was there, and Game-berus was usually the second in command when he wasn't, as were Torax and Asterius, both of whom, while equally strong, didn't much care for such titles or authority, not that it meant much for anything. Saren approached the corpses and then looked around at the monster surrounding them before he quickly drew his blade and cut them into pieces. He attempted to make everything even so that no one could assume wrongdoings, and he asked Sero to use his tape to pass the pieces out to all the monsters, which he did. Asterius initially was going to deny the food, and others were quick to want his share, but Bakugo was there to kick off some of that pride, remarking that he too did something similar to get to the point where he was now, so it was ok for the minotaur to partake so that they could truly have a good rematch, and at that, the minotaur accepted the offering, and all of the monsters dug in some, separating and going back into the forest, while others just ripped into the flesh right between their very eyes.
Tokoyami and Tsu were both surprised that even sigismund was ravenously digging into the monster flesh, it really put into perspective that despite his rather quite and timid nature he was still in fact a monster, Tokoyami was still unsure of taking him even with his progress and combination practically eliminating his weakness of his real body being vulnerable the small boy was adamant in his helping not only did he feel responsible for letting Garou get captured the first time which didn't fade even after they told him about what Ojiro did but he truly did want to help and be a hero and his parents were ok with him participating as they believed that Tokoyami would take care of him like he always did and that he's been so much happier for the past few months and ultimately Tokoyami caved and allowed it and even suggested for him to participate in this so that he would be even stronger, although he did worry if his appearance would change he could pass off being a human since his mosterization mostly focused on his imaginary voices so it defintly could also add some additional problem to his life until he learned to master it.
The group all finished eating, but it seemed they would have to wait around a while for the effects to truly take place, so they called it the day and left, and they would come back tomorrow to check up on them. A gift awaited them at their home along with a message, it was from zomebieman or more specifically , mosquito girl wanted to ensure that they were going to be ok because if they weren't then she wouldn't be able to go out anymore, the mediocre group which wht the public were clalling Koda's and tosoroki's apprentices had gotten some alterations which allowed them to easily swap between their monster and human forms but the monster women wanted Koda to also be help which extended to the others but they all refused the experiments not wanting to risk such things having adverse effects somewhere down the line and without his expertise being unable to fix it which he didn't blame them for but he did offer momo a device to help her with her quirk it was a somewhat large machine that would absorb fat from her passively and "print" that fat out in a sort of long trial like a scroll, this would essentially allow her to double the amount of things she would be allowed to create and it would also somewhat bypass the restriction of skin space, but what truly surprised the teens was what the letter read.
From Dr. Genus
You all know that biology is truly extraordinary. This quirk factor holds almost infinite potential for variation and mutation, but I believe it is due to that mutation that you all need to be careful. While the odds are low, the potential for all of you to become monsters is not zero, besides one of you, which has a surprisingly larger chance of occurring than the rest. This shouldn't be too surprising to you all, but our humans can transform into monsters because not only have we evolved that way but also because the very earth supplies us with the capability to, in essence, the circle of life has permanently ingrained the ability into us and now to you as well. You have been infected, you could say, but your body is suppressing that infection. But I tell you this just to warn you and to watch your emotions.
The class was stunned about it and considered the possibility of such events happening, but Bakugo, who was the one with the higher chance, quickly changed the subject, not wanting to deal with what ifs and maybes as that wouldn't help them at all, and they had enough to worry about with the coming battle in the first place; they just needed to keep a handle on their own emotions. Everyone agreed and was again silenced as those visions came in again. Everyone saw something they hadn't, except it was them, or at least some version of them as monsters. But to one of them, it wasn't the first time he had seen such images, but he kept it to himself.
Next day
Secret meeting: Class 1A, 1A Monsters, Fubuki Group
The morning of the next day, Koda was eager to go and see what had happened with all of the monsters from the day prior. He hoped that all of them were okay, but more than that, he hoped that they all remained at least relatively the same as they were before, given that there was a chance that the memories being absorbed would overcome them and change them for the worse. The class continued forth on his behest, leaving right after breakfast to check in on everyone and see what had transpired, which Momo pointed out was likely nothing.
If something did happen, then Metal Knight would have likely informed him, but the man was radio silent, so it did give them some relief that they weren't going to be arriving at a slaughter of some sort. When the group arrived, things seemed to be relatively calm, with nothing out of the ordinary happening between the monsters as they touched down into the preserve proper. Although the group of monsters all seemed to move away from their initial evolutionary ground, besides Goddess Glass, who remained mostly in the same place awaiting their arrival, she was rather impatient. She was angry to have to stay at the preserve through the night, not because of the other monsters but because the women hated sleeping on the grass and she couldn't properly do her makeup, et cetera. The class merely rolled her eyes at her; she was mostly the same, maybe slightly larger, and she now sported two sets of heart-shaped glasses that matched her dual set of eyes.
Koda sent out a signal for the others, while Momo got the women scared away. He was surprised when a blur came out of the trees—large and humanoid. Thankfully, Humanoid had allowed him to use his feedback ability, which braced him for the tackle. He was shocked to see a woman over the top of him. He was equally surprised when the woman started to lick along with him, which quenched his curiosity about who it was that was on top of him. He felt that he was held by the arms in several positions and that she had four arms now, but the most surprising thing was when she spoke for the first time.
"Koda, it looks like I'm more human now!" The adolescent yipped, and Koda could see that. Now that the girl had stopped licking him, he could see that as well. More than that, he could feel how different she was as he looked down, and sure enough, pressed against him were two sets of breasts. Causing him to blush madly and mumble for her to get off him immediately but he was saying so much or maybe he was just too flustered and his words came out jumbled and quiet for the girl to get off of him but a comment from none other than Torax told the girl what the likely problem with him was and after that, she quickly got off of him, he didn't dare look at her as he remained on the ground completely flushed he heard the other react somewhat surprised as well before momo gestured for Aki to come over towards where her and goddess glasses were so they could get her something to wear, shoji came over to help him up from his stupor finally shaking free from his hold as he looked towards Torax the tiger was the same just an oversized white tiger with heteromorphic eyes.
He guessed that he liked that look. Koda thought Torax was also similar, although he was somewhat bigger now, at 10 feet, with even larger muscles. He was in complete contrast to the tiger, who was nearly all black with a softer, lighter tone for his underbelly. The other monster's forest general seemed mostly the same except he had earned himself large tree bark-shaped devil wings that went along with his now tree-bark face with glowing green eyes that made him somewhat spookier than before.
The other frost raven and flamer dragoon rushed out to meet Todoroki, they had changed also flame dragoon grew a rapid red spiky protrusion along his hands, knees, and elbows and his face seemed to be draped in dragon-like scales which were also colored red, frost raven was similar in effect he radiated a frost from the top half of his neck as if there was an opening on top of his neck, instead of bony protrusions he sported a scaly skin with feathers along his wrist and arm which was frosted at the edges this was the same for his shins which grew feathers that were just ice at the ends, his face also sported feathers along his cheeks but stopping shot of his mouth and his eyes held more bird-like features then previously. Porcupine man alternatively had shrunken down from his weird and sharpened size, resembling more like a normal person, but his spikes were noticeably denser and still stuck out from his body, like his spine and rib cage, which looked uncomfortable, but he assured Ojiro that he was ok and better than ever in fact.
Ugly Duckling didn't really change much, but it was slightly comical to see such a buff grandma monster, and also, due to the nature of being an ugmon, it was slightly disturbing. Sigusmand had emerged in his dragon lord fusion; he didn't show much difference between how he was even in his regular human form, the only difference being that in his fused state, he now possessed a spiky bone tail at the end and that the dragon itself possessed two heads. The machine gun brawler had gained another set of arms and heart-beating boxing gloves, along with a rather elongated neck and legs, but overall he resembled the same.
Volten had also stayed the same, but he felt his power and feel of electricity were much greater than before, which was the same. As was said for Saren, he looked mostly the same and only gained two more sets of eyes, and that's about all, and he regarded the strength boost he received as rather insignificant.
Scaledon also stayed mostly the same, just growing a few feet larger. Game-berus shell grew much spiker on the back, almost like a porcupine, and he also now had four more human-like arms. Her eyesight stayed the same, growing somewhat more than previously but sporting two tongues instead of one. Lord Great White had gone through some significant changes, or at least Sero thought it was; he had gained a "human accepting" form where he was much more human-looking, but he still retained his large size and fin along his back, and now he has two large, sharp fins along his forearms while still maintaining the shark head with glowing dark eyes. He could go back into his more bestial form at will, but given what they had planned, it seemed best to come up with a form that others would find not as threatening, although he played it off as the form allowed him to retain more water than his normal form.
Koda slightly jumped when he felt Aki behind him again. She had changed a lot while becoming mostly humanoid; she retained most of her fur along her body; she held two circles-like ears over the top of her head; she had long red hair that flowed down to her back; she was rather muscular all over, along with having more bear-like paws instead of hands at the end of each arm, so she would still need help gripping certain things. Momo had outfitted her with some mass-reducing clothing to not have her chest get in the way, so she wore a crop top with matching shorts in a similar color scheme to Koda's hero costume, which the quiet teen blushed at. She was now fully taller than him, standing at 7 and a half feet tall. Once everyone was reacquainted, the class moved on to the issue at hand and spoke about what they were doing. Torax had already informed all of the monsters about what the association was planning with trying to form a new monster king after the monster association was wiped out, so there was no need to discuss that. The real topic at hand was who of the monsters, if any, was going to help them in the fight against the monster association.
The traditional 13 monsters that were planted into the reserve were already going to fight which was to be expected but the four was going to be a different matter entirely, the first one to drop out was Game-berus just as he said during the monster invasion he was going to be keeping neutral so that his options could remain open in case the monsters wins the coming battle and left similarly eyesight backed out as well for a similar reason she knew what the monster association had to offer and while she found it impressive that they managed to kill goketsu she didn't have faith that they had the means to kill orochi and slithered away not before pointing to sigismund and remarking that at the very least he should come back alive and leaving with a wink, making the boy blush incredibly and mina noticeably heaved with laughter before being quieted down by shining light. The next two monsters, Scaldon and Lord Great White agreed to keep them company. Scaldon admitted that Koda had been an alright human, and he wouldn't want to see him killed, while Lord Great White wanted to see the one who killed his father in action. His shadow still lingers in his dreams, and he remarked that he must have been a fearsome warrior, Bakugo laughed at that and said, Well, he is a strong warrior, but Fearsom is not something he would describe him as.
With their roster of monsters selected and chosen, it was time for them all to get a move on. They also had a meeting set up for them with the Fubuki group, and given the nature of their being monsters that would be participating in the battle, it would be well for them to meet them and get acquainted with each other so no mishaps happen.
The groups checked out all of the monsters in question—the two that needed to be checked out before going up and flying away. Uraraka was the one that suggested this plan of cooperation given that Tatsumaki wasn't going to allow her sister to participate in the battle, but she knew the girl would likely participate anyway and her likely target when doing so, and since they were going to be going in the same direction with glasses, it only made sense that they would include her, and if she wanted to help, then she could do so even despite her sister's overprotectiveness.
Z-city mountains escape
"Are you sure they are going to be arriving?" mountain ape said not for the first time on their long trip up the mountainside.
"They better...if they stood up, Miss Fubuki, or worse, just tried to play a prank on us, then we'll throttle them good," eyelashes remarked.
"Quiet" Fubuki told them as she looked out the window of the resort, and both of her henchmen did so immediately.
"Why would they have us meet up here? Instead of the meet-up point that I set up for them?" Fubuki asked as she turned her head to see Lily sitting across from her.
"Well, I don't know, but if I could give it a guess, ma'am, it may be due to the person that can lead us to DO-S being a monster" Lily replied, This earned a shock gasp from everyone involved, besides Fubuki herself, of course.
"That much is obvious; only a monster would know exactly who and the specific location of the monster they were looking for; however, this place is nearly isolated from everywhere else." Fubuki said.
"Are you trying to say that this is a setup, Miss Fubuki? We should leave right away. Knuckle shuffled.
"I didn't say that; however, I did have such thoughts as we traveled up here; no, I believe that there is something else to it... There may be more monsters that come along with them, so do not make any moves or say anything that may offend them. I do not want negotiations to end before they officially begin due to any of you. Do I make myself clear?"Fubuki said, speaking to the room.
"Yes, ma'am," rang out all of the blizzard group members.
"Good, because they have arrived." Fubuki remarked simply as she stood up and made her way outside , quickly followed by her entire group while none of them could see anything, Fubuki eyes were locked straight on where she could sense them and but even she was surprised when the cloaking field had stopped and revealed what exactly was coming towards them as the light barrier officially landed and deposited their contents all of the blizzard group stood up straighter and tensed up especially at the massive 30 ft tall creature behind them all but for Fubuki it wasn't the large beast that frightened her but the lone swordsman off to the side which looked completely uninterested in it all, her instinct were telling her something about it was different then the others, like she shouldn't take her eyes off it but as it glanced in her direction she was forced to do so not wanting to meet its gaze and at the correct time to as the presumed leader of the non-killing army had made his way forwards towards offering a friendly smile.
"Miss Fubuki, I guess we all have a lot to talk about, don't we, but first let me introduce you to Goddess Glasses; she is the one who knows about where the DO-S home is and how we can get to it," Midoirya said before gesturing to one of the others behind her. She didn't look like a monster, but it was hard to tell with her eyes covered by the shades that she wore, but she stood tall as the monster made her approach. Both women sized each other up before Fubuki held out a hand for the monster to shake.
"I hope that we can find mutual benefit in working together to get to our common enemy." Fubuki said, and the monster girl took the offered hand and smiled.
"Indeed, I hope you don't mind working together with monsters." Goddess Glass replied and then asked. Fubuki did a side glance towards the monsters behind her; they all seemed docile for now, but each of them seemed fairly docile. Was the forest lord controlling them?
"Well, as long as I have some guarantees that after our corporations come to an end, there will be no unforeseen complications." Fubuki remarked, taking a glance at Midoriya in the meantime.
"All the monsters here wanted to help out of their own free will; you don't have to worry about anything like that." Koda pipped.
"Free will you say?" Fubuki questioned, and Koda nodded.
"If you're referring to my ability, then no, I don't have the power to control monsters. They are all here on their own accord," Koda confirmed, and at that, Fubuki was a bit weary of them.
"I see. Well, in that case, we should go inside and discuss things with some food and drinks. Everyone else, be good and meet your new allies for the battle to come."Fubuki said, hesitating for a moment to turn her back on the monsters in question. Her group just looked at her, dumbfounded by that statement, thinking it was crazy to get along with monsters. But Lily took the initiative in this regard, slowly stepping forward into their ranks, which she was helped with by Uraraka when the girl started to frighten a bit too much, easing her into the situation as she introduced her to the monsters present. This got the other members of the Fubuki group to step up, making the task easier by pairing up with the non-killing army members to make the introduction easier.
Fubuki, while inside with Midoriya and Goddess Glasses, kept a keen eye looking outside for her group. Glasses found the act adorable, which made the women scowl in her direction, but Midoriya was able to mitigate the temperament at least somewhat. The first thing Fubuki wanted to know was the monster's angle and why they would be willing to help them take out the monster association.
"It's really simple: a chance at a better tomorrow. The more beastly types out there know they won't be accepted by the general public, so they are fighting to keep their preserves safe. The association knows about them, so it would be better to show loyalty to the humans and hope that they are repaid in kind, which they seemingly will be," Glass replied simply.
"Preserve?" Fubuki questioned
"We created a monster preserve for the monsters we captured. We wanted them to live in peace, but the association wants to use them for something, but as long as they prove they have value, the more reason it will have to exist." Midoriya explained.
"Is this preserve filled with like-minded monsters?" Fubuki asked
"I doubt it; the others are simply indifferent to the fighting or just want to be left to their own devices," Glasses replied, and Fubuki nodded in thought at that.
"I see. Moving on from that, what are your ideas for the raid? When will it be executed?" Fubuki asked the two.
"Well, the association was challenged by the monster association yesterday, and they will answer that challenge two days from now, and we plan to strike alongside them," Midoriya said, and Fubuki scowled at that.
"I have not heard anything involving this from the association itself, which I speculate is what my sister is doing, and in that instance, I can't be seen there; she would likely deter me from fighting." Fubuki spoke bitterly.
"We aren't going to be fighting alongside the other heroes, silly; do you think they're going to distinguish between us and the rest of the monsters there?" glasses remarked with a chuckle, but before any arguments could carry on, Midoriya quickly continued the subject.
"We are planning to use the association attack as a distraction while we enter through the tunnel system and rescue the prisoners trapped in the DO-S room." Midoriya informed.
"Prisoners?" Fubuki asked
"Yes, hers and previously mine love slaves; theirs about 1099, unless she captured more people, but that's what I can remember." Glasses said.
"I see. What about the association? You say they know of your littler preserve, but do they know of this plan of yours, or is this strictly off the record?" Fubuki asked
"Well, kind of; they do know of our plan, and they agreed to it since we are rescuing people and letting the heroes focus on the child; however, they don't know about us recruiting you or your group on this one, so you would need to keep it under wraps," Midoriya remarked simply. Fubuki hummed in thought at that, and her mind swung in attempts to see if she could use that to her advantage somehow, but they were technically doing this for her in the first place. It was pretty clear they may not be near her at all for the battle, which brought up the question.
"What is the battle strength of the monsters present? Disaster levels?" Fubuki asked bluntly.
"Well, I don't know. They recently all got a power-up, you could say. I think none of them are weaker than a tiger anymore. We know that at least six of them are demons and that one of our members reaches to the dragon."
Midoriya replied simply, and for Fubuki, it took a lot of willpower to keep her straight face, but it did morph into a frown at the strength of members the non-killing army was able to procure in their short existence as a group. She even considered the possibility of employing monsters herself, but she quickly banished the thought as it likely wouldn't be possible, and her sister wouldn't just throw them into a building but kill them outright.
That is, unless she looked human enough, she thought for a moment. Looking over at her glasses and thinking of DO-S herself, death would be too quick a punishment for the amount of embarrassment she gave her. Working under her would be highly worthwhile. Lily and admittedly herself could use more company of the female variety after all, but for now she should put a pin in that thought before continuing with the conversation and attempting to lead the charge in deployment time and what will happen when the fighting commences and putting herself in the lead, but Goddess Glass was fighting her the entire step of the way while Midoriya hopelessly tried to play peacemaker.
Hero Association Headquarters
Official meeting: Child Emperor, Zombieman, Sekingar
Child Emperor was walking down the halls of the association. He was momentarily surprised by the impromptu meeting discussing the final roster for the assault that's happening two days from now. He hadn't expected the monsters to announce the time so abruptly without any other build-up, but he guessed that, given the recent events of the revival of the other monsters, maybe they were feeling more confident in themselves to fully commit. Could they not be as strong as he initially thought? Child Emperor thought as he looked at his watch that displayed a hologram that his woof woof robot number three was suddenly offline after mapping a good portion of the tunnels. It must have been found out, but that meant that he was closing in on mapping out the thing completely. While he was musing in his thoughts, he was suddenly interrupted by the sound of Sekingar, who was walking up to him.
He was the advisor of the heroes designated for the rescue mission, and he was in charge of putting the supplementary force together, so this was technically his meeting to lead. The two greeted each other for a moment before walking into an undisclosed room. Inside said room were two other individuals, Sitch and Zombieman. Sitch was essentially Sekingar's boss within the association, so he was to be told mostly everything involving the actions of his junior. Zombieman was here because the child Emperor thought he was at least among the S-class, one of the more level-headed ones that he could talk and discuss with, and given his specialty in scouting and his forward reconnaissance of the terrain, his insight would be helpful when deciding how they should proceed with the forces they bring.
"I'm going to cut the pleasantries before they even begin to discuss the main topic at hand. The monster association has made their intentions clear; they want to challenge us one day from now, and we shall greet them with great haste, Child Emperor. Have you located their base of operations?" Sekingar started
"I have mapped the majority of the outer cave and tunnel network; I should be able to find the main base with just a little more time. Have you managed to gather the S-class heroes?" The child emperor replied, then asked back.
"I have most of them on standby, but I fear that I cannot delay Tatsumaki much longer, and Drive Knight's whereabouts remain unknown to us, and the watchdog man refused to join in the operation. Any luck in convincing Metal Knight to join in the battle?" Sekingar asked
"No, he's fully committed to not participating." The child emperor responded.
"Why?" Zombieman asked
"He believes that we are playing directly into the monster's hands by going along with their little battle, and he doesn't think the life of just one child is worth sacrificing many heroes to the grinder. His idea was to simply launch a nuclear strike." Child Emperor stated.
"Well, I'm sure that would get rid of the threat, or at least most of them." Zombieman said with a half-hearted chuckle.
"Absolutely not! That child is the son of one of our top sponsors; we cannot afford to have him killed, let alone by our hand," Sekingar remarked with some base in his voice.
"Yes, I agree, but if he is so important, can you explain to me why Silver Fang and Demon Cyborg are also not participating? Along with all of the mutant's members as well."Sitch asked both Sekingar and the child Emperor to share a glance before looking at the other two in the room.
"The exclusion of those two is rather unfortunate, but we simply can't trust them in this battle." Sekingar started.
"Silver Fang neglected to tell us of the capture of Garou; he was charged with keeping him contained, yet he did not inform us of him being "taken" by the monster association, and from what we know, he was released on the streets and again covered up by the non-killing army." Child Emperor added on in clarification
"And for the demon cyborg, I wanted him to join the team, but Child Emperor brought up some new variables, such as his proximity to the monster association hideout, along with investigations into his hometown coming up empty. He is still a new member of the S class. He hasn't earned our trust, so on such an important mission, it's best we keep these things under wraps to ensure security, especially after the recent incident." Sekingar spoke.
"Speaking of said incident, the non-killing army again showed deeper connections to the monsters as they allowed Gyoro-Gyoro to deliver his message of war directly to the top," the Child Emperor said.
"Did you want him to blast it all over the news again? He was going to get that message to us one way or another; of course, the non-killing army would be a likely candidate as they would talk things through instead of killing it immediately." sitch defended
"I'm kind of with him on this one; what's that saying? "Don't shoot the messenger." Yeah, I don't think many heroes would care about that before dicing it up, me included." Zombieman said with a chuckle.
"Either way, they are untrustworthy and can't be trusted; this is on top of the non-killing gimmick; we can't have fighting over what to do with the monsters present; this is an extermination mission below that of a rescue mission." Child Emperor stated, and both Zombieman and Sitch nodded in concession.
"I see. In that case, I have an assignment that I could distract them with while the operation is underway, but I cannot guarantee they will not show up. They have some of the highest hero ratings in hero association history; they will undoubtedly come to the sound of conflict and attempt to help out," Sitch stated.
"In that case, we should label them traitors and criminals to the hero association and treat them as hosts."
"Hold on, I don't think we should go that far; I just don't trust them to leak the plan, but if they arrive and offer aid, then that is fine as long as they listen to instructions and the orders given. I suggest we just tell the others to be weary of them; they aren't hostile, but we can't be sure if they are friendly. Child Emperor remarked that he did feel somewhat bad given how much help Neith has been for him so far and the potential benefit she has in the coming battle if the situation called for it.
"I think you're leaving a substantial amount of firepower out by excluding them from the battle. How many S-class-level combatants—4, 7, 10, maybe? Eh, but it's your plan, so I'll go along with it." Zombieman said with a shrug, puffing out a bit of smoke.
"Regarding the child is ultimately all that matters. They might not come back alive, but if they could draw fire from our force, then it would be worth it." Sekingar remarked
"You shouldn't talk like that; they aren't just disposable pawns; they are heroes just as much as these two before us," Sitch remarked with a huff.
"I don't expect all of the heroes to come out of this unharmed, and some sacrifices may need to be made. This is what they signed up for when they became professional heroes." Sekingar spoke with a serious expression and a heartless voice.
"Sekingar … Have you considered the aftermath? If any more heroes are injured or even killed, their numbers will diminish even more.
"Oh, that's right. So you are in charge of the EDP, correct? Have you ever thought that this monster association is the danger to the earth that the great seer predicted? In that case, don't you think it is now more than ever that the hero association takes the stage and shows our strength? If we destroy the monster association, then we can overcome that prophecy once and for all." Sekingar preached.
"I guess you're right about that," Sitch said.
"Now that that's settled, we should move on to the members who will be joining us on our force. First and foremost, since we have tank-top masters joining us, suffice it to say that his entire group will join as well. The same could be said for Darkshine and the shining prodigies, or what's left of them." Sekingar remarked.
"Several of the A-class heroes dropped out from participating in the assault due to the structure of only being involved on the surface team, those being death gatling, air, chain 'n' Toad, stinger, Butterfly Dx, forte, Battle Goddess, and Pantheon. The Rated Heroes will also be participating in the battle pitch. I'm surprised they have been loyal so far, but they will be the ones leading the charge. If they survive this, then their record will be expunged. We picked and selected a few B and C-class heroes as well for more variety and to not take the entire association in the raid, but ultimately this takes our battle numbers to 100 heroes in their entirety. '' Sekingar remarked, and Zombieman whistled at that.
"Woah, that's a lot of people—about a fifth of the association?" Zombieman asked
"Yes, they wanted our full force, and we will show them and the world the power of their protectors. We will need to divide the forces up into smaller divisions and squads to keep cohesion, but with this force, we cannot fail." Sekingar said with confidence
The next day
Month 5: Week 1: War
All of the S-class heroes began to gather in the meeting room. The Child Emperor wanted to have a short meeting in which he would fill out the remaining S-class details involving the raid before the official instructions could begin. However, Mr. Nariniki was there, and judging by his very disheveled appearance, he was at wits in and was now begging for them to just bring his son home safe and sound, which they reassured they were going to do as he was escorted out of the room. The child emperor handed everyone a map of the ghost town before starting his debrief, as a hologram of the monster association base popped up in the middle of the room. It showed an elaborate structure that contained an almost ant nest-like structure with numerous entrances and exits.
"As you can see from the hologram, there is a multitude of possible entry and exit paths, but I have secretly planted multiple mini-robots that will collapse all of these tunnels and bring them down to 10, which is where we come in. Each of us will separate and go down these tunnels, killing all of the monsters that we come across until we meet up at the center. I have handed each of you a transmitter so that we can communicate as we go along." The child Emperor remarked.
"Wa..wait..you're splitting us up, why?" Darkshine remarked in an almost skittish tone.
"If we stick together, then we present too big of a target and could easily allow us to get bogged down in the fighting. The main goal of this assault is hostage rescue; killing is secondary. Whoever manages it doesn't matter," the Child Emperor explained. And Darkshine just nodded while giving a downcast expression.
"Eh ? Don't tell me you're scared of the dark, darkshin, huh? Need someone to hold your hand?" Metal Bat said with a laugh as he slapped the large man on the back, but he was
"No, it's just an honest question," Darkshine remarked with a smile.
"If any of the monsters get past us, that is where the supplementary members will play a role and kill the monsters that make it to the surface." The child Emperor said.
"Ah, so like whack-a-mole," the atomic samurai commented.
"We thoroughly went through the heroes; anything tiger-level and below should prove to be no threat at all," Senkingar added.
"We will each be provided an escort of 10 other heroes; they will help clear up."
"I don't need help; you can take those people and move them elsewhere," Tatsumaki interrupted the Child Emperor.
"I don't think you'll need help, Tatsumaki; I just want to ensure that the entrance you go through is properly covered after you enter." The child emperor explained this to the jumpy girl.
"No monsters are going to hide or make it past me, so it's pointless." Tatsumaki countered. The Child Emperor just sighed and agreed with the girl, saying she would just have the 10 members assigned to her rotate that way when she was properly inside.
"Using the monster thermography on my satellite, I was able to identify that a rough estimate of the number of monsters in the ghost town is somewhere around 1800, 500 of which are in the base itself. Meanwhile, inside, we will each need to take about 60 monsters, which shouldn't prove too difficult for any of us. The monster elder centipede, which appeared two months ago, was confirmed to be a part of the monster association, so we should assume that they have other disaster-level demon and dragon-level monsters under their employ." The child Emperor remarked.
"They do at least 10 of them. These are their cadres; all of them are dragon-level threats, so we need to be careful when encountering them." Sekingar said, casually tapping on the display for a moment, which brought up an identical map to Child Emperors, but this one had a glowing yellow dot marked on it.
"Sitch has finished decoding this transmission from Drive Knight, who had gone to assault the monster association based on his own. We have lost contact with him, but he managed to give us this data not only on the child's whereabouts highlighted by the yellow dot but on some of the monster association's top brass." Sekingar.
"That should make things easier; I could do it myself," Flash remarked.
"We shouldn't be too careful, Flash; Drive Knight was likely defeated; he sent us this as a warning to be fully prepared" Sekingar said.
"And we don't know if the child has been moved since this observation or because of this observation; flash, this is in your sector, so keep a lookout, but I'll come and circle back from my pathway as well." Child Emperor added on. Any other conversation was cut out by the sound of crunching metal as everyone turned to Puri-Puri, the prisoner, as he glared at a certain image.
"I remember being told by one of the police chiefs that it was a cat monster that broke in and stole my babies... They are very important to me, so I ask that if you see any monsters in prison uniforms, let them go. I want to save them." puri-puri asked
"One of my buddies was turned into a monster as well, and I was going to slice him up good, but... forget it. Are you saying that you found a way to reverse monsterfication?" atomic asked, but after Puri-puri started talking nonsense about "angel hug" and "deep kiss" to try to turn them back, he dropped out of the conversation entirely.
"Remember, showing mercy on monsters could be a disaster, so just be careful, puri-puri prisoner. Sparing monsters is a major reason that we aren't including any of the non-killing army in this assignment, but they may end up showing up eventually anyway." The child Emperor remarked
"Those two monsters are probably aiming for me; I'll take care of them," Flash remarked, pointing at the ninja-looking people, thinking back on their girls' words from the festival.
"Why are you so sure about that?" Child Emperor asked
"Will you be alright taking on the two of them?" Zombieman asked.
"It should be no problem at all." Flash replied with a shrug.
"You shouldn't be overconfident for the battle; if Drive Knight could be defeated, then all of you could as well; however, the fact that there is an equal number of cadre and S-class is beneficial for us," Sekingar spoke out.
"Don't worry about it; I'll handle this "psychic Gyoro-Gyoro" and monster king Orochi on my own." tatsumaki stated
'You shouldn't be making decisions all on your own." Flash replied.
"Do you want to take on the final boss? I'm doing this for all of you; all of you are just so powerless." tatsumaki stated.
"Can someone shut this child up so that we can continue with the actual conversation?" Flash remarked to the others.
"Hey guys, please take it easy." The child Emperor remarked, holding his hand up and waving it to calm Tatsumaki down. He hated supervising the S-class for this reason.
"He does have a point, though, Tatsumaki. Remember that this operation is about child rescue, so don't destroy the base in some large-scale attack until we can confirm the hostage's safety," Zombieman remarked.
"Hey, what's the meaning of this? Having a secret meeting without including me or the others?" came the voice of a sweet mask behind Child Emperor, almost making him jump.
"We didn't think about excluding you; I just wanted to have a meeting with the S-class, that's all." Child Emperor said, trying to placate the idol while he tried to formulate a way to let him know his role.
"Isn't it obvious? We all hate you naturally!" tatsumaki remarked.
"Don't escalate the situation! Look, umm, we trust in your leadership skills and want you to be the surface team general that coordinates with all the hero teams above ground." The child emperor tried to explain.
"You want me to remain on the surface? Hah! If you want to take advantage of my leadership skills, you should put the S-class under my control." A sweet mask spoke.
"Under your command? If you wanted to make jokes, you should have stopped at your name." Zombieman spoke.
This led to a cascade of arguments springing up back and forth while Child Emperor tried to play mediator, but everything came to halting silence as the king's engine started to roar and the king somehow mysteriously appeared near the doorway behind Sweet Mast without anyone seeing the man move. Flash was impressed with how stealthy the man was; he wouldn't have even expected him if it wasn't for his engine.
"King, where are you going!?" Metal Bat said
"We're wasting time; we need to move." King remarked simply before stepping out of the room. There was a solid silence as the man left, as each hero took in his words.
"That's king for you; we are wasting time with this bickering. A true hero should be one of immediate action. I'll take a step back. but I'm still participating with the strike team." Sweet Mask as he walked out of the room. The child emperor just decided to let the idol have it. If the atomic samurai was taking his disciples along with him, then it shouldn't be too much of a problem for him to go along with them. The top four of the A-class should constitute an S-class equivalent in battle strength, he thought as everyone got up to proceed to the chopper.
Elsewhere in the association
Stitch and Sekingar were in an elevator going down as the sun started to set signaling the start of the battle, the two association employees discussed amongst each other the nature of the operation the heroes were out number 20 to 1 and Sekingar was adamant in joining them on the ground where his safety could not be guaranteed especially when the S-class move underground and thought it was unusually brave for someone, that likely only wanted to be upgraded to the advisor which he would be on the mission success but for him.
It was more than a simple promotion he would also have his name written down in the history books and Sitch could not deny such a fact, this was a massive and unprecedented raid on what was essentially a monster town 100 hundred heroes had been drafted but how many would return was sitch concern. Speaking of such a force surely moving that many people would be fairly obvious, and Sitch confirmed that to be the case, they were only meeting up with the team leaders; the rest of the heroes are already in transit in hidden convoys using the invisible screens to move into position without stirring the bees nest, or if those that happened to already be in Z-city were setting up and gathering hub for them just on the outskirts. Who they were meeting with now were just the team leaders of the groups of heroes, and as the elevator opened up, it revealed all A-class heroes.
Blue Fire, magic man, Genji, golden ball, one shotter, shadow ring, doll master, tank top Vegetarian, great philosopher. All stood around discussing the battle plan they all shaped up when the two entered and some pleasantries were shared, their wa a brief discussion before one of the leaders Genji told them about how some of the lower ranked hero wanted guaranteed rank updates after the battle was on due to the risk involved and Sekingar agreed and they heard through the several of the commlinks shouts of hooray followed by a single scream of pain in reply, sitch went with them towards the roof and saw them all of and hoped for the best for each of them and a safe return after seeing the helicopter take off he continued back down into the association proper and found Deku and Dynamight waiting for him, the three of them discussed about their operation and Deku informed him about including the blizzard bunch in their plot which sitch was nervous about and told them if tatsumaki finds out it will be their problem which they acknowledged but were not to concerned about given they would be leaving somewhat soon.