The Way of the Bat
Chapter V: Colliding Fists, They're What's Gonna Make You
Goto Chikaru smiled as Eraserhead was nearly crushed to death by the Nomu. Ah, the pain it would cause UA to know they'd failed so badly! Between herself, the Nomu and her oh so useful dragon, they'd hurt UA terribly in this one attack. "Leave him alive, Nomu, and conscious. I want him to watch as we finish off this class!" She turned and said "Enjoy? You're going to go through … what the hell? Where'd he go?!" Much to her shock, Yagi Toshinori had vanished from where she'd kept him, and all without a single sound or sign of how he'd escaped. "Powers! What happened? You were supposed to be watching him!"
"You never said that princess. In fact, the only thing you said that I'm supposed to do is finish off Eraserhead and maybe All Might if Plan A doesn't work. Remember, I'm only in this because All For One saved me, and I hate being in someone's debt. I have a revenge of my own I want to exact, and I'm on the wrong continent for that!"
"And you'll get it, until then you follow my orders, got it! Now, what happened to the secretary?!"
"I don't know, but I do know that someone set up a smokescreen, and when it was gone, so was your hostage." Derek Powers hadn't actually paid much attention to what was going on, but he was glad for any chance to use his powers openly after so many years in hiding. But his heart longed to return to Gotham and reclaim all the power that he once held, and his immortality would allow him to reclaim it all no matter how long it took.
A few feet away, Robin and Toshinori hid behind the foliage. "Best thing to do would be for you to sneak up to the doors then appear as All Might, I think. Make them think you just arrived."
"That would depend on if there's any villains by the door, and if they've managed to open it yet," the pro pointed out.
"Shoji, have Sero send down one line of tape if there are villains there and the door is closed, two if the door is open but there are villains, three if there are no villains and the door is closed, four if there are no villains and the door is open," Robin whispered.
Mere seconds later and four lines of tape came down the side of the staircase, with Sero coming down the last. "Hey, nice to know you made it! Any word on the others yet?"
"First, why haven't you evacuated yet?" Toshinori asked.
"Because we can't leave our classmates behind, sir," Sero responded. "Iida's left to get help, but the rest of us agreed that we don't feel right leaving until we know everyone is safe. We're supposed to be heroes, how can we leave when our comrades are still fighting?" Turning back to Robin, he asked "So, how are the others?"
The greenette grinned and raised his arm, revealing a holographic display of the camera feed. "Well-"
"Can't catch me!" Ashido called out to the villains as she slid around the Conflagration Zone. This was the third set of villains that had come after her, and she was leading them exactly where she wanted them. She made a sharp turn around a corner before dropping to slide between Sato's legs while he used his strength to take down the villains.
"Yeah! Wonder how many more villains there are," Sato said while high-fiving his partner.
Kaminari just barely dodged a villain, only for Jirou to kick him back. "New idea, you're my human stun gun!" Fortunately for her, the idea worked perfectly as the blond's electricity zapped the guy who had initially attacked him as well as two others who were dropped in.
Jirou dropped another handful with her speakers when Yaoyorozu called out "It's ready," and a large cloth came out of her back. When the villains mocked her for hiding under it, she countered "You're looking at a sheet of insulation 100 millimeters thick. Go, Kaminari!"
"Now I don't have to worry about hurting my friends! You guys are fried!" Kaminari called out, instantly electrocuting the villains while short-circuiting his own brain.
In the Typhoon Zone, Uraraka was sneaking up behind villains before slapping them, sending them into the air. Tokoyami on the other hand was covering her, using Dark Shadow to attack those who noticed her. Interestingly, Todoroki had vanished from the Landslide Zone, but there was plenty of evidence that he'd been there. Ice was all over the ground, and several villains were trapped in an ice cell.
"Let's hurry and find the rest of our class," Kirishima stated. "If we're still in the USJ, then everyone else probably is too. And not all of them have the combat skills we do. We gotta make sure they're safe, especially since we screwed things up when we got in the way earlier. If Thirteen had been able to suck up that villain, we would have never been separated! We have to make it up to the others!"
"If you have that little faith in our classmates, that's fine. Me, I think they can handle these punks." A camouflaged villain attempted to attack him from behind, but Bakugou blew up his head without even looking at him. "These punks are only a bit smarter than the robots, they can handle themselves."
"Yeah, they're doing just fine," Sero agreed. "Come on, sensei, climb on my back and I'll get you to the door." Toshinori did as his student said, and soon the two of them were speeding up to the door. Robin on the other hand started sneaking back to the center of the USJ. The villains needed to pay for what they'd done to Aizawa, and Bats were nothing if they weren't vengeance.
The two main villains were still bickering, while Nomu was just sitting there, just like he had before attacking Aizawa. Using the hedges as cover, Robin snuck up to the point that he was right behind the villain before leaping up and jabbing a batarang into his exposed brain. The creature roared out in pain and immediately started bucking, trying to dislodge the weapon, while Robin held on for dear life.
The roar of the monster caught the attention of the other villains, but only for a moment as the doors were slammed open, and All Might stepped through announcing "Have no fear, my students. Because I Am Here!" He instantly took down the few villains that had started getting up after Aizawa's fight before turning to the main villains. "Goto Chikaru, I wish I could say I was surprised. But after the way you blew the entrance exam, I should have expected you to become a villain."
"You dare say that after I got the highest score in the exam?!"
"Highest score? You may have destroyed the most villain bots, but you also hurt more people than the robots ever have! Do you have any idea how taxed Recovery Girl was after your exam?!"
"It's a hero's duty to beat villains! You shouldn't complain about how!"
"Wrong! It is a hero's duty to save people! Why do you think rescue heroes exist?" Before the little debate could continue though, Nomu was finally able to throw Robin off and pull the batarang out of its' head before charging at All Might. The hero threw a punch at Nomu, and was shocked to notice that it didn't throw the villain back, so he threw another at a different area, and the same thing happened. He tried punching the face and "Still nothing?"
"Because his quirk is shock absorption!" Chikaru crowed. "You'd have better luck gouging his flesh out piece by piece than beating him up! You could say that he's a punching bag that fights back. He's also fast enough to keep up with you." All Might learned that the hard way as Nomu grabbed him and was strong enough to keep him from moving, especially when he tightened his grip on his weak spot.
"My turn," Powers stated.
"And who are you?" All Might asked
"Behold, I shall be a blight upon the land, and everything I touch shall wither and die," he responded as a ball of green energy formed in his hand. The villain got ready to throw it, only for an all-too-familiar weapon to slice open his arm. "What the hell?"
"Blight, no wonder I didn't recognize you. You look so different from your profile, or rather your profile after your change," Robin stated.
"Robin?!" Blight asked in shock. "Right, Chikaru, forget me leaving, my revenge has come to me!"
"You want revenge on a kid? Okay, whatever floats your boat," the redhead replied.
"I don't want revenge against him specifically but against his legacy! He's a damned Bat!" The cut flared a poisonous green before Blight, the Nomu and Chikaru were all frozen. "What the hell?"
"One of your thugs told me that you're here because you think you can kill All Might, and from what I heard earlier, the American wants to kill Robin. I shall not let you kill All Might, and you will only kill Robin over my dead body," Shoto said. While Robin knew that he shouldn't be thinking about that statement, Izuku couldn't help but smile at his friend.
Then before he could think any further on what that meant, Kacchan showed up, blasting away at Chikaru, though the most he could do was destroy some earthen armor before it was replaced. "Huh, an elemental quirk. That's going to be a problem."
"You have no idea," Chikaru said with a savage grin. Then with a deliberate step, she raised a pillar in the ground, sending him flying. Just as Kacchan was about to hit the ground, another pillar came up from below him, sending him further away from her. That was repeated until he landed by the other students. Kirishima, who had apparently followed Kacchan ended up in the same position but with a single hit from a large rock. "Powers, I assume you can get out of that?"
"Easy." With that, the scratch on his arm started to glow and the ice that covered him to his waist shattered from the intense heat. He then threw one of his balls of energy at the ice encasing the Nomu's legs. The resulting explosion utterly destroyed everything below its' waist, only for it to regenerate in seconds. That revealed that the Nomu was very male and Izuku had to force himself to stop staring.
Fortunately the very act of regeneration provided the perfect distraction and allowed Robin to regain control. "Multiple quirks, seriously? One power isn't enough for you, you had to get my old man involved and give him another power?!" Robin grumbled. "I thought I was done with him and his bullshit six years ago, that's why I gave the police and All Might all those bugged recordings!"
"You were the source?" All Might asked in shock. Tsukauchi had been delivering a shockingly large amount of information on All For One's movements for a few years before he faced the villain, but the detective had never known the source. He hadn't believed the source at first due to how detailed it was, but every single piece of information had proven reliable every single time. They had even helped weaken his influence overseas thanks to the information!
"Why do you think I'm quirkless? Mom may be fourth generation, but I'm only second, third at best, and everyone knows that the longer your family has had quirks, the more likely your kids will too."
"The master will not be pleased about this," Blight whispered to Chikaru.
"You think? Did you even know he had a kid? Does Tomura?" Chikaru paled at the idea and decided to never mention it to the decay user. Blight also shuddered at the thought of Tomura discovering he had an adopted brother. They'd never hear the end of it! "Right, well, enough about that. Nomu, get him. Blight, let's end this."
"Shoto, Katsuki, Kirishima, you deal with Gaia, I'll handle Blight," Robin ordered.
But before anyone could actually move, All Might and Nomu clashed fist to fist, creating a shockwave that threw everyone away from the duo. The two continued to clash with enough force that neither side could fight the other, not that any of them wanted to. The fight was too awe-inspiring to stop watching, even for Blight, who had witnessed many such fights over his long life. Before two full minutes had passed, Nomu had been sent flying out of the USJ and All Might had delivered a quick lesson on heroics: "A real hero will always find a way for justice to be served!" However, after All Might made a comment on how much harder things were getting as he aged, his students all noticed that smoke was starting to come off his body, and they all knew what that meant. As such, they turned to face the villains in the groups that Robin had ordered.
Gaia on the other hand could only complain. "Damn it! If Nomu were here he'd take you on without a second thought and tear you to shreds! What are we supposed to do now? Those kids are ready to fight, and we're running out of time!"
"Listen up, princess! Either lock those kids down and fight, or call Kurogiri! We can either fight, or we can run, but it's up to you. We can kill them if you want, but it's your call."
The redhead seemed ready to answer when bullets came flying at the duo, hitting both of them. "Damn it! We have no choice now. Kurogiri, we need an exit!" Right before the mist completely enveloped them though, a dart hit Gaia in the arm. She ripped it out before yelling "I may have failed to kill you this time, but your days are numbered! All Might, Symbol of Peace, I am going to kill you!"
The students were quickly gathered by the newly arrived teachers, save for the four from the plaza. Robin immediately grabbed them and Toshinori saying "We need to see Recovery Girl, now." No one argued with him, not with the tone he used.
Shigaraki Tomura was going over some blueprints when Kurogiri deposited Chikaru and Blight in their bar hideout. "So, how'd it go?"
"Shot in both arms and legs, my League captured, and Nomu defeated! Even the kids were strong! The Symbol of Peace hadn't been weakened at all! It was a complete failure!"
Tomura shook his head. "I told you, some good equips won't give you enough power to take on the final boss. You need to level up some at the very least. Give it some time and get some experience first."
"Tomura isn't wrong. We underestimated All Might and UA. Give it some time, learn from your mistakes, then get back up and try again. First though, where is the Nomu?"
"He was thrown out of the building by All Might, not even Kurogiri could have retrieved him," Blight explained. "By the way, I'm staying until your little war is done. A Bat is here, studying at UA."
"Is that so? Very interesting. Too bad about Nomu, but it can't be helped. Fortunately the good doctor left us a back-up plan in case he was captured. Will one of you investigate?"
"Sign me up, boss," Blight stated. "I owe the doctor for giving me my human appearance back."
"Very well. Kurogiri, send Mr. Powers to me and I will set him on his journey. Until then, the two of you need to start serious work if either of you is to become a symbol of your own."
Back at UA, Recovery Girl was shocked to discover that she needed to treat six different people for radiation exposure. "How did you all get exposed to radiation of all things?! There aren't any nuclear plants anywhere near the city!"
"Because Blight is essentially living radiation," Izuku explained. "Properly speaking, he's as quirkless as I am. He was exposed to a mutagenic gas that was supposed to kill anything exposed to it, but he was treated by extreme doses of radiation. The mutagenic properties combined with the radiation made him what he is today."
"Whoa," Kirishima gasped. "Are you saying that anyone who's quirkless could get powers?"
Izuku laughed at that. "Please, anything with mutagenic properties has been outlawed for about a century by now, and the only other way is if you have a high blood count of certain rare metals and then have some kind of freak accident. And I've been tested for those rare metals. I'm as quirkless as they come, trust me, I've been tested every way possible."
Toshinori smiled. "Well, I hope you boys realize what kind of achievement you've earned today. I can't think of a freshman class that's had to face anything even close to a fight like this so early in the year and seen the world of pros. Those villains made a mistake attacking you. Your class will become one of the strongest ever produced here at UA, if not the entire world. This one experience has already taught you more than any class can. It's taught you how ruthless villains can be, that you can't hesitate when you fight them, and that you have to put everything on the line when you fight. With some support when it comes to growing and controlling your quirks, you could easily surpass the second years soon, mark my words."
A/N: For future reference, there is a reason that this is labelled as a Batman All Media story. While Blight and Terry are, shall we say canon to this, not everything from Earth-12 aka The Animated Series and Batman Beyond is. The fates of the OG Robins will be revealed in time, but to be clear, there was no Joker Jr incident, as Joker was killed by Jason Todd/Red Hood after Bruce's death. Also, I have been making a point to differentiate between Izuku and Robin, so just to clarify: they are NOT separate personalities like Harvey Dent and Two-Face, but different personas that he takes on. Think of it like the difference between All Might the hero and Yagi Toshinori the man, or between Batman the vigilante and Bruce Wayne, the billionaire, playboy philanthropist. Robin (and whatever permanent hero name he takes later) is the all-business detective hero, while Izuku is the fanboy teenager we know so well from canon. On that subject, I'm honestly disappointed that Tomura doesn't have a villain name, which is why Chikaru does.