Hailstorm Vol 2

by Masked Spider

The second semester at U.A. has begun for Clay Cero and Slade Mason as they gear up to take on new assignments, new villains, the more advanced internships known as work studies and, the most evil of all, school work! So come along as these two friends continue their journey to become pro heroes! (note: read My Hero Academia Hailstorm first).

48. A Form That Rejects

A Form That Rejects

Hello everyone and welcome to the latest chapter of Hailstorm Vol. 2! The desperate struggle against Shigaraki continues here as our heroes fight tooth and nail to buy time until Midoriya's return. And speaking of return, if anyone's visited my Pat reon before then tonight's a good night to check it out again as I give the rundown of everything happening for Halloween week! Which reminds me, Happy Halloween everybody and enjoy your treat of a new chapter!

Flashback: A Few Days Ago: U.A. Training Grounds

"'Storm Monarch'," Slade repeated as the cloud wielder dispersed his quirk from around his body, "not sure if that's the most fitting title considering you're more of a small walking storm than a full-blown storm."

"I'm planning on using it in combination with the stored clouds in the tanks," Clay explained while floating down and landing on the ground, "I won't be a category five storm or anything, but I'll at least resemble a storm."

"Still, the applications of that form are definitely numerous," Midoriya commented while somehow producing a notebook from out of nowhere, "surely there's more to it than just wrapping your clouds around your body or you'd have used it a long time ago."

"Oh where to begin," he crossed his arms while thinking, "for starters, it's not just a single dense layer of clouds, it's actually three. One super dense layer, a second softer layer, and a third super dense layer."

"Of course," Izuku jotted down the info in his notebook, "you're using the middle layer as cushioning to spread out and diminish the force of a physical impact. The two super dense layers also make it far more difficult for slashing attacks to get through."

"It's still probably vulnerable to powerful attacks involving high heat," Slade mused aloud, "and I'll bet there's a limit to how much piercing damage it can take."

"Unfortunately, yeah," the cloud wielder confirmed, "even when super dense my clouds still evaporate when exposed to a high enough level of heat so this thing won't provide much protection against strong enough lasers or someone like Dabi throwing all their firepower at me. Thankfully, any piercing damage will have to pack a serious punch to get through. But that's one of the great things about this form, it greatly increases my movement speed by propelling my whole body instead of just a few sections of it. And that's not even including this."

He summoned one of his clouds and electricity began to crackle around his right arm, "I can make miniature localized thunderclouds anywhere on my body, allowing me to do some neat tricks with lightning."

"That's amazing," Izuku wrote down in his notebook, "but how do you keep from shocking yourself?"

"A new addition to my hero costume was insulation," Clay held up a finger, "this unfortunately means I can only fight using this form at its fullest when I'm in costume. I also have to keep the density low around my nose and mouth for obvious reasons."

"And I thought Midoriya had a lot to keep in mind when managing multiple quirks," Slade observed, "just how long can you maintain something like this?"

"The good news is I can maintain it for several minutes," he assured, "the bad news is the number of clouds required to do it is a fair bit. I have to produce a large volume of them before even attempting to use this because it's a pain opening and closing sections to let more clouds out. But once again, that's why I have the tanks."

"It's still a useful form," Izuku continued to take notes, "just the increases in speed and protection will help you navigate the battlefield more easily and you can fight more effectively in close combat than ever before."

"Personally, what I'm most curious about is how it'll hold up against an opponent with immense physical ability," Clay crossed his arms, "that'll be the real test of this form's capabilities."

Now: Coffin In the Sky

'Looks like I'm getting to test this new trick for all its worth,' he thought to himself while flying out of the way of more tendrils and manipulating his clones to keep evading or electrocuting their opponent. Shigaraki had unfortunately learned that he could smash together the tendrils with the clones on them, disrupting their shape and the attempted electrical charge with the sheer size and movement of the giant masses. "You can't run forever, Clay Cero," the villain remarked, "I don't know how you achieved that new form of yours but using it for such an extended period must be taxing on you."

"Your concern is touching," the 1A Student flipped over in midair to avoid another tendril then used an electrified kick to propel himself away from the next one, "but I'm confident I can hold on a good bit longer, especially with backup." Said backup was Nejire pummeling through more of the fleshy masses on the opposite side of Tomura with her quirk while Mirio moved in close whenever he could and used assistance from the other two to amplify the force of his punches and kicks. Even if it didn't do much, they were still buying precious seconds of time, time they desperately needed.

"You really think this pitiful resistance will be enough to destroy me," Tomura questioned, clearly unimpressed. Mirko and Edge Shot were also dropping in when they could to deliver blows of their own, but Nejire could only support one person at a time and Mirio was usually the closest one to Shigaraki's main body.

"I've got a better question," Mirio emerged from the moving tendrils using his permeation quirk, "why do you destroy?"

"Because the current system has failed," the villain answered like a broken record.

"You really think anyone believes that lie at this point," the Big Three Leader leapt down to the ground, "I can see the real issue; you don't have any friends." This statement caused a look of surprise to spread across Shigaraki's face. "If you had friends, you'd want to protect them, if you had friends, you wouldn't be destroying things because you'd know that there are some things you shouldn't destroy!"

"I…do have friends," he spoke quietly at first before yelling, "Mikkun and Tomo said I was nice! Mon wanted to take walks with me! I DO TO HAVE FRIENDS!" Mirio was obviously taken aback by this and Shigaraki even more so as he looked like he couldn't believe what he just said.

"S-Sorry," the third year instinctively apologized.

"No, I want to hear more," Clay landed next to the blond boy, "just who were these friends of yours? Definitely not All For One's friends, that asshole only cares about himself. But you don't sound like Shigaraki, either. That prick is only concerned about wrecking things. Could you be…. Tenko Shimura?"

The cloud wielder had learned his real identity from Midoriya who'd learned it from All Might and Gran Torino. "You know that name," the villain covered his face with his right hand, "that damn All Might, just how much did he tell your class? But you're wrong, Tenko Shimura isn't here!" the tendrils suddenly started thrashing wildly, moving about in numerous random directions, "he's not, he's not, HE'S NOT!"

Clay was forced to take flight again to avoid the numerous masses while Mirio phased back through them. As this occurred, Shigaraki continued to rant and rave. "There is only Shigaraki! There is only All For One! We have too, I mean I have too, it all needs to be destroyed, destroyed, DESTROYED!"

"Did you really have to keep prodding at him," Mirio remarked while leaping out of one of the tendrils and landing on a cloud provided by Clay, "I can't tell if things are getting better or worse now."

"This may sound like weird reasoning, but I think they're getting better," the cloud wielder surmised, "everyone's been thinking that All For One and Shigaraki are basically the same entity now, but this clearly proves otherwise. If we can continue to keep him unstable, we might have a shot at beating him, or at least buying more time-whoa!" The two had to move out of the way as the masses continued to swing about wildly. Thankfully their size meant they couldn't swing fast but there were still a lot of them.

"Damn you, Clay Cero," Shigaraki clenched his hand tighter over his face. 'What's going on, I should be complete but instead I'm splitting apart. That idiotic looking blond stumbled onto a weakness and that blasted cloud warrior capitalized on it. No doubt he'll continue trying to exploit it, he's cutthroat like that and chasing him around has been fruitless so far, I need to change tactics.'

The villain turned then and started walking towards another part of the coffin, the mass of hands parting before him like a curtain. "Wait!" Mirio leapt back down into the fray in an attempt to stop the villain, but more hands raised up and blocked his advance, making it hard for him to maneuver and far too dangerous to become tangible.

"There's no need for me to continue pursuing either of you," Tomura glanced back while continuing to walk forward, "I only need one of your corpses as a gift for Izuku Midoriya. All your efforts to stall will be in vain then."

"Oh yeah!" Nejire dropped down and unleashed multiple spiral blasts into the sea of hands, tearing into it while Clay did the same with vortex spears and bladed disc clouds. Edge Shot and Mirko dealt with the ones closer to Bakugou while Best Jeanist stood guard over him. Thanks to Clay's clouds the three of them didn't land hard, but it was obvious the hit they'd taken earlier was slowing them down.

"You said this place would be my coffin," Shigaraki slowed to taunt them again, "but it looks like you people have made your own coffins to lie in!" He focused the majority of his hands on Clay and Nejire then with the tendrils moving the fastest they'd moved so far. The flying duo dodged out of the way but not quite in time to avoid injury. Clay winced as he felt a cut in his right side while Nejire suffered a cut on her left along with one on her cheek.

They moved closer together to better concentrate their powers and continued burrowing through the fleshy masses aimed at them. "Funny thing about coffins," the cloud wielder grunted, "you need nails!" He raised his right hand up before directing it downward. A glowing object came shooting down at an angle from above then, larger and wider than All Might in his most muscular form, spinning at insane speeds and wrapped in a huge mass of glowing energy.

This was the reason his defense had suddenly lowered, because half of the clouds he'd gotten from the tanks had been sent up and super condensed into a triple-helix arrowhead. At the same time, Nejire had been sending energy to it while also blasting through Shigaraki's hands, creating one of their fastest and most powerful attacks. "COMBO MOVE: SKYFALL HELIX!" The duo declared as the villain tried producing more hands to block it. But the attack had been designed specifically to deal with heavily armored and thick-skinned opponents, packing more than enough force to obliterate the fleshy mass and slam into Tomura with plenty of leftover momentum to send him flying back.

A cloud of dust was kicked up by the attack along with rocks and other debris, the result of the combo move tearing a trench into the ground as it went. When it finally slammed into the barrier the entire floating prison shook with the impact. More than a couple people down beneath the building would swear it had tilted momentarily before correcting its position. "Did that manage to do it?" Mirio asked after hopping out of one of the destroyed masses and landing on the ground.

The unfortunate answer to that question was; not as well as they would've hoped. Several new tendrils of hands emerged from the settling dust at incredible speed, so fast that both Clay and Nejire might've been hit if Best Jeanist hadn't pulled them out of the way. "That was one of the best attacks we came up with," the blue-haired girl spoke between labored breaths once they landed on the ground, "why didn't it work?"

"Would a petty trick like that have worked on golden age All Might," Tomura remarked as he came walking out of the dust cloud with even more tendrils spreading from his left arm, "just think about it for a second. Would any of you stand a chance against someone like that?!"

"Don't know," Clay responded, his breathing also a little labored, "I figured if we were facing someone like that, this fight would be over already. Good thing we aren't, right Tenko."

"Still making smart-mouthed remarks," the villain narrowed his eyes, "and don't think you can pull that trick twice. My body is complete now and those little relapses will soon be gone. You have nothing left to-." He stopped speaking as an unexpected fighter stepped forward.

"Take care of the others," Bakugou stumbled forward slightly before his walk steadied. His right arm was bandaged now but it didn't hide the fact that he still looked a little unsteady.

"You good," Clay asked in a serious tone.

"This is nothing," the explosion quirk user continued to walk forward, "I just have to win…. right, Izuku?"

"No, Baku-," Best Jeanist, knowing the full extent of his injuries, tried to snare the boy with his cables. But as he did, something happened. In a flash of sparks, Bakugou was suddenly up close to Shigaraki, blasting him in the face with an explosion. 'His speed,' the cloud user's eyes widened, 'it's like when he's blasting forward, but there's something different.'

He continued to watch as Bakugou dodged Shigaraki's retaliatory swing then another blow from a tendril before hitting the villain with an explosion again. Clay saw it then, how he was moving so fast. 'I get it,' he recalled everything he knew about the explosion quirk, 'A fact most people don't know about his quirk is that he has a degree of control over his sweat glands. Right now, he's somehow releasing balls of sweat all over his body and strategically igniting them in order to boost his speed, that's why he's producing miniature flashes every time he accelerates like that.'

But how long could he keep that up and would he be able to continue dodging at the rate he was. Clay wasn't about to wait and find out so when Shigaraki turned around to attempt a straight jab with his massive left arm, the 1A student made a move of his own. He wrapped one part of his cloud scarf around Shigaraki's eyes while wrapping the other one around his right arm. At the same time, he ran lightning through it, causing the villain to tense up which slowed his blow just enough to miss Bakugou who let off another explosion.

"Bastards!" Tomura dispersed the smoke with a swing of his arm.

"Did you think your little remark meant we were done," Clay scoffed, moving in and electrocuting the injured side of Shigaraki's head again.

"I'll destroy you both!" He aimed a punch at the cloud wielder who dodged by going low and quickly hovering away while wrapping his cloud scarf around the villain's ankle, electrocuting him once more. Despite this, the villain still anticipated Bakugou's next attack from behind and grew his left arm in order to swat him out of the air. This attempt was foiled, however, by a highly concentrated blast of yellow energy, Nejire's Pike attack, blasting the elongated part of the limb off before it reached the explosion boy.

"Don't forget about us!" She flew in, firing smaller spiral blasts that Shigaraki swatted at with his mutated limb before taking a kick to the head from Mirko. Togata struck next, popping out of the ground behind him and once again slamming a fist into the mutated man's gut with the assistance of some energy Nejire sent his way. He phased through the villain when he attempted to counterattack, creating an opening for Bakugou to hit him with yet another explosion.

'What's going on,' Tomura grit his teeth in frustration while trying and only halfway succeeding in defending himself from the continuous close range attacks, 'they're risking getting this close to my body now? Even if the damage they're doing individually is negligible it's starting to pile up fast with so many attacks. But they can't keep this up, I know they can't and yet, I can't understand why it's pissing me off so much! These are all just insects, not a single one possessing the power of One For All!'

He thrashed about even more wildly, managing to tear off Mirko's new prosthetic but it did little to stop the frequency of her attacks and the others. Thanks to Clay shocking him and Nejire blasting his enlarged limb while providing the occasional powerup to the blows of the others, the damage he was doing to them now was also negligible. Even Edge Shot was managing to be a nuisance by constantly disrupting his vision with attacks aimed at his eyes! "Keep it up everyone!" Mirko shouted, her face a visage of sadistic glee as she came in and hit him with a series of powerful spinning kicks to the stomach, "Luna Rush!"

'That attack,' Shigaraki's eyes widened as he staggered from the flurry of blows and coughed up just the smallest amount of blood, 'it actually knocked me back this much?!' "Now everyone, hit him!" Nejire threw out her spiraling quirk to Clay, Mirio, and Mirko before coming in with her own close-range attack. The collection of four blows impacted mercilessly against the villain, slamming him into the ground hard enough to crater it as they all moved out of the way.

"Bakugou now," Clay called, though it wasn't really necessary as the explosion boy seemingly appeared right above them and unleashed another barrage.

"Cluster!" He managed to yell as yet another powerful blast engulfed the villain before he landed close by and collapsed to his knees.

"That had to have done something," Mirio took a steadying breath with the others mirroring him to one degree or another.

"I…wasn't broken," a weak voice sounded from the smoke, "yet no one reached their hand out to me. The world rejected me." Something moved in the smoke then. Clay had just enough time to spot the wriggling mass before he acted. "So I'll reject the world!"

He moved on instinct because that was all he had time to do. Dispersing part of his Storm Monarch form, the U.A. Student sent out it and his other clouds in front of everyone. Fleshy spikes shot out then, one hitting Bakugou square in the chest while the others received grazing cuts or dodged out of the way. The cloud wielder, for his part, took a nasty graze to the shoulder that sent him flying back.

He landed at about the same time and distance as the explosion boy. "Bakugou! Clay!" Best Jeanist ran over to examine their conditions. Clay was able to sit up as the Fiber hero immediately went to work, stitching up his wounds. "Your shoulder's got a large gash in it, and you took a hit to your side earlier. Have you really been keeping pressure on the latter with your clouds this whole time?"

"I didn't really have time to stop for first aid," the U.A. student remarked as he let the clouds around his head dissipate for a moment so he could breathe in some fresher air, "but what about Bakugou? Is he alright?"

"That cloud you covered him with prevented the blow from being fatal," Jeanist observed, "but I wouldn't be surprised if he has some cracked ribs now. He's unconscious at the moment, I'll try waking him."

"It won't make a difference," Shigaraki declared in a low, threatening tone as the dust cleared completely, revealing his newest form. Two hands were now covering his mouth with another grasping the purple spot on his head. Larger hands covered his torso protectively while other hands wrapped around his ankles like greaves and enlarged his feet. But strangest of all was his enlarged left arm now sported the fleshy visages of people none of them had ever seen before at the end of each finger, but they'd be correct in assuming it was the faces of his family.

"Will you cut it out already!" Mirko rushed in, loping like the rabbit she resembled.

"Wait, don't!" Edge Shot called out in warning. But by then it was too late. Tomura moved with a newfound speed, jumping over her kick before punching her with his enlarged fist. The Pro Hero was sent flying into the trees, her momentum enough to crash through them. "Mirko!"

Shigaraki was right behind the Ninja Hero before he knew what was happening and sent him flying with a vicious backhand. Nejire seized his left arm with the spiraling energy of her quirk, but he responded by hitting the ground and knocking sharp debris towards her. There was no time for the Big Three Member to dodge as she was knocked out of the air. "No!" Clay was only able to cover her with his clouds after she was hit in order to soften her landing.

'Dammit,' the cloud wielder grit his teeth, reforming his Storm Monarch visage as soon as Jeanist was done stitching up his wounds, 'he adapted again. This new form is no doubt meant to deal with our speed and agility. His body must've determined that spreading itself out wasn't viable when faced with continuous damage.' "It appears I was wrong to switch targets," the villain mused aloud, completely ignoring Mirio as he advanced towards Clay and Bakugou, "despite showing cold, calculated logic time and time again when dealing with villains, you're actually quite heroic, Clay Cero."

"What makes you say that," the U.A. Student decided now was as good a time as any to stall for a moment before whispering to Jeanist, "Tell them to open the rest of the tanks. We can't afford to hide anything else if we're going to survive until Midoriya gets here." The Fiber Hero nodded and did so discreetly.

"You were all supposed to be the backup for Izuku Midoriya," Tomura was no doubt smiling underneath his hands, "you weren't meant to engage me like this, right? Yet somehow you extras have managed to hold on for this long. It's because you keep protecting them or pulling them out of harm's way. That's not a skill you acquired overnight, it's something you developed after doing it over and over again, learning to watch everything around you."

"I suppose I should be honored you think so highly of my skill," Clay remarked before Best Jeanist suddenly surrounded the villain with his cables. The Cloud Wielder stuck his quirk to the restraints which had conductive fibers as part of their construction, electrifying them.

"It's that annoying skill I need to get rid of," Shigaraki charged forward, his momentum tearing the cables as they became taut. Even with electricity coursing through his body it barely slowed him down. "Stop getting in the way of the things I want to destroy." 'Shit, the tanks are going to be too late,' Clay electrified his clouds and readied to move as Tomura picked up speed and reared his fist back.

"Everyone," Mandalay suddenly called with her quirk, "hold on for two more seconds, I'm opening the barrier!" But as she said this, the villain was already in front of Clay. 'Dammit, I need to dodge-.' Time seemed to slow in that moment as the fist came racing towards him. Then it resumed due to a very unexpected interruption.

"Look at these fabulous peaches!" Everyone suddenly froze as Mirio popped up out of the ground, his surprisingly giant ass pointed at Shigaraki. Amazingly, the mutated monstrosity stopped and stared for a moment, letting out a confused 'huh'. Even more amazingly, Clay lost it.

"HAHAHAHAHAHA!" He laughed loudly, more at Shigaraki's reaction than the actual joke, "what's the matter big guy? Has the baddest villain in history never seen an ass in a skintight suit like that?! I can't wait to see what adaption you'll pull off to counter it!"

"It seems the situation has finally gotten to the two of you," Tomura remarked, "You've lost your minds."

"Nah, I just heard the good news," Clay smirked then, "he is here, baby girl." Shigaraki's eyes widened as he turned around and looked up to see the newcomer.

"Izuku Midoriya," he only had enough time to say that much. The holder of One For All had already set himself up with Black Whip and Fa Jin for a slingshot maneuver. In the blink of an eye, he went rocketing forward. With a powerful kick that sent the villain's body spinning, Deku had finally entered the fight.

Now I'll admit, Shigaraki, and me, are giving Clay a little more credit than he's due here. After all, we know canonically speaking that the heroes and students were able to survive, albeit barely, until Midoriya showed up. But with Clay's presence here helping reduce the number of injuries the other heroes were able to stay in the fight longer. I don't know if that explanation was really necessary but I thought I'd point it out anyway. Now then as usual feel free to leave a comment or review about what you liked/disliked or if you've got any neat ideas for future chapters! And as per the usual check out my Pat reon if you got the time. Lastly, stop in next chapter as the results of Midoriya's training are brought to bare against the newly mutated villain! 'Til then.