MosesArk Reborn2000
patreon
Chapter 49: Villains Take the Act
🕑 Added 2025-02-19 21:15:39 +0000 UTCDabi would never say it, but she enjoyed using her quirk: Cremation. It was a little childish, but everyone had their idiosyncrasies, so why couldn't she? Cremation's strength, the heat of the flames, and the very colour that they burned through the night were the result of years of hard work and fanatical dedication to getting her flames even just a single degree higher, day after day.
It didn't get her what she wanted, but that was an old dream, one which she rarely thought about, much less missed. But her dreams now? Well, she was well within her means to achieve them. And if she got to enjoy the dancing azure flames and feel their heart on her charred skin, well, that was a happy bonus.
But the mission was coming to a close, so she and Twice turned and headed towards the agreed-upon meeting point. Neither. Neither had seen any action thus far. Well. Well, her clones did, but that didn't really count, now, would it ? ?Still, that wasn't part of the plan, so things were still going their way.
"Hey, Dabi! You hear the radio? I am so pumped up; our; our boy, Compress, totally got the target," Twice cheered before shifting up. "The man certainly took his time; I was starting to get bored.”
She had gotten used to her new ally's screwed-up head and quickly replied to his statements. "Don't be a pain; he did a good job. I just hope the rest can say the same, as we ain't gonna wait for them to fix any screw-ups." Twice was someone that if she was honest, was not suited to be a villain. The guy was too…nice. His mental issues aside, he seemed like the sort that would have got along fine in hero society.
The fact that he wasn't was another sign that this world had to burn so that a new one could take its place.
“You’re the pain!” Twice shot back before flinching back. "Forgive me."
"It's cool; I've; I've been called that and a shitload of worse stuff for years now." Did that mean she would change the behaviour that got on so many people's nerves? Fuck no, she was unapologetically herself, and if you had an issue with it, it sucks to be you.
"Still, the meet-up point was supposed to be hard to find because of the wall of flames and poison gas, but it looks like the gas is gone. That's what we get for trusting brats to do a woman's job." Figures that Mustard just didn't have it in him to be much more than a diversion. He was trying way too hard to come off as competent and mature, and he would have fallen into the same traps any snotty know-it-all brat would. Namely, being so far up their own ass that they could be easily blindsided.
"Hey, that's mean, Toga's still out!" Twice defended their other young member before going all contemplative. "She is rather young; maybe this was a bit much for her?” Nah, Dabi could buy the little pyscho getting the job done.
"By the way, we got hired help, right? They're gonna clean their clocks!" Twice cheered before backtracking .“They better be worth the money.”
"They'll be worth it that Pyre wouldn't hang with people that couldn't pull their weight," Dabi replied as easily as she breathed.
"That's your reasoning? That's putting a lot of faith in his judgment," Twice noted. "It's cause they both like fire." Dabi wouldn’t deny or confirm that.
Unknown to both of them, they had an unseen listener as Aoyama hid in a bush close by. He recalled how he had been with Yaoyorozu, but when the attack commenced, they had found Awase. As he knew where more of his classmates were, they made the choice that he'd lead her to them while Aoyama would take the two with him, Komori and Kaibara, back to camp.
At present, both were still out cold from the gas, but that was perhaps a good thing as it meant that they wouldn't make a sound that could draw some unwanted attention from the two villains, but that still left Aoyama in a poor spot. He had to get them out of there and fast as the flames spread fast, but if he moved too soon or too loudly, he would risk getting spotted.
'The gas is gone? Did someone defeat the villain? But who?' he asked but got no answer. 'Why are they here? I thought I would be able to avoid the gas if I took this route, but-!' At least, that had been the plan until it had blown up in his face.
Peeking out from his hiding spot, he only looked for a moment before silently yet quickly retreating back in. Thinking back on attacks from the League and the Thunder, he tried to place their faces. 'I don't recognise them, but if they were close to the flames, then one of them is the reason for them. I…I can't fight that and protect them, but—' He looked towards his unconscious schoolmates before she violently shook his head.
'No! That's cowardly; I need to protect them, so I'll just wait for them to pass…yes, that's the smart play.' He peaked out again to try and see how far they were, only for his heart to nearly burst from his chest when she saw the woman looking in his direction as if she was staring into his soul.
Near jumping back behind cover, he covered his mouth with his hands. Else, he screamed in terror. ‘She saw me!’
Dabi thought she saw something in the push and started approaching it; Aoyama heard her coming, and his fear only rose, along with a building panic as he prepared for what would surely be a suicide charge. He couldn't ever carry the two and escape, but if he could lure the villains away…well, he would indeed be caught, but it was better then.
Dabi was reaching for the bush, and Aoyama was about to charge up his laser and turn to face his fate when Twice suddenly spoke. "Oh yeah, Dabi, totally not important, but shouldn't you recall that Nomu? You did say it'll only react to your voice."
She turned towards Twice before Aoyama heard her pull back, what she saw forgotten. "Oh yeah, almost forgot about that. Come to think of it, you also reminded me to set the thing loose on the students," she noted as Twice too credit for that. It's probably killed a couple of them by now."
Line Break
“Stay back!” Awase cried as he ran as fast as he could, an injured Yaoyorozu being pulled along by him as they were being chased by a monster out of an alien movie and met some Chainsaw murder horror movie. The nomu pursuing them had multiple arms, and at the ends of all of them were wicked-looking power tools like chainsaws, drills, and even a jackhammer, all things that he knew would be bad news if they touched them.
He nearly tripped on some root, Yaoyorozu being a human anchor with how much she was slowing down, but he didn't have the time to undo the weld he did on their arms to keep him from losing grip on her and then throw her on his back. Not when it felt like he barely had time to breathe and keep an eye out for obstacles that could slow them down. "Just leave us alone! Why are you even here?"
"We need to run; we need to keep running!" he cried out as the beast seemed to gain speed. Awase swore he could feel its breath on the back of his neck, his body believing that his head would soon be parted from it.
Looking at his fellow student, he saw that she wasn't responding to any of this anymore, and he knew that wasn't good, not with a serious head wound like hers. "Yaoyorozu, stay with me. Whatever. Whatever you do, don't fall asleep. I need you to stay away! It would be nice if you could devise a plan because we need one!"
Dammit, this was his fault; if he had just been faster, he had seen that fucking beast earlier, then she wouldn't have gone down. They wouldn't need to run because they could fight it together. Fuck, knowing Momo, she could pull a working cannon out of her chest and blow a hole in this monster or make him have enough restraints that he could lock it down.
But no, he hadn't been fast enough; she had gone down. And because of that, she was in no shape to fight when it seemed like she struggled to remain awake!
“Aoya…ma…I’m alive…I’m just…” Momo was still awake, but she could hardly think; everything was ringing, and it felt like each breath sent a prick of steel through her cerebrum. 'What happened? We were looking for the rest of class B's students, we were…I can't remember; I just remember being on the ground and… it's all fuzzy.'
Awase cursed when he heard her confused mumblings over his hurried, terrified breath. "What the hell? This was just supposed to be a test of fucking courage! I didn't sign up to be in some messed up slasher horror!” He yelled as he wished this was just a bad dream, one hell of a nightmare, but that was just a baseless hope.
Feeling the beast get closer, the sounds of his saws and drills almost in his ear, he looked down towards Momo and realised that he wouldn't be able to get away like this. So, he had to make a choice, and one that he didn't have time to think about. He just had to act. “If I can just protect Yaoyorozu, if I can just-!”
He undid the weld of their arms, his grip on her loosening as he grabbed her, and with as much force as he could, he tossed her to the side. She landed with a pained moan which only made him feel like shit, but she was out of danger. The same couldn't be said for him as the Nomu barrelled into him, one of his drills getting him in the arm and side, fleshing being torn up as he was thrown into a tree so hard when his head made contact, his vision went white for a moment as he slumped to the forest floor.
“Shit…shit, shit, shitshitshit!” He cursed, feeling at his side and arm, and while he didn't see bone, he saw a shit ton of blood and could feel all the torn-up flesh twitch and pulsate. The Nomu, not done with him and seeing that he wasn't moving, seemed to decide to take its time to finish him off.
Awase felt like he should be pissing his pants, begging for his life, or maybe just praying that he would at least see his grandpa in heaven so he could hear more cooky stories.
Instead, he felt exhaustion, the sort that came when you pushed past fear, past the instinct to survive when you realized that you were indeed an undeniably screwed. Still, even if he had seemingly accepted, he'd be nothing more than the bloody chunks for his folks to identify, he could at least make something of that end.
He forced himself to stand, welding his wounds shut, which got him to curse more than usual, but it would stop the bleeding. He looked towards Yaoyorozu; the girl having turned her head in his direction and trying to get up but finding herself unable. "Yaoyorozu, I'll…I'll buy you time, if you can, get as far from here as possible!"
"Hey, ugly, you already got a taste, didn't your mother tell you it was piss poor manners to not finish your food, or did she crap you out and leave you at some shitty orphanage?" He called out to it, grabbing a loose branch and snapping it off the tree. It wouldn't do much, but he was sure to go out swinging.
The Nomu wasn't reacting to his taunt or just going to finish its job, but it charged him, Awase pulling his stick back as far as he could to smack it in a final act of defiance. But at the last moment, the Nomu just…stopped. Like a switch had been flipped, its power tools stopped before its additional arms retracted into its body, before it wordlessly turned and started walking away.
“Wait…it’s just…gonna leave?” Awase asked him, dumbfounded as the adrenaline started to fade, leaving him feeling exhausted, breathless, and in more pain than he had ever felt.
Momo might have been down, but her mind was starting to clear, allowing her to think about this. She was grateful for its retreat, that she wouldn't need to watch a fellow classmate be brutally killed, but as grateful as she was, Eraser had taught them to always be observant, to always ask questions. 'Wait, the only reason it would just leave is if…don't tell me they've completed their mission?'
Again….it seemed like the villains got what they wanted and were now retreating. But what was it that they wanted? To spread chaos? To try and kill them again? Was it something else? She didn't know, and Mandalay's transmissions hadn't given her many clues to work with.
But what she did know was that she wasn't going to let this be like I-island again; clenching her fist, light poured out from it as she created something. 'Come on, think. What would the worst-case scenario be, Momo? More than that, can you allow these villains to keep getting away?'
“Awase…Awase, come here, please,” She called out, her voice too weak to worry about making it loud, but Awase heard her all the same and rushed over to where he tossed her, gently picking her up.
"Sorry about that; we shouldn't look this gift horse in the month and get the hell outta here." He told her, preparing to pick her up piggyback style as while bridal seemed more badass, it wouldn't be as stable from what Vlad taught them for situations like this.
“Before that,” Yaoyorozu held out her hand, and in her palm was a small black disk, the size of a coin and nearly as thin as one. "Use your quirk to attach this to the Nomu. Hurry."
He had questions, like why she needed him to do that and what the damned thing even was. But one looked into those onyx eyes, and he decided those were answers he could get later. "Okay, I'll be back; just don't fall asleep, you hear me!"
Taking it, he turned and rushed towards the retreating Nomu, which didn't even acknowledge him. That was something he could use, as when he got close enough, he slammed his palm into its back, the coin thing between it, and activated his quirk, welding it deep into the creature's flesh before rushing back. Again, there was no reaction from it.
“No way he hell that’s coming off, now-crap, that still hurts!” He called out before taking a breath, immediately regretting it when it pulled on his hastily welded-together flesh. Hissing through the pain, he just had to bite the bark and take it as he rushed back to Yaoyorozu. "Screw it, we gotta run before our luck shits the bed, and it turns around!"
She agreed with him, speaking softly as he picked her up and started running in the direction of the camp. Hopefully, they'll find Aoyama on the way.
Line Break
Compress was getting close to the rendezvous point, but he was having some issues with the students, namely the fact that two of the that were chasing him without pause. A glance behind confirmed that he was pulling ahead easily taking advantage of the fact that he could take a much straighter path than them, but that they weren't giving up so easily. “These understudies are more persistent than I thought.”
“Damn it, this guy’s quick!” Todoroki cursed as he was starting to slow down, his wounds from that Toga girl beginning to catch up to him, along with exhaustion from fighting her off by himself.
Even then, and the fact he was carrying their still unconscious sister classmate, he was still the faster of the two as Tokoyami felt like he was fighting just to keep breathing. "If he had a speedster or Uraraka, this wouldn't be so difficult!" If they had their phones, they could maybe try and call her.
Todoroki didn't see it as that easy. "We don't know where she is! If she found Kota, she would have got him back to camp. That's far from here, even if she knew where to look!" That didn't even consider the idea that she could be forced to remain at camp, or she was already in a fight which she couldn't just leave.
"Still, he's pulling further ahead! We don't have the time to debate this. I saw him put the marble with Bakugo in his pocket. I'll get you close to him, and you can get Bakugo back!" Tokoyami huffed as they were running out of options.
“Is that wise?” Todoroki asked him to, and he shook his head, but he had a counter for it.
"When I launch you, send a blast of flames towards me. That should weaken Dark Shadow enough for me to pull him back in." Tokoyami explained that that it would hurt a lot, but if it kept him from going berserk, he'd gladly do so. "But we'll get just the one shot at this. I need to measure the distance with my eyes." He turned back to their target, who seemed further than ever as he jumped from tree to tree.
Todoroki thought about it and turned to face the escaping villain. It would be hard for Tokoyami to make the shot, significantly when their target could shift to avoid him. Lucky for them, he had something of a counter. “I can use my flames to correct my trajectory in the air.” He wasn't nearly as adept at it as his father was, but he understood the basics enough to use it as a surprise.
The choice made, they came to a stop as Todoroki transferred the unconscious student to Tokoyami before he stood in front, getting ready to take to the air. "Get ready; we won't get a repeat," Tokoyami told him.
"We won't need one," Todoroki replied. Ignoring. Ignoring his wounds, he focused on their target, who hadn't turned back to them. Hopefully, he wouldn't until it was too late. “Go!”
“Dark Shadow!” Tokoyami unleashed his quirk, and instead of resisting its power, he attempted to guide it and direct it to aim for Todoroki. Dark Shadow was unleashed with a screech, the quirk towering over the canopy with glowing red eyes. But it wasn't like before; his; his control was weak, but he did have it as he grabbed onto Todoroki. Dark Shadow, not crushing him through his grip, was tighter than was comfortable.
“Fly, little human!” With that roar, Todoroki was sent flying towards Mr. Compress like a human bullet. The boy unleashed blasts of flames from his foot and hand to correct himself as Compress turned around just in time to see him coming right for him.
Line Break
Toga, having finally shattered the last of the ice on her, made it to the meeting spot, a clearing in the forest that didn't look any different from the rest, nor did it have some sort of tracker placed there. It was just a spot they had chosen that morning and confirmed with their pick-up guy, with the members of the assault unit just being told to memorize its location.
"So, lame? I'm the only one here?" Despite her words, the girl had a giant smile on her face.
“Haha, very funny, kid.” Chimera, who had been leaning against a tree, snarked.
"Well, you don't count; you; you were like backup and stuff!" Toga pouted at him as he rolled his eyes, reaching into his coat for his pack of cigars. Putting one in his mouth, a small blast of flames lit the thing up as he took a drag at it before breathing out the smoke in a slow, controlled fashion.
Putting it back between his lips, he raised an eyebrow at the girl. “Who do you think was tearing up the roads leading to the camp?” They didn't have a jamming person this time. While isolated, Dabi's flames would make it impossible for anyone in the area to miss that something was going wrong and alert the authorities.
So,, it was his job to warp through every means into the area and demolish it. It wouldn't stop the heroes, but it would sure as hell slow them down. Speak of the devil,, and she'll appear. At. At that moment, Dabi and Twice entered the clearing. The woman gave the two the barest of greetings before she turned to the important issue.
"Crazy, did you get the blood? How many different kinds?" She questioned Toga.
"I got two people, though one wasn't all that much before they got away!" Toga replied, tapping the sides of her support item containing Todoroki and Uraraka’s blood.
"Good job, Toga! Wait, just 2, you were supposed to get at least 3!" Twice countered.
"I didn't have a choice; if I stayed any longer, those brats would have killed me," Toga replied, though her smile remained on her face, sure she was scared for her life, but it was still a fun night.
"So, we're waiting on Muscular, Moonfish, Mustard and Compress," Chimera spoke up, taking a puff of his cigar.
"What about big sis Mags and Spinner? Are we leaving them?" Toga asked, her smile as innocent as that of that of a typical high school maiden,, but he could see the danger in those eyes.
Why she was testing him was beyond him; he wasn't the one in charge and was just the hired help. “They needed to be bailed out by Slice earlier and already were pulled out. It's just us." He replied.
"Yeah! Wasn't it Mr. Compress who grabbed the target? That means it was a success!" Toga cheered as she got along great with both of those two and was a little worried that something happened.
“You’re looking happy.” Twice noticed. “Why aren’t you sad?”
Toga's face grew flushed as she skipped away from him, recalling her fun time. "Maybe, but I'm excited because I made some great new friends! I got to meet them, Uraraka and Todoroki, and they were as adorable in person as they were on the news. Oh, how cute Todoroki looked, covered in cuts and blood."
Dabi looked at her when she revealed who she had attacked, a strange look passing through her typical reserved blue eyes but Chimera couldn’t tell what it was before it passed.
“Can both of you save that for later? You might as well use a damn megaphone." The fire-user told them as Chimera’s hearing picked up something coming in from above.
“Looks like Compres is…what?” He looked up, but he didn't see just Compress. The rest followed suit as they saw the masked man screaming as he crashed into the ground. Riding his back was Todoroki, who immediately froze the villain solid with his head free.
"Hey, hey, what's this? Wait, I know that guy!" Twice called out. “Who’s that?”
Dabi's eyes shined just a little for a moment before again fading. The. The woman lifted a hand, blue flames licking at her palm. “Out of the way, Compress.”
“Got it!” Compress could hardly move, but he could touch his side, activating his quirk. He, along with the ice encasing him, was shrunk into a marble right as Dabi fired off a gale of burning hot blue flames, which Todoroki countered with a wall of ice. To his surprise, the flames broke through within seconds.
'Those flames are insane, ' he thought as he saw Twice rushing him, pulling at tape measures he kept in his wristbands. Todoroki didn't take that for granted and made another ice wall, a smart call when those tape measures slashed through his ice like a knife through cloth.
“It wasn’t very smart to come alone!” Twice, he worked his way closer to him, landing on a pile of wrecked ice. He got ready for the attack. "You kidding, he's a one-man army!" Todoroki threw him off by sending two clashing waves of ice towards him. He couldn't focus on either way without the other getting him, so he backed up.
Suddenly, he felt a knife digging into his flesh again, getting a hiss of pain from him as Toga ripped the blade free, having got close to him without him even noticing. "I just knew you were my friend, Shoto! That's why you came for me, right? So, we could continue talking?" She was about to plunge it in deeper, but a burst of flames forced her back.
This continued as Todoroki couldn’t afford to let her get close, so he bathed the area with flames, setting he clearing blaze while bone chilling ice formed and iced towards the two, countering the flames before he would apple them once again. "Should we do something?" Chimera asked,, as the kid wasn't half bad, especially if he could find those two off. Still, he would be toast if Toga had been serious with that opening strike.
“Nah, those two can handle just one brat.” Dabi shook her head as Toga proved just why she was dangerous when she managed to slip past Todoroki's attacks, and the boy found himself slashed across his left thigh. "Poor Todoroki Shoto, he came all the way…just to fail." She shook her head as the boy used his flames to seal up the wound and try to tag Toga, who danced away. Twice, he came in to back her up.
"Oh man, this is easy! Turn up the heat!" Twice cheered as he was pushed back, but he was still in this fight. "Hey, men, cut me some slack here!" As they fought, Compress managed to turn himself back to normal. He was still frozen, but Dabi could handle that well enough, leaving him wet and singed, but free.
“The nerve, I can’t believe that amateur wrecked my exit.” Compress complained as he got up, fixing his damaged coat.
“You got Bakugo?” Dabi asked.
“Of course,” Compress reached for his pocket but found it empty, feeling around again; he confirmed as much. "Hmm, that's strange."
Todoroki saw the man's confusion and nodded. He reached. He reached for his pocket and felt around it, where he felt a sphere safe and sound. ‘That’s my queue to leave.’ He smiled as he showed the captured marble.
“Hey, isn’t that one of your marbles, Compress?” Twice asked, confused as to why Todoroki had it.
"It seems that the lad picked pocketed me; how clever." Compress sounded impressed by all things as Todoroki created a wall of ice to keep them back.
"Toga, Twice get it," Dabi ordered, but Compress stopped her.
"There's no need for that, Dabi. I felt him doing it when he tackled me like a brute earlier, and I didn't want to ruin his good mood." Compres seemed to be in a jovial mood despite having been tackled into the ground and robbed. Still, Todoroki wouldn't wait for him as he turned and ran. He couldn't find a path out of here, but could hide in the forest, keeping Toga at bay with his flames.
That plan fell apart before it could start out of the dark forest. A familiar-looking. A familiar-looking figure appeared. “A Nomu! Here?" Todoroki didn't think about why or how, only that it was here,, so he sent off a blast of ice. It probably wouldn't kill it, but it should slow it down. Turning, he ran in a different direction, only for a dark purple and black warp to form. A. A moment later, tendrils of hair shot out,, which he just barely evaded.
“Well, well, well. No time, no see, little boy.” Todoroki felt his anger rising, but so did the danger as Slice strolled through, the woman smirking as she caught sight of him, tired, dirty, and covered in his own blood. Far from the pristine hero student he was supposed to be. “Were you that needy to spend more time with me?” He growled at her taunts, his ice might not work, but he could surely burn her.
"Oh, it's Slice! Oh no, she's here!" Twice cheered.
"Everyone, it's been 5 minutes since the signal. It's time we withdraw," Kurogiri informed them, creating several portals for the villains to use.
"Oh, nuts. It looks like we won't be able to hang, but later, Shoto, bye!" Toga walked through one of them, the portal vanishing behind her.
“Here I go!” Twice dived in like it was a swimming pool, and that was another portal gone, leaving just 3 of them. One for Chimera, who hadn't moved, another for Compress and Dabi, and a last one for Slice, the same one she came through.
She would have made a move, only for her hair to lose its form unexpectedly before she was kicked in the back of the head, knocking her out without ceremony. The cause was a breathless but combat-ready Eraser whose gaze went to the other of the gathered villains, sealing their powers. "You're not getting away that easily." As he had made it in the nick of them, he declared that the info that Magna had provided had proven accurate.
“Eraser?” Todoroki asked, surprised but also relieved to see him.
"Oh, I figured he would still be around," Dabi noted that he was the one who dealt with her clone earlier. Eraser recalled that as well and moved to handle her before she could set the entire place ablaze, but his capture scarf was caught by Chimera. The heteromorph smiled as it looked like he would have some fun after all.
"Well, ain't that cute? I heard you were a serious fighter, so how about you show me it wasn't all talk." Aizawa's gaze shifted to him; the quirks of Compress and Dabi were still sealed, but he focused on the immediate bigger threat and charged him.
Chimera didn’t stand still and rushed him, his build underselling his speed as he closed the distance between them and went for a punch. But Eraser evaded it, wrapping his scarf around his arm and swinging him into a tree hard enough that it bent. The man hardly seemed effected as he got up. Eraser instinctively released his capture weapon before the man could capitalise on it.
Chimera tried to activate his power, but nothing happened. But where others would panic, he shrugged,, as it would only make this fight better for him. "You can suppress my quirk all you want;; I just need my base power to handle you." Again, he moved faster than one would expect, a fist clocked back and slamming into the ground, Eraser again evading it.
‘He’s fast,’ Chimera thought as Erasure managed to split past his defence and hit him with a spin kick to the side of the head, but it might as well have been a pillow for all it good. 'But he doesn't have the power to make it count.'
'Dammit, I hate opponents like him. I can't even get close to the others with him blocking me.' Eraser thought as their fight continued, though it was better to call it a game of cat and mouse, where the mouse could strike back, but it did little. Chimera wasn't even thrown off by the hit, just impressed that the weaker man could hit him at all, but they both knew it would just take one blow from him to end things.
‘Eraser’s handling their quirks, so I can make a move!’ Todoroki rushed the others, using his ice to separate them. Compress proved the nimbler of the two, taking to the trees again. At the same time, Dabi was forced to remain on the ground, where Todoroki figured it would be pointless to use flames against her when she could use hotter ones.
'Did those burns come from an accident, then? ' He asked, but he would get no answers as he fired off ice. Dabi saw it coming and dodged, though her arm was tagged by it. She glared at it as she flexed, and the ice shattered, her burnt flesh showing no signs of further damage.
“Well, that’s some shit, ain’t it?” She asked as Compress was evading Todoroki’s to roast him, the trees around them catching light under the intense and consistent blasts of orange flames.
"I would admit that this was not the show I expected to put on, but it's not unsalvageable." Compress remarked as Chimera continued to chase down Eraser. Their quirks were still unreliable, as they would return seemingly at random.
“And how do you figure that?” Dabi retorted as he dodged another ice attack, finding herself slowing down and getting boxed in by Todoroki. Shoto was no doubt trying to capture her.
"Well, it's true neither of us can use our quirks, but Kurogiri, our faithful warp-gate, remains open. Besides, the young man did manage to pinch that marble off me, but" Compress landed on a tree— where he moved his mask.
“I never said that was the one he was after." He smiled as he flashed his tongue, and on it, was a marble. Snapping his fingers, the one that Todoroki had been holding so tightly reverted back to a teddy bear, one that Compress had purchased legally.
"A basic tenant of magic, my dears. If I'm flaunting something shiny, it's because I have something else I don't want you to see." Compress answered Todoroki’s unanswered question as he spat out the marble and tossed it towards Dabi, the woman catching it and pocketing it.
Erasure saw the exchange and suspected that the marble contained one of the League's targets, but who? He tried to disengage to aid his student in handling the threat, but Chimera caught him. "Nice try, Eraser, but we're not done!" He threw the man into the same tree he had sent him into, and this time, the already bent plant snapped into Erasure, feeling 2 ribs breaking from the impact.
“Yes, we are, Chimera. Let's get out of here before more of them show up." Dabi called out to him as Chimera grunted but relented as he scooped up the still knocked-out Slice and walked through a portal, Erasure having no effect on them as Kurogiri's real body wasn't present.
“Get back here!” Todoroki called out to them. Eraser was quick to get up and try to assist, but by now, Compress had jumped through a portal while Dabi retreated another. The portal closed as Eraser's capture weapon went closing, the same as Todoroki's ice.
“Well, it’s such a tragedy, isn’t it, heroes?” It closed before Dabi could say more.
Line Break
In an abandoned gas station around 20km from the camp and well out of the way of any help that could have been racing there, the League's Vanguard Action Squad recovered from their mission. In the 20 minutes since Dabi made it back, Slice had come to and was none too pleased about being taken out like a champ. “Dammit, I can't believe he got me."
“Oh man, he got you good!” Twice laughed, seated on an old gas pump. “Don't worry about it, that guy's super sneaky!"
“Where’s everyone else?” Magne, who, and Spinner, had been the first ones there, asked.
“I'm afraid those children managed to defeat Moonfish, or rather, one especially powerful one did.” Mr. Compress involved them, adding details on how the one called Tokoyami had done it, an impressive feat.
“I can confirm the same happened to Mustard and Muscular,” Kurogiri spoke up, the second in command to the League has been silent for the most part, letting them converse.
“Wait, they got all 3 of them? How did hey overpower Muscular?" Toga asked as Muscular was not cute in the slightest, but he was dangerous, incredibly so, given his strength
Spinner huffed at the question, cleaning his weapon with extreme care and affection. “He was a brute with no ideals or goals; it was expected that in a battle of wills, he would be bested."
“Whose side are you on?” Magne asked.
“Forget it; sucks that we lost 3, but it looks like we completed most of our objectives." Dabi ended the argument before it could start, her eye going towards Toga, who grimaced under scrutiny.
“Why are you looking at me, Dabi? I told you I didn't do the best I could!”
“Compress?” Dabi ignored her as she yelled that she was being mean. Dabi pulled out the marble, and Compress snapped his fingers. In its place, the ball formed a surprised Bakugo, whom Dabi immediately slammed to the ground face first, her hand clamped around his neck.
“Kid, you even think about trying to fight back, and you'll end up with worse burns than mine." She told him before he could start something, Bakugo's confusion over where he was fading as he caught on quirk, especially when he saw several other villains, including the warp guy who he recognized as from the League, and then there were the two from the Thunder which meant that…he could be close.
“Didn’t the boss want him alive?” Slice asked.
“He didn't say he wanted him undamaged," Dabi replied.
“I’ll warp you all to meet with me now.”
Line Break
Cool weather has made life a little better, which was much appreciated with this chapter as it's close to the summer camp attack. After that, things will go off the rails, but as that would be spoilers, I won't share what that will be. Also, something I didn't mention before, but I've hit that milestone I set at the beginning of the year, which is just…wow, like I was so darn happy getting those messages and then seeing it for myself. Seeing stuff like that only makes me all the more determined to keep this going.
However, that being said, I do have something to announce. That being said, there won't be an update next week as I need to finish planning for my commission, especially as another one could be on the way from a different client. As some of you might have seen, Demon Reigns was my first commission, and I want to give this one the same level of polish and attention, you know?
Line Break
This is late, but the length made it a pain to edit, especially as it seemed like Grammarly broke and just kept adding words to ‘fix’ things, or jumbling up sentences so I had to go over the entire thing again, with the OG doc open to see where it fucked up, which it did…a lot. Even then, I wasn’t sure I got all of them mistakes Grammarly ADDED.
But we're finally at the end of the summer camp attack,, and oh boy, was it a doozy for them.. Momo and Awase managed to get a tracker onto their pet Nomu, so like canon, they got a chance to finally land a counter-strike counter-strike, a badly needed one.
