Day 403, 1:30 AM
Leading the brigade on his bike was kinda fun for Kaminari, especially with Jirou helping direct the vans following them but even so, a sense of unease washes over the electric boy as they get closer to the wildfire. For one, the streets were starting to clear out of zombies, no doubt because they were heading to the fire like a moth to a flame, which would get out of hand in a hurry if those walking corpses set themselves on fire.
As Kaminari closes in on the village, the night sky lights up with the fire, knowing that it spread faster than he thought and they had little time. Kaminari stops the bike near the side of the road before turning to Jirou.
"Kaminari, you know what to do." She runs to the side. "Come on, let's start putting the fires out!" One of the vehicles carrying Monoma and Kodai was gone but they were already informed of where they had been. They were off to get water so now, it was time for the people who stood a chance at getting the fires put out to get to work. But first and foremost, they put on their masks to protect themselves from the black smoke.
Comic Man inhales. "SPLASH!"
He sends a wall the size of a school bus towards the flames, hitting them in the center and shooting out, the word wall extinguishing the fires around them before it explodes into a puddle of water. "SPLASH!" An identical word wall flies toward the fires and puts out more. He coughs suddenly before taking a break.
The zombie horde, which was hidden in the forest came out into the open while others decided to emerge from the fires. Comic Man quickly climbs back into the vehicle and Ground Zero shifts gears and turns the vehicle around. He begins doing donuts while Deku and Comic Man use their quirks to extinguish the flames. Chargebolt takes off in the opposite direction.
"Watch it!" Deku orders. He calls a ball of fire to him and sends it to the zombies. "Faster to extinguish." After only one fireball, his hands begin to cramp and he hisses like a cat. "Damn it." He couldn't let the pain get to them.
Tsukyomi leaps out of the moving vehicle and calls to Dark Shadow. "You know what to do, protect our friends from these inhuman fiends!"
Dark Shadow comes to life, feeling like he was at his peak on this cold night but the flames from the fire keep him at bay, startling him a bit.
"Dark Shadow, I trust you. Do what you can to deal with these fiends."
"Sure thing, man!" Dark Shadow grows in size, stepping back from the flames, and flies toward the zombies. He knocks them down like bowling pins, smashing them like a toddler smashing blocks, and utterly destroys other zombies like they're nothing. The zombies head towards him, ignoring the other quirk users despite them using their quirks to the fullest extent.
Earphone Jack leaps onto the ground. "Here's to hoping my sound waves are good for something." She plugs her jacks into her speaker boots and sends sound waves toward the wildfire. The flames part as her sound waves force them aside and some of the flames go out but she is forced to move when a runner is about to pounce her.
Chargebolt rides by and knocks the runner to the ground. He quickly leaps off his bike, removes his knife, and stabs the runner in the skull. "Hey, Earphone Jack, nice work." He climbs on his bike. "Need a ride!"
"My sound waves won't be as efficient if I'm riding behind you. And I need to stay still for a concentrated shot!"
"You're a sitting duck; get on!"
She obeys and climbs on the back.
Deku screams at the top of his lungs as his hands begin to sizzle and crack, taking on that apple-red hue again. He drops to his knees in the back of the moving vehicle and feels himself black out.
He opens his eyes to find himself back in the void where All For One stands before him.
"Izuku, my dear boy, you shouldn't overuse your quirk like that so much; you'll only end up hurting yourself."
"Hello, 'father'," he snarks, "since when did you care about my well-being?"
"Have I not shown any care for your well-being over the years?"
"You left me and Mom. Now leave me again so I can get back to work."
"I would, Izuku, I would, but, I can't help but warn you of the effects of your Ignited quirk. This quirk was perfect for you yet your body is still adjusting to it. Maybe I should've given you this quirk sooner."
"You shouldn't have stolen it from whoever you stole it from."
"If I didn't, I'm sure you would be dead. Didn't you notice? Surely you must've. Have you ever seen any quirkless people since the apocalypse began?"
"What difference does it make?"
"Answer the question."
He pauses. "No, I haven't. Why?"
"Well, the answer is simple: there are no quirkless people. Quirk usage attracts zombies so you would think they would have a better shot, right? Wrong. It turns out, from my understanding, quirkless people seem to be non-existent because quirkless people were the first targets in the apocalypse. I'm not sure how it works myself but even so, it is something of a wonder to think about."
"What? You're telling me that this zombie disease infected quirkless people first and that's why you gave me a quirk? So you admit you had something to do with the apocalypse, right? Did you have one of your underlings spread a virus of some kind when All Might killed you?"
"No. Even I have no idea where this disease or whatever it is came from. Like you, I am completely in the dark. Figuratelivelly and..." He gestures to the dark empty void around them. "Literally."
"So then why did you give me a quirk?"
"I foresaw something that happened in the not-so-distant future involving the mass deaths of quirkless people. I couldn't properly tell with the Foresight quirk but I was able to see that most, if not all quirkless people would be dead for reasons unknown. And... because I'm such a loving father, I decided to give you a quirk. You know, just in case."
"Aww, how kind of you. And then you sicced my dear brother on me."
"All I care about now, Izuku, is that you use your quirk properly and not harm yourself. You are mine and I would hate if you harmed yourself for a useless reason."
"I have no choice but to use my flames, no fucking choice, do you understand? There is a fucking wildfire and we gotta put it out."
"I understand that. All I'm saying is be careful; I would hate it if one of my prized possessions were to die on me and I would be forgotten in history."
"Huh, you sure got your priorities straight."
"Thank you very much. I look forward to seeing you next time, Izuku."
"There won't be a next time, All For One."
"We'll see about that, son."
Deku snaps his eyes open and shoots his hands out, calling more of the flames to his palms and shooting them at the zombies and watching them extinguish.
Comic Man coughs and falls to his knees. "Shit." He coughs and gags. "Goddamn it, my throat. Need water."
Ground Zero removes a canteen from his hip. "Make every drop count."
Comic Man takes a large gulp and clears his throat. "Thanks. Okay, here we go." He takes another deep breath. "SPASH! Drip, drip, swoosh! Drip, drip, swoosh!"
More of the flames die out but they still have a lot of ground and trees to cover as the wildfire continues to spread. Not only that but it seemed like the zombies were becoming more organized because the runners were throwing themselves under the wheels to knock them off course.
"My turn!" Ground Zero presses on the gas and zooms forward. He stomps on the break and stops right next to a large pit of fire. He raises his right hand. "Time for a big explosion!"
He sets off an explosion big enough to be seen from outer space beside the trees and the force is enough that several meters of fire go out almost instantly before he steps on the gas.
Vantablack, who had been quiet in the passenger seat, looks up. "How did you do that?"
Ground Zero feels his hand throb. "You want to put out a flame, you set off a bigger flame beside it. It sucks away the oxygen; snuffs out the flame." Ground Zero looks in the rearview mirror. "Hey, Comic Man, instead of aiming directly for the flames, aim your word walls above. That way, Deku can put out the flames and he won't have to use too much of his quirk to put out the big fires because your quirk shrunk the fire."
Comic Man nods. "Good idea."
Deku groans. "My hands are hurting a lot."
"Rest your hands." Ground Zero jerks to the left. "And wait for Phantom Thief and the others to get back.
Meanwhile, Chargebolt rides his bike in the direction opposite of the jeep the others are in. As he tries to make some elbow room, Earphone Jack taps him on the shoulder.
"Hey, I got an idea. I'm going to swing my legs over."
Chargebolt slows the bike but is mindful of the horde around it. Earphone Jack scoots back a bit before she puts her right leg over the left side of the bike and turns so she looks like she's sitting on a chair. She wraps her arms around Chargebolt's back and squeezes tightly. "Don't let me fall off."
"Wouldn't be the worst thing to happen!"
"Chargebolt!"
"I'm sorry; I couldn't help it!"
"Dickhead!"
She plugs her jacks into her speaker boots and aims for the fire. "Better than nothing." She sends sound waves into the forest, making sure to hit the fire square in the center and slowly putting out the flames.
She knew that because of her moving in a fast vehicle, the sound waves wouldn't be as concentrated if she was standing still but standing like a statue in the middle of the road with a horde surrounding you was not an option. The sound waves are uneven like flucating brainwaves seen on a screen and sometimes, they miss their target when they hit a tree and not the flames but nevertheless, the fires seem to be going out.
"Oh shit!"
Chargebolt veers to the right, almost causing Earphone Jack to fall off but he manages to steady the bike. He looks around, making sure not to have any other near-hit with any other zombie on the road. As they continue down the path, Earphone Jack taps his stomach.
"Chargebolt, get us closer. Make a U-turn and I'll swing my legs on the other side of the bike."
"Are you sure?" He doesn't wait for a reply before veering to the left as a small group of runners charge for him from the front. He rides off the street and into the forest where Earphone Jack throws her legs on the right side of the bike and clings to his back.
Chargebolt veers to the left once he's ten feet away from the flames and rides in the direction they came from, albeit sticking to the forest next to the wall of fire. "Now!"
She uses her earphone jacks in her speakers. This time, with the fires almost at point-blank range, the soundwaves have a stronger effect on the flames and snuff them out faster but only the point-blank ones. As effective as this strategy was, there was a drawback. Namely, how a tree would pop up every so often in Chargebolt's direction, forcing him to maneuver around it.
In one case, he veered to the left to avoid colliding with a big tree, only for a walker to step into his path. He veered to the right but now he was heading for the flames. He stomps on the ground and kicks off as he straightens the bike, barely escaping being set ablaze by only a few feet.
Because of this terrain, Earphone Jack has to hang on tightly to Chargebolt's waist, the bounces from the rough terrain enough to send her ass flying off the seat for a split second and her legs to drag across the ground before she pulls them up.
"Don't let me fall!" she panics. She continues to blast the sound waves at the flames but her grip around Chargebotl's waist tightens to the point the electric boy is wincing.
"Hold on!"
A horde of runners numbering three dozen sprints at him from the road. Chargebolt pulls the throttles and picks up speed before making a sharp left and heading for the road. Earphone Jack cancels her sound waves and puts her left foot on the other side so she's sitting properly on the back.
"Too many!" Chargebolt exclaims.
"Get us out of here!"
Chargebolt nods without saying anything before riding down the street, maneuvering around several zombies until they're far out of range. Even so, more zombies emerge from the trees in all directions except the wildfire and begin to surround them. Without a doubt, they knew that staying here any longer would be suicide and focused on getting the fuck out of dodge.
They made it to the river. They knew it was here because the map from Mister Donuts pointed them there. After enlarging two buckets with a quirk, Monoma uses Kendo's big fist quirk to fill the buckets with water before carefully placing them in the back of the jeep. Rule shrunk them so they fit in the back just enough so that she and Phantom Thief could get in the front and drive off.
They drive off to where they're supposed to meet the others, not saying a word to each other. When they see the wildfire in the distance, they quickly pick up speed and head straight for the flames where the horde was taking routes off the road, giving them a clear path. Rule keeps the wheel steady before Phantom Thief uses his big fist quirk to lift the two large buckets of water and throws them at the pits of fire. The buckets flood the forest like an inflatable pool breaking away and pouring water out.
The water douses the flames in all directions before stopping. Phantom Thief checks his watch.
Only nine minutes and thirty seconds left to use Kendo's quirk. Without skipping a beat, he enlarges both hands and begins swinging them at the flames, the force being generated enough to knock the flames back and extinguish some of them.
At the driver's seat, Rule notices several zombies covering their position. Without saying anything, he takes out a bolt and grows it to the size of her hand before tossing it out and this a runner square in the head.
She swerves to the right before grabbing the bat placed on the floormat and enhances the pins and nails she stabbed in it earlier, making it a sharp, blunt weapon.
"Keep it steady!" Phantom Thief orders, "I'm putting out flames!"
Rule says nothing and uses the nail-bat to attack any zombies that close in on them. She stops the jeep suddenly before grabbing another bolt and tossing it behind them after enlarging it, this time, to the size of a fridge. It obstructs the path of several zombies and she repeats the process using several unsharpened pencils as makeshift fences.
She keeps one sharpened pencil and grows it to the size of a knife. When a runner is at her door, she leans back and stabs the runner between the eyes with the pencil, dropping it.
Phantom Thief puts out more flames with his quirk but his hands are starting to cramp up from overuse. With only seven and thirty seconds remaining on his watch, he carefully uses his quirk.
Originally, I could only copy up to three quirks and use them for five minutes each but after developing my special moves for the Provisional Licensing Exam, I've been able to copy up to four quirks at once and extend my time limit to ten minutes. I copied the quirks of my classmates after careful consideration. I copied Deku's quirk, then Kodai's quirk. Kendo's quirk, and finally, Comic Man's quirk. I'm a walking arsenal of fire dousing and heavy lifting but even so, I still gotta be careful because anything can happen. Right now, we're separated and surrounded by zombies.
A runner hits the grille of the vehicle and topples under the wheel, causing the jeep to jolt into the air with a violent bump. Phantom Thief almost falls out but he manages to make his body fall back and into the vehicle. He turns off his big fist quirk before switching to Deku's ignited quirk.
"Put out the flames," he tells himself.
He holds his hands out and begins bringing the flames in his direction before shooting them in the air, lighting up the sky like fireworks.
If there's nothing for them to burn, the flames will extinguish themselves.
He winces when some of the flames get too close to his skin that it almost burns his flesh. He cancels his quirk before it could happen but his palms turn red now.
With Deku
"Now!" Deku yells.
Tsukuyomi nods as he takes Ground Zero's canteen once more. "If you say so. Dark Shadow, let's do this!"
Comic Man makes sure to hold onto the thick and heavy stick Deku manages to snag off the ground from the moving vehicle and holds it tight in his grasp. Once Deku shrinks one of the flames and lights up the tip of the stick, turning it into a torch, he holds one hand toward the stick to control the flames to make sure it doesn't burn the stick in Comic Man's hand.
Dark Shadow wraps himself around Tsukuyomi and Comic Man before elevating in the air like a bird. The flames of the torch keep Dark Shadow at bay as they ascend higher into the sky where there is less light and the flames travel down the torch thanks to Deku's intervention.
Once they're about fifty feet in the air and twenty feet above the trees, Comic Man clears his throat. "Higher. The higher we go, the bigger the splash."
"If you say so. Keep the flame alit, friend. Dark Shadow!"
"Roger!"
Dark Shadow ascends higher in the air, going another twenty feet but makes sure to stop when he believes he's just about to be out of range of Deku's quirk. Comic Man aims for the part of the forest below him where the flames are thickest.
"SPLASH!"
The word wall of water in the form of 'SPLASH!' shoots to the ground like a bow and arrow before the wall explodes like a waterfall and floods almost every part of the forest around it with water, dousing the flames before the water almost immediately dries up.
Tsukuyomi looked ahead of them to see how far and wide the wildfire and to his shock, the wildfire was spreading faster than he thought.
Apocalyptic.
Yes, that he how he would describe the sight before him. Something out of one of those paintings of Hell where it looked like lava was flooding the forest rather than fire and black smoke reached astonishing heights above the ground, so high they could almost touch the clouds. As far as the eye could, maybe a few kilometers or so, half a dozen kilometers at least, he saw nothing but trees fighting for their lives as the fires put up a fight against nature to burn the bark from their stumps and reduce the poor plants to nothing but ash.
"Death by fire... what a horrible way to go." Tsukuyomi forgot how to speak until Comic Man was replenishing himself with the canteen. "Dark Shadow! Bring up down, now! Pick up the jeep!"
"Got it, Fumikage!"
"Wait!" Comic Man yelps.
Dark Shadow flies to the ground before reaching its hand out to grab the back of the jeep and lift it into the air. Deku, Vantablack, and Ground Zero barely had time to react as the jeep tilted forward at a forty-five-degree angle before floating in the air in Dark Shadow's grasp.
Comic Man drops the torch, only for Vantablack to catch it at the last second and hold it up to contain Dark Shadow.
They reach the height Tsukyomi sees the wildfire and Deku and the others get a glimpse. He feels his heart leap out of his chest at the sight of this horrific natural disaster. Covering his mouth, forgetting how to breathe, his eyes widen, the flames reflecting in his eyes as he feels his heart pound a million beats per million.
"Oh my god," Ground Zero whispers. "Oh no."
Vantablack is the first to come back to reality and remembering that the car is dangling at a forty-five-degree angle in Dark Shadow's hands, he looks over to make sure Deku and Ground Zero have their seatbelts on before leaning as far back into the seat as possible, praying not to fall out.
"Have you seen that one movie called Dante's Peak?" Vantablack asks aloud.
"No," the others gulp.
"The one movie from America about a volcano going off. That's what this reminds me of. Deku, what's the plan now?" He smacks the green-haired boy in the chest. "Wake up, what's the plan now?!"
Deku shakes out of his daze. "We..."
"We can't put out these flames," Comic Man argues, "I'll lose my voice and be useless before we even clear a quarter of these fires."
"Let's cut bait," Tsukuyomi suggests, "I fear this wildfire is above and beyond our skills of expertise."
"No," Deku shakes his head, eyes still glued to the wildfire. "We... we can't give up. No... we're not cutting bait."
"Hey, damn nerd." Ground Zero scoots over. "I don't know about you but we'll all be exhausted from quirk usage if we try to put out the flames and we'll be sitting duck for the dead. Come on, I hate to say this but we gotta retreat."
Deku shakes his head. "No, we can't retreat." He uses his quirk on flames before remembering he's supposed to keep an eye on the torch being used to keep Dark Shadow at bay. While he keeps one hand focused on the torch, the other hand is manipulating, shrinking, and extinguishing as many flames as it can but his hand starts to sizzle and if what he's feeling is correct, then he's starting to develop blisters on his hands.
Ground Zero grabs him by the collar. "Open your eyes, Deku! We don't stand a chance! You'll burn yourself before we make it through a fraction of these flames!" He snaps his hand away, breaking his concentration. His heart drops when he sees the green-haired boy wincing from the blisters developing in the center of his palm the size of small coins.
"Come on, we gotta go!" Vantablack argues. "Let's go back, warn the others, and tell them the forest is lost. We'll find a new spot. We'll get back home to the others, tell them the mission was a failure, and we'll find a new home, okay?"
"No, we... we can't." He shakes his head. "W-we're heroes; we at least gotta try."
"And we did, Deku," Ground Zero snaps. "Dark Shadow, carry us out of here, we'll look for the others and tell them to get the hell out of here."
"Don't have to tell me twice." Dark Shadow begins flying off.
No, Deku shakes his head, no, we have to save the forest. No, can't. We're... I wasn't able to do enough. Shit, I really am useless.
His internal angst vanishes almost completely when he sees something on the road below them. He tilts his head. Wait, is that a firetruck?
With Kaminari
"Oh no!" Chargebolt swerves to a stop in the middle of the road and looks around, panicking. Earphone Jack clutches him from behind tightly. "We're surrounded... I can't see an opening!"
"Please, get us out of here!" Earphone Jack cries desperately.
Chargebotl looks around but zombies surround him from all sides and there's no gap for him to ride through on his dirt bike. Ramming into them wasn't an option because each zombie had ten or more zombies behind it so it would be like trying to crash through a mountain.
With the zombies limping closer to them and seeing no signs of escape, Chargebolt clutches the handles on his bike hard for his knuckles to turn white.
All because I panicked. I'm so pathetic. I panicked, dropped a torch, and caused this whole thing. And now, I'm going to die because of this wildfire. I'm so fucking pathetic. And Jirou... why? Why her? Why did I have to drag her into all this? No, for her sake, I have to keep fighting.
"Earphone Jack, this is going to be extremely painful."
She looks at him. "Wait!"
"Indiscriminate shock..." He takes in a deep breath. "Two-"
CRASH!
A firetruck coming out of nowhere rams into the crowd of zombies ahead of him, plowing through and coming out on the other side. Chargebolt cancels his quirk before riding through. Once he's clear, he makes a U-turn and follows the firetruck, mindful of the zombies.
"Is that?" Earphone Jack looks ahead. "A fire truck!"
Several built-in windows on the side of the firetruck open and bullets spray from several guns, taking out several zombies and piling them up on the road. Once a path is made, a door on the left side opens and four men in firefighter outfits quickly hop out.
A fifth man hops out, wearing a fighter fighter's outfit and gas mask. "What are you waiting for, get to work! All of you, double-time it!"
One of the firefighters responds, "See you on the flip side, H20."
"You too, Douser."
The firefighters run off into the forest.
A sixth person climbs to the top and mans the hose on the roof of the truck. "This is Stamp, all set to go."
A seventh person climbs out.
Chargebolt gasps with wide eyes as he stops only a few feet away from the firetruck, his eyes landing on the seventh person. He recognized this hero from anywhere even on this night with dim moonlighting. Someone he hadn't seen since before the apocalypse.
He is barely able to utter his name.
"Backdraft?"
Character Cards
Sado "H20" Ishijima
Quirk: Hydrophobia (He can manipulate water when infected with rabies)
Occupation: Firefighter
Age: 28
Birthday: February 8th
Height: 179 cm.
Blood: O
Likes: BB guns.
Dislikes: Nerds.
Other Facts: Drinks painkillers with red wine.
Zombie Kills: 39.
Human Kills: 4.
Michio "Douser" Hoshi
Quirk: Cubic Fires (He can turn fires into cubic artwork)
Occupation: Firefighter
Age: 30
Birthday: January 3rd
Height: 170 cm.
Blood: AB
Likes: Clean laundry.
Dislikes: Pro Hero Backdraft.
Other Facts: Became a father at 16.
Zombie Kills: 40.
Human Kills: 2.
Jun "Stamp" Moriwaka
Quirk: Water Starter (He can make a hose shoot water, even if it's not connected to anything).
Occupation: Firefighter
Age: 32
Birthday: March 2nd
Height: 160 cm.
Blood: AB
Likes: Jeans.
Dislikes: Donald Duck.
Other Facts: Protested the hero rank charting.
Zombie Kills: 28
Human Kills: 1