Heroes of the High Seas Chapter 1 (Patreon)

Happy New Year number 2!  

All praise to Primordial Vortex and Tomon for their work on this chapter. And now away we go…

Chapter 1: The Ups and Downs of MAD SCIENCE

In the main spire of I-Island, the ballroom was surprisingly well-packed for a party that had been called on such short notice. Even the food was good, the tower’s kitchen staff having outdone themselves on very short notice. David teased All Might as he said this, adding an innocent “I wonder why,” and a laugh at his friend’s expression. 

All Might sighed shaking his head before glancing over at the stage. “They really want me to make a speech?”

“Unfortunately, as the number one Hero there are just some things you can’t get out of, old friend.” David said with a chuckle still laughing at his friend’s misfortune while his lab assistant stood nearby, looking awkward even as he plowed through a plate of finger food. “But look at it this way, think of it as a opportunity to get your message out about the next generation of Heroes, how it’s time to nurture them, how they need support items and so forth. Finish up with how both support personnel, citizens and Heroes need to work together to prepare for a better, wiser world.”

“Maybe you should be the one giving the speech then.” All Might said seriously.

“Ha! I don’t do public speeches. Not without heck a lot more of prep time. All those eyes on you, ugh…” David said with an only slightly feigned shudder.

All Might laughed as he gently slapped David on the back. Gently, because since he was in public, All Might had to maintain his Muscle Form. Luckily, he’d most of the afternoon to rest, and would be able to use it for his full time once more.

When the announcer called his name a moment later, All Might figuratively girded his loins, strode to the front of the ballroom and then up onto the stage. He took the microphone from one of the PR people, who beamed at him as if this was all something the man had set up personally to honor All Might instead of being a huge inconvenience for him. Remind yourself to talk to David about this fellow later on Toshi, All Might thought in rather vindictive mood for once. He deserves to lose some of his salary for this stunt I think.

Yet as All Might opened his mouth, several things happened all at once. The lighting all over the tower went out for a brief instant, then came back red at the same time as – on the floor of the ballroom – hundreds of small circles activated. From these circles shot up what looked like energy Hula-hoops and solid-state energy constricting ropes, all of which bound around the people standing on them, tightening automatically until the targets were so constrained they couldn’t move.

All Might found himself tied up from the ankles up to his shoulders in the energy ropes and grimaced angrily, even as he fought to keep his balance with his feet tied together. All around him Toshi heard shouts and consternation as nearly everyone had been caught by the security feature. “What is going on!?” he bellowed, already straining to break free.

A second later the doors opened, and a troop of men came in, their faces obscured by ski masks or other kinds of coverings. Beyond that, they all wore wearing military uniforms of some kind without any insignia or marks on them. But they were quite heavily armed, and there were over forty of them.

“Nobody move! The first Hero to try anything gets to be responsible for four deaths among the civilians here. The next, eight. You get the picture?” said one of them, marking him out as the leader. He also wore an iron mask covering most of his face, which marked him as unusual too. He strode through the impromptu party, making straight for his target, while the rest of his band spread out, threatening Heroes and civilians alike.

David had also found himself on the ground, cursing up a storm as he tugged at a ring on one finger. This should have sent out a signal to a special transceiver, that would allow him to lock down I-Island security’s, turning it off. But it didn’t work. He found his signal blocked, and he gasped at the implication of that. 

An inside job then, he thought coldly. But what are they after? Is this some kind of of assassination attempt? Another repeat of the attack on USJ, designed to kill All Might? But no, none of them seemed armed with anything that could threaten him. So it might be me they’re after. Or… if they know about my transceiver… 

His thoughts juddered to a halt at the implication of that, and he turned to look at his laboratory assistant, who was also tied up nearby, but had managed to sit down rather than fall down. “Why?” he asked harshly. “Why did you do this, Sam?”

The man seems to flounder for a moment saying, “W, what are you talking about, I… did you hit your head? I haven’t done anything!”

“You were too thorough.” David said coldly. “There are only three people in the entire world who knows about my emergency transmission system.” David looked down at the watch on his wrist, then back up at his assistant. “This.” he said gesturing down to it with his chin. “This was from you, a present for my birthday three weeks back.  It has a signal dampener in it doesn’t it? One activated on a signal from you I imagine.”

“My word, your ability to come up with facts so quickly is commendable. So there’s no need to hide it anymore, Sam.” the man in the mask said as he stood in front of David. “This is what you’ve been working towards for months after all.”

A Hero to one side tried to lunge forward, but the man sidestepped him, pistol whipping the Hero in the face. The Hero had some kind of durability Quirk, so the blow actually didn’t do much, but it sent him back on his rear. The villain then unloaded a few clips into the man’s chest, causing him to grunt in pain as he fell back onto the ground. The bullets didn’t penetrate, ricocheting instead around the room causing screams and shouts.

“I wouldn’t try that again if I were you.” The man in the mask said. “And that goes double for you All Might.” he said pointing his gun at David Shield. “No matter how fast you are, you can’t break those energy ropes and then cross the distance between us to take me out before I pull the trigger. And then my men will gun down the rest. Are you feeling up to bearing the weight of that many lives?”

All Might gritted his teeth, while David sighed. “What are you after?” he asked bluntly. “You’re not talking like a kidnapper or hostage taker. I don’t think you’re looking to take I-Island over either, so what are you after?”

“If you are able to work out that Sam here was working with us,” The masked man said with a grin half hidden by his mask “then I have no doubt that you are able to work out that too. There is one real prize here on this island, a bit of research you’ve done. A device you’ve created.” David scowled but the man went on with the same dark sneer on his face. “However, we’ve run into a few roadblocks, despite having several hours to go through the various security measures. So I’m afraid you’re going to have to go with my associates here.” he said gesturing to a few of his men. 

They moved forward on and hauled David to his feet, as All Might shouted, “Dave!”

“Don’t move.” the man with the mask said sternly, pressing his gun into the face of a waitress who had been forced to her knees by the binding energy ropes nearby. “Don’t think I’ll hesitate to kill everyone in here if you give me a reason. He smirked evilly at him. “On the other hand, if we get what we come for, will all leave with no one hurt. That’s up to you of course.”

All Might glowered at the man but said nothing, subsiding in place. The bonds were so tight, he’d really have to strain to break them having no leverage to do so more easily than sheer brute strength. And the time needed to do that would allow the man to go through with his earlier threat. All Might was fast, but he wasn’t that fast. 

“Good, I see even the Number One Hero can be taught!” the man with the mask said with a laugh. Then he gestured to Sam and David. “Up, the pair of you. Sam, you’ll know if he tries anything funny right?”

Sam nodded still staring at his former boss. “Of course Wolfram.”

As Wolfram mentally patted his back for always using an assumed name on heists like this, Sam turned back to David. “I’m sorry David, but did you honestly think I was going to continue to work here like this for the pittance you pay me? All while our greatest achievement is locked up by short-sighted fools?! I want recognition! I want fame! But most of all, I want money! That device – the enhancer – will give me all of that! I won’t let you and our foolish shareholders just lock it away without a fight!” The man shouted, letting out years of frustration all at once. “I will have my fair share David, however I can get it!”

“Research should be its own reward.” David said in a low and very cold voice. “Most of the work we do here is medically related and therefore pro bono. You knew that signing on. Don’t blame me for your greed. And as for that thing… Do you have any idea what horror it could unleash in the wrong hands!?”

“I don’t know, and I don’t care. Whoever buys it will have to make me a very rich man first, and that amount of money buys an equal amount of ‘fuck off.” Sam shot back.

“This is all very touching, but I did tell you both to move.” the man with the masks said, pushing them roughly towards two of his men. His men lead the two scientists off, not even untying Sam, despite his protests to the contrary. 

“And how exactly, are you going to get away from I-Island?” All Might asked. “The moment you activated that security, surely the Japanese navy will have become aware of your activities here. Let alone the Heroes elsewhere on the island.”

“You’d think so, but you’d be wrong. We’ve had more than enough time to spook the computers. No one outside I-Island knows anything is going on here. And the rest of the island only knows that there is a security lockdown. Without evidence to say anything different, the few Heroes out there won’t do anything. And even if they do, we have them all under observation. No, All Might. This time, planning, execution, and good old treachery has won the day. I hope for your sake, it continues to, because the alternative is far bloodier.” Wolfram said with a dark chuckle.

OOOOOOO

The news came out of the central spire over every TV, radio and computer screen as well as through the intercoms installed on the security robots. These robots – over a thousand strong – came out of their various security posts and began to herd the island’s inhabitants and the guests into various shelters around the island. “A SECURITY THREAT HAS ARISEN ON THE ISLAND AND REQUIRES FULL LOCKDOWN. DO NOT DISOBEY ORDERS. PLEASE GO TO THE NEAREST SHELTERS IMMEDIATELY.” said the robot voices. 

At first, the teens were confused and worried, but still obeyed and left the restaurant with everyone else. After all, they had no reason to suspect anything else, and as Izuku put it. “A terrorist attack on the island makes sense. It’s one of the major hubs of technology and research in the world. It has to be every terrorist’s f-fondest dream to try to steal something from here. A-although I’d wager they aren’t very happy about their timing right now, with All Might here.”

“Indeed, All Might is not only a teacher at the fine institution that is UA but the Number One Hero for a reason. No doubt he has already begun to find and deal with these rascally terrorists.” Iida said chopping his arm through the air several times like a robot himself.

“Did you just use the word ‘Rascally’?” Kyoka asked, laughing while the others chuckled at Iida’s uptight attitude.

“That’s not right.” Melissa said looking around her in confusion. 

“What’s not right?” Izuku asked, a tingling sensation going down his back at Melissa’s expression.

“Well, for one thing, there are far too many security droids around for just someone sneaking in. A lock down of the main spire I could understand, but the whole island? For another, look at the number of them that are near the two Heroes over there.”

The only people that hadn’t even seemed to notice the teens entering the steakhouse had been a couple in the corner: two Hero types that seemed far more interested in one another than anything else going are on around them. The girls had noticed them immediately, and thought they were a rather cute couple. The woman looked almost like an anthropomorphic queen bee, but was wearing a very nice black dress that left her shoulders bare. The man too was a rather handsome-looking foreign gentlemen, dressed as if he was a Greek God and looked the part enough that it was obvious he was also from that country. 

But now that they were looking more closely they also noticed that there were fifteen security droids shepherding the two away, and then Melissa pointed subtly upwards with a single finger pressed to her chest. “And then look up in the sky. There aren’t nearly as many video drones as there should be if they’re searching for someone. And they’re not searching. They’re locked on to those two Heroes and…” she trailed off looking away rapidly and letting her hand fall away lest her interest bring the drone’s attention down on them.

But Izuku and the others had already seen what she had seen, and Tsuyu put that observation into words grimly. “And the rest of us too, kero.”

Kyoka gulped, staring around her, her eyes tracking up for a brief second then away. “Um, how likely is it that this is some kind of routine security inspection thing?” 

Melissa instantly shook her head. “No, I know when all of the drills are scheduled, my father and I both have projects that are sensitive to sudden interruptions in power or attention, as do a lot of the rest of the science institute. He’d inform the school if they were running something like that.”

“And how likely is it that someone was able to sneak in and take control of your security?” Todoroki said, scowling as he looked at the robots. They look perfectly freezable to me, but there are a lot of them.

“I would’ve said that would be impossible, but I think that is what we’re dealing with Todoroki.” Melissa said. “And that makes me very, very afraid for my father.” 

“He’s with All Might though!” Izuku said, instantly coming to speaking up in favor of his idol. “All Might will protect him.”

“Not if there are other hostages.” Momo said shaking her head. “My personal phone is down.” she went on, looking up at Melissa. “I presume you have one as well, an emergency phone?”

Melissa instantly flipped open her own personal phone open, and found she was unable to reach her father. “I’ve got no signal, and that is impossible.” she said bluntly. “This is an emergency phone-to-phone app I’m using, that relies on our own home system to send the signal anywhere on I-Island. If that home system is being blocked, then the security of the island has most definitely been taken over.”

“All right.” Kyoka said calming down slightly even as the situation worsened. They all continued down the streets with the rest of the crowd from the steakhouse. Looking around Kirishima noticed that the two Heroes had been singled out, and moved to one direction, along with a few others in order to cover this up and he mentioned it to the others before Kyoka went on. “So what are we going to do about it? We’re not Heroes, we don’t have Hero licenses yet.”

“I don’t think that matters at all right now.” Izuku said firmly, looking all around them as he did. “We are Heroes in training, and that means we get involved.”

Todoroki nodded firmly. “Agreed.”

Iida and the others though were looking a little more concerned. “Jiro-san is correct.” Iida said with a firm nod. We should leave it to the Heroes. We still don’t know enough about what’s going on but there are heroes still about. They can handle it. If we use our Quirks without permission, we might all lose our places in UA or worse, be arrested regardless of the outcome.” 

“In that case.” Izuku said firmly “I volunteer to go and find out for us.”

Melissa instantly spoke up to. “I’ll go as well. I know a back door into the main tower and once inside, I can hack into the systems to discover what else is going on. There are a few back doors in the operating system that will let me in once I’m inside the tower.”

Kirishima nodded firmly. “Manly bro, I’ll come too.”

Tsuyu nodded firmly. “Getting involved is what we should do. We may face issues afterwards for using our Quirks, but so long as we do the right thing now, I will cheerfully agree to pay for it afterwards, kero.” 

Momo, Kyoka and Iida looked at one another then nodded. They moved with the rest of the crowd for a time, with the other kids moving around Momo so her lower body was invisible to the robots and video drones. She eventually nodded to them all that she was ready.

Then At the next intersession, Melissa cut to the side ducking under a robot’s outstretched tentacle-arm. As Tsuyu leaped over it, the boys too raced by, with Momo dropping an ECM grenade she had just created on the ground. There was a bright flare and the robots all around them short-circuited, letting the group break off from the rest of the restaurant goers who screamed and held their eyes, but were otherwise uninjured.

With Melissa guiding them they moved through a few houses, away from the rest of the touristy section of the island, moving into the housing sector. From there, she directed them around in a circle, heading back towards the central spire but around the area they had been before to come at it from a different angle.

They soon broke out of the housing district once more into the Expo area, where they instantly ran into certain proof that there was indeed something going on. A few other Heroes had been out and about rather than taking part in the impromptu celebration for All Might being there. These were minor Heroes from around Asia rather than Japan that only Izuku recognized, and he gushed aloud “Wow, it’s the Taoists, and those over there, that’s Jenny and Ni, Gemini! And over there, I believe those are the Siamese twins. They’re not really twins, but they both have the same powers, and apparently there’s something going on between them because of it. No one knows what, but some people on the Internet think it’s pheromones or…”

“Thank you Izuku.” Tsuyu said slapping a hand over his mouth shaking her head. “Right now, we need to know how to get through that, kero.” she said pointing to the other side of the street they just entered. Because from that direction, came over three dozen security droids, each of them shouting “ARREST. INCARCERATE. DETAIN. ARREST. INCARCERATE. DETAIN.”

However as they came closer, that unfortunately also changed. “CHANGE OF SECURITY STATUS ACKNOWLEDGED. LETHAL FORCE AUTHORIZED. ARREST. INCINERATE. DECIMATE.”

Melissa gasped. “B-But that, that’s not that’s not possible! Our security droids can’t enter lethal mode without…!” 

Before she could finish speaking Melissa was pushed out of the way of a blast of electrical energy from one of the oncoming droids and to the ground by Tsuyu, who commented dryly from above her. “It seems possible to me, kero!”

“Take them out!” Todoroki ordered, slamming one foot on the ground. From his foot, a line of ice spikes appeared, jutting up from the ground to destroy several dozen droids all at once. But others quickly began to attack the spikes with flamethrowers closing quickly. 

“Dammit!” He growled, before overpowering the ice and encasing the flamethrower users in it. They instantly began to thaw their way out, but not quickly. “Fire! Why is it always fucking fire!?”

“Language!” Momo shouted as she began to create an expendable staff, before pausing, and then creating the same autocannon that she had used during the exhibition earlier.

Izuku shouted. “Pull back into the housing district for now. We can’t fight our way through those numbers, and the other Heroes are breaking in that direction too. How many of the security droids are there?”

“More than ten thousand.” Melissa said with a sigh. “There are about two hundred or so specialized versions that are locked up elsewhere. And every time a thousand of them are sent out the operators will need to input a new code, so it could take them some time to build up to those numbers. But they will eventually.”

“Look over there.” Iida said pointing past the droids. He had noted another group of men had appeared from behind the droids coming out of the tower. They were all dressed in a similar militaristic uniform and were moving towards the Heroes who had grouped together into one defensive formation.

As the youngsters watched one of them stopped and transformed into a giant purple-skinned monster which looked like a cross between a furless gorilla and a boar. “RAAAHHHH!!” he roared aloud, bounding towards the Heroes who instantly started to scatter, shouting in dismay. None of them had Quirks strong enough face something of that size.

Another one stopped too. Though it was difficult to see from where they were hiding, Izuku saw his hands enlarge… And are those webs between his fingers? But he doesn’t look like he has a fish-type Quirk. He actually looks more like a bird...  

Izuku’s thoughts cut off before they could enter mumble mode when the man flicked his hands, as if he was tossing something invisible towards the heroes. The Hero he targeted, a young man with a seemingly elastic body leaped away despite not being able to see what was targeting him. It was good he had because the rooftop he’d been standing on was now gone, a giant circle taken out of it like someone had just taken a scoop out of the building.

At a noise from one side, Todoroki turned from the sight of the ongoing battle to see a few droids had moved in their direction from around the corner of a building. He growled angrily, then stamped a foot on the ground sending a rush of ice out, instantly freezing them as he spoke to the others. “I say we help the other Heroes. We can’t just let them fight off the villains and all these droids on their own.”

“It wouldn’t be very Hero-like or manly.” Kirishima said slamming his hands together as he activated his Quirk, shifting his body into a hardened form.

“No, there’s too many of them for us to fight in a straight up battle! They’ll just get replaced faster than we can destroy them!” Melissa shouted, drawing their attention from the incoming droids. “We need to get into the tower and shut the security grid down. If we can’t do that, they can simply keep on sending out security droids by hundred droid lots.”

Izuku thought about it, then nodded reluctant agreement. “Todoroki-kun, a wall of ice please. Concentrate on obscuring our position from view. We need to break off contact and then sneak around.”

Scowling but unable to argue against Melissa’s points, Todoroki did so, creating a series of tall spires of ice. This made the beak-faced villain scowl, yet also slowed him down enough for the youngsters to retreat, leaping down onto the street and falling back the way they had come. But even as they retreated, above them the video recording drones circled.

OOOOOOO

Wolfram stayed in the ballroom watching All Might closely. His real employer had told him some interesting things about the Number One Hero, although he couldn’t see any sign of it yet, and he wondered if he had been told the truth. Regardless, All Might was certainly the most dangerous of their current opponents and keeping an eye on him was just good sense. 

His walks around the ballroom was interrupted not by the call he’d wanted to hear, which would inform him  that his men in the Vault Security Room had broken through the various locks between them and their grand prize. Instead this call was from the people he’d left up in the control room, watching all of the island for any trouble. “What is it?” He asked, his feet pausing on his trek through the room near the stage.

“We’ve got a few Heroes and would-be Heroes outside making trouble. That group of teens we saw earlier today on the obstacle course and the Heroes that didn’t go to the party with All Might are causing trouble out there, and we’ve just lost sight of the kids. They might be heading towards the tower.”

“Heading towards it and doing anything once they get there are two different things.” Wolfram replied, with frown. “Did you get an ID on the blonde with them?” the rest they had been able to recognize as UA students thanks to some information passed on by their true employer.

“Hold on… yes, she's Melissa Shield, daughter of David Shield.” 

Standing in front of the stage a few feet away from All Might, Wolfram slammed his fist down on the wood of the stage, causing many of the civilians around him to squeak in fear. All Might started to listen in intently. “Dammit! If anyone is liable to have a backdoor into this place, it’s one of the Shields. All right, order Daigo and Nobu to turn their attention to the teens. This is more important than corralling some weakling heroes. Send about half the security droids we can out there as well, send a quarter of the remainder to keep the pressure on the heroes and the rest in the tower. Reinforce as needed from the robots you can unlock access to as you go.”

“I’ve broken the codes on another thousand, so I can get them out in a few minutes. This place has enough of those things to stand off a small army.”

“The island wanted to keep its independence, so it’s very likely their security was designed to do just that.” he man with the mask replied drolly. “Whether or not they do keep that independence after this is a doubt, but we’ll be long gone by then.”

All Might listened to this, his face not showing any of his inner thoughts, but he was beginning to get very worried that the young man and his fellows had decided to get involved in this conflict. But the worry soon faded into pride as he smiled to himself. Yes, that’s the way heroes should be. 

OOOOOOO

The effect outside of Wolfram’s orders was immediate. First a few, then dozens, then finally hundreds of droids flooded into the housing districts where Melissa was attempting to lead the young heroes around the area where the fighting was going on towards the back of the main tower. 

“Well, we’ve no choice now.” Izuku said, clenching and unclenching his gauntleted hands as he stared around them as more droids came barreling through small private gardens, down alleyways, or even over buildings towards them. The repulsor technology somehow allowed them to travel up and down walls as easily as a on the ground. The sight of that almost made Izuku geek out for a moment, wondering about the technology there, but the reality of the danger facing them kept him under control.

Todoroki scowled. “The rest of you go on, I’ll take this lot out.” 

“No way.” Momo and Melissa said as one, before looking at one another and laughing quietly even as the droids continue to come towards them. Momo opened fire on the nearest ones with her new favorite toy, even as she was thinking about various ways to refine it, “We might need your firepower later on.”

Todoroki twitched at her wording, but Izuku’s words cooled him down. “Yaoyorozu-san is right, your Quirk is the strongest of ours and, in a way also the most useful. After all, if we can’t actually get into the tower we might have to scale the side of it.”

Todoroki blinked, then looked towards the tower, a small sweatdrop forming on his face. “You overestimate how much ice I can create at any one time if you think I can create a pillar that can carry us up that thing.”

“We wouldn’t have to go all the way.” Melissa said. “I might be able to override any security they put on the elevators. It’s just that getting in will be tough.”

But then the droids were on them, and for a few minutes, there was nothing that could be said over the tumult of battle, barring shouts for help and directions along the lines of “Look out!” or “I’ve got this group, go and help over there!” and “Where are they all coming from!?” 

Momo, Kyoka and Todoroki remained in the center with Melissa. Momo was their main long range fighter at the moment, and she targeted the more distant droids with her autocannon. Tsuyu and Izuku worked together on their flanks as they retreated, taking out the droids coming over their rooftops or through the smaller streets. Kirishima took the forward position, smashing through the droids ahead of them, while Iida used hit and runs to smash the droids to pieces or otherwise snarl them up to make them easier targets for Todoroki. 

Once they were frozen, Kyoka proved how dangerous her powers could be, swiftly using her newest skill to shatter the frozen droids. Of all of them, only she and Izuku had their support equipment on them during the date. In her case she had strapped her ‘Show stoppers’ – the insanely strong speakers Melissa had made her – underneath her skirt. The fact she was now essentially flashing a lot of her legs to the boys around her every time she used them did occur to her, but Kyoka also couldn’t bring herself to care.

In this manner the teens decimated scores, then hundreds of droids, with Momo and, surprisingly, Izuku taking the lead on shouting orders to the others. Izuku was better at noticing things, but he always had to pull back in order to shout out orders. He was just unable to shout out observations and fight at the same time. On the other hand, thanks to being further away from the droids, Momo had more attention to spare on the battle as a whole.

They tried to break contact several times, but with the droids being directed towards them from nearly every direction thanks to the overhead video drones, it was impossible.  After about fifteen minutes, Izuku was beginning to feel a little despairing of their attempts to get free of these things, when there was a cackling sound over the sounds of battle.

Kirishima turned from having smashed one droid into pieces with the body of another, holding another droid in his other hand as he turned slightly towards the sound of mad laughter. “What the heck? Did someone order up a Wicked Witch somehow?”

“That’s stereotyping, kero.” Tsuyu said. She leaped from one roof to another, nimbly dodging between several attempts to lasso her. Her tongue lashed out in turn to slap into one droid so hard in the chest that it went flying. Then she paused, staring at the origins of the cackling, then began to croak in amusement herself. “Kero, kero, kero!”

Coming down the street from that side of the battle was Mei. She was being carried by two droids, and she was wielding some kind of giant gun that made Momo’s autocannon look tiny in comparison.

In her other hand she held something else, some little gadget or other, that she pointed at a few specific droids in the mass around her, shouting out and “And now your mine, baby!”

Melissa and the others reached the intersection and she stared at the oncoming pink-haired engineering wunderkind. “Is she… is she somehow remotely overriding the programming of those droids? That’s a little disturbing.”

Behind the shorter blonde woman, Momo had finally finished creating what she had been trying to make, but considering she was in the midst of a battle, concentrating on what was going on and doing so with one hand, it had taken a while. But now she had the same kind of EMP grenade she had used to spring them initially from the droids who had been directing them to the shelters. Only this one was much larger. “Everyone gather around. Todoroki, everyone, let them close for a bit from behind us.” she ordered. 

Realizing what Momo was going to do, Izuku pulled back from where he was fighting on one roof to the right of the others, telling Iida and Kirishima, “Concentrate on clearing the road between us and Hatsume-san you two. Asui-san, join Melissa-san on the road! I’ll be there in a minute!”

With Hatsume and the two boys thinning the droids ahead of them, the rest of the teens were able to speed up their retreat. This in turn meant the groups of droids merged into one for a second behind them on the road.

As they did, Momo threw her EMP grenade into the mass of droids behind them. It went off with a bright flash and flare of arcing electricity. Hundreds of the droids slowly started to collapse, getting in the way of their fellows, and she shouted, “Now Todoroki!”

With room to breathe and no need to hold back, Todoroki sent out a wave of ice in nearly every direction, freezing every droid within sight of them. With that, Kyoka went to town on the trapped droids, shattering the popsicles with ease.

At the same time, Melissa and Tsuyu both started to shiver, although the frog was noticeably colder than Melissa. The taller girl pulled Tsuyu into a hug, warming her slightly. Ahead of them Mei pouted, hopping off of her also frozen troops. “That wasn’t so nice, Icy-hot.” she muttered.

She looked over at the heroes and waved her hand airily. “Hey you guys! You didn’t think I would let you heroes have all the fun, did you? What better way to test my babies than in a real world environment, huh?”

Still holding Tsuyu and helping her stay warm Melissa laughed, shaking her head. “That girl is crazy.” she commented to the shorter girl. Still, fun for all of that.” She watched as Mei activated something that almost looked like her own Bound Assist System, that seemed to be part of her backpack, which was connected to her feet by several thick hoses. There was a flash of light from under her feet, and the next second, Mei was landing next to them on the street.

They were quickly joined by the other heroes, and Todoroki moved over to Tsuyu, putting his right hand on her head. Instantly a sense of gentle heat filled the the amphibian, and he muttered, “Sorry, I know you’re not so good with cold.”

“We’ll need to make a suit that can help with that.” Izuku said looking over at Melissa.

“Hey!” Mei said getting between them and thrusting her pouting face into Izuku’s personal space causing him to back away with a heavy blush on his face. “I’m the support course girl here. I’ll do it as soon as we get back to school.”

“Enough.” Momo said with a laugh, staring around them as she saw in the distance more droids coming towards them. But right now, there weren’t any nearby and the heroes in the Expo doing a much better job of tangling most of them up, now that they had a little room to breathe. Despite that, it won’t take them more than a minute to catch up again, and we still need to do something about those video drones. “We need to get moving, but I don’t think we’re going to get away clean.”

She looked over at Izuku, who sighed and nodded. He’d been leading them away from the point where they’d seen the villains right up until the actual battle began when he became too busy to give out orders. For some reason, all of them were looking at him for direction. “You’re right, we won’t be able to break away. We’re too big of a group. Do you think you can hold here?” he asked looking back at her then gesturing at the others.”

Momo’s back straightened, and she nodded firmly. “I think so. Who do you want to take with you?”

“Todoroki-kun and Melissa-san. I’ll leave everyone else here with you.” he said with a nod of his head, not acknowledging the metaphorical elephant in the room. They all knew Momo and those who stayed with her were going to sacrifice themselves. They would make as much trouble as they possibly could, draw in the attention of the people watching them through the video drones, so that the others would have the chance to go to ground and then sneak into the tower.

“How is that going to work.” Todoroki asked, somewhat annoyed without knowing specifically why, beyond the fact this sounded like they would be running from a fight. He gestured above them and everyone could see a few video drones following them, no doubt directing the droids straight to them.

Momo bit her lip, wondering if she could shoot them all down before the next wave of droids was on them. But Melissa had a solution for that. “You were taking control of some of our droids earlier right Mei?” She asked looking over at the shorter girl. 

Mei nodded, happily holding up one of her toys. Yep, it’s an automatic override program with an omnidirectional radio. It lets me take control of any computer or programmable electronic baby nearby that I want to. It’s got a limited range though.”

“That’s fine, that just means that it is in fact a radio. Can I have it for a second? My dad had an employee who had… issues with understanding that people should have some privacy.” she said, tone a bit dark as she took the device and began to fiddle with it. “He used the video drones to start spying on people, particularly girls.”

“Pervert!” said every girl but Mei, who simply cocked her head, shaking it quizzically as she said, “That doesn’t sound like a good use of babies to me.”

“…Right.” Melissa said, sweatdropping at Mei’s attitude as she inputted a series of radio commands to the drones. “So just in case it happened again, he gave me a few codes over the video drones specifically. It actually was supposed to help me with my nightmares, since, well, the guy was spying on me mostly.” she said with a shudder before moving on quickly. “But, it can be definitely useful here too.”

The teens watched as the spy drones around them instantly started to fly away, zooming this way and that. Others tried to get close, but the field that Mei’s device was now emitting apparently was just giant order to stay away which they couldn’t overcome. Melissa nodded, looking around at the others. “I can do a lot more damage than that once we get to the tower.” she said simply.

Izuku gave her a thumbs up and all the other heroes nodded firmly.

For a moment, all of the teens looked at one another, then Izuku began to speak. His voice was low, authoritative and calm even as the robots slowed their approach, seeming unable to decide whether to believe their own optical sensors or the commands of the radio drones. Behind the robots Izuku could see a large purple-skinned monster, the same villain they had seen earlier engaging the heroes.

“Those two quirk users we saw are the most dangerous threats out here. The others don’t seem to have quirks that could help them in fights. The purple giant one though… his seems to impede his ability to think when he takes the form. He’s durable, but he won’t be as durable as he is strong, I think, if that quirk is indeed based off of a giant gorilla type. His upper body also looks much stronger than his lower body. If you can immobilize him that could perhaps take him out of the fight entirely. Until then, Kirishima-san is the only one of you that will be able to take even a glancing blow from him. My advice would be for Kirishima-san and Asui-san to concentrate on him. With her tongue she can get him out of trouble, and she is far more agile than that villain.” 

“Call me Tsuyu-chan, kero.” Tsuyu interrupted.

Izuku smiled at her wanly but continued seriously. “The other one, he hollows things out, or perhaps pushes matter away from himself in a spherical shape from his hands. He could use long rang attacks based on air pressure, but they won’t do as much damage as in close. Don’t get hit by his attack and don’t try to block it, if it can tear a divot out of concrete, it will do the same to anything you can put up. He is also extremely fast and somewhat agile, but he shouldn’t be any more durable than a normal person despite his appearance. His body’s mutation is a side effect of that power, not an addition. My advice would be to not get bogged down, and to keep your distance from both of them. Concentrate on whittling the purple-skinned one down until he’s overwhelmed and comes out of his quirk.”

“Got it bro.” Kirishima said slamming one fist into the other.

Shaking her head at how many observations Izuku could come up with in only a few minutes, Momo smiled, gesturing towards the tower. “Get going you three! Free All Might and whoever else is being used as hostages. We’ve got this, right?” she asked looking over at Kyoka, Tsuyu, and the others. 

Kyoka grinned, bumping her hip against her thigh, smirking up at her taller friend. “Hell yeah Yaomomo. We’ve got this.”

“Stay safe.” Izuku ordered softly, before they took off.

Moments later the three were gone, disappearing down a side street and then – hidden from view – into the sewers. 

Behind them, the droids were still coming on as the others continued to move away from their pursuers. “Good. Doesn’t look like they were seen.” Momo said as she placed her autocannon into her shoulder as she saw the droids flowing over the spot where Izuku and the others had slipped into the sewers. Her shoulder was actually beginning to ache even from the recoilless autocannon, and she made a mental note to think of other ways to lighten its weight in the future. Perhaps some kind of reinforced bodysuit? Something to help out my poor arm. “Everyone ready?”

Mei was down on her knees to one side, staring from one giant gun that she had pulled from somewhere to a smaller one, muttering “freeze ray, phase beam, or electron duplicator? Electron duplicator.” she muttered, grabbing it up, and holding it like a Marine would a rifle, pointing down range. Her eyes suddenly dangerous looking as they locked down on a target. She began to fire without even replying to Momo, who shrugged, waited until the approaching droids were in her range and then she too began to fire.

“We’ll move backwards and head back around to the café and restaurant area where we started. Act as if we’re being pushed back.” Momo said.

“Indeed, a most effective plan, so long as we do not get surrounded. Without Todoroki-kun we don’t have the ability to take out as many droids at any one time.” Iida said, his eyes gleaming as he stared from the onrushing enemies to the area around them.

“That shouldn’t be too hard of an act, kero.” Tsuyu said with a chuckle, as she hopped onto a nearby roof, lashing down at a droid that just came up around the corner, smashing it into pieces with her tongue

Kyoka chuckled gleefully, “You’re all crazy, you know that right?”

“You are a would-be hero too, you know.” Momo said gently between rounds of her autocannon. “That probably means that you are a little crazy as well.”

Kyoka laughed aloud at that.  “A harsh burn from Yaomomo! Well, whatever.” With that, she cranked one of her ear jacks into her side and connected the other to the speakers on her thighs. “Let’s make some noise!” she roared, while Kirishima and Iida charged forward, Iida outdistancing his temporary partner easily.

When it was just the droids, Momo who had become the leader of their team now Izuku was gone, was content to simply wreck as many of them as possible. But the moment she saw a nearby house get destroyed by what looked like something coming through it, she instantly shouted, “Fall back!” and began to create more EMP grenades and a few other toys. The grenades popped out of her bare shoulders and back to land at her feet, where she and Mei scooped them up.

Kirishima looked up from the center of several dozen droids where he had been smashing them into pieces. He pulled off the few incarceration energy ropes they had tried to bind him with tossing them aside. They had learned by this point that unless they were actually able to get around his entire body, he could pull them off pretty easily. Tsuyu also frowned from where she had been dancing around and through several droids, getting them all tangled with one another as she kicked out or used her tongue to disable them. But when they saw the giant gorilla bounding towards them, smashing through thankfully empty houses, they understood.  

They retreated from the areas which had actual houses into the next area where apartment complexes were plentiful. The gorilla-like villain couldn’t break through those as quickly. This also forced the droids to bunch up in an effort to keep up with the running teens. But Momo used EMP blasts and smoke bombs to gain some distance, and they continued to fall back. Those of them who had long range weapons doing the best they could to delay the enemies as much as possible. As Tsuyu and Iida watched their backs, Kirishima got into the act. He started pulling out chunks of masonry or using bits and pieces of robot and tossing them down range at the incoming enemies. At intervals Iida and Mei also dropped the support girl’s specialized glue bombs which seemed to hold up both the droids and the villains.

As they went though, Momo was beginning to feel hungry just as she passed the cake shop. She skid to a stop as she stared at it, the dragon in her tummy giving a faint rumble, then looked over at Kyoka who was running beside her. “I’m about to do something a hero shouldn’t.” I’ve always wondered how quickly I can change fat cells into my created items. Now that it’s been made clear it can’t just be based on my fat cells, I have to wonder how fast I can transform energy into matter…

“What?” Kyoka asked, pausing as Momo moved over to the window. She raised her autocannon and used it like a hammer to smash the window, then reached in and began to grab up the cakes that were on display there. Luckily they were real, and she started to stuff her mouth with them, completely ignoring all decorum and the manners that her parents had invested so much time and effort into teaching her.

“What are you doing?!” Kyoka asked, somewhat between amused and appalled at the genteel, refined Momo stuffing her face like a naughty toddler. Oh my kingdom for a camera. She looked over at Mei, who nodded, understanding as something on her belt went off with a clicking sound and a flash.

“Tewtng a teowy!” Momo said around a mouthful of cake, before swallowing. “I might need the energy in a few minutes.”

OOOOOOO

Melissa and her two fellows had taken to the sewers, which – despite there being no enemies down here – was not exactly an easy option for any of the three. “Uggh, if-if I’d known we were going to be down here I would’ve asked Yaoyorozu-san to create nose plugs for us.” Izuku groaned, holding his nose.

“Quit your bitching.” Todoroki said coldly, pushing his shoulder against Izuku’s. “We could still be up there fighting with the others.”

The two boys looked at one another and nodded, understanding crossing between them. The fight the others were putting on was important, but essentially they were making themselves a bait to give the three of them a chance to free All Might or do whatever else they could. That wasn’t something that sat well with either boy. The two of them were united in purpose: they would not let their classmates’ hard work in diverting the villain’s attention go unrewarded with victory.

Melissa looked at them, and shook her head quietly, Kyoka was right, male bonding is weird. Or maybe this is a Japanese thing? She thought, shrugging her shoulders. Despite its proximity to I-Island, she had never actually been to Japan and had no desire to do so before today.

Without another word, Melissa led the way through the sewers, using a map on her hard-light wrist computer to direct them. And actually, the sewers weren’t all that bad. Oh they smelled of course – even a place as new as I-Island had thousands of people using the toiletries every day after all – so that kind of stench built up. But they were about as clean as could be expected, and they weren’t walking through water or anything more organic. But if they had been forced to deal with robots in this enclosed space, they would never have been able to make any progress.

Melissa was disabling scanners as they went, looping the feedbacks from the video cameras almost automatically thanks to the device that she had borrowed from Mei, using it to manipulate the cameras in such a way that they went unnoticed by whoever was watching on the other side. That girl is good, she thought, staring in delight down at the little device not being aware of the irony in that statement. I think I might actually have to offer her a proper place at the school here. Yes, support work is important, but she could do so much more if she had the resources of I-Island behind her.

Eventually, they got to what looked like a dead end ahead of them, or did until Melissa ran her hands over it and found a small, almost invisible seam of a small control panel to one side of the dead end. She tried to pull at it with a finger, then looked at the two boys. “I don’t suppose either of you can…”

Wordlessly Izuku moved forward as Todoroki handed him a small ice pick, and he was able to open the panel enough, wrenching it off with a light burst of strength as Melissa hissed, “Careful! We don’t want to actually damage the panel, that would send a hardwired alarm I couldn’t stop.”

When he was done, Melissa smiled, thumping her hip against both boys one after another as she passed between them. They chuckled, shaking their heads at her attitude. “You know, I have to wonder why you didn’t enter the hero course yourself.” Todoroki said idly, more to break the silence that had descended between them up until this point than anything else. “With the attitude you’re showing here, any school would be glad to have you.” 

Melissa stiffened, turning to look at him, then over at Izuku. But Izuku simply beamed back at her, and said “Yeah, I said something of the sort to her earlier. Someone with your attitude could do amazing things as a Hero. No matter what your Quirk is, or even if you have one in the first place.”

She beamed a bit emotionally at him, then laughed. “I’ll think about it after we get through this current issue.”

Todoroki nodded, not having picked up on any of the undercurrents there. He went back to looking at the wall ahead of them, as did Melissa who quickly finished inputting a few series of commands into the push button panel.

“Let me enter first.” she said quickly, holding up Mei’s device. “There will be a video camera right outside that will automatically activate as the door opens, I’ll have to catch it before it can pick us up.”

The two boys nodded, and she quickly let the door open slightly, then thrust the device inside, pointing it at a specific point. She held that position, waiting until she knew the alarm had not been sounded, before opening the door further. The boys followed her as she went towards a stairwell that led out of what was obviously a service tunnel of some kind up into the tower proper. “I need to find a terminal or computer. If I can get access to one of those, I can access the video cameras, find out where Uncle Might and upload my erasure program into the system. With that, all the cameras will automatically loop the instant they spot us. That mean’s we’ll be able to go faster when we start climbing the tower.”

“You’re the only one who knows the layout of this place.” Todoroki said. 

“Todoroki-kun’s right, u-until we find villains, we’re just your bodyguards.” Izuku said jokingly.

She smirked at them, patting Izuku and Todoroki on the cheek. “And such cute bodyguards too.” she cooed, making both boys flush, before she turned and raced ahead of them. She paused then looking back and asked “Well, aren’t my bodyguards supposed to follow me?”

The two boys looked at one another, shrugged, and followed the blonde. “I told you.” Todoroki muttered, a faint smile on his face. Somehow Melissa reminded him of Fuyuki, his older sister, but with a more outgoing personality. “Perfect hero material.”

From the basement Melissa led them into a utility stairwell, although unlike most service stairwells which the public was not supposed to see, these were both clean and shining with metal and glass, just like the public segments of the tower were. The stair went up in a tight spiral, which, Melissa explained, rotated around a one of the four pillar that maintained the tower’s structural integrity. At each floor there was a landing of course, watched by an overhead camera Melissa would have to spoof before they could move forward. 

About twenty floors up Melissa paused their progress, using a code to open the door. “This is the level which houses the labs academy students use when they are doing experiments that require oversight.” she explained. “Each of us has our own code to enter, and even in a security lockdown, unless the lockdown started on this floor, we can get in and out. 

Among the various laboratories, Melissa quickly found a computer which – after a few seconds of furious typing – surrendered to her commands. An instant later it showed them where the hostages were. The three of them stared at the image, seeing the heroes, All Might and many of the island’s scientists and administrators tied up. 

“Is there any way you can disable the security from here?” Todoroki asked.

“No. I can take control of the the video cameras for short periods of time, but I can’t do anything about the solid-state security let alone so many droids.” Melissa said frowning angrily as she saw her Uncle Might tied up, kept that way thanks to these people pointing guns of civilians. “Cowards.” she muttered. But Melissa was even more concerned about not seeing her father or Sam, his assistant, with the other prisoners. 

“Villains usually are.” Todoroki said coldly, looking at the two of them. “We need to move.”

Izuku nodded firmly, gesturing Melissa away from the computer screen. ”C-come on Melissa.” he said gently. “Let’s go do what we can.”

While they couldn’t get through the hundreds of droids guarding the prisoners, Melissa knew how to shut down the security program from the control room. With that in mind, she uploaded the program she’d mentioned that would delete any video recording of movement between the different levels on the staircase. As they did, Melissa’s program surged ahead of them re-looping the video of the empty stairwell as they raced up spiral staircase, allowing them to pick up speed.

“How far up do we have to go?” Todoroki asked, as he paused to take a breath. 

Melissa paused too, grateful that she had already discarded her high heels the moment they had realized something was going on way back at the steakhouse. Her feet were still sore, but nowhere near how sore they would’ve been she had attempted something like this in heels. “The central security control room is on the two hundredth floor. Were on the eighty-fourth floor at the moment.”

“And we can’t risk using the elevators, this is going to take a while.” Izuku said shaking his head as he stared above them.

“I’m afraid not, the elevators are on hard lock down darn it, I can’t…” Melissa said, before trailing off as an idea came to her and she looked at Todoroki. “Tell me, when you use your ice, how much effort does that take?”

The two of them looked another, then Todoroki said simply, “What do you need?” ignoring her question about effort.

She pulled out her pogo stick, and began to work with it for a few seconds, disengaging a few things here and there, then holding two bits up. They looked sort of like an engine nacelle from Star Trek almost, expect so small they fit in her hand and with the ends spreading out like a rocket’s bottom. At the top of them was a few wires, disengaged at present. A few seconds later they were put back onto the shaft of the pogo stick, the wires held in one hand. “Izuku, could you tear off a panel of metal from the inner wall of the stairwell please? Just the inner wall, not the outer one.”

With a bit of effort Izuku did so and set it down on the floor beneath them, his fingers twitching in after shocks of once more using One For All. All three of them got onto the piece of metal, and Melissa stuck her pogo stick behind them, the edge of it hitting the top of the stair behind the landing they were standing on. “Okay, so now if Todoroki could create a slide leading up, this can push us along.”

Todoroki nodded, and thrust out his hands forward. A slide made of ice began to appear in front of them, heading upwards around the spiral of the staircase. 

A second later Melissa thrust back with the remains of her pogo stick. The small repulsors went off as they touched the floor behind them, and a second later the bit of wall shot forward. Sliding along the ice Todoroki created the three of them almost flew up the spire. This not only sped their progress up tremendously, but it saved them effort too. It wouldn’t last for long, her repulsor batteries were tiny after all, but Melissa hoped they would last long enough.

OOOOOOO

“What do you mean we’ve lost sight of Melissa Shield?” growled Wolfram, not noticing the way All Might’s eyes lit up in his large, angular face at that.

“With the video drones somehow ignoring our orders to get closer to the fight I had to call Nobu and Daigo. Nobu said he hadn’t seen anyone matching her description among the kids, right before Daigo took a freaking autocannon round to his face! Whoever those kids are, they’re sure not pulling their punches.” said one of Wolfram’s men. He had been left behind in the security room to watch the action around the island, and to make certain Sam and Shield were working their way through the various security locks.

Not only had the Quirk Enhancement Device been locked away behind several dozen locks that even David Shield couldn’t override apparently. Both himself, Samuel, and more than half a dozen other scientists had their own locks on the Vault. Once something was in there, it wasn’t supposed to be taken back out without the approval of all of them. And unfortunately, not even David Shield could just break through those at gunpoint. Sam had been less than helpful too, only able to monitor David’s progress. Still, Shield’s healthy paranoia wasn’t going to stop Wolfram from taking the item he was here for. 

Not even Wolfram was able to get into the Vault using his power. He had tried that earlier that day, figuring he could just cut out the middleman. After all if he could open the doors without Sam’s codes, or those of David Shield, he could have been done and gone by now. But there was some kind of energy matrix within the door frame that kept his Quirk powers from locking onto it. And the walls were thick. So thick in fact, that he doubted even someone as strong as Daigo would be able to smash his way through. And at the time, that would have made far too much noise.

Grumbling at that memory, the man in the mask shook his head, thinking quickly. Where could she hurt us most, he thought to himself, not believing for one moment the teen would do the smart thing and just try to escape or hide out. Teens weren’t known for doing the smart thing at all, and teenagers who had superheroes for parents were worse. With the amount of access David Shield had to everything on I-Island, he wasn’t about to assume that his daughter didn’t have something similar. 

“The control room.” he said softly, realization hitting him. If we lose control of the security droids, we lose this fight. Switching’s frequencies, he asked quickly “How far along are you?”

“Thanks to David Shield ‘helping’ us, we’re nearly through the last security wall. I’m now preparing our getaway, but all the helicopters are on automatic lockdown thanks to the security. I’m having to override them. According to both Shield and Anderson, they don’t even have an override for those, some kind of compromise or something or other.”

“Damn, one step forward, one back. Fine. I’m going to head up to the control room, unlock the nearest elevator for me at this level.” he said aloud, looking around at his people. “Swordkil, you’re in charge here. If any of the heroes move, kill every civilian here.” Two of the eight men left in the room balked, and he glared at them, his voice changing into a harsh whisper. “Do you understand?”

They both nodded convulsively, and he moved on, glaring at All Might even as he retreated from the room. “Watch that one in particular, and if he even twitches, start shooting the rest.”

All Might glared right back at him while thinking. Yes, it looks as if Melissa and Midoriya-shounen and the others are making a lot of trouble for these villains!  But hurry it up young man, I can’t keep this form up for much longer. 

OOOOOOO

Once they got to the one hundred and ninety-fifth floor, the teens had stopped using their makeshift ride, worried about the noise now. From there on, they went up cautiously until they were right outside the security area around the control room.

There they spotted several guards outside, moving around in a disciplined patrol of the floor. 

Todoroki waited until he had an idea of their patrol route, and then just as they were about to step on that area, froze the ground across from him with a thin veneer of ice from his current position to the next doorway down. The started to slide, cursing. 

Then Izuku was on them, flashing forward, as quickly as his legs could carry him. His two gauntleted hands grabbed their faces, and then with he whispered “Gomen!” he thrust them down, smashing their heads into the ground. Both men were instantly knocked unconscious, and he grabbed their shirts, dragging them back the way they can and dumping them in a random room. 

He nodded to Todoroki, who nodded back while Melissa stared between the two of them.  “H-how did you two do that? Come up with that plan so quickly?”

The two of them shrugged. “it just made sense.” Izuku supplied with a smile that was far too innocent seeming for the person who had just knocked out two grown men.

Todoroki nodded, then gestured on. “We need to keep moving and stay out of sight of that open door at the end. That leads into the control room, right?”

“The first of several. The outer control room is for the security grid itself. The inner control room is for the tower security, and the one after that… that’s the Vault.” Melissa rattled off. “Whatever they are after, they have to get through that last area in order to open up the Vault. That’s where all of the work on the most important and world-changing projects are kept - finished or otherwise – no matter who is working on them. I’ve never been allowed in there, but I can at least lock down the security.”

Once they were certain that there were no other guards outside the control room, Izuku barreled ahead, muttering under his breath “One for All, three percent.” as he smashed into the doors. Even as his core and legs started to bother him, Izuku blew them off their hinges, smashing them into him few people on the other side. However, one of the doors stopped in front of one of them, a man wearing a mask. He gestured to one side, and the door flew off before crashing to the floor. 

“I knew you little would-be Heroes would try to come up here! Let’s see how strong you really are.” he said, gesturing with both hands to either side of him. Large chunks of metal began to pry themselves out of the control rooms consoles and everything else. He used some pieces to shield himself from Izuku’s furious charge, then he leaped up onto one of them hovering there in the air to escape the ice from Todoroki, gesturing to fire other pieces forward.

Glaring at the two young heroes from where he rode on his makeshift hover board, Wolfram reflected that the ice-using brat was the most dangerous. Best to eliminate him quickly. Even as he backed away from the green-haired youth he gestured down to the floor, which rose on command. Spikes of steel erupted from it, almost imitating the boy’s ice powers. “I don’t know how you got here boys, but don’t even think you’re going to leave alive!”

Yet even as he launched his attack, Wolfram was still thinking about the main goal. He took the suitcase Sam had given him a bare minute before which was carrying their prize and put it on his back, locking it in place with a few binders of metal, covering his back and chest with metal armor.

Facing the Villain, Izuku bounced off one wall, then up onto the ceiling, before using one hand to smash himself off the wall with devastating force just as he had done during the hero obstacle course, his experience there serving them in good stead now. In an enclosed space he had to use less power on his ‘punch-jumps’.  

This was a temporary name.  Izuku wasn’t certain what to call his Hero moves at this point without relying on All Might’s names.

But he had to use that technique more often moving around and trying to attack Wolfram from every angle he could. The man they had begun to fight however simply turned away, grabbing his arm as he passed, tossing him aside.

The ice from Todoroki hit him at that point, but the ice was shattered or blocked by the metal the man had created around him. The floor came under his command again, this time rising up from underneath Todoroki.

He had barely a second to react, and rolled away, as two heavy jaws suddenly rose up from under where he’d been standing to crush him. Another tremor and the sound of squealing metal beneath him where he had rolled warned him of more metal beginning to warp under his feet. But this time, Todoroki used his own ice powers. As the metal at started to try to wrap around his legs, he blocked it with the ice, keeping the metal away from himself.

That essentially froze his legs to where he was standing, but that was better than having them being trapped by the man’s steel. Damn it, his metal manipulation ability negates my ice powers far too well.

This moment of attention on Todoroki cost the man however, because Izuku closed again in a second, and a punch caught Wolfram in the ribs, hurling him aside to smash into one of the walls. Spittle flew from his mouth in a loud groan as the wall began to mold around him. He snarled furiously, even as he continued to use his powers to create a better armor for himself. “You will pay for that brat!”

For his part, Izuku was astonished. He had pulled his punch of course, but, it should still have at least knocked the man out, or broken a few ribs. And he has a magnetism Quirk! how in the world did he just tank my punch? Maybe he’s wearing some kind of body armor underneath? 

Regardless the man across from them had indeed taken his punch. Still, just a little more…

Working on the same wavelength, Todoroki also attacked, shouting out, “Take this!”

But again, he found the man was able to use his magnetic powers to block him with ease. Wolfram then pushed out of the wall, covered now in body armor and sneering at them. “My turn.”

He charged forward, one hand thrust out towards Todoroki. Dozens, hundreds of spikes flashed from every direction, the metal of the room under his control molding itself to his wishes.

Todoroki grimaced, but dodged a lot of the attacks before raising a wall of ice, with his right hand, grimacing as the spikes from the ceiling punched through his barrier several feet before slowing, their points a bare few inches away from his own skin. He was then canceling out the ice, shouting out in fury as he launched his own attack. But his body was beginning to feel the effects of constantly using his ice powers, his ice side starting to shiver at the intense cold his power created as a thin rime of frost appeared on his body.

By this point Wolfram had closed with Izuku and had begun to pound the younger man with his own incredible strength. Izuku was dodging as much as he could, which was quite a lot.  But even so he’d had his bell rung twice and he stumbled back from the other man in a daze. How is he that strong? Is he using his Magnet-based powers like that old comic book character somehow to enhance his strength?

Izuku saw Todoroki’s attack incoming and pushed through the pain of the last blow his jaw had taken. He grabbed his opponent’s arm before he could pull it back, and Wolfram was therefore unable to turn away or defend himself as the ice hit him. It carried him away to slam into the opposite wall. And that finally took him out of position to guard the doorway to the next control area. Even as he watched the man start to break out of the ice, his face locked in a rictus of rage, Izuku shouted out, “Go!”

In response, Melissa raced from behind Todoroki around the ongoing battle and into the secondary control center as Izuku thundered forward. 

“You little punks!” Wolfram roared, gesturing with his hands down at the ground. 

But at the same time another attack from Todoroki came in while Izuku bounced off the ceiling his free hand punching down at Wolfram’s face. “Graahh, Smaassssh!” He shouted. One For All, five percent!!

Wolfram smashed him aside and at the same time, lashed out toward the ice user again, his own attack smashing through Todoroki’s. He tried to get past Izuku to chase after Melissa, then stopped cold as Izuku grabbed him in a bear hug from behind. Squeezing the Villain so tightly it would have turned a normal person into mush he lifted Wolfram off his feet suplexing him back into the ground. The metal floors moved once more, but this time not from Wolfram’s powers. Izuku cratered the ground with Wolfram’s body, roaring as he did so. That didn’t hurt nearly as much as using a strike. Maybe Melissa had a point about my style. 

But since Wolfram was armored from head to toe, this only caused him some slight pain and he broke out of the hold quickly. Another ice attack came in, but again Wolfram dealt with it easily as he kicked out at Izuku, finding his thigh while lashing out at both heroes with his powers. Izuku stumbled and then gasped as a spike of metal nearly caught his throat. Dodging at the last second, Izuku winced, holding his hand up to the side of his neck, where he was bleeding now from a long cut. It wasn’t deep, but a cut on the neck didn’t need to be.

For his part Todoroki was not having any easier a time of it. Wolfram’s metal was immune to the cold Todoroki could create at this point, he seemed able to use the metal to weather the cold and the ice. And the impact of his ice was just…not…doing…anything!!! It was a situation that he had never run into before and he could feel the frost on his arm spreading up and down his body.

Suddenly the words Izuku had told him earlier that day came back to him and he scowled as he remembered them. And now here I am faced with exactly that. FUCK!!!!! He watched as Wolfram caught Izuku in the ribs with another blow before turning and tossing Izuku through a hole in the wall that he had created during one of his attacks, pulling the metal from the wall and leaving everything that wasn’t metal to fall and crumble away. 

Izuku grabbed the edge of the hole, but Wolfram was going after him, almost negligently tossing an attack the ice user’s way. “Well, I have to commend you brat. I thought the ice user was the most dangerous of the two of you, but he has yet to even slow me down and your attacks have actually hurt. So, I suppose that means you get to die first.”

“Hell no!” Todoroki shouted, and whether it was pricked pride, anger, or concern for a comrade who was slowly becoming a friend, he lashed out with his left arm this time. A tongue of fire flashed towards Wolfram, who turned having seen the attack coming from the corner of his eye. Wolfram threw up a shield of metal, but the heat and flames licked around it. He hissed in agony even as the metal began to run, melting under Todoroki’s attack.

That took Wolfram’s attention away from Izuku again who flipped himself upward, again using his ‘punch jump’ to push himself away from the edge of the now almost entirely open room, his other hand slamming into Wolfram’s midsection with enough of his One For All power that it hurt, if only slightly despite his self-control thanks to the Full Gauntlets. Ten percent punch! Izuku howled in his mind.

He saw the man’s reinforced armor dent around the blow as he was rocketed backwards to slam into and through the inner wall of the security section and past Todoroki’s former position. 

The ice and flame user turned, tracking the man and blasting him with his fire. The man’s metal armor again protected him somewhat, but the visible portions of his skin had no such protection and he screamed, tumbling down the corridor even as he used his powers to warp the walls into the way of Todoroki’s attack. When he slid to a halt, trying to cover himself with more metal from the walls around himself, Todoroki followed up, lashing out along the ground with another ice attack. This time he caught the man inside his ice. The new shield protected the man from the the steam explosion that might have resulted from ice touching molten metal, Todoroki’s powers still pinned him there, and he piled it on, covered the man in a small glacier’s worth of ice.

Moving forward, Izuku stood next to Todoroki murmuring a “Thanks.” knowing that, for whatever reason, Todoroki had a phobia of using his fire powers. 

“Don’t mention it. Seriously, don’t mention it. Ever.” Todoroki said, scowling down at his left side. “If it gets backs to that ass of an old man that I used his power, I’ll never hear the end of it.”

That just raised more questions in Izuku’s mind, but before he could voice them, the remaining walls, ceiling and floor changed, shifted and rose. Both of them leaped backwards as Todoroki used his power to try and create several feet of ice between them and the metal under them. It worked, but he didn’t realize that it wasn’t an attack until Wolfram was blasting free of his ice and standing once more, staring down the corridor towards the two young heroes.

As they watched his mask fell away, revealing his horribly burned and scarred face, burned anew in places along with his hands and neck from Todoroki’s power. His eyes were narrowed and his mouth set in a rictus of hate, as he placed what looked like some weird scanner or something onto his head. “GRRAAAHHHHH!!!!”

The villain’s body pulsed with red light, and then he seemed to grow a few inches. It was as if he had taken some kind of instant steroid, his muscles bulging out, his body aflame with some kind of inner energy. The energy obscured his wounds from sight at the same time as he practically burst out of his clothes. Then his eyes, which had changed into pupil-less black orbs, locked onto the two heroes. 

With a gesture Wolfram reached into the metal all around them, launching it at the two weary youngsters. They tried to dodge, tried to use their powers to defend themselves in various ways… But they soon found themselves being overwhelmed as Wolfram continued to attack them with the metal of the building all around them in greater and greater quantities. 

Izuku was the first to be caught. A blow from below slammed into his chest hammering him up into a bit of the ceiling that was still standing, breaking a rib. Then Todoroki couldn’t dodge backwards far enough as an ice shield shattered under a spear of metal, which slid into his side with a wet *slick* noise before he could pull back. It wasn’t a mortal wound, but it was enough to slow him down so that the next time the ground erupted underneath him, Todoroki couldn’t manage to block it with his ice. Soon both young heroes were trussed up in cables of metal, slowly squeezing the life out of them.

Seeing this Wolfram laughed. “Wonderful, wonderful! This quirk enhancement works, it works so well! I am unstoppable!!!”

However, even as Wolfram was winning the fight against the two young heroes, Melissa had won her own fight. 

OOOOOOO

In the second section of the security control room, Melissa found Sam, her father’s assistant, holding him at gunpoint ranting about something or other. “…might have locked down the airspace with that last bit of trickery, but if I can use you as a hostage, I might not need anything else to get off this island and away! I will have my money!”

“Money!” Melissa shrieked before she could stop herself. “You did all this for money!?”

She realized her error instantly, as the man turned, of his pistol rising to threaten her too. “Don’t move Melissa! I don’t want have to kill you, but I only need one hostage to get away!”

“No!” David shouted leaping forward, and the two of them began to grapple for the gun.

At the same time, Melissa turned, and raced towards the controls.

Within a minute of frantic typing she had turned off the lethal mode on the droids, and then had powered them back to normal security level before flipping their friend or foe identification program entirely around a vicious grin on her normally kind face.  With that the Villains became droids targets again, and the heroes and the other civilians became allies once more. She did not power down the security level on the island in total however, thinking it best to keep the civilians within the bunkers for now.

Behind her, David had quickly gained the upper hand. He had never been a combat-type hero, but he had kept himself in shape and Sam hadn’t. Sam was heavier which provided him with stronger leverage, but was nowhere near as fit as David. But Sam wasn’t without his own weapons. Even as David had him on the ground attempting to lock in a choke hold, Sam fumbled in his pocket and pulled out a tiny disk with two prongs, which he slapped into David’s forearm. 

The tazer disk electrocuted David, causing him to spasm and twitch, letting Sam roll clear. He found his gun and a bang caused Melissa to turn from the controls in time to see Sam, his aim spoiled by his shaking hand, shoot her father in the shoulder when he had been aiming for his head. 

Sam then turned her begun on Melissa, who dodged to the side. “Damn you girl, you and those brats, you ruined everything! We could have gotten out of here scot free, but no you and those hero brats had to stick your fucking noses in! I’ll have my due one way or the other!”

Melissa kept dodging around the room until the floor underneath them started to quake from the battle outside. That threw her off her feet, but also caused Sam to stumble too. Taking her chance, she dashed forwards, hoping to close with him, but Sam regained his footing and fired at her again. The bullets hit her, one in the thigh and one in the side, causing her to crash to the ground, shrieking in pain. 

Before Sam could fire again, David – despite his body still twitching and the fresh bullet wound – pushed himself up and dove. He landed between them and with a trembling hand activated a personal anti-kinetic shield. This shield was embedded in a bracelet that had actually replaced an earlier toy bracelet Melissa had given him as a child. It was a prototype that not even Sam had known about which David had been working on it for a while in secret. Not even Melissa knew about it yet, since he feared that it created too much radiation to be truly usable. 

But now he used it, and the energy field formed in front of him, taking the bullets and literally bouncing them back into Sam’s face, the shield returning the kinetic force – and what created it – back to its origins. Sam died, convulsing as the bullets impacted his throat, side of his head, and lung one after another.

As his former assistant died, David groaned, falling to the floor and shaking his head as he turned off his shield, moving over to his daughter. He quickly began to pull off his jacket and shirt, tearing them into strips and tying them around the wounds with tears in his eyes. He only started to smile after he made sure Melissa hadn’t been hit anywhere vital and once he heard All Might’s familiar voice shouting outside.

Needless to say, Melissa’s actions had consequences elsewhere, both in the tower itself and out on the rest of the island.

OOOOOOO

The instant the energy ropes wrapped around him began to lose power, All Might was moving. Between a single blink, he’d crossed the intervening distance and slammed his head into the chest of Swordkil like a battering ram. By the time Swordkil’s body was flying towards the opposite wall he had burst out of the energy ropes and was in the face of the nearest villain who had looked most ready to murder the hostages. He turned, tossing that man into several others before leaping across and decking the last. 

At the same time, all the other heroes were already up and moving and within seconds, they had the terrorists down, unconscious or prisoner, although two of the heroes had been wounded and several of the hostages were suffering from cuts and bruises from ricochets. Looking at the other heroes, Toshi nodded grimly and shouted out “Heroes assemble!”

It’s an oldie but a goodie, he thought, as every hero there looked to him for orders. “All but the wounded go out into the rest of the island. You heard that Masked Man! Our youngsters and our fellow heroes are out there still fighting, and we must help them! I will deal with Wolfram and the other villains still within the tower.” Such was All Might’s authority, that none of the heroes even thought to our argue. A few of them even saluted as if they were a military force before racing away.

All Might smiled a little at that, before his face became serious as he stared up at the ceiling, clenching and unclenching his hands as he tried to think about how much longer he would be able to sustain his muscle form. Even now steam was beginning to come out of his body, which wasn’t a good sign. However, one does what one must. That is a part of being a hero he thought to himself, before launching himself up towards the roof.

OOOOOOO

From the first time Daigo and Nobu were able to attack them, the battle between Momo and her team and the villains had been one of maneuverability against stopping power. Either of the villains could’ve killed most of the would-be heroes if not all of them, if they had been able to close the distance and pin them down. But Momo had plans for that thanks to the information Izuku and given her. She kept the others moving, pulling back away from the villains every time they got closer. 

She kept on doing what Kyoka, for some reason, called ‘spamming’ flash bangs smoke grenades, and her EMP grenades using them at every opportunity to decimate large numbers of the droid army attacking them. At the same time Kirishima and Kyoka smashed down houses to put rubble in the way of the robots and the others disrupting their lines of advance. The two main villains, unlike the four men with them and the droids, would have been able to follow them regardless, but Nobu was susceptible to the flashbangs thanks to his birdlike eyes, while the smoke blocked Daigo’s eyesight, allowing them to get away from his rampage. Needless to say this infuriated all the villains no end, while allowing the youngsters to concentrate on the robots.

Even so, they had taken injuries in the running fight. With the robots set on lethal and the four accompanying villains using guns, that was almost inevitable. None were serious, but after retreating from the villains five times, Momo knew they were slowing down. And the sixth time they tried to break away, things started to go wrong, and when it did, events cascaded as such things always do. 

Iida was zooming through the of massive robots, using the glue gun and the freeze ray that Mei had offered him at the start of the fight. Panels of the droids burst on touch of the blue beam, frozen beyond what even Todoroki would have been able to do, shorting out the robots. The glue gun stuck them to the ground, immobilizing them entirely. Nothing in their repertoire could deal with a simple glue attack, especially not the kind of glue that Mei had come up with. It made crazy glue look tame in comparison, hardening within a few seconds of touching the ground, trapping anything that was in contact with it.

As he ducked under one droid which had attempt to lariat him, Iida kicked out with one leg and used that impact to change direction. For the hundredth time that night, he twitched his glue gun up into position to splash it wildly across the street to slow down the robots again. But as he did, the glue gun ran out of ammo, and Iida made the mistake of looking down at it for a brief second, just as the villains came within sight.

They instantly opened fire with their machine guns, firing at Iida, Kirishima and Tsuyu who were nearby. Kirishima was in the rubble of a building he’d just destroyed in a fight against several dozen robots while Tsuyu was on the roof of a still intact house on the other side of the street. A few bullets bracketed Iida’s position even as he desperately zigged and zagged away, using the robots as much as his wild maneuvering to protect himself, but one of them grazed his leg and slowed him down. 

“Hah! Got you now!” Nobu shouted as he raced forward, moving faster than he had previously been seen too, somehow pushing off the air behind him to create speed that was not unlike Iida’s engine. In the next second, he was on Iida, lashing down at the hero from behind.

But Iida was able to dodge, and the creature’s gouging power slammed into a series of robots behind him and destroyed all of them. But another robot caught Iida in the same leg he had already been grazed on. And these robots were set to lethal, their tentacle-like arms flashing like whips with the edges being made of sharpened metal whose edges could cut through flesh all too easily. This attack did so now, slicing through the blue suit he’d worn to dinner and his flesh straight to the bone. 

“ARGGH!!” Iida cried out in pain, collapsing onto his face.

“Hahaha!” The villain stood over him, a sneering on his beaklike face. “So much for running around, huh bastard?!” With that he raised his hands which expanded in preparation to use his Quirk to finish the downed youth.

But then suddenly Mei was there. During one of the brief breaks between the fighting, she had somehow put together some kind of spider legs that expanded out from a backpack she had been wearing when she first showed up. She now leaped forward using its legs to stab forward as she landed. Nobu turned, destroying some of the legs with its gouging power, but was still smashed backwards away from Iida.

Then from downrange, Momo opened fire with her latest creation. No choice for it, have to shoot to… to kill now. Him or Iida, no choice left! Momo wailed in her own mind even as she opened fire, her actions showing none of the hesitation and regret she was feeling in her mind. As a Hero in training she knew this time would eventually come. When she would be faced with the choice to take one life in order to save another’s. But she had never, not even after USJ, thought it would come so quickly. They hadn’t even finished their first term yet!

Nobu squawked in shock, ducking underneath some of the robots using them as cover, watching in disbelief as the bullets just tore apart the robots all around him as he ducked and dodged, muttering to himself, “Dammit, these kids do not act like kids at all! Where the hell did even UA kids learn to fight like this!?”

“Oh, here and there!” shouted another voice. He looked up, just in time for a blast of sound to slam into him. Nobu cried out in pain, and then was slammed back into the wall behind him by the wave of sonic force. Kyoka held him there with the power of her loudspeakers while Momo turned her firepower on the villains in the distance, forcing them to fall back while also tearing through more than a dozen more robots. 

Yet even so, standing still proved to be an error on Kyoka’s part.

The next second Kirishima flew over her head, and she had just a brief instant to turn before a punch from Daigo came down towards her. Even though she managed to move, she couldn’t dodge the shrapnel that Daigo’s attack caused when it smashed into the concrete. A piece of concrete caught her on the forehead, hurling her end over end to land unconscious nearby, blood slowly dribbling out from a cut to her scalp.

Grimacing, Momo charged forward, both hands now supporting her Gatling gun, having replaced her autocannon earlier in the fight with something that could fire out more rounds per minute, although each round had less stopping power. It turned out that if she really pushed it Momo could indeed change the energy of food into matter before it was fully digested. But it wasn’t easy, and Momo could feel a pounding headache, and a weight to her limbs that she shouldn’t have felt. “But I will be darned if I let a villain kill one of my friends!”

Nearby from where she was pulling Iida away, Mei blinked shocked out of her worry and concern for the would-be hero who had gotten hurt because her baby failed him. This is the first time I’ve ever heard the word ‘darn’ used as a curse. Yeesh, there should be a limit to how cute someone can be.

But unlike the autocannon rounds which had proven to be able to stagger him, The Gatling gun bullets didn’t do anything to Daigo, who roared and charged forward through the hail of bullets, his larger forearms churning up the ground, as he closed with Momo. “Gonna crush ya girly!”

But then Kirishima was there, roaring and charging towards the the other man himself. “Not on my watch big guy! Let’s finish this!”

Daigo stopped, and lashed out with one hand, wanting to smack Kirishima out of the way again before heading towards the girl he knew was the leader even in his transformed state. But from a nearby rooftop Tsuyu’s tongue lashed down, grabbing up Kirishima, and pulling him up over the attack before twirling him like a bola, slamming him face first into the creature. “KEERRROOOO!!”

The blow staggered the giant villain, and Kirishima clung there, one hand grabbing an ear to stabilize himself as Daigo stumbled back. He had also grabbed up one of Mei’s glue bombs and now smashed it between their bodies. Then, with both hands free now that he was stuck there, he hammered blow after blow into Daigo’s face. As the Villain’s large hands scrabbled at them, grabbing at his body and squeezing hard with one hand as he used the other to stabilize himself. He tried to rip Kirishima away, but the glue wouldn’t let him to it, and Kirishima continue to rain down blows which Daigo, with his all-too-long arms couldn’t match. He could grab, but he couldn’t really swing at Kirishima as he clung to his upper chest. 

“That’s right dude!” Kirishima howled, his face a mess of crags and broken rocks, the youth having pushed his Hardened Form to a higher degree than ever before to come back from the earlier punishment Daigo had put him through. “Let’s see who’s manlier!” 

At that point it became a contest to see who could take the most punishment, Daigo from Kirishima’s blows, or vice versa from the sheer power squeezing Kirishima fit to crack stone. Which was indeed what was occurring as the match continued, cracks appearing on his sides under his suit even as his own blows started to break skin. 

It turned out however that the loser was Daigo’s fur. Kirishima was still pummeling Daigo’s face black and blue when he heard a ripping noise and was hoisted away from the man. He had bare instant to say, “Oh not fai…actually that looked like it it hurtTTT!” before he found himself hurled down into the ground, where it quickly became his turn to take a pummeling, Daigo’s blows shattering the ground around him as well as his hadened form.

Meanwhile, Tsuyu and Mei had retreated carrying the two wounded with Momo covering them. That is, until she spotted an open refrigerator in the debris, and noticed that all robots stopped moving. Without any further thought in her head other than, Fuel, then save Kirishima, she raced forward, tearing it open and, wonder of wonders, finding a whole fruit cake. She gobbled it down as fast as possible while behind her, Daigo and the other villains noticed the change.

“What the hell?” Daigo asked, looking around in shock and concern as the robots all began to turn towards him and his fellows. The others tried to fight back, but there were too many droids around them, whereas Daigo didn’t have any of them nearby just yet. “What the fuck!” 

At his feet, Kirishima smirked up at him through the haze of pain. “They did it, Izu-bro and the others did it! How it feel to know you’ve lost!? Hahhaha!!!”

Daigo growled, raising his fists above his head like a hammer, about to bring them down to end the younger man’s life at last. But then Momo was there, tossing with unerring accuracy another little special explosive into the man’s mouth. “Ahem, eat this!” she shouted, attempting the smack talk Kyoka and the others used so well.

The explosive went off, and Daigo screamed in agony, falling back and holding his mouth in agony. Whatever durability his body had, the inside of his mouth wasn’t durable enough to take a fist-sized portion of C4. The explosion turned his tongue and most of his teeth into offal and shrapnel, and blood poured out as he continued to scream. But Daigo was someone who would be able to go toe to toe with All Might for a few rounds, until the number one hero upped the scale. His mouth was actually able to contain the explosion even if its interior was utterly wrecked.

At that point the droids had finished trussing up his fellows including Nobu, and more than two dozen began to circle around him, energy wires leaping out from them to capture him. By the time he was able to think through the pain of his mouth, he found his limbs tied down, and Momo standing in front of him, holding a large hammer that looked like something out of a steampunk’s dream as Mei cooed in the background, her eyes sparkling in delight. 

Daigo strained, but he couldn’t break the sheer number of energy ropes tying him to the ground now and she hefted her hammer. “Sorry… or really, I’m rather not.” With that, Momo brought her hammer crashing up into his head. The electrical burst of energy from the hammer showed that this hammer was indeed as mechanically enhanced as it looked, and hundreds of volts slammed into the man.

Normally, he would’ve been able to shrug even that off. But he had been pushing his power all day, and Kirishima had hurt him earlier. Not enough on its own, but he had broken skin in that last contest. That and the electricity did its work, and he finally started to fall out of his power form, slumping into unconsciousness. 

Stumbling away from his unconscious form, Momo let her hammer fall, nodding over to Mei who had given the taller, stronger girl the plans for it. The time Kirishima had been able to give her to create it from the energy of the fruit cake… and the rest of the refrigerator’s contents which included several sticks of butter and raw lettuce as well as other things, which even she would probably end up regretting later, “Thank you. And, er, owwie…” Momo grimaced, holding her side and then her arms one after another. “I think I pulled something on top of my ribs there. And oh, my head is really starting to pound now…”

“Heh, it was for a good cause Busty.” Mei giggled, causing Momo to blush at her nickname while Mei looked around as the robots began to transport the two unconscious villains away, tied up with so many energy ropes that they looked more like mummies than people at the moment, joining their less powerful fellows. Others were creating what looked like gurneys, and more than a few had pushed out there tentacle-arms and were lifting the wounded onto these gurneys. “It looks as if we won, huh?”

Momo nodded slowly. Then thunder interrupted in the distance, and the top of the tower seemed to expand in a very slow explosion, bits and pieces of it just flying everywhere before reforming and coming down again while a part of the tower seemed to grow into a kind of wave from it. Momo stared up at the changing tower top unable to make any more detail from this distance, even as she idly created some binoculars for herself wincing at the pain of it hit her already abused brain. “Somehow, while our part in this might be done, I don’t think the fighting is over just yet.” she said grimly.

OOOOOOO

“You two young fools!” Wolfram seethed turning his attention back to his captives after his mini-rant.  “Did you honestly think that you could stop me? That you could stop me from getting away with this! This power is mine! No one else will have it! I will take it, and all the secrets of I-Island, after I leave your corpses behind for All Might to find!”

With that he started to squeeze each of them slowly, wanting to relish this. Todoroki was the first to let loose a scream as his leg was pulped, before Wolfram turned his attention to Izuku.

As if summoned by his words however, the ground underneath him trembled then. And as Wolfram looked down at his feet in confusion All Might burst upwards out of it, having smashed his way through every floor between them. His fist crashed into the man’s side as he flew upwards and while a hastily erected metal shield tried to guard him, the punch still connected. The impact hurled Wolfram upwards through the ceiling of that room and several more, up onto the roof of the tower.

“Never fear, for I am here!” All Might roared as he slowed down slightly from his arrival. He looked around, “Are you all right shounen?”

Todoroki simply groaned in pain, a lot of pain, his teeth clenched to keep the groan from becoming a scream. One of his legs had been just completely crushed, and when he looked down at it he nearly threw up. His leg looked as if someone had taken a tube and squished it flat. Despite using ice to slowly deaden his body from the waist down, the pain was almost enough to cause him to black out, but he pushed through it, knowing to do otherwise would be to die, this close to what was going to be one hell of a fight.

Izuku pushed his head up wearily from where he had been flung as Wolfram tried to shield himself. He had a few broken ribs, and his legs were feeling a little Jell-O like due to how much he been forcing them to use his power, but he was still in decent shape unlike his friend. He was about to say so when he noticed movement above them and he shouted out, “Look out, All Might!”

All Might turned, but Izuku had already hurled himself forward getting between the Number One Hero and a spike of metal that had just extruded itself from the wall. He smashed it, and All Might shouted “Thank you young man.” With that, All Might raced after the villain, while behind him Izuku gasped, going to his knees and breathing deeply.

He looked at his friend, but Todoroki simply ignored his look of concern, pointing upwards. “Go.”

But Izuku didn’t instantly follow his hero, instead, he raced to the inner door, where he saw Melissa and David Shield, one of them on the ground, with the former aide of David unconscious nearby. “We’ve got this.” David said, with a nod, and a fearful expression as he stared up at the roof. He more than anyone knew that All Might was working under a time limit right now. “Go help All Might. He might not like to admit it, be he needs it, and you know why.”

Even as he gulped at the glare David was laying into him with, Izuku didn’t move, staring at Melissa.

David looked up at Izuku, “I have her.” he said simply. “Don’t worry, Melissa’s going to be alright. I can perform first aid easily enough, and the security droids are on our side now. All that’s left is to stop that madman, and either destroy the device he’s using, or get it back. I don’t care which.” he said scowling angrily. “The quirk enhancement device can’t fall into the hands of a Villain.”

Izuku nodded firmly, turned, and leapt upwards, grasping the edge of the hole All Might had created, pulling himself up out onto the roof.

There however, he found that the tables had turned. All Might had been beaten back, the metal user’s abilities making the tower perfect a battlefield for him. The metal man was now garbed in some kind of towering giant armor covering everything but his face, while the roof and much of the side of the tower down several floors had formed into metal wires and flying spears and bricks thicker than All Might’s body. They were attacking him every second from a different angle trying to both trap and injure him.

“So he was right! You really are weakening, All Might! With this power of mine, I can defeat even you! I can defeat the number one hero!” Wolfram howled.

He’s insane! Izuku thought in a single moment of clarity as he started to hop around from one area of the undulating rooftop to another. The power has driven him mad!

All Might grimaced but didn’t reply verbally, instead attacking all the harder, shouting out “Villainy will never win!”

But watching, Izuku could see his hero was flagging badly now, just as Wolfram had mentioned. Grimacing, he pushed himself up on to the roof, then gathered himself, before launching himself into the fight.

The villain had only a brief second to look up before his punch nearly connected to the man’s face. But the metal that was guarding him rose to meet that blow, even as Izuku shouted “Smash!”

Growling in irritation, the metal man smacked him aside with a heavy hand made of metal. “What does it take to put you down, boy?!”

Izuku didn’t reply instead racing forward once more. If there was one aspect of being a hero he had a lot of trouble with, it was the need to taunt in combat in order to get under his opponent’s skin. I wonder why UA doesn’t teach a class in that, he thought to himself, before launching himself forward again.

But this time his blow was blocked by a thick cable of metal, that then whipped upwards smashing him away in turn. All Might closed in at the same time, only to be nearly speared through himself, dodging in the last second. Then Wolfram rose into the air, his armored suit growing into a metal giant that towered over the two heroes. His steel fists fell, smashing into All Might and burying him into the still moving roof of the tower and breaking through into the level beneath them.

There Todoroki could only look on in horror as he saw All Might only slowly raising himself out of the rubble, his body battered, one piece of metal spearing through the fat of his upper arm, another through the side. Yet for all that he rose, his eyes gleaming with a desire to fight.

The villain seemed to think so anyway. He gestured with a hand, and the ground around All Might rose entrapping him as hundreds of blocks of metal slammed into him from every direction, imprisoning the Number One Hero. A second later, Wolfram launched his next attack. From every direction spears of metal rose into the air and flew with all the speed of bullets as he howled aloud, “Die All Might!!” 

“Detroit Smash!” Izuku roared, somehow there suddenly. From where, Todoroki had no idea. His attack slammed into All Might’s prison, shattering it and releasing the hero. It also shattered one of his Full Gauntlets, causing the shrapnel to cut back into his body, lacerating his chest, and peppering his face and arm, causing several long cuts.

“Midoriya-shounen!” All Might shouted, rushing forward with his fist lashing out to shatter an attack which would have killed Izuku, his face showing shock and a bit of horror at the amount of blood that was running from the various cuts on Izuku’s body, staining the remains of his shirt. “To use your powers in such a way with that body, that is far too risky!”

“But, but isn’t that what a hero should do” Izuku said, actually smiling weakly despite the pain of his wounds and the building exhaustion of his body. “To put it all on the line for someone else?”

All Might stared at him then began to laugh roaring aloud, “Exactly! That is precisely what a hero should be! Now, let us finish this!”

They turned towards the villain, who had been gathering metal from all around him for another series of attacks. These attacks were made of simple giant blocks that hovered in the air fit to crush them, along with spears grew like so many tentacles from his back, hovering around the main, giant-sized metal body before they speared towards the two heroes. The metal had torn open the roof as well as the side of the tower down several dozen levels, so much so that David and Todoroki could stare up at the action going on with ease.

All Might and Izuku charged to meet them, leaping up onto one tentacle, and racing along it as the other tentacles and blocks circled them. All Might was a little slower than Izuku for the first few steps, then passed him, smashing another attack out of the way with one fist, while Izuku leaped up over him to do the same to the next.

More of the square crushing blocks began to move behind and around the two heroes to attack them from multiple directions. But Todoroki wasn’t out of it just yet. Using a bit of ice to prop himself up so he could see what was going on and then he shouted, “No you don’t!” gesturing with one arm. With his body straining to handle the cold once more he created too long walls of thick ice on either side of the other heroes, guarding their flanks. 

Then with a grimace of strain on his face, he thrust out his left hand with sending a column of flame as wide as the tower over the heads of the two attacking heroes. “Don’t count me out yet, you bastard!” he howled.

This forced the magnet user to shift his attention to guarding himself. Several of the attacks coming straight at Izuku and All Might pulled back, creating a shield of metal the air before Wolfram’s body. But while he was distracted, All Might and Izuku broke through the rest of his attacks as they climbed up Wolfram’s metal abomination.

By the time Todoroki’s fire attack cut out, they were halfway to his actual body. “No! I will not be beaten! Not when I have this power, not when you’re so weak and All Might! Your little heroes won’t save you!” Wolfram howled, almost frothing at the mouth in uncontrollable fury. Whatever he had done to boost his powers had obviously impacted his mental faculties.

The block-like masses came down all at once as the spears came up towards Izuku and his mentor. Behind them Todoroki grimaced, but still slammed one hand down onto the swirling mass of metal underneath him, even as he was tossed onto his broken, fully iced leg. That got through the deadening of the limbs he had done, but even so, he created enough ice to protect them from the attacks coming at them from behind. This left Izuku and All Might to face the attacks coming at them head on, and they did so in true One for All fashion. 

All Might punched an attacking block so much he shattered it and the tentacle coming in behind it. Izuku smashed aside two tentacles with his one remaining Full Gauntlet clad hand forging on even as his legs started to shudder, shoots of pain going through his body. All Might leaped over another tentacle fists punching out to destroy the next tentacle while whipping around to launch a kick with such force that it actually created an air wave that blew apart four more blocks. Yet he too was starting to flag, steam rising from his body in waves now as he pushed his body hard to keep going in his Muscle Form. 

“To overcome the enemy in front of you, to save lives with everything you’ve got! That is what makes a Hero!!” All Might roared, pushing on all the harder, passing by Izuku as he faltered for a second hammering out several more attacks as they ascended further up the metal monstrosity that Wolfram had created. 

“GRAAAH!!” Wolfram howled, bringing down a massive fist of iron towards the two heroes. 

But Midoriya rushed forward, joining his mentor as they shouted as one, “Double Detroit Smash/Double Detroit Smash!” The twin attack created a visible shockwave as they hit the fist coming down towards them, blasting it into piece and going on to smash into Wolfram’s metal body, shattering much of his defenses.

The two weary heroes raced on, closing now with Wolfram’s actual body, even as he frantically summoned up more metal and sent it towards them in a wave of unformed metal bits and pieces. All Might shouted out, “Go Beyond!”

“Plus Ultra!” Izuku yelled.

Then, as one they roared out “United States of Smash/United States of Smash!”  punching out together as Izuku pushed all of the power he could contain and then some through his body, all of it at once, one hundred percent of One for All’s power. All Might too was spending his stored power like water, the steam increasing around his form to the point where his body was nearly obscured from Todoroki’s sight. 

Yet for all that, Izuku was the one pushing himself beyond his real physical limits. He could feel his body giving way almost the instant he started to call upon that power, his last Full Gauntlets coming apart with explosive force one more, the shrapnel of it slicing into his skin. 

But it worked. The blows shattered the metal attack and the body of the metal monstrosity. The sheer force of their punches smashed into Wolfram himself, shattering bones and hurling him through the air to land somewhere else on the island, unconscious and broken as the Quirk Enhancement Device just came apart from the shockwave of their attack. 

Watching this from where she was leaning against her father, a revived Melissa breathed out, “They did it…” then her eyes widened in horror.

Izuku had barely a moment to realize that a few video drones were already following the man, probably in order to guide some of the security droids to him, when the pain of his wounds hit. He screamed out in agony as he fell, his arm a mass of cuts and bruises from the blow. But that was nothing in comparison to his legs, which were just blasted apart as if someone had made the bones inside explode. They might not have all broken – Izuku had no way of knowing – but the pain of it was excruciating. It wasn’t too long before his mind couldn’t take the pain any longer and he fell unconscious, his body going limp as he fell through the air.

All Might too was in agony, his body giving out, but he still retained enough intelligence to try to grab at Izuku. He needn’t have bothered though. As he was watching his protégé fall, a large outcropping of ice suddenly grew out from the side of the building underneath Izuku, and gently sloping back down towards the building. He turned in shock to see Todoroki pushing himself along using a crutch of ice. 

The young hero to stared up at All Might, nodding his head. “Did we do it?”

“No lad, you and Midoriya-shounen did it.” All Might said, looking at Todoroki then back to his protégé in awe at what they had done. “You two did it together. You went truly above and beyond the call of duty for any students today Todoroki-shounen. This is your victory.”

OOOOOOO

The next day found All Might in front of the cameras once more, but at least this time, he wasn’t alone. David Shield stood next to him as they explained to I-Island inhabitants and the world at large what had happened. Or rather, the story they had come up with for public consumption: that David’s former assistant had gone rogue and had worked with villains to invade I-Island to either take it over entirely or simply take every scientific secret they could. 

Their burglary had been stopped by All Might and the young heroes-in-training on I-Island through various means. The main goal, All Might said, was a system that Sam and David Shield had created over the years based around Quirk Suppression, instead of Quirk Augmentation as had been the case. Considering how such devices could be used on both sides of the law, it was a viable excuse.

The truth would not be known to anyone outside the incident itself. Melissa, Todoroki and Izuku had all been sworn to secrecy even in terms of what they could tell their friends who had been involved in the fighting. No one could know about the Quirk Augmentation device, nor what it could do or how much David had learned just by seeing it in action. That didn’t even mention the issue about how similarly Izuku and All Might had fought, something they were equally eager to keep under wraps. 

Of course, none of that really mattered in the short term to the kids, all of whom were stuck in I-Island’s hospital the day after the battle. They were all in the same room, all of them having refused to be parted. Even Momo, whose parents had sent a servant to take her home had refused.

“We fought together, we will stay together.” she said firmly, ordering the servant her parents had sent to collect her to leave. He did so, yet made it was clear he disapproved of her decision and felt her parents would as well. She couldn’t care less. These were her friends, and she would stay with them until they were all ready to leave I-Island, together.

Right now, however, all of the kids were being faced with an entirely new threat: I-Island’s security director, a former policeman who had a bee in his bonnet about the fact they had used their Quirks to get involved in the fighting on I-Island. “Thirty-two million US dollars in damages! You’ve set back the opening of I-Island by at least two months! Hundreds of families are going to be homeless and dozens of the Expo’s exhibits were smashed because of you! If I had my way you would all be arrested for breaking the Quirk usage law! Hell, I have half a mind to bring you up on criminal charges for destruction of property!”

By this point, Izuku had enough and shouted back “What would you have had us do?! The terrorists would’ve gotten away with the items, with David Shield as a hostage! Can you imagine how much damage they could have done with I-Island’s accumulated research!?”

“So the law only matters if you were in the right to break it? That is dangerous thinking for a hero.” the man warned. 

“If we weren’t the sort to rush in when all law and common sense says we shouldn’t, we wouldn’t be heroes in the first place.” Momo said simply smiling brightly over at Izuku in firm agreement with what he said causing the young man to blush hotly and look away.

The others all nodded too. The man had tried to browbeat them into admitting that they had been in the wrong so he could pass the blame of the damages to the housing district onto them. When that failed, he had to try to play the guilt game, attempting to force them all to realize how much money it would take to repair the damages that had been done during their running fight against the villains and security droids. Their solidarity however, had utterly flummoxed him, and continued to do so now.

“The law is important, but is not the be all and end all.” Melissa said, shaking her head from the doorway where she had been watching this for a minute before speaking up. “And if you don’t stop harassing my friends I’ll report you to my father. Perhaps beyond revamping the physical security he should think about replacing some of his personnel?” While she wasn’t willing to trade on their familial connection for herself, Melissa was certainly willing to do it to help her new friends. 

In response the man scowled at her, muttering under his breath before turning away and exiting the room quickly. She smiled tiredly, powering her hover chair into the room and coming to a stop by the feet of Tsuyu’s bed where she could see everyone else’s faces.

“Well, that went well, I suppose.” Todoroki said a bit dryly, silently shrugging.

“Saving lives should matter more than the law.” Kyoka said with a nod.

Iida sighed. While they had formed a unified face during the verbal assault, he wanted to voice his own concerns about what they had done. “I’m not certain I agree. Vigilantes and such are a threat to the public too. If there had been any way we could have helped last night without breaking the law I would’ve done it. But you’re right. We didn’t have a choice. But we do need to acknowledge the damages we did to those houses we wrecked.” 

Tsuyu shook her head croaking deep in her throat as she jerked a thumb towards the departed security officer. “That’s true, but that man was annoying, and far too blind to the seriousness of the fight, kero. No one else knew what was going on and even if they did, they didn’t have Melissa-chan.”

The others save Iida all gave her a thumbs up for her plain speaking while Melissa pinked, and Izuku settled back in bed.

All the kids had been injured to various degrees, although the worst were Izuku and Todoroki hands down, full stop. They had needed to call Recovery Girl to the island to help the two of them heal from their injuries, because otherwise they probably would have been crippled permanently. Since she was there and other injured Heroes, including All Might himself, had been hurt, she’d had to spread her healing ability around once she took care of the two in biggest danger. Both of them would be weak for days, while the others were almost back to a hundred percent already, if still weak and tired from the effects of Recovery Girl’s Quirk. 

As was unfortunately becoming a running theme Izuku was dealing with various broken bones. But the worst were in his legs rather than his arms this time. Despite the All Might’s regimen pushing Izuku’s entire body for nine months, Izuku had never exercised his legs as much as he had exercised his arms. And while he hadn’t used them as often as his legs in the fight, they hadn’t had an equivalent of Melissa’s Full Gauntlets protecting them either. So unfortunately, his initial thought that he had literally broken every bone in them during the last few minutes of the fight against Wolfram had proven to be all too accurate. 

Amusingly, he had woken up that morning to Melissa sleeping by his bed in her new hover chair. When she found him awake, she had first thanked him for helping to save her father. Then she had taken him to task on how he had neglected training his legs as much as his arm. Izuku had replied by promising to go back to exercising his entire in the future. 

But he was excited too. He’d survived using more of his power, and the visualization he had used throughout the day had helped! With support equipment from Melissa, he was certain he could use One For All more effectively from now on. At the same time, he knew that his thinking and ability to analyze had helped both himself and his fellows during the fighting and vowed to himself to never again forget that he had a working brain and should use it just as much as his own body.

Todoroki on the other hand had no self-inflicted wounds. His leg however had been crushed to a pulp by Wolfram and the element user had taken a metal spear to the side before that. It had run him through front to back and he would have bled out if not for the ice he had practically encased most of his body in keeping the blood within and slowing down his bodily functions almost to the point where his body had been in the equivalent of cryogenic sleep. He had been the first one to be healed by Recovery Girl.

He was also the only one whose father had stopped by thanks to the final battle being recorded and his fire having been seen flashing through the nighttime sky. Endeavor had shown up, slapping him on the shoulder and shouting about how he had done something that even All Might hadn’t been able to do, as well as how Shouto had overcome his ‘childish anger’ and that when he came back, Endeavor would see to his training with his fire powers.

Todoroki’s face at that moment had been a picture, a myriad of emotions flashing across it and none of them positive. Annoyance, anger, loathing, utter revulsion; they could see it all on his visage and Izuku now knew that it wasn’t his fire that he hated. But with the others all smiling at him in encouragement, some of that emotion had faded away. Endeavor also didn’t notice the glares he was getting from Izuku. He had essentially pieced together some of what kept Todoroki from using his fire powers. But he wasn’t willing to bring them up in public. 

The others were all injured to various degrees.

The last of the trio which had invaded the tower, Melissa had been shot by Sam, one in the thigh and once in the side. Despite that she was up and moving about in her hover chair quite energetically thanks to I-Island’s equivalent of wheelchair and cast in one. Both wounds were closed, and while having bled more than a bit, had not been life threatening with medical care nearby.

Of those who had fought in the battle against the other terrorists, Kirishima was the most heavily wounded. He had numerous broken bones and scars from where his hardened form had cracked under Daigo’s blows. Yet even so, despite numerous feet of gauze wrapped around his body from head to toe he was grinning as he lay back in bed. In his own words, he was happy because, “Going toe to toe with that super-strong guy, holding the line for my friends? What’s more manly than that?”

Momo and Kyoka were also proud of how they had done if not as happy as Kirishima. Kyoka had been battered, and still had wraps even now around her head. She would carry a nasty though small scar under her hair for the rest of her life. The concussion had been worse than a scar though for the few hours it took Recovery Girl to arrive. 

In contrast to the others, Momo hadn’t been wounded by enemy action bar a scratch here and there. But her brain had been very near to having an aneurism as a side effect of pushing her power as much as she had. She had also pulled several muscles in her arms and side. 

Tsuyu and Mei were least injured, shown by Mei not being there at the moment, having released herself an hour earlier. Tsuyu had broken her wrist on one of the security robots and had taken a cut to her shoulder, but that was all. Iida had been wounded worse than the girls but was more-easily seen to than the other boys by the hospital personnel and Recovery Girl. The old lady had closed the wound on his leg, and he was now only bedridden because his body was paying the energy cost of her Quirk. The other boys were bedridden because of that and because they weren’t being allowed to walk just yet.

“I was able to grab enough hover chairs for you all and since the hospital has done all it can, you’re free to leave if you want. I was wondering if you would all like to come over and spend the night at my lab? We can have food, watch movies, and um… have a sleepover?” Melissa asked, changing the subject as she looked around, smiling somewhat sheepishly. “I’ve never actually had a sleepover before.” She’d never had enough friends to warrant one really, but Melissa wasn’t going to mention that right now.

“Ooh, that sounds like fun!” Momo replied, clapping her hands and bouncing in her bed, looking so bubbly it put a smile even on Todoroki’s face. “I have never had a sleepover either, but they sound a lot of fun.”

Izuku nodded agreement to both her statements – after all Bakugo had been the only ‘friend’ he’d had growing up, and he wasn’t the sleepover type – while the others just nodded eagerly, and Melissa smiled in response. “Awesome, I’ll call and put in the order for food at the pizzeria now. You haven’t lived until you’ve tried pizza, hot wings and breadsticks, the original student’s food. Most of the institute lives off the stuff. You’ll love it.”

She gave Tsuyu a high-five before turning her hover chair around and exiting the room to call the food in. A moment later however Mei came back in, having been out of the room for a while. Her shoulder and side were still wrapped up where like Momo she had pulled several muscles, but otherwise she looked unhurt. Yet something was clearly wrong though, since she wasn’t wearing her normal manic smile. In her hands was a get well basket and on her face was instead a sheepish expression, something so unusual that anyone who knew her well would have been looking for signs of the Apocalypse.

“Erm, hey Speedy. Um… here!” she said, thrusting the basket into Iida’s stomach. “I’m sorry my baby stopped working on you like it did. I promise I’ll do better next time. No one who uses my babies is ever going to get hurt again like you did, Speedy.”

She paused, looking away. “Before last night, well… I guess it was sort of a game to me? And well… my clients were just clients not… not real people to me.” she stammered over her words, unused to being so introspective. “I’ll remember that the next time I make babies with anyone.”

Iida was now blushing hotly both at the expressions she was using, and the looks that the other girls were giving him. The poor boy honestly didn’t know what to say or do at this point.

Mei perked up a bit, her eyes gleaming in good humor. “Well, they’ll be people to me so long as they don’t haggle with me over prices or the style of my baby. If they do that, they can do without my amazing babies at all.”

“Please stop talking about babies.” Iida begged, looking a little disturbed.

“Pff, never, my babies are my life!” Mei said, turning to look at Melissa as she came back in. “With you in here, how can I access your lab?” She asked bluntly. “I want to get started on my next round of babies right away!”

“You can’t. Remember I said I’d give you access if I was there to supervise.” Melissa replied promptly while the other boys all looked away from the pink-haired girl, blushing in turn.

“Well let’s go then!” Mei said, hopping to her feet and grabbing at Melissa, pulling her hover chair around and pushing her toward the door. “I don’t know about you, but I want out of this hospital again. I’ve never liked the places, no matter how often I’ve been in them.”

“Why would you be in the hospital?” Izuku asked slowly, looking at her in surprise. She didn’t seem the type to train too much or otherwise hurt herself or even get into fights after all.

“Oh dehydration, seeing things, an explosion going off in my face, too much coffee making me piss black and suchlike.” she said waving her hand airily. “All that normal stuff.”

“That’s not normal!” said more than one aghast voice, even Todoroki adding his own protests to her words as Momo blushed at the use of the word ‘piss’. “That’s the opposite of normal!”

But Mei ignored them, although she did stop trying to push Melissa toward the door. Instead she turned back to Iida, asking “So what kind of baby will you want next time? I’m thinking some kind of personal shield. That way you can do hit and runs as if you were impervious to all damage smashing into people like battering rams! Oh that would be so cool! They’ll be the perfect baby for us! We’ll call her…”

“Please stop.” Iida moaned, while everyone else bar Todoroki laughed at his misfortune.

The talk about support gear continued from there as Melissa and Mei struck up a friendship, with Melissa trying to convince Mei to transfer to I-Island. “Seriously, you’ll have access to far more high-technology here than even UA can give you, and here you won’t have as many prudes stopping you from making babies whenever you want.” she said wickedly, deliberately using that terminology to cause every Japanese person there bar Mei to blush heavily, looking away. 

“Americans!” said more than one voice, with Kyoka going on. “How can you be so open and teasing about that kind of thing yet so prudish about nudity?”

In response Melissa just winked at them all. 

The others all looked at her askance, but the target of their looks switched away from her when Mei said “Actually, speaking of babies, I want to show you.” With that, she started to pull up at her shirt, causing all the boys and even Momo and Kyoka to go “Wait, wait, wait what are you doing!?” with much blushing occurring among the boys.

Mei kept on pulling her shirt off to show them all a thick cummerbund-like belt around her waist. “Look at this! I call it my anti-gravity system! It allows you to both make yourself heavier and lighter up to half your normal weight in either direction.”

“And this, is my other baby!” She said pulling her pants down a little, inadvertently showing her panties to the boys even as they tried to look away, as she pulled out a pistol. It looked perfectly normal, until she exclaimed “This is my own personal laser weapon! I designed it last night after the fighting was over, and I think it could cut through concrete or even steel easily. And it’s so small and lightweight, you can hide under your clothing like I do. No stinking tentacle robot is going to get the better of this girl again, thank you!”

Maybe I should rethink inviting her to the institute, Melissa thought to herself as Mei started cooing, rubbing her head against the gun in a way that made her uncomfortable.

Despite her misgivings however, Melissa was still willing to show Mei and the others back to her laboratory. They had to take a far less fun way back of course, given that few of them were actually up to moving, let alone standing on a Segway, but she supposed that using the speedy hover chairs back were just as amusing. This was made even funnier when Mei and Kyoka started to urge the boys into a race with remarkable success.

Mei’s reaction to the academy and to her lab was everything that Melissa had thought it would be. She gazed around in awe, and then a shocked whisper, muttered, “I want it all.”

“Why does that remind me of an old movie I once saw.” Momo said putting a finger to her lips.

“Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory, kero.” said Tsuyu with a nod. “I loved that as a kid. My little siblings always tell me that they want to try to taste the Oompa Loompas though. They think that they are made of orange candies, kero.”

“Are you sure we should be here like this?” Iida asked as he looked around from on top of his Segway. With his leg mostly healed he had been allowed to take a Segway rather than a hover chair like the other boys, and had fallen in love with it. In fact, he had volunteered to head out to get their food as an excuse to play around with it once he knew where Melissa’s lab was. “There are no other students around after all. I feel as if by being here we are breaking the rules somehow.”

“No one else being here is a good thing, trust me.” Melissa said dryly. “While most of them are smart enough to have actually gotten to come to the science institute in the first place, much of that in intelligence is wasted on petty rivalries, childish dramas, and other stupidities once they arrive here.”

“Ouch.” Kyoka said. “Sounds like the rumors I’ve heard about how the business course is in UA.”

“Why does UA even offer a business course anyway?” Todoroki muttered.

Looking around her lab, Melissa frowned. “Hmm, let’s see if we can do something about getting some more space in your for everyone.”

With the three strongest boys out of it, it left the girls to actually move everything. But Momo proved her worth yet again in this, showing that she was actually quite strong for a young woman with her lithe build. Plus, she had no problem creating levers and trolleys which they could use to move stuff. They would even be useful for the rest of the school’s population, so she didn’t feel guilty storing them outside in the hall.

However, several things did need more muscle than they could use at the moment, including the two items that were sitting straight behind the sofa. They wanted to move the sofa back in order to get more room for some Momo-created beanbags. For those, Izuku had to use his strength exercises. Astonishing everyone who had known him before the fight, Todoroki helped him too, standing out of his chair and freezing the ground slightly underneath each item, as Izuku pushed on each item in turn.

The two boys exchanged nods afterwards and went back to sitting down with audible gasps of relief, before turning to watch the girls.

“What is this!?” Mei asked, pulling off the cover of one of the items Izuku and Todoroki had just moved, having glimpsed a bit of it as they moved it. “That looks like some kind of engine, but the power, and what are these nacelles? Oooh…”

“That is a hyperdimensional wave motion engine, or hyperdrive engine. My papa had been asked to come up with something better than the old rocket technology still used to get into orbit by several space exploration companies. But no sooner had he started to work on that design than Papa decided to put the project on the back burner almost due to a breakthrough he wanted to follow up on in his neurological research. I took it up after that and have been working on it on and off for years. I think I’m near a breakthrough too, I just need to figure out why my power calculations are so off every time.”

Mei frowned looking at it thoughtfully. “That sounds more like there’s some kind of engineering issue involved. Do you mind if I take a whack at it?” 

“Yes, I very much mind. My project, my lab, not yours.” Melissa said repressively.

“In other news, since when did you two bond?” Kyoka asked, only half-jokingly as she pushed at another piece of equipment with Momo, looking over at the boys. Todoroki was an enigma to most of the class. Indeed, yesterday with the obstacle course race was the first time any of them had seen him voluntarily interact with other students at anything but the professional level. He had tried occasionally before that, but it was as if it was an effort to do so, rather than something that came naturally to him. But the teamwork he and Izuku had just pulled off had come without any kind of discussion between the two of them, which made it doubly odd.

“We had to fight a megalomaniac madman with Magnetic superpowers and strength.” Izuku said with a shrug, while Todoroki stayed silent. “That kind of thing, you either come together as a team or you die.”

“Manly bros!” Kirishima shouted.

“Geez, forget I asked.” Kyoka said with roll of her eyes at Kirishima’s reaction. “That’s more than enough doom and gloom for now.”

“So, what should we do now?” asked Momo looking around excitedly once the moving and everything else was done.

The sofa had been moved back, and Kyoka and Momo were sitting on it together, their feet propped up on a duvet Momo had created to match the sofa, while two small tables had been set up on either side of their feet. She had also conjured enough beanbags to go around, with larger ones for the boys. Todoroki though seemed perfectly content laying out on the floor, but a futon Mellissa had dragged out made him even more comfortable, with his head leaning against the beanbag commandeered by Izuku. Kirishima was on another beanbag nearby, and a third waited for Iida to return. Melissa too had a beanbag for herself to one side of the sofa, with Tsuyu lazily shifting around in another one between her and Mei. 

The rest of the lab had been cleaned up… for the most part. The larger items, the strange hyperdrive engine, was pushed against one wall, it’s lever, a rather odd thing to have on such a creation, but one which was panted red and yellow to signify danger, was to one side of the group. The other heavy equipment, which according to Momo was simply a metal processing device, had been pushed against the inner wall, leaving two paths around the sofa to either side which could also lead to Melissa’s bedroom and bathroom. Mei had to be pulled away from it, and had whimpered all the while, although only Momo and Izuku had understood why that device had warranted Mei’s reaction.

“We get into pajamas, choose movies and watch them until we fall asleep, and when the food gets here we eat until we’re all just this shy of sick.” Melissa said as if she was reading off of the list. “Um, oh, and play games too, although I veto anything like truth or dare or other… um, older teenage sort of games. I don’t want my first sleepover to also be the last one I’m allowed to have when my father hears about it. And he would, believe me, he would.”

“Or.” Mei said, looking at some of the tools put away neatly to one side of Melissa’s lab avariciously. “I could build some babies!”

“Boo hiss, kero.” said Tsuyu, shaking her head.

Kyoka joined in, waving her earlobe in the other girl’s face like a finger. “None of that. Nothing serious, and no work. Nothing but fun tonight.” 

“Fun for all of us, not just you Mei-chan, kero.” Tsuyu added, croaking in good humor at the other girl.

Mei seemed to think about this, then said brightly “Well I could make some kind of tickle torture device.”

“Who would want one of those honestly.” Melissa said shaking her head. 

Elsewhere, Sir Nighteye looked up from where she he was torturing/teaching Mirio Togata. He had taken an interest in the young man, who was a senior at UA Academy, codename Lemillion. 

“I feel as if someone has insulted me, and yet I have no idea why I feel that. How unusual.” he murmured then shrugged. With that, he went back to using the tickle torture device on the young man, even as he shouted and screamed for mercy. “One must always be funny. Humor is truly mankind’s greatest invention.”

About twenty minutes after they all settled in, Iida came back, holding several bags of food in one hand, and five pizzas in a stack in his other hand. “Food.” he said, and Momo’s stomach was not the only one to gurgle as the smells hit all the other teens in the room. 

“Food!” shouted more than one of the boys, before looking at one another and laughing. They all looked at one another and laughed.

Melissa grinned. “I told you you’d all like it.” 

She raced over to Iida, pulling several of the pizza boxes over and placing them on a table in front of the TV, nodding to the boy. “You are just in time to cast your vote, were split straight down the middle on what to watch. I want to watch an old movie called Train Tigers, and so does Yaomomo. Izuku, Todoroki, and Kyoka all want to watch a Bond movie, while Kirishima has abstained because none of the movies have enough Martial arts in them.”

“They’re not manly enough.” Kirishima complained. “Come on, Iida, don’t leave a bro hanging man.”

“I’m afraid I don’t know any martial arts movies either, although doesn’t that one movie have Jackie Chan in it? Wasn’t he a famous martial artist Hollywood person?” 

“Sure, but it’s a comedy,” he complained “that means all the combat in it is going to be the funny type rather than serious.”

“If it’s just action you want Bond movies will do.” Izuku said seriously.

“Yeah but they’re so old, there hasn’t been a new one in what…? Thirty years?” Kyoka said, waving her hands. “Let’s look at something more modern, come on.” Tsuyu croaked agreement at that, also having no interest in a movie that didn’t come from the Quirk Era.

“I’m afraid most of your arguments don’t make much headway to me gentlemen.” Iida said with a sigh. “I will go with a Bond movie, although not Quantum of Solace. I’ve seen that one too often, it’s my father’s favorite movie for some reason. A reason that makes my mother want to smack him every time he brings it up in her presence.”

“Probably a crush on the main female lead then.” Melissa said mock-sweetly.

This caused Iida to blanch. “Please, no person in the world wants to think about his parents having a… a sex drive.” he said with a shudder. “That goes way beyond the inappropriate and into the wrong.”

The others all laughed at that, but Izuku nodded his head, reaching out to pat Iida compassionately as the boy sat in the beanbag near him. Even Mei did the same on the other shoulder. “Traumatized me once, when I was just learning how to use my quirk.” she said with a shudder. “Accidentally looked through my parents windows and…” 

“Enough.” Melissa said shuddering herself. “That’s enough of this conversation.”

“How about one of the classic Bond movies; Diamonds are Forever? Or how about instead of Bond movies, we watch one of the other Jackie Chan flicks. Rush Hour?” Izuku said, also eagerly moving on, though a part of him noted that Melissa had started that bit of banter but hadn’t seemed able to take it when the tables were turned. Perhaps some kind of trauma like Mei’s? Makes me very glad my dad’s in the US, and my mom seemed happy enough with that separation.

“I rather like that name,” Iida said, “but I don’t believe I have ever seen it.” 

“There are three of them, right?” Izuku asked looking over at Melissa. 

She seemed to be pondering this compromise, and looked over at Momo and then Mei, who both nodded acquiescence. “Rush-hour it is.” she said with a grin. “Isn’t it nice to have a library of every movie made in the past one hundred-and twenty years?” She asked with a grin as she typed the title into her laptop, then reached for a slice of pizza. 

The soda was not much of a hit with the Japanese, who much preferred tea or water, with Mei being the exception. She chugged soda down even more than Melissa did. The rest of the food on the other hand, went down a treat with all of them. Even Todoroki liked everything, although he said he’d have preferred soba noodles.

And so, the ‘First Inaugural Melissa/Momo Sleepover Party’ went off tremendously. However, Melissa should really have remembered how much caffeine there was in soda.

While everyone else had fallen asleep watching the last Rush Hour move, Mei was still wide awake. Looking around and seeing everyone else had fallen asleep under created blankets, Mei hopped to her feet. Now, where are her tools, and that one baby…

Early the next day, Melissa began to learn new things about her new friends: in this case, who among them were morning people. There were, in fact, only two of them who fell into this category, the rest were anti-morning in the extreme. 

Izuku and Iida were the only two up and moving while the others were groaning at them for even moving. “Come on, you all.” Iida said thumping one hand and against his chest. “You all can’t stay in the bed that long! It’s practically 9 o’clock already and you’re frittering the day away. As students of UA and heroes-in-training you must seize every day with energy and vigor!”

“Iida is right.” Izuku said cheerfully. “He and I have been up for more than an hour now, we even ordered you all breakfast.”

“And that is the only reason why we’re not contemplating killing you.” Kyoka said groaning aloud.

Given the looks that the girls and the other two boys were shooting them, Melissa reflected, that was probably not hyperbole. Still, she tried to help the other two by setting out some tea.

Momo woke up relatively quickly once the smell of the tea hit her, and moved towards the table, her arms outstretched like a zombie until Melissa grabbed her flailing hands and put them around the teacup. Momo instantly lifted it to her mouth, sipping at it appreciatively before opening her eyes, looking far more awake and human than previously. “This is excellent! Did you make this, Melissa-san?”

Melissa grinned and nodded. “I went through a phase where I really liked the whole tea ceremony thing for some reason. Mind you, I never understood the purpose of it all, but I do like good tea.”

The others all mumbled and muttered, but slowly rose, moving towards the table. Kyoka was the last one to get up, and she still looked utterly out of it. Her hair was stuck up every which way, the t-shirt she had slept in was askew, and her eyes were closed, indeed they looked as if they were sealed shut with sleepers. The rest of her face was slack, and a line of drool was visible along one side of her face. 

Mei took one look and quickly grabbed up her belt camera to take a picture, adding to her blackmail collection. 

Ignoring or perhaps not understanding the significance of the flash and the accompanying laughs from the others around her Kyoka headed to the bathroom without looking at anyone else, bumping the almost equally somnolent Kirishima out of the way. After coming out, Kyoka stumbled to the first seat she saw, which moved under her weight for some reason. She ignored that though, leaning against the side of the thing the chair was leaning against, grumbling as she put her head into the crook of her arm in order to block out the world all around her. “Nope I’m not moving. Going back to sleep.”

At first, Melissa didn’t realize where Kyoka was sitting, having engaged Iida and Momo in conversation about the normal classes at UA. It was only when she vaguely heard a dull hum start to build up in the background that Melissa realized something might be wrong. The others too were looking around in confusion. When Melissa saw where Kyoka was sitting she gasped in shock before she shouted, “Kyoka get up right now!”

The urgency in her tone made Kyoka jump to her feet, blinking and looking around, seemingly a little more awake now that she’d been shouted at. “Wha, what?”

However, Melissa was no longer looking at her, she was looking at the device, whose lever she had just sat on, pushing the lever into the on position. A loud humming began to build, and she gaped. “H-h-how? What? That, it shouldn’t even be hooked up to any power source!”

“Hehe, I did that, and I think I fixed it too. I wanted to help you finalize that baby, I mean it’s so amazing! hyperdrive how awesome is that?!” Mei said with a grin.

“Awesome?!” She shrieked in terror before uncharacteristically cursing, “IT’S AN ENGINE! AN UNTESTED HYPERDRIVE ENGINE! WHAT THE FUCK DO YOU THINK IT’S CONNECTED TO RIGHT NOW? SHUT IT RIGHT DOWN!” Mei’s face changed from excited to just as horrified as the blonde and everyone else raced to try and do something. 

Izuku was the fastest, leaping forward with One For All going from zero to a hundred percent so fast he could feel his heartrate skyrocket and his bones grind together. He knew he was going so fast so hard he would cripple himself again once he smashed into the device, but given the urgency of Melissa’s tone, he was more than willing to pay that price. Todoroki’s ice was a bare inch behind him, fit to crush the device under the ice while his other hand lit up with fire, his eyes wild as he stared at the hyperdrive engine.

But it was too late. Perhaps it was because of their wounds. Perhaps it was because most of them were still groggy from a very late night on top of a very hard night’s fighting the evening before. Perhaps they were just confused. But whatever the reason, even Izuku was too slow to react to the possible threat in their midst.

The thrumming started to crescendo even as Melissa finished shrieking and before she or Izuku could reach it, there was a blinding light, white and searing that encapsulated the room and everything in it. Everything and everyone within a hundred-yard radius, including the people and the device, disappeared.  But it didn’t just disappear from the room, it disappeared from that plane of existence, torn from their reality, leaving behind a gaping spherical hole in the academy where Melissa’s laboratory had once been. 

Instantly, alarms began to blare throughout the institute and then I-Island. But it was too late to stop the accident, far too late. Izuku, Melissa and their friends were all gone, with no clue left behind as to how, or why. 

OOOOOOO

The group appeared elsewhere but in midair. That was all any of them could tell right off the bat. Suddenly finding yourself in midair didn’t exactly lend itself to calm rational thought or ability to notice any visible landmarks after all.

Everyone started screaming bar Izuku. Having thrust himself forward as he had with One For All, he had no air with which to shout. Instead he had to scramble to stop himself from sailing over the rapidly falling engine, twisting himself in midair to look at the others, who were falling well away from his current position, his leap having carried him at least thirty yards away from the others. 

When he finally was able to turn towards them, he began to shout too, but his was more an effort to grab everyone’s attention rather than simple explanations of shock. But one little-known fact about freefalling was that it was almost impossible to make yourself heard through the air, and none of the others could hear him shouting at them to calm down, even if they could have from that far away anyway. 

Momo however quickly recovered from her initial scream of fright, and was now quickly hunching over, her shirt pulled almost off her shoulders as something extruded from her back. At first, Izuku feared that she was making only a single parachute for herself, but he should’ve known better. Instead, Momo created a parachute large enough for all of them to use. It was a massive sail of canvas that flapped around from her, so massive it could have been called a hot air balloon with little difficulty, but which didn’t have the basket underneath. 

Tsuyu grabbed onto one of the lines next. She had been one of the closest to Momo, and she was also one of the only ones who could reach the others, since they weren’t slowing down. She grabbed Kyōka first. Though far away from Tsuyu and Momo, her earlobes could help Tsuyu reel the rest of them in. 

With no words, the two of them worked then in tandem to save those who didn’t have Quirks that could help them reach the parachute on their own. She used her tongue to rope in Todoroki first, while Kyoka grabbed a terrified-looking Mei as well as Melissa. The two of them worked together to real in the heavier Kirishima next, but the others were just too far now for either of them reach. 

The realization that they couldn’t save their friends was almost a physical blow to their chests, and it was with a cry of relief that the girls watched Iida ignite his engines and haphazardly fly back towards them, using first one leg then the other to actually fly like a jet through the air. Unable to slow his approach he slammed into Kirishima, who wrapped one arm around the other boy shouting into his ear, “Manly dude! I have you now, grab the line!”

Iida did so, but also turned, his eyes widening behind his glasses as they saw the danger their last friend was in. Izuku was still far away from the others and unlike Iida he didn’t have afterburners. Indeed, his body was being wracked by shudders as they watched, the aftereffects of calling on One For All without any buildup flashing through his system. 

“Izuku-kun/Midoriya-kun!” Iida added his voice to the tumult calling out his name as they watched him fall further and further away. But none save those nearest them could even hear it.

Tumbling through the air Izuku was in agony, his injuries from the previous day not completely healed and his body now sending him warning pains throughout his body. He felt numb, as he watched the water get closer and his friends get farther away, the wind pulling them as it would while gravity did the same with him. He ground his teeth and flipped as best he could to face the earth, spreading himself eagle to slow down 

Got to get back to them. Only one chance….  The cup is a quarter full! The cup is a quarter! FULL! With his teeth grit, he grabbed his right wrist with his left hand, gripping it tightly while pulling his middle finger taut. His skin started to glow – his veins showing like neon lights – and green electricity started to arc around his hand as he tried to call up only enough power to slow his fall, no more. “SMAAAAAAASH!”

A massive air cannon erupted from him, slowing him down and even reversing his momentum. His finger throbbed, but he almost cried in relief at the realization that it wasn’t broken. It wasn’t enough. Now he had to get back to his friends, and quickly, else his body give out before he could. 

He cocked his index finger next and a second later another unheard shout sounded out.  “SMASH!” 

With that, Izuku rocketed in the opposite direction, shouting with pained glee as he crashed right between Momo and Iida, both of them latching onto him, the taller girl sobbing in sheer, unadulterated relief. For his part Izuku didn’t even have it in him to blush at Momo’s hug, clutching onto them with his heart trying to beat itself out of his chest. They would need a crowbar to get either of his friends to let go.

His fingers would be screaming at him later, but they weren’t broken. And more importantly, they were safe. All of them. Many now began to tie themselves into place, not trusting their ability to hang on, while Izuku, Iida and Momo did not. The three clung together for a moment, before Iida broke away from the boy and girl, holding a line and twisting it around his arms. 

Now that they weren’t falling so precipitously, and were much closer together, they were able to hear one another shout. But at first no one was shouting anything that could help them, even Mei being utterly freaked out by the experience. Worse still, they were also still falling too fast with all their weight pulling down on the balloon-like parachute Momo had created.

Izuku grimaced, looking down at his barely-repaired arms and fingers, before gritting his teeth cocking his finger again. With that he flicked the air above his head with a supercharged finger, creating an air shockwave that hit the balloon, pushing it open as much as it could be. “Todoroki-kun! We need your fire! We need to slow down more, or else we’ll splatter on the water, it’ll be just like hitting concrete!” he howled at the top of his lungs. 

The heterochromic boy didn’t hesitate. Not for this. Not after he had used it to save Izuku’s life at the tower. And especially not when all his friends’ lives were on the line. He thrust his arm up and slowly started warming the air, so as to not burn Tsuyu or Mei, who were hanging onto lines on either side of them. The balloon filled quickly with his powers, and they all sighed in sheer relief as they slowed.

Now that they were drifting downward at a much more sedate pace, they were finally able to all calm down and speak rationally. Somewhat rationally anyway. “What the fuck is going on? Where the fuck are we? And how. The. Fuck! do we get down alive!?” Kyoka roared. “Or can we somehow just reverse whatever happened and go home!?”

“You sat on the lever for my hyperdimensional wave motion engine you, you boob!” Melissa “It’s a big, red and yellow lever, just like most of my experimental devices just so people don’t do anything with them!” She turned and glared at Mei. “And you, what did you do to make it work at all?!”

“That’s not important right now.” Izuku said, his voice cutting across the others as he spoke calmly and rationally, garnering attention just because he sounded like he had a plan. Which he did: survive the next few minutes. “We need to work with what we have. Now, unless someone tells me that device can be used to return us…” he said, gesturing down wards and to the side. The wind had begun to push them to the right as they fell, so the rest of the items that had dropped with them had fallen to the wayside by the time they had regained their senses.

“Too late now. I think we need to work on surviving the inevitable landing, ladies and gentlemen.” Momo said, glancing worriedly at Todoroki, Izuku and Kirishima. All of them looked alright, but there was a reason they had been in hover chairs the day before, and though they were all walking today, all of them looked battered, too battered to take any kind of hard landing. 

“Leave that to me.” Todoroki said with a grim smile. “I’m getting a lot of experience in creating slides these days.”

For a moment the others fell silent, simply holding on or just watching the scenery. But at last they saw the ground below them clearly enough to see they were coming in for a landing on a gigantic body of water. As they closed in, Tsuyu and Kirishima saw the waves and said it had to be an ocean with that kinds of waves. 

“My turn now.” Todoroki said, looking over at Izuku, then sliding his eyes over to Momo and Iida, the nearest to the boy with the injured fingers. “Keep him from hurting himself further, would you?”

“Was that a joke?” Kyoka asked while the others gaped.

But Todoroki ignored them, thrusting his hand downwards. Ice began to form on his arm reaching down towards the ocean creating an ice slide as it hit the ocean, the top of which began to freeze.

A second later the group of teens hit the top of the ice slide where they began to slide down onto the recently frozen surface of the ocean. It was a few seconds, and the friction was actually quite unpleasant, but they eventually came in for a landing on the ice. For a moment, all they could do was lay there, gasping while Tsuyu shivered. She was the first to get up, whispering an apology as she hopped up onto Momo, actually clinging to her back to put as much space between her and the ice as she could. “Sorry, it’s the cold you see.” she mumbled, already feeling lethargic.

Momo simply created a coat from one arm, tossing it over her shoulder to the short girl. “Here you go.”

Tsuyu instantly grabbed it and pulled it on, mumbling a thank you, as Momo handed her a small heating pad, saying “Shake this, and it’ll start heating up the chemicals inside.”

“You didn’t memorize one of those did you?” Izuku said, trying to make light of the situation as he pushed himself to his feet staring around them.

“No, I didn’t. Although I did know the chemical composition, as I did at least the base materials of everything I’ve created, so your idea about me not needing to know that is still debatable.” 

“More importantly…” Todoroki muttered. “Where are we now?”

Izuku frowned. “I have no idea, but Kirishima, you’re the fisherman here, is that an island over there?” he asked, pointing at the horizon where there was something like a low-hanging cloud.

“Hmm… it looks to be.” Kirishima nodded. “You want to make for land?”

“Right. Unless anyone thinks waiting around here for help would be better?” Izuku asked, trying out sardonic humor. 

No one replied, and Momo instantly moved over to the ocean beside the ice, where she began to make a small rowboat. “Thank goodness I ate all that fatty food last night.”

The others laughed at that, then clambered into the boat after Momo was finished with it. She stumbled into Izuku, who blushed and then helped her sit down, while the other boys took the oars she had created and started to row towards the distant cloud thing on the horizon. 

As they did, Tsuyu hopped into the water and started to push them along. Kirishima actually started to sing a rowing song under his breath, which the other boys took up to keep the rhythm going. Melissa and Mei talked about what had happened, wondering where they were, how they had gotten there, and if they could get back home. No answers were coming up. 

Momo just sat, conserving her energy after her exertions to build the rowboat. However, as she heard a splash to the side, she looked in that direction, and a wide smile appeared on her face. “Oh my, is that a dolphin!?”

Tsuyu stopped rowing, staring over at the dolphin a smile on her own face. The boys stopped rowing too, looking over at the dolphin in delight, forgetting their troubles for a moment. Even Melissa and Mei stopped their low-key, slightly-panicky conversation to look in the direction of the magnificent animal.

Those troubles however came back to their minds quickly when the dolphin hopped out of the water next time, much, much closer than before. And far bigger. So big it looked like a small whale instead of a dolphin. Kirishima stared at it, then turned to the others and said, “Guys, I don’t think we’re anywhere near Japan anymore.” 

No one had any reply to that as the dolphin began to gambol about their tiny boat which suddenly felt all the smaller in this wide, vast ocean. 

End Chapter