28/12/2024

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The Emperor's Dragon
Chapter 84

Fulaka Puchon could feel her teeth grind together as she looked at the control screen. It showed the damage to Tartarus.

It was… It was frightening. The initial assault had taken out all but one of their defence turrets, and the power lines. And the generators weren't kicking in.

Well… the board said they were, but the power monitoring said they weren't.

That was bad. Since there was no damage to the generators, or at least no reports of it, she had to assume they'd taken out the transmission lines.

The turrets she could understand. You could observe them. The power lines… again, they could have been cut back on the mainland. But cutting the lines to the generators…

That spoke of planning, and a lot of knowledge about Tartarus. Knowledge that wasn't easy to get. She wouldn't say impossible but if someone had been asking those questions, then Tartarus should already know about it.

And now, at least according to the board, they were under attack from multiple directions. The attackers were emerging from some sort of black portals, and while some of the guards had tried to go through them, no one had been able to get close.

What was worse was that the attackers were driving towards the prison. They had shown only a minimal interest in the other buildings.

How did they know all of this?

They shouldn't know which building was the prison. They shouldn't know…

She shook her head forcefully. It didn't matter what the attackers shouldn't know, it just mattered what they did know. "Have the guards fall back and form a perimetre," she ordered. "And get a message to Eren. Tell him he's going to have visitors," Fulaka added. Eren had the title of Tartarus Controller, sometimes Tartarus Security Controller. It was a deliberately vague title to signify the person who was in charge of the prison itself. Her title was Tartarus Manger, because she had oversight of the whole island. "Tell him to go into lockdown," she added, though hopefully that wasn't something they'd need to trigger. Going to battery power automatically triggered the prison to lockdown.

Unless the attackers knew some way of avoiding that.

She didn't think so but she didn't know.

"Then what Ma'am?" came the question.

"Once the perimeter is formed?" Fulaka mused. It took her mind off the anger she felt at the question. "Then we drive these fuckers off my island!" she growled.

-ted-

Kamina hadn't worked for Endeavor for long. She was actually part of a new batch of sidekicks the then Number Two Hero had hired a few months back. When she'd told her previous colleagues she'd applied, they'd just laughed and said she'd never get the job. Endeavor didn't hire anyone who's quirk didn't complement his. Her quirk, Thunder Arrow, had absolutely nothing to do with fire. It allowed her to fire a projectile and guide its path. She could, with a great deal of concentration imbue the projectile with a small electrical charge. She couldn't use a gun. The projectile had to be thrown with her strength as the propellant but over time, she had worked out she could use a sling, or a bow… Apparently the action of drawing back the bow was enough for her quirk to work with.

And all of it was a nice quirk but nothing that directly complemented Endeavor's Hell Flame. Her former colleagues were shocked when she got the position. Jealous too. Then the excuse had changed to the other joke about Endeavor, that since All Might had so few sidekicks (one, Sir Nighteye, though no one was too sure what the intern Lemillion counted as), Endeavor was compensating with his many, many sidekicks. He did have more than usual.

Despite that, Endeavor was known in the industry to be a demanding taskmaster but he was also the Number Two, now Number One Hero, and he burned through cases like no one else.

Working at his agency had been intense from day 1 but everyone at the agency worked with a kind of ruthless efficiency that Kamina admired. When the agency staff gave her a schedule, she knew she could follow it to the minute. When they said paperwork had been filled out, you could rely on it being filled out properly. Unlike her previous agency where, sure the paperwork was filled out, but you'd better spend just as long as you would have taken to fill it out yourself checking that it was right because something invariably would be wrong.

And the training!

Her previous agency just assumed she was fit. Endeavor's checked and she had to go through several very rigorous training sessions before she even got to see the Boss. Kamina had been planning on asking him why he'd hired her when she saw him but the instant Enji Todoroki strode into the training room at his agency, she'd been struck dumb.

The force of his presence was… She'd met top level heroes before. She wasn't naive. She'd even been on missions against villains who could project their presence but no one had anything on Endeavor. He was a force to be reckoned with. He'd snapped questions about her quirk, which she'd answered and then had insisted that she hit several targets with some oddly weighted arrows. It had taken her two shots before she realised that they were fire arrows! He'd told her to practise her aim without her quirk, and with her quirk but to direct the arrow through a torturously long route to the target and then stalked out again.

Kamina would have been insulted at that, if she hadn't known he'd hired at least three other new sidekicks at the same time and he was attending to their training as well. The schedule told her that.

It wasn't until later in the day, when she was packing up with aching hands and an ache in her body that she knew was her quirk that she had a chance to see the other sidekicks and to think about what it meant.

None of them had complementary quirks. Infact Shimo's frost quirk was exactly contradictory! Her quirk was the closest to one that could be used easily to boost Hellflame. She'd wondered about it for days, and so had the new sidekicks.

It wasn't until one of Endeavor's older, more established sidekicks, Convector, explained it to them that it made sense. Endeavor was aware that if he ever came up against someone who was immune to fire, then he was at a distinct disadvantage. Endeavor had come up against villains who had some immunity to fire. It was a testament to his skill that he was still here and they were incarcerated. But the point was, he was aware of his potential weakness and was seeking sidekicks who could offer more variety in their skills. As Convector had pointed out, an arrow, flaming or not, still did physical damage.

It made sense. But… It would have made more sense if Endeavor was a young hero, just starting out, not a man decades into his career. Endeavor had survived, and most would say thrived for so long without sidekicks with different abilities so why had he decided to get them now…

She had figured it out and Kamina hadn't liked the answer. To her shame, she'd only worked it out on the night All Might had retired. Endeavor had sought variety because he'd known the previous Number One was retiring. Endeavor knew he had to step into All Might's place and he would need versatility.

It said a lot about Endeavor that he recognised it.

It said a lot about the world that he had to recognise it.

Even so, Kamina had trained hard and eventually she'd been selected to go on missions with the Hero and that… That was a whole new level of work.

She'd learned so much… She'd been thinking of going out on her own, starting her own agency. Not now but in a few years… she wasn't sure she would now. She wasn't sure she could. Kamina had acknowledged to herself that she was never going to be in the top tier of heroes but… After watching Endeavor, even allowing for what she expected her rank to be, she wasn't sure she could do it.

But that was a problem for tomorrow. Endeavor had always said it was good to have a goal but if you did not focus on today, then, in their industry, they'd never live to see that goal. Right now… There were things she'd only ever heard of in briefings attacking the square. One was attacking, the others were kind of milling around now that the civilians had been evacuated. There were seven… no eight, of them and… one of them was protecting something. Kamina couldn't see it properly but she could see a pair of legs so probably the ring leader.

Judging the distance, she was never going to get to them, but she didn't have to get close to be able to hit them. Kamina picked out a special arrow and nocked it. She charged the arrow with as much charge as she could and shot it into the air. Trying to look, without making it obvious she was looking, Kamina guided the arrow towards them. She couldn't just drop it from on high because the creature was actually hunched over them and while she could control the path of her arrows, there was a limit to how fast she could turn them. A right angled turn that sharply was not happening.

Kamina managed to loop the arrow around a tree canopy for cover and then she accelerated it towards whoever was standing there. She felt a moment of elation when the arrow shot from cover but it died as soon as it made it to the creature. Its arm shot up and there was a solid thunk before a boom as the arrow exploded.

Let it be close enough.

Her heart fell when the creature turned to face her, revealing the person it was protecting. There wasn't even any relief from the red raw patch on the creature's arm, not when she could actually see the flesh regrowing and the black skin reforming over it. It had been protecting a man, and she couldn't tell his age due to scarring but she could see his glittering blue eyes.

He knew she'd fired the arrow, as if the bow didn't make that obvious. Surprisingly he grinned at her, and then looked around. "Shin! Deal with her!" he yelled pointing at her.

For a moment Kamina didn't know what he meant and then one of the creatures turned to her. She nocked another arrow and let it fly straight at the black thing. It didn't even dodge but when the arrow hit, it didn't react when the charge went through it. Instead, it just pulled the arrow out and continued advancing.

Kamina looked at it. It was jet black all over and its eyes glowed. This one had folds of skin sort of forming a cape over it and… was that it's brain? If she could hit that then… From what she'd heard about these creatures, they were strong and tough but their brains were a point of weakness. She had no idea why they were exposed. Maybe it was to creep people out because she had to admit it was super creepy but… She gulped and aimed again. If she could take it out… that was her job.

She fired again, aiming for the brain but the creature just swept one arm and intercepted her arrow. It was fast. But… now it thought she could only fire straight. Kamina licked her lips and tasted salt. She was sweaty. She was scared but… this was her job. She fired another arrow, making it look like she was targeting one of the other creatures. She couldn't tell but the one approaching her didn't appear to note it. It was odd. The creature had a mouth, and eyes but no expression! She'd fought villains who wore masks but this was different.

Kamina had to hold in place as the creature came closer… she felt more and more afraid. There was a certain level of fear with any confrontation with a villain but this was different. Kamina felt cold, which was impossible with the fire Endeavor was throwing around but she did. She shivered as she tried to nock the next arrow. And the back of her throat felt slimy. All she wanted to do was fall to her knees and get warm.

She was so cold she didn't notice when the sound of battle faded into nothing. The shouts disappeared, and the sound of burning faded. Even the sound of her own breathing waned and there was nothing but silence.

It stretched. People said that darkness stretched but they forgot that silence stretched as well. At night, when all was quiet, silence lingered, and bore down upon you. Except it wasn't night, it was day and the silence was everywhere. It was so silent Kamina could almost hear a high pitched whine that wasn't there.

She didn't like it. Silence was… Silence was wrong. There shouldn't be silence but… there was… Kamina gritted her teeth and while she could feel them rasping against each other, she couldn't hear anything.

Kamina hauled in a shuddering breath. She swallowed in silence, driving the mucus in the back of her throat down as she tried to force herself to focus on the situation at hand. The creature was getting closer…

The creature…

It was doing this! It had to be!

"No!" Kamina screamed, before directing her arrow.

Panic made it faster and stronger and it came in from an odd angle, to pierce through the creature's brain with a solid thunk. The creature jerked, almost as if electrocuted, which was the effects of the charge on the arrow. Then it stilled.

Kamina stared at it. The creature stared at her before it toppled to the ground. As soon as it did, sound returned.

It was startling in its intensity and she just stood there, gasping for air as the cold that had gripped her faded. With the return of the sounds of battle, Kamina realised the creature had to have had some sort of quirk which made things silent. That was… troubling, since at least one of the others looked to be fire proof and they were all strong. Did they have multiple quirks? How was that possible… And if they did have multiple quirks, did they all have the same quirks or different ones?

She looked around, counting up the other creatures… Silence was her fear, not others, so… they shouldn't be too hard to deal with. There were about six more to go. And they were facing off against the Number One Hero.

These things were dead meat!

And the villain leading them… well, he should have known better than to go up against Endeavor.

-ted-

I kind of feel sorry for Fuluka since she, and others provided Izuku the information he needed to make his assault so far the success that it is, Of course, she doesn't remember, nor do they and they don't even have an inkling that they might have been the ones to give up the information. While it's obviously difficult, I think it's kinder that way.

And a scene from one of Endeavor's many sidekicks. We'll see how the fight goes for them.

Discord is on this code: TcBnRN7aDn FFN will remove links but you should be able to figure that out. There's a heap of other authors there, so come along and chat to us all! Not just about MHA.

-ted-

Loved it? Hated it? Found a spelling mistake? Let me know please!