Super Science
Ch. 127: A Hero, A Scientist, and A Deadly Land Part 3
Day 3
The two boys had managed to create a small camp at the base of a tree and used its bark as fuel and trunk as both a wind, smoke, and light blocker from its thick branches. Izuku managed to gather a few berries and edible roots to eat, and just before they could turn in for the night, they were aroused by the sound of screaming bird calls. Gargled and throaty with screeching ranging in pitch. It echoed and was followed by many other ones, one after the other, until the whole forest around them was swamped with horrible sounds!
"What is that?" Bakugou asked in fright while lying flat on the ground, trying to hide his body while covering his ears.
Izuku, unperturbed and unfazed by this, looked around and, sighing annoyedly, said, "Dame. It must be the mating season."
"Mating season of what?!" Bakugou exclaimed in panic.
"Emerald Bombardiers. Dragons who make nests out of highly explosive spit. They usually live in the Redwoods but travel to the Tantalizing Forest to mate.", Izuku explained in more detail.
For a while, Bakugou tried to ignore the incessant screaming but eventually found that it just kept getting worse and worse. The blond asked, "Are they gonna do that all night?"
Izuku pokes the fire while nodding and confirms, "The whole night. Just try and rest as much as you can."
Saying this, Izuku laid down and rolled over with his back to the fire. Bakugou tried to follow suit, but after tossing and turning and being unable to drown out the dragon's horny mating screams, Bakugouy eventually lost his cool after an hour of unsuccessful sleep.
Jumping up and running out from their camp, he blasted off the biggest explosion he'd ever made and yelled at the top of his lungs, "SHUT UP!"
Surprisingly, this caused the dragons to stop and return to the forest in silence. Bakugou sighed with relief. Just as he turned to sleep in the camp, Izuku stood at the entrance, looking at him with thunderous fury. He silently hissed at him, "What the hell are you doing? Are you trying to get us killed?!"
"I couldn't take that screaming anymore! It's driving me crazy!" Bakugou argued.
"Well, deal with it! I don't wanna explode from a dragon that just has to spit on me!" Izuku snapped back.
"You should be more worried about me blowing you up.", Bakugou growled at him.
Izuku rolled his eyes and shot back, "Oh, there you go again with the threats, intimidation, and blah, blah, blah! How bout you finally put your money where your mouth is for once?! " He challenged the teen while getting into his face, surprising him.
Bakugou blinked as he backed away and asked in concern, "What the fuck happened to the old you?"
"He died. And he's never coming back, not for you anyway.", Izuku said while looking away.
Seeing his weakness, Bakugou tried to take advantage of it by saying, "I don't get-!"
Only for Izuku to cut him off and quickly say, "Sush!"
Bakugou blinked in surprise from the sudden reaction and yelled, "Don't you shush me!"
"No, seriously! Sush!" Izuku exclaimed, covering his mouth in his hand. As the two went silent, Izuku said in a soft tone, "Something is nearby."
Bakugou tried to focus on what he was hearing, but he only heard the wind. So he inquired, "Is it one of those dragons?"
Izuku shook his head and explained, "No, they're much bigger and louder. This is something smaller. And lots of them."
Eventually, Bakugou saw it too. Movement in the low brush and shadows raced by. Far too small to be a dragon. Eventually, a small dog creature came out and stood off before the two in a defiant stance as if inviting combat. It was the size of a border collie, single-coated, and colored a mix of gray, brown, and black with splotches of white with a raised mane of fur around the neck and back.
It snarled and yipped at them, and Izuku immediately expressed concern, saying, "Oh, that's a Pack Screamer. We're in trouble."
"What?" Bakugou asks as more suddenly appear and stand before the boys or circle them.
"Remember when I said that there are creatures like the White-faced Yowlers in the Tantalizing Forest? Well, they are the Arctic relatives of these guys.", Izuku explained in short.
Bakugou remembered the night on the mountain with the Yowlers and remembered how vicious and terrifying they were and how fast they turned him into a coward. With a dry gulp, he asked, "So we're fucked?"
"No thanks to you.", Izuku griped.
As the Screamer surrounded and snapped at them, only running when Bakugou set off its quirk, they both stood back to back as they tried to keep the animals off them. Seeing that their predicament was dire, and anything Bakugou could do would be in vain, he decided to swallow his pride and ask the actual smart one, "Any ideas?"
Izuku looked around, trying not to look at the very vigilant animals, and said, "Carefully make it to the nearest tree and then blast us up it."
"I thought you said-." Bakugou told him while letting off some small pops to scare the animals off.
"I know what I said, but this is different!" Izuku immediately cut him off.
So the two boys carefully walked towards the tree and kept their backs to one another while their eyes followed the screamers. Once they were at the base, Bakugou grabbed and blasted himself and Izuku straight up the tree, where the screams tried to lung at the very last moment. Luckily, they managed to grab a branch and haul themselves onto it. They sat with legs dangling, and the screams circled around them with yelps, jeers, and barks.
They had only sat up there waiting for a few minutes before Bakugou's inpatients told him to say, "Now what?"
"We wait for them to lose interest or until something bigger comes along to scare them off.", Izuku told him,
"How long could that take?" Bakugou questions, only getting a stern expression in response. Bakugou looks down with a concerned expression and says, "Fuck."
Suddenly, the screams stopped teasing them and went dead silent. They raised their arms and leaned forward, their eyes forward and their ears straight up. They looked and listened for only a few seconds before suddenly bolting from the tree and vanishing into the dark.
Bakugou was confused and said, "The hell? That didn't take long at all."
"That means something is around here," Izuku suddenly said in a serious tone, looking around like a frightened animal.
Bakugou quickly followed, trying to find something that could scare the animals off. He suddenly looked up and saw a strange shape in the trees and a single willow tree branch that was much closer than it originally was. Looking up at the object and back down at Izuku, he asked, "Hey, what did you mean by not all the plants are trees or whatever?"
"It's because there is a dragon that calls these woods home full time. It's called the Enchanting Leaf Tail, and it-." Izuku began to tell him, only for the willow branch to suddenly wrap around Bakugou and drag him up with a yell as Izuku trailed off, saying, "Does that."
As Bakugou felt the whole world spin and swim before his eyes, his perception of time, gravity, and inertia was flung onto its head, and he was hoisted up at surprising speed. When his accent finally stopped, he only had seconds to react to the next event. That being a dragon no bigger than himself looking ready to attack as it hung upside down like a bat! But thanks to all his combat training, he reacted fast and blasted the dragon in the face, causing it and himself to fall to the forest floor!
As Bakugou stood up and regained his composure, he could clearly see the dragon. It possessed a wyvern-like physique but moved across the ground using its wings, each equipped with lethal spurs. The dragon's body bore a green hue reminiscent of willow trees, with scales akin to the leaves. However, the most impressive feature was its tail, which measured ten times the length of its body and resembled a willow tree branch.
The dragon glared at him with a singed face and roared while charging up a fire breath, but Bakugou acted first. He blasted himself to the dragon, grabbed its head, and blasted it three times where it fell dead! Bakugou breathed heavily after such a stressful situation and looked between his hands and the dragon's open face.
After licking his lips and calming down a bit, he said in quiet shock, "It…really wasn't that tough."
Izuku, who had managed to shimmy down the tree, said, "Yeah, they focus on the element of surprise." Bakugou looked at him dumbfounded, and the green teen told him with a shrug, "You didn't think everything on this island was hyper-aggressive and hard to beat, did you?"
"You sure made it seem like that was the case.", Bakugou said in the calmest voice he had Made yet, still processing everything.
As Bakugou had his moment, Izuku looked around the area and said to him, "We can't stay here anymore. We should move before the Pack Screamers decide to come back." Bakugou, still in shock, meekly agreed, and the two boys began to walk into the dark. Bakugou was quieter than ever as his once-broken ego started to mend, realizing they had a fighting chance of surviving. He figured he had a chance at survival since not everything in this place was just one super monster after another. As he slowly came to terms with this, he understood that at the end of the day, everything here was just a mutant animal. Nothing around here was truly mythical until something caught his eye, making him do a double-take.
Glancing to the side, he noticed an unusual four-legged creature with a single horn protruding from its head. The interplay of shadows and the soft moonlight cast a mystical aura around it. Bakugou's jaw dropped; his bravado vanished as his mind raced to the initial conclusion.
"Holy fucking shit. Is that a-.", Bakugou began to say until his eyes adjusted and followed up after seeing the creature clearly, "Really weird deer."
Indeed, it was, in fact, a deer. A small deer with a strange pattern on its body and a horn growing from its forehead. Accompanied by more of its kind and around three other deer creatures with single horns, all of whom ranged in size and color.
Izuku stopped trailing and looked to whatever Bakugou was before telling him, "Oh, that's one of the many different species of Unicron on the island."
"Unicorn?" Bakugou questioned.
"Yeah, there are just various ungulates with a single horn sprouting from their heads. Anima tried to make a real-life unicorn but gave up, and those were the failures.", the scientist explained in full.
A thought crossed the blonde's head, and he inquired, "Can we-?"
But Izuku cut him off and told him, "As much as I want to say yes, they are wild animals." As they both sighed in disappointment, hoping for a quick way to travel, Izuku was the one to catch sight of something. Pointing it out, he exclaimed, "But they're not!"
Before Bakugou could question what Izuku was about, the boy suddenly ran off and up toward a group of very large animals! Bakuhgou almost assumed Izuku and lost his mind and was throwing his life away until he saw that the creatures were regular horses. Although patchy and coated with coat colors on their skin, they looked like regular horses until the teen got closer and realized that these creatures had an extra set of legs!
"Sleipnir!" Izuku happily called the creatures by name as he nuzzled into one soft pink muzzle.
The other horses soon joined in the affection, but Bakugou could only focus on one feature.
"That horse has six legs.", Bakugou dumbly stated.
Izuku snickered at his blatant dumbfoundedness and replied, "How very observant of you. But you fail to notice that they are horses, which means we can ride them. Now hop on." He told the blonde while tossing himself on the horse's back with the skill of a years-long equestrian expert.
Bakugou had no experience with a horse, and since the animal was so much bigger than himself, he awkwardly tried to jump onto its back before slipping off its hide and trying again and again, flailing his legs as he managed to get half his body on it. Even the Sleipnir tried helping him up with its nose. Eventually, the teen managed to shift his body onto its back, move his body to the front, and finally sit up and look at Izuku, who was trying his best not to laugh. After his embarrassing moment, the two boys rode off into the night, the horses making the trip much faster.
Guided by Izuku and the light of the moon, the two boys ran through the forest with ease, not being stopped by any predator's biological or geographical roadblocks. The ride was bumpy but also smooth as Bakugou was able to take in the sight of the magical forest all around him, seeing the many shimmering sights and taking it all in from his first time on horseback. They had only ridden for a few hours before the horses finally came to a stop at what looked like an even thicker part of the forest that was so overgrown with plant life that you could see two feet in front of you.
Bakugou, confused by this, asked, "Why are we stopping?"
"Because we have to travel by foot from here.", Izuku answered while getting off the Sleipnir's back.
"Why? The spider horse things can get us through much faster.", Bakugou argued, not wanting to waste more time in this place by foot travel.
Izuku sighs with equal stress and exhaustion to his own and tells him, "Sleipnir is native to the Rolling Plains and Tantalizing Forest. They don't know about the Hyperion Jungle. It's too treacherous for them. And besides, they won't go in."
When Bakugou tried to prove him wrong by forcing his horse into the jungle, it vehemently refused and began to snort, screech, and whine before bucking him off and running away with the rest of the herd.
Bakugou pulled himself up from the dirt and admitted with a growl, "Damn, I hate when you're right."
Izuku rubbed his tired eyes and told him while looking at the slowly setting moon, "We'll camp here and rest for a few hours, then travel in the morning."
Bakugou said nothing, knowing how little rest they had gotten so far. He knew that if they were to travel to an even more dangerous environment, they needed to be at peak performance or in better shape than they currently were. So he silently agreed and collected plant material to make temporary beds.
When Bakugou woke up, he noticed three things. First, he was the first one awake. Second, it was late morning or early afternoon, so they slept much longer than he realized. And third, he could hear another voice saying something from just outside their camp. Bakugou had wanted to do what he normally does and burst out to figure out what was happening. Still, remembering literally everything else that had happened the day prior, he decided not to test faith. Instead, he decided to crawl sneakily toward the voice and observe what or who it could be.
Once he got close enough, his mouth dropped open at what he saw. Two giant spiders, black and horrible, fra nigger than himself, and one is larger than the other. Then he saw it, a human torso upon the larger spider; unknown to Bakugou, this was the zealot of Ungoliant, Quelaag. Apparently, he was arguing with the smaller spider and was already fed up with the conversation because of his tone alone.
"What do you mean, 'you think you saw a human? 'Either you did or didn't," he yelled at the spider, which responded with a series of hissing sounds. Quelaag smacked his face and pulled it down, telling the smaller spider, "Fine, if you're so sure about it, then fan out and search the jungle again."
The spider skittered away, and the Quelaag super jumper went deep into the forest. Even after they left, Bakugou stayed quiet. When he was sure they were gone, he let go of his breath and said, "That was a close one."
"What was a close one?", Izuku asked in a tired voice from behind him, making Bakugou jump in fright.
After seeing it was just Izuku, Bakugo calmed down and told him, "Some weird man-spider thing was here looking for us. Luckily, it left."
Hearing this, Izuku's tired expression cracked into shock, and he asked with a serious tone, "Did this man-spider have a human male upper body with long black hair and a spider lower body that was partially on fire, like a twisted centaur?"
"Yes?" Bakugou answered back, confused by how he knew this.
Izuku pushed Bakugou aside and yelled into the open jungle, "No, no, no! Wait! Come back!" In despair, Izuku fell to his knees and punched the dirt with his fist while yelling, "Dammit! Dammit!"
Bakugo was more than confused by his reaction, and before he could ask what was wrong with him, Izuku yelled at him, "Great! Just great! Now our fast ticket from this place is gone!"
"What the hell are you yammering on about?" Bakugou finally demanded.
"I know that man-spider; he could've helped us!" Izuku admitted.
Bakugo's eyes shot open, and he exclaimed, "Why didn't you say anything!?"
"How was I supposed to know he was around? This island is so huge! I didn't think we'd run into him! You should've woken me up!", Izuku yelled while pointing a finger at him.
"I was trying to keep quiet so he didn't try to kill us!" Bakugou yells back while slapping his finger away.
"You're such an asshole!", Izuku yelled back with tears in his eyes.
However, their screaming match was interrupted by several giant spiders emerging from the jungle and surrounding the two teens. As they were locked on all sides, Izuku said, "Okay, attracting the giant spiders was on me this time.", making Bakugou give him a dirty look.
As one of the spiders hissed and tried to get in closer, Bakugou shot it away with a blast while asking the scientists, "Why are they acting so aggressively? I thought you said they knew you?"
"That guy knows me; he's intelligent. They aren't.", Izuku informs him.
One of the spiders rears up, hisses loudly at Izuku's statement, and infers, "I don't think they liked your comment."
Just as the spiders all diverged upon them, Bakugou acted fast and blasted one spider after the other in a circle as Izuku dropped to the ground to keep from getting in the way! Within seconds, bits of spider were scattered all over the place, leaving both boys safe. As Bakugou wiped the sweat from his forehead, he said proudly, "Got 'em!"
"Not really.", Izuku corrected him as he got up from the dirt.
Bakugo gave him a desperate expression and stressed, "Oh geez, whaddya mean now?"
"You only got a few. There are probably dozens more nearby.", Izuku explained as dozens more could be heard crawling towards them from one side, leading Izuku only to say, "Crap."
The two teens ran off straight after the sound of the spider's legs got closer. The boys ran with all they had, dashing through thick foliage and not caring what could be on the other side. Skitting around trees, bounding over rocks and roots, avoiding any ditches and cracks in the ground as they navigate around trees and across small gorges from falling into them. But no matter how fast, far, or in what direction, the spiders were always just out of shouting range.
Eventually, the boys began to tire and slow, allowing the spiders to catch up where they had to focus on dodging and counterattacking. Bakugo with his quirk and Izuku with a clubbed stick. Even still, they kept coming, one after another, until they were nearing corralled on three sides.
Seeing the situation as dire, Bakugou shouted, "Shit! How do we lose them?"
Izuku's mind raced at a mile a minute as he scanned the ever-changing jungle scenery. He tried to pinpoint something but could never focus on it long enough to form a plan. Then, in the distance, he saw something that shot an idea through his head.
Grabbing Bakugou's hand, he yelled, "This way!" Just before, a spider jumped on them.
The teens ran down a different section of the forest, and the spiders were in hot pursuit as Bakugou kept them at bay. This section had far less ground cover and tall trees shading the forest floor, leaving it mostly bare. They came to one part that had a strange boulder half buried in the ground, and the two boys ran on top of it and then off of it, with the spiders almost behind them.
Suddenly, the boulder rose from the ground, and an enormous bipedal animal shot up in a sleepy furry! It had a hard shell and head with huge claws, hands, fur on the parts of its body that weren't armored, and teeth made for grounding. It roared at the boys while spreading out its enormous hands, only to be met with a swarm of spiders tailing them. The creature turned and met them head-on with a roar swiped off its claws, killing several.
The spiders quickly shifted from chasing them to fighting the creature, allowing the boy to escape.
As they ran off into the unknown jungle, Bakugou called to Izuku in a ragged breath, "The hell was that?!"
Izuku gasped as he continued to push himself and explained shortly, "Ogar! It's a giant armadillo. They eat the spiders. Let's make some distance." The boys didn't stop running with all they had until they collapsed from exhaustion on the ground.
After they rested enough to breathe without feeling their lungs falling out, the first thing they did was find water, which was easy, thanks to Izuku's knowledge. After refreshing themselves, Izuku made two crude hacking knives to cut through the thick brush. From there, with Izuku in the lead, they continued their journey through the deep jungle. Each plant, tree, and leaf looks exactly the same as one another from Bakugo's perspective. A d with the trees blocking the sun for the majority of their trip, he couldn't tell what time of day it was.
Eventually, Bakugou got antsy and asked in concern, "Deku, are you sure we're going in the right direction?"
"I'm positive; just keep hacking," Izuku said off-handedly as he cut down a thicket of vines.
Bakugo grunted in displeasure and asked, "Why can't I just blow a section of the jungle away?"
Izuku stopped cutting, turned to him with his hands on his hips, and asked, "Do you want to attract another animal?"
"Like you did with the spiders?" Bakugou grumbled back at him.
Izuku gave a sour expression to his response, and Izuku snapped back, "I already said that one was on me."
"Yeah, you should." Bakugou chastised him.
Izuku, who had turned around to keep pushing through, finally snapped as he spun around and yelled at him, "Okay, seriously! Just stop! I said I was sorry for attracting the spiders. But have you said sorry for attracting any of the animals from before? No."
"It wasn't my fault!" Bakugou fought back.
"Oh! Then whose fault was it? Your ass? Were you just taking out your ass like usual!?", Izuku degraded him.
Bakugo blinked in surprise before shaking his head and yelling, "You know what!"
"What!? What are you gonna do!?" Izuku challenged back as the two stood off in a stalemate of anger. Only for Izuku to break it and calm down as he says, "What are we doing? Let's stop. Seriously. We're both exhausted and hungry. Let's find a clearing, find water, and get food before we kill one another."
As much as Bakugou wanted to win this argument, he couldn't disagree with him. It had been hours now, and the water they drank before was probably nothing but sweat, in addition to not having a halfway decent meal in a long while. He was going a bit crazy, and that probably wouldn't be a good thing in a place like this. So he conceded and begrudgingly followed the green teen to find a clearing.
After a few hours, when night was beginning to show itself, a camp in one of the few clearings in the jungle was set up into a small camp for the boy. Izuku had managed to make water pouches so they wouldn't have to find water. Bakugou made fire, and both brought back food. Bakugo brought berries, and Izuku had to sort through all of them to make sure none were poisonous while Izuku was roasting a bird on a spigot.
As they sat in silence under their leafy shelter, nibbling on berries and waiting for the bird to cook, Bakugou inquired, "What exactly are you cooking?"
"Dodo.", Izuku answered casually.
"Where'd you get it?"
"The dodo birds.", he answered while pointing in one direction.
Bakugo looked and saw a small group of dodos surrounding the pile of bad berries and pecking at them. Next to them were the remains of the dodo that Izuku was roasting. None of them seemed bothered.
"They're not running away. Are they stupid?" Bakugou asked.
"Yeah," Izuku replied, and silence fell over them again. After a long while, Izuku gave a soft chuckle and said, "You know, it's kind of nice like this."
"Like what?" Bakugou replied.
"Just you and me, sitting, casually talking. No emotions, no yelling. Just enjoying the moment."
"Would be more enjoyable not to be here.", Izuku told him with a fond smile.
For a moment, Bakugou has the same thought. Was something like this really so foreign to him, to them? Had they really been so far apart? How long has it been since they had a single casual moment between them? What…what changed to make the norm feel so alien?
Izuku then broke off a drumstick, handed it to the spaced-out teen, and told him, "I get it. Have some roast dodo to mitigate that feeling."
Bakugo took the meat, blew on it a bit, then took a bite. After chewing it, he was surprised by how tasty it was.
After swallowing, he complimented me, "It's good."
As the two sat and ate in silence, Bakugou let out a strange laugh, which made Izuku tell him, with a mouth half full, "You don't have to laugh if it's that good."
"I didn't make any noise.", Bakugou told him after throwing away the bone.
Izuku's eyes went wide, and he stood up fast, saying, "Up the tree." Before Bakugou could ask what was going on, Izuku pushed up to a tee and yelled, "Up the tree! Now!"
Without question, he quickly climbed up the tree with Izuku on his tail. And just in time, a pack of large feathery creatures came dashing into the camp and snapped at the boy's heels! A few tried to jump up but couldn't reach. One even tried to climb but wasn't capable and fell to the ground where the others teased it.
Once they were situated on a branch, they looked down to get a better view of the animals and saw that they were some kind of feathered dinosaur. They were big as men with rust-red feathers, a white collar, and black and white coloring along the tail and wings. Their heads were bare of any feather, with a large red and yellow crest running the length of their nose and head. They honked and hooted, chirped and screamed, chattered and crooned in varying pitches and calls as if speaking to one another and studying the boys.
As Bakugou situated himself on the limb, he kicked his lips and yelled, "The fuck are they!?"
"Cockatrice. Pack hunting dinosaurs.", Izuku explained.
"This island has dinosaurs!?" Bakugou exclaimed in shock.
"Well, the cockatrice is a special case. It's a long story." Izuku waved off his questions.
As the cockatrice ran around trying to understand the boys and find a way to bring them down, Bakugou asked, "So what? We just sit here until they leave?"
Izuku shakes his head with stress and says, " I'm Afraid we can't. They'll sit and wait until we come down or fall down. They'll even take shifts. We gotta figure something else out."
Bakugo makes a displeased expression and feels his stomach churn as he realizes they are up against something far smarter than it looks. This tree may be their grave. Either they die in its branches or fall and become food. Those birds will wait.
Only for things to immediately change when one of the cockatrices eats the roasted dodo and another eats the other dodo Izuku had brought.
"My food!" Bakugou exclaimed in frustration and hunger.
"Forget it, Katsuki. Don't throw your life away over a dodo. There are millions on the island.", Izuku tells him with a despondent sigh.
But Bakugou doesn't listen as he hears only his stomach and blood rushing through his head. Then, he rushed the dinos. He jumps down on top of one that is looking up at him; it opens its mouth and arms, ready to catch and maul him to death, but gets a face full of explosives instead! The cockatrice fell dead, and the rest of the flock turned their eyes to him. Within a second, the rest converged upon him, and things looked bad as the teen vanished under a pile of feathers and claws. But just as Izuku was about to cry for his old friend, a bright light Illuminati from the pile, and a second later, the flock was blown to bits with an explosion so powerful it also knocked down the tree Izuku was on!
The tree came crashing down as any remaining cockatrice quickly got up and tried to attack the boy again! Only this time, Bakugou was ready, and when one came in, he dodged and blasted it in the heads. Then, he used his explosions to propel himself around as more tried to swarm and fell to a single attack. Finally, when one was left, it tried to run away, only for the blonde to chase it down, tackle it from behind, and blast it in the back of the head!
When Izuku got out of the mess of branches and vines that the tree had simultaneously cushioned and caught him, he was shocked not to see a pack of cockatrice ready to rip him to shreds. Still, shreds of cockatrice skewered all over the place by one very hangry and bloody Bakugou.
With mouth agape, he said in a small voice, "Holy crap, you actually killed them all."
Bakugo, who had finally managed to catch his breath, got caught up in the adrenaline high and most fully and proudly proclaimed, "Ha! You said this island and everything on it is super dangerous! I should've known you were full of it!"
"I didn't-." Izuku tried to argue but dropped the argument. Rubbing his face and shaking his head, he looked around at the carnage, at the…meat, and told him, "You know what? Let's just cook up the cockatrice and rest for the night."
The next day, when the boys awoke, they resumed their endeavor to find the mystical exit from the island. They had sacks of water and cooked food from the cockatrice Bakugou, which had been blown to bits the night prior. As they chopped through the thicket of the underbrush, Bakugou, still unaware of the time of day or location they were in, still felt his old pride continue to swell since yesterday and finally came to a stopping point. Or, more accurately, Izuku stopped short and caused Bakugou to slam head-first into his back.
After rubbing his nose from the pain, Bakugou growled at him, "Why are we stopping now? Nothing can hurt us so long as I am here."
"I doubt that; besides, we have a problem," Izuku said, turning his eyes back to what he was looking at.
Looking over his shoulder, Bakugou saw a small clearing going in a straight line and with nothing else but a wide river running inside of said clearing.
Bakugo stared and blinked several times before saying, "A river. Are you serious?" Just then, Izuku reached into his bag and grabbed a slab of cockatrice meat, making Bakugou yell, "Hey! That's my lunch!"
Izuku pinches his lips closed and commands, "Just be quiet. I want to check something."
With that, he threw the meat into the water, where a green shape surfaced. He quickly snapped up the meat before slinking back into the water. Bakugo could barely comprehend what he was looking at first, except for Izuku, who stated aloud what the creature was.
With a despondent saw, he stressed, "Just as I thought. An Aquatic Dracolisk."
"An aqua what now?" Bakugo questions.
"Imagine a Hippo that could fly and breathe fire.", Izuku simplifies.
When the word hippo hits his ears, the first thing Bakugou thinks of is some big dumb water horse. No doubt, it's something he could absolutely handle. After all, he had already taken on baby snapdragons, an enchanting leaf tail, and a cockatrice; he could absolutely handle this new dragon, especially if it were some weak water dragon.
So he pushed past the brush and confidently stated, "I can handle it!"
But he was once again stopped by the quick intervention of Izuku, who grabbed his arm and exclaimed, "N,o Katsuki! You can't, it's a dragon! It's too risky!"
"Shut the hell up and get off me, nerd!" He yelled while shoving the green teen to the ground. Standing above him as he rolled around in the dirt, Bakugou angrily exclaimed, his days of irritation and anger finally coming to the surface in conjunction with his reformed ego, "You should know your place! Just because you have money doesn't mean you are above me! You'll always be below me, always! And I'll show you by killing this lizard!"
Just to send the point further, Bakugou let out a small explosion, making Izuku back up. Feeling his pride swell up. He confidently walked to the river with the sight of a frightened Izuku plastered in his head. This was supposed to be the norm. This is how it was supposed to be, how it always should be…right?
As he stood at the river's edge and said, "Hey, Godzilla! Come out and—" Before he could finish that statement, the dragon leaped out of the water like an attacking shark, and he trailed off in a small voice, "Fight…me."
As the teen flight or fight reaction suddenly kicked in, he found his legs suddenly locked into place and unable to move as the enormous creature that was nothing like what he expected lurched out of the water, wings spread and mouth of razor-sharp teeth open, ready to maul him! But before the boy could find his end at the beginning of those razor-sharp teeth, Izuku came from the side and quickly shoved him out of the way just in time as the dragon's leaps from the water caused it to slide across the riverbank and slam into a few trees. As the dragon recollected itself, Izuku yanked the blonde to his feet and pulled him away. Both boys are now running for their lives!
When the dragon managed to get its footing on the land, it roared and chased after them. Bakugo only looked back for a brief moment to take stock of what the creature actually looked like and was still surprised to see such a terrifying creature that was described as a hippo bolt towards them with vicious intent. It was far bigger than bakugou had expected for something to live in a river or any body of water. He honestly expected something like that to be small and wimpy, but it wasn't.
It was bigger than All Might, longer than a bus, and way more muscular than he imagined. It was varying shades of green and brown with a set of horns like a cow, wings instead of arms that had three fingers which it used to run along the ground in pursuit of the two boys. It had a ridge of fins along its back, feet, tail, and spinal column. No doubt it was used for swimming, and the wings were equal parts flight and swim.
Bakugo wondered how something that lived in the water and was compared to an herbivore could be so aggressive, especially as the dragon's green eyes locked straight onto them, and it howled with rage as if a fire had cooked in its throat. Without warning, the dragon suddenly let loose a small but short fireball, which exploded near their feet, nearly causing the two boys to slow down and allow the pursuing dragon to catch up. This continued a few more times until the dragon made a great leap and then blew out a stream of fire!
As Bakugou was about to watch himself engulfed in flames, Izuku grabbed the hem of his shirt and yanked him down a corner, avoiding the line of fire.
Unfortunately, both boys were left to slide and tumble down a very slick hillside, which caused them to land in a different part of the forest. As the boys recovered from their unforeseen spill, they had no time to rest as the dragon looked down at them over the hillside. Izuku grabbed Bakugou and practically dragged him as they both ran off. The dragon leaped off the hillside, spreading its wings and using them to glide down to the ground. Luckily, this had given both boys enough time to gain some distance, and before they could continue their run, Izuku, quick-witted and keenly observant as he was, suddenly saw something that could help.
He suddenly dragged the explosive teen into a sharp corner, turning the bend of a group of large trees, and then pulled him into the hollowed-out husk of a fallen tree trunk. The two boys hunkered down inside the trunk and tried to study and slow their breathing to avoid making sounds. It didn't take long for the sound of the aquatic Draco list. Catch up, and the dragon thankfully didn't stick around to try to sniff them out. Only running past the area in what it thought was a hot pursuit of the two boys.
So they sat in the hollowed-out log for several minutes until they were sure that the dragon had fully left them. Once it was gone, the two boys finally got a chance to rest and calm down, allowing them to breathe normally.
After they had calmed down a bit, Izuku's expression of fear changed into a mixture of many as he looked over to the starstruck teen beside him, the one who had gotten them into this situation, and began to rant, telling him, "You are-a fucking joke. It's no wonder your whole class doesn't like you or my mom, and hell, she'll like anyone! I mean, you are the most ridiculous, immature, half-witted moron I know. I have never met a sadder, more attention-starved, jabbering little prick in my entire life. And that's saying something cause I've dealt with people trying to kill me day after fucking day! You know, I've been wrong about a lot of shit in my life, but I will never be wrong in saying that you will never be a hero! You can't even save a relationship with the one person who willingly put up with your whiny baby bullshit your whole life! Mother fucker, I wish I could say you'd die alone, but it is one of God's best jokes that you will always be surrounded by people who can't stand you!"
Bakugo said nothing in response to his entire rant. He sat there, his expression of increasing shock, horror, and self-realization, looking away in shame. His lower lip quivering, Izuku took several breaths to calm himself after letting his guts spill.
But when the blonde teen said nothing in return, Izuku doubled down and exclaimed with veracity, "Wh-what's with that face? Where's that old Katsuki bravado, the anger, the respite? You got nothing to say now, mouth!?"
Bakugo remained silent for several long seconds, as nothing but Izuku's breathing and the ambient sounds of the jungle could be heard. Eventually, the teen, looking down and away from the angry scientist, said in a soft tone, "I'm…going to fight you."
But this response made something snap inside of Izuku. His expression went placid, and one eye twitched uncontrollably as he began to laugh; the laugh started out soft and low until it quickly escalated to pure, insane laughter, all before the young scientist suddenly left at the blonde teen and began to throw punches at him wildly.
Despite Bakugou having far more fighting experience and a dangerous quirk to boot, he seemingly lost all of this the moment that the green team threw himself at him like a crazed animal.
Wildly throwing punches and slaps back as the two boys wrestled within the hollow log of the large tree, only for their fight to roll themselves outside of the log and into the forest, where the two of them wrestled through each other around, slapping and threw wild punches and swings at one another. Despite whatever dangers may be around them, the two boys continued to wrestle and tussle and fight throughout the forest. They did not care about who or what could be around them until they both found themselves at the edge of another hill, though this one was far larger and longer down.
Unsurprisingly, the two boys wrestled all the way down the hill, hitting every rock and tree root imaginable before painfully and quietly settling on the ground. After they had landed, they resorted to lying painfully and helplessly on the ground, with nothing but the ambient sounds of the jungle to drown out the roaring pain in their bodies. The two of them could only stare at one another with glances of different expressions.
After some time of being utterly quiet in their own pain, Izuku gasped enough air to speak finally, and what he said broke something in Bakugou.
"I hate you. I hate you so so much! I hate you so much that it makes me sick just thinking about it! And yet…I don't wanna hate you.", Izuku admitted to Bakugo, whose fury expression changed to shock. After catching his breath a bit more, Izuku continued spewing, "I want to abide by the teachings of Christ and forgive you for every transgression you put upon me. But I don't know if I have the strength to do that." Izuku readily admitted while sobbing after calming down enough to speak, he told the teen, "I hate you so much because at one point...I loved you. I loved you like a brother like you were a part of me. But you hurt me. Time and time again. Even while everyone else looked at you like a thing, I looked at you as who you were. Bakugou Katsuki, my friend, my brother, my hero."
Bakugo could say nothing except look and stare in awe and surprise. At this point, the two boys had finally regained enough of their strength to get from the dirt and sit up near one another. Izuku managed to wipe his teary eyes and finish up by saying, "And now, all the love I felt towards you is nothing but hate, and I don't want that. I don't want that."
Try as he might, Izuku could not keep his emotions and tears back as he kept his hands on his face and began to sob truly and wholeheartedly for the first time in his life. This was not like his normal sobbing sessions where he would cry for seemingly no reason, because he was stressed or just because he was a crybaby. This was a true unleashing of his emotions. They had never been able to put it into words or unleash it in its entirety because of some mental setback.
Seeing this site shocked Bakugou straight to his core, and he did not know what to say or how to act at that moment. The only thing that his empty mind could possibly do was reach out and start to say, "Izu…I-."
But before he could finish what he was doing, Izuku suddenly lifted his face from his hands. His expression changed from sadness to fear as he yelled, "Kaachan! Look out!"
Bakugo, who was shocked by hearing his old nickname, whipped his head to wherever Izuku was pointing, where he suddenly saw a large purple flower with sharp needle-like attachments at the center of its pedals. Because of the striking and vibrant pattern on the flower petals and Bakugou's current mental state, he was so taken with shock and awe of the flower that he didn't notice when the needle attachments suddenly shot from the flower, and all three of them hit directly into his neck. Bakugo gasped as he ripped the needles from his neck, and before he could act, he suddenly felt a strange sensation come over his body all before he fell to the ground, the world around him going dizzy and dark.
Izuku suddenly came in behind him and yelled, grabbing the flower by the base of its stem. He then ripped the whole plant out by the roots and threw it off to the side. After dealing with the plant, he ran over to Bakugou's side, which was already lying on the ground and turning cherry red.
He held the boy up in his arms and asked, "Katsuki?" but seeing his expression and lack of reaction, the worst was set in the green teen's mind as he yelled and pleaded, "No, no, no! Keep your eyes open! Don't you dare close them! Do you hear me!?" but Bakugou could do neither as his world began to shift and spin and become extremely blurry just when things became dark. The last thing he heard and saw was Izuku's panicked voice yelling, "Bakugou. Katsuki! KACCHAN!"
Hey guys, sorry this took so long. I thought this chapter would be shorter, but when I looked at the document, I saw that it was 13 pages long! WOW! Anyway, this is the second to last chapter before this arc ends. Thanks for reading and waiting; please Review and have a Plus Ultra day.