Chapter Text
Slade Joseph Wilson, AKA Deathstroke the Terminator, was many things. Many wonderful, so much more terrible, awful, no good, and very bad.
Just like his luck at the moment.
Within the confines of his steel trap mind, he cursed himself for that fateful game of five-card pick-up that led him to his present predicament. He knew that if only he’d convinced his mouth, as Shigaraki had taken to calling him, to a game of Texas Hold ‘Em, it would have been said mouth here dealing with the summons of their… threadbare allies.
Not Slade in the flesh.
Or the power armor, as the case was.
“Why… am I here?”
Suddenly, the comms-system inside his helmet blared to life and he heard his mouth shout, “Because you done lost the bet, son! And all that comes with it! Including twenty big ones, one of your fancy schmancy nth metal toys, and the honor of attending all boring business meetings with Shigaraki and the Second Stringers for the next month! Yay! Huzzah and hurray and three big cheers for me! Ros–”
Slade, having had more than enough, promptly disconnected from the call and just flat out turned off all of his suit’s communication suites to stem the flood of videos, audio recordings, texts, emails, and sad pictures he knew he was going to receive before it could begin.
Taking a breath that didn’t leave the interior of his helmet, Slade then became fully aware that one of the League of Villains’ members was talking to him rather loudly.
Twice if he recalled.
Oh, what bitter irony. To escape the jabbering jaw of his own mouth only be talked to death by another. And this one was even more certifiable, in his own way.
“Hello! Slade! Yoo-hoo!” Twice shouted before whistling as though to a disobedient shiba inu. “We’re still waiting on your response to what I just said here! No we’re not. Yes we are. No, we’re not interested. Yes we are. No, it doesn’t benefit us! Yes it does!”
“Twice,” Shigaraki started tiredly, “give him some space. His Super Sentai suit probably just had a major bug crop up and now he has to reboot. Must be running Windows Me. Pity.”
“The only boot concerning my suit that should ever concern you is the one I wish to place on your face, forever and ever.”
The reactions from the League were as diverse as they were immediate.
Twice jumped back and collapsed onto his seat and onto a heap on the ground.
Shigaraki was as unmoved as Mt. Fuji in a typhoon.
Himiko was the Cheshire cat she was so amused, her squinty eyes regarding Slade as if she wanted to eat him all up. Literally.
All For One, on the other side of the speaker, smirked in only slightly less amusement.
The Dr. sighed on the other side of the speaker, bemoaning all this butting of heads and clashing of egos as wasteful of all parties’ time and effort.
Dabi pfffted, of much the same mind as the Dr.
Spinner didn’t care, figuring that unless Slade’s actions ever met his words and wishes, it was no lizard-skin off his back, and not worth getting riled up and retaliatory ready over.
Compress was nervous, hands up, trying to get everyone to calm down and act like civilized vagabonds for once.
Kurogiri stood up directly behind Shigaraki and flared his Quirk, as if to say, “If you need me, say the word and we’re gone.”
Out of all ten of them, however, Magne’s take was the most… directly confrontational. “You will not harm Shigaraki!” She got out of her seat and drew her weapon, a giant magnet shaped like a straight line wrapped in cloth with some recent quality of life improvements: sturdy handles and grips to make it more wieldy and less awkward to use in battle.
Slade hmphed. “On your life?”
“No!” She pointed the north end of the giant magnet towards him as though it were the end of a mighty spear. “On YOUR death!”
Slade chuckled. “I like your attitude. You, and me, and Patton agree.”
Magne growled, ready to use her magnetism Quirk at a moment’s notice to double whammy Slade by reeling him in at high speed and then swatting him away and out the park like Sadaharu Oh.
Shigaraki however, intervened before she could jump the magnetic gun. Holding up his hand, he said, “Magne, enough. Wasting time. He might be a snake, but he won’t bite us… yet…”
Slade nodded. “Indeed.” Then, smirking beneath his helmet, he looked at Magne again and said, “You’d do well to listen to your… master.”
Magne growled again, but otherwise contained herself and took her seat again.
Twice as well got back on his chair with the help of Himiko, though he twiddled his thumbs and generally looked much too afraid to look in Slade’s general direction.
Sighing, Shigaraki gestured to Compress who, despite sweating a little for being placed so on the spot so suddenly, coughed into his fist, readjusted his striped bolo neck tie, and said, “Uhhhh… well… as Twice here had been saying before you… spaced out or merely appeared to space out just now–”
“WHAT THE HELL, SLADE?!” Twice suddenly shouted, getting halfway out his chair and slamming his fists exactly as he had done after Slade had asked why he was here. “It’s been weeks! Nearly an entire month! And we’ve seen neither hair nor tail nor hoof nor wing nor unicorn horn nor NOTHING of any blue-helmets or big buff meatheads in even bigger power armor or big plane boat things!”
“Not that I’m complaining,” said Himiko, bringing up her seriously blinged out fingers and twiddling them around to show off the ridiculous number of super ultra maxi mondo ridiculously uber expensive rings of all kinds adorning them. “I love the shinies. And I don’t even have to suck their blood. I wonder if Izuku-chan will love them as much as I do the next time I visit him for a… rendezvous.”
Twice, his happier go luckier of his split personalities winning out, joined in the flashy hand modeling with his best friend. He showed off all of the rings he himself had bought in addition to the 25 Carat gold chain encrusted with diamonds, rubies, emeralds, pearls, sapphires, jade, tanzanite, graphite, and kryptonite. “Ooooo! I so do love the perks of all the money Slade’s scheme has gotten us too, don’t get me wrong! No, we look gaudy! We look fabulous! We look stupid! We look sharp! We look like total clowns! We look like the kind of man men want to be and women want to be with!”
Himiko grinned really wide and creepily at her bestie and patted him on the back.
Slade raised an eyebrow under his helmet and asked, “Kryptonite? You do realize prolonged exposure to that stuff will be your undoing, correct? I realize your brain has no ridges, but that’s no excuse to destroy it further. That radioactive green space rock is literally why Lex Luthor’s currently rotting at Stryker’s.”
Himiko rested her head on Slade’s shoulder, somehow closing the distance at a rate even he barely caught, and asked, “Who’s Lex Luthor?”
“Before your time, oh sweet, summer child.”
“Ah. So he was an old fuddy duddy then,” Himiko said, pursing her lips in disappointment.
“Yes. Yesterday’s news. But oh what news did yesterday type up.”
Himiko sighed in boredom and slunk back to where Twice was, her lip in a pouty position as she muttered under her breath “You’re no funzies. I don’t like you.”
Villainous kids these days.
No respect for the arch rogues of the past.
Not even the relatively recent past.
“And as to your question,” Twice began, “that’s what the lead in the graphite is for! To keep me all nice and safe and cozy from the slow and painful effects of radiation poisoning over time!”
Multiple people, not just Slade, groaned and went, “Uggghhh!” at the sheer rank idiocy.
“Twice, my good man,” began Compress, “you do realize that pencil lead is entirely different from actual, elemental lead, right?”
“Wait huh?” Twice asked, dumbfounded and just plain dumb.
As another series of groans sounded out, Dabi, so annoyed by this point even he felt the need to correct his fellow bad guy, said, “Graphite is literally a pure form of carbon you dumbass.”
“Yeah… but… the carbon in my chain still should buffer against the radiat–”
“No!” near everyone shouted at once.
“Not unless there was so much graphite in it that you wouldn’t even be able to lift it,” said Magne. “I could lift it just fine, but you and your puny soba arms wouldn’t even be able to move it a millimeter without snapping.”
“Where did you even find a jeweler who knew how to work with all those precious materials in addition to pencil lead of all things?” asked Spinner, genuinely curious in addition to being weirded out.
“Internet,” said Twice. “No, it was at school. No, it was online and we’ve never been to school! No, it couldn’t have been online since I don’t know how dial-up works since I don’t know how to use a phone! No–”
“Ahhhhh! So many NPCs!” Shigaraki suddenly shouted, hands clutching his agonized brain. “It’s time for the Bugthesda dialogue to stop! Kurogiri! Get the noisy NPCs to stop because I cannot handle this intern written tripe!”
“Finally!” Kurogiri shouted with gusto. Using his Quirk, he grew massively in size, towering over everyone else, before spreading himself out across all of the walls, the ceiling, and floor of the room, covering the entire garage in darkness.
“Mommy. Please hold me. I’m scared,” said Twice, holding onto Himiko for emotional support.
“There, there. Mommy’s embrace will make it all better,” Himiko said, patting her bestie on his back until he burped like a baby and started crying like one.
“In ten seconds, I will turn the lights back on,” said Shigaraki. “When I do, only I and I alone will talk to the help. Now, be good little NPCs, and shut up when I say so. Or else I will unleash something from your darkest dreams all on your face. Do not try me. You aren’t beta testers.”
The ten seconds passed in silence, and Slade, despite his own annoyance at the lack of focus in the meeting, appreciated Shigaraki had at least enough disciprine to shorten the leash of his dogs when they misbehaved.
Soon, Kurogiri returned to his spot standing next to Shigaraki, and the room was back to merely being dimly lit rather than being an utter void devoid of light.
“Now then,” began Shigaraki, “cut the crap Slade. What’s your angle?”
“My angle?”
“Don’t play dumb with me. The final boss tells me you are… interesting. Yet, I’ve yet to see it.”
Slade smirked beneath his helmet. Oh, if only he knew.
“Just like I’ve yet to see this, and I’m quoting here, ‘heavy handed response from on high’ you promised.”
“There is something out there. I can feel it crawling up my spine.”
“Wow. Even in that armor. Must really be serious. I recommend an upgrade that has plus 5 speed, plus 2 defense, and plus 7 attack.” The Leader chuckled mockingly before scratching his neck in irritation. “Listen to me very carefully: unless you bring me ACTUAL PROOF that this SHIELD pirate boogeyman exists, I will continue to disregard anything you say in favor of our actual plan, and kick you out of the party because you are contributing nothing.”
“We had a deal. I give you the distribution rights, seventy five percent of the gross, and access to special variants of the vapor no else does, and in exchange you gave me the ability to decide when to move up to the next stages of our actual plan. If I say green, you go and do damage. If I say red, you stop and go to ground.”
Shigaraki’s voice snarled, his hand raising threateningly, fingers twitching as if he wished nothing more than to wrap all five fingers around Slade’s throat. The rage and indignation was palpable as he growled, “I don’t care about that! NO ONE tells us what to do, absolutely no one! We’re not you’re Terminators! We do what we want, when we want, and you have no say! You are fear mongering without proof and it’s wasting time! Our deal means nothing if you don’t contribute to MY greater plan! Right now, the one jeopardizing your so-called deal, is you, old hemet head!”
Slade placed his hands behind his back, sighed, and began to respond with, “Boy–”
The entire meeting was interrupted by commotion in the lab on the other end of the call. There was crashing and frantic searching noises, and the Doctor desperately yelling in desperation.
Annoyed, Shigaraki scratched his irritated neck again and snapped at the speaker. “Doctor! I’m deciding whether to chuck this deadweight out of my elite party, and you decide to interrupt! Master, mute him please! I’m trying to talk to one of my game pieces!”
The Master chuckled. “Your little brother has escaped the dungeon. Give the Doctor some grace, Shigaraki. Please, continue your meeting. I’m quite amused to see how you will use this wild card.”
“Very well.”
He glared daggers at Slade, and snarled threateningly. “Your fetch quest is to get actual proof that this phantom big, bad organization has operatives here in Japan lying in wait to pounce. I don’t care what the proof is, but I do give extra points if it’s a body. Otherwise, if the big, bad rest of the world isn’t going to stop us, we move up the time table and skip straight to the main event and all the action packed gameplay we could ask for. Team Ninja wishes they could program the kind of carnage we’re itching to unleash.” He scratched himself furiously.
Slade’s one eye narrowed on the eccentric leader of this eclectic league of… villains.
Oh well. Even if the clapback he had planned would go unsaid, at least it meant he’d be leaving here sooner and not be stuck here speaking to these… overzealous amateurs.
“Done. Your terms are… almost acceptable. However, in exchange, I want something in return.”
“You get to live and be an integral part of Japanese and global history. That should be payment enough.”
“As I said, almost. As you said earlier, I am a mercenary. Hence, I don’t come cheap, especially not when a… client decides to arbitrarily change the conditions of our arrangement because he’s itching to run head first into a wall he very likely won’t be able to break before it breaks his pretty face.”
“You know nothing. Our plans don’t need your influence.”
Doubtful. They failed to kidnap one teenager–a very volatile and explosive one, but still–for a future bargaining chip/indoctrinated ally over the summer in a secluded camp when they had all the cards stacked in their favor. Slade imagined how they’d fare without him in a fight against people who could actually fight back effectively even in such an ideal situation. He took much delight in the image of all the heavy hitters of the Avengers and Justice League both having a field day slapping Shigaraki and the Second Stringers around like ping-pong balls.
“For going above and beyond my duties as your own personal ISR complex, I want–” he pointed at Himiko. “Her to undergo my… particular brand of training.”
“EW no! If I go anywhere, I’m taking Twicey!” Himiko pouted “I don’t like you, stinky old man!”
“Well, if you come with me, there’s a highly accelerated chance that you could bump into… Izuku-chan.”
“IZUKU-CHAN?!” Her psychopathic eyes widened. “You mean it? I love him! I want to be with the people I love…Izuku-chan might be more beat-up than usual…he looks so good like that! Ok old man…I’ll come, with Twice, with you!”
“Yes, we shall go! And…do what again? Become super evil super spies?” Twice said determinedly.
Tomura threw up his hands. “Fine. Whatever. One day a week you will train those two and get their power levels up over 9500 or something. Just get on that fetch quest and take your military jargon with you. Oh, and before you go, know that you going above and beyond annoying me dropped your timeframe to a day. Now get out.”
“Fine. A day is all I’ll need.”
With that, Slade turned around and took his leave as Kurogiri took the League and teleported them elsewhere. The moment he was outside the garage and into the darkness just before the dawn, he reactivated his suit’s comm-systems. Ignoring the flood of messages his mouth had sent him, he contacted said mouth and told him, “The bomb. Disarm it and take it out.”
“Awwwww! And I was so looking forward to you and Shigaraki and his mutie freaks going skyhigh in a big ole mushroom cloud send off! It would have been a glorious death! An honorable death! A beautiful death! But no! You want to die somewhere in a deep dark hole, alone, with only the worms mourning you and no cameras or crying or Oscars anywhere in sight! How sad! How tragic! How BORING!”
“JUST. DO IT,” Slade said as he opened a nearby sewer grate and walked in. “Oh, and rally the troops. Emergency meeting. ASAP.”
“Awwww! Another boring business meeting! I was so looking forward to going to the Ramen museum and pilfering their free samples and the not-so-free samples! It’s on my bucket list, curse you!”
“At least it’s not with the League. You’ll be among… friends.”
“Well whoop de doo and howdy hoo and zippidy doo da day to me. I get to be in the presence of Ms. Melee DPS, Ms. Hybrid Melee/Ranged DPS Ice Queen, Mr. Magic Hybrid Melee/Ranged DPS/Debuffer with horns, Mr. Tech Hybrid Melee/Ranged/DPS/Debuffer with blonde hair and pink highlights, Ms. Magic DPS/Debuffer with hourglass figure, and Mr. Tank. Man! It must be my birthday!”
“I don’t understand,” Slade said, kicking aside a particularly giant rat in his way that for some reason decided to stand its ground and try to gnaw at him. Stupid little thing. “I thought you told me you had a secret crush on all of the Mses. In fact, I seem to recall quite clearly that you told me you wish you could all set aside your differences so that they could all be happy as members of your... harem. Maybe I should give them a call and tell them this, especially the one you told me you care the most about. Maybe that will improve your standing with them.”
“Wait, no! Please don’t, I–”
Slade cut his mouth off and then promptly deleted all the spam messages of assorted array said mouth had left for him whilst parlaying with the Japs.
It was the little victories in life.
As he maneuvered deftly through the sewers of Mustufu, Slade’s mind went out of the brief amusement at the chaos he’d knowingly inflicted on his mouth and back to the overdrive it had been in.
Twice now he’d been in a meeting where the mysterious voices apparently belonging to The Master and The Dr. on the other end of the speaker had been interrupted by something going on in the background.
Apparently, this time, that something had broken free and was now out and about somewhere in Japan, maybe in this very sewer system as an… immense liability. Or…perhaps an asset. At least for Slade’s purposes. After all, the Doctor seemed quite upset that it had escaped. The very nature of the act of escaping implied that whatever it was, it could think, plan, and execute results. This was no Nomu.
This…was an opportunity. A blessing in disguise. Leverage to use against the League of Villains even Shigaraki, attack dog that he was, would stop and think about the consequences of if he ever dared to even entertain the notion of backing out of an agreement with Slade again.
That is… if he could find it before any other interested parties could.
Either the League of Villains or… someone else.
MHA-TTT-MHA-TTT-MHA-TTT-MHA-TTT-MHA-TTT-MHA-TTT
The button was pressed. The lockers slid out of the walls and pushed open, revealing an array of briefcases with different numbers on them corresponding to the seat number of a given student. The locals instantly took theirs as if on instinct, dashing into the locker room belonging to their respective gender to suit up. The Legionaries were slower in their motions yet no less enthusiastic.
Izuku tossed Peter his costume and dashed with him to the boys’ lockers to get ready. A red sweatshirt with sewn-in kevlar accents and a spider decalled on soon covered the latter’s torso, a ninja/robber style cowl slipping over his face. Blue sweatpants were fitted over legs set to deliver butt-kicking blows, and Nikey-escue shoes with added support and armor colored red and white were tied onto his feet. Red and white gloves were fitted to his hands, the final piece of the sketch.
Izuku finished putting his costume on and looked at Tobey in pride before geeking out, Midoriya style.
“Do you have any hidden tech? Do you have enhanced soles for your shoes? Are you fireproof? Are you stab proof? Are you bulletproof? Do you have enhancements that improve your bio-organic webbing? Tell me everything!!!”
“Kaeru-san! Hold me! I’m scared! Deku-chan is doing Deku-chan things again!” said Froppy, leaning into Toad’s awaiting and very willing arms.
“Don’t worry babe, I gotcha. The big, bad mumble text can’t get you now.”
“Geru.”
Ben grumbled a few feet away as he finished putting the teal visor for his own superhero outfit based off his old Ultra Ben design he’d first dreamt up when he was a kid on that fateful summer vacation. “Grrrrr… lucky amphibian. Scoring the cutest, most awedorable chick in class.”
Ben, seething to the point where smoke would have come out of his ears if he had a inquisitive Quirk, anxiously running his fingers through the black CF emblazoned on the shield on his costume’s chest.
Mikey, decked out in an orange variant of his Turtle Titan outfit (with some improvements for durability and a KO on his chest instead of a TT) put a three-fingered hand on the seething teen’s shoulder. “Hey, dude, don’t take it so hard. Some of us guys just have higher standards for the ladies, and they can’t take it!”
“Are you trying to make me feel better?”
“Depends, dude. Is it working?”
Ben sighed and threw down his head low. As he did though, he caught a glimpse of Mina putting on her costume, her glorified and somewhat low cut bathing suit with pant legs and fur color around the neck. His neck snapping up to regard her as she finished putting on her burgundy and gold combat boots he said, smiling a bit. “Yeah. Maybe a little.”
Sero chuckled nearby, before ribbing Luke, who had gotten ready so fast because of the simplicity of his hero suit, had joined the group in 1-A’s dressing room, “Well, I see love is in the air more than danger. Hope those two can stick to their assignments, eh?”
Luke Cage chuckled next to him in his Street Shield attire, which consisted of a sleeved yellow shirt with a plunging v-line showing off his manly muscles and the solid gold chain with the letters SS emblazoned on a gold shield, silvery bracelets around his wrists, ocean blue jeans, silvery chain-link belt around his waist that did nothing but hold his pants up, yellow cuffed combat boots, and silvery circlet adorning his head attached to a big faux ‘fro on top that held many advanced pieces of communications equipment bundled together.
Despite the relative simplicity of his undercover superhero attire, it actually took him longer than one would think to put it on because Mei from the support course had invented the thing and she would not leave him alone jawing about how glorious her baby was as she gingerly put it on his head and poked, prodded, activated, and deactivated things to give him a primer on exactly how said baby worked. It took the intervention of Gear and an explosion to finally tear her away long enough for him to make a prompt escape out the door of 1-B and to 1-A to assemble with the rest of Squad-1.
“Man, in my experience, those two are liable to cause all kinds of trouble making kissy faces at each other.”
“Indeed. Love is a distraction. Distraction leads to mistakes. Mistakes lead to death,” Iron Fist said as he finished putting on his outfit closeby, which looked more like a stereotypical ninja outfit, more aligned with what Scorpion wore to New York, and less like his recognizable hero attire.
“I’m just glad they ain’t on our team this time,” said Luke.
“Me too!” said Sero.
The two attempted to high five each other in agreement, but it ended with Luke accidentally knocking Sero flat on his bum on the ground.
“Uh… sorry. My own strength… sometimes I don’t know it…”
“I can attest,” said Danny, helping Sero up. Looking at Luke again, he said, “I told you that you needed to train your strength so your allies would not end up next to your enemies in hospice.”
“Ahhhhh! Maybe you should have told him louder! Like, seriously! I think I might need to see Recovery Girl to literally kiss my ass to make it better! Gahhhh that hurts! Ow!”
“With him, I need not to increase my volume. He must increase his ability to practice disciprine.”
Jiro rolled her eyes at Ben and turned to Raven, and sighed. “I don’t look forward to working with these morons….Honestly, Mineta has poisoned them all with his lecherous ways.”
“Sadly, I can safely say he hasn’t. He’s only… emboldened them.”
“That doesn’t make my point any less true, at least generally.”
“No. It only shows he used what was already there to start.”
“MY NEW MOPED BLEW UP AND IT'S TERRIBLEEEEEE! HOW AM I SUPPOSED TO GET MY HAREM NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOW!” Mineta shouted as he rushed into the class, late as a certain Ferris Bueller on his famous day off, his eyes all ocular gushers.
“And I rest my case,” said Raven, dryly.
As Aizawa glared disapprovingly at the little midget for being so not on time, he rushed towards his locker and hurriedly put on his super suit. The problem was that he was moving with such haste that he wound up with his tea cup pants on his head, his purple body suit backwards, his yellow boots on his hands, his yellow gloves on his feet, and his yellow scarf-cape around his forehead like an oversized and misplaced headband.
“Ah! Someone please, help me! Help me! I need a hero! I’m holding out for a hero till the end of the night! Specifically a woman hero, please! And she’s gotta be hot and she’s gotta cook well and she’s gotta be busty and blonde! Busty and blonde!”
Mina danced to the impromptu take on a Bonnie Tyler classic, and when it was over said, “Sorry. all the blondes in Class 1-A are all dudes, dude. Unless Toru’s secretly a blonde.” She looked over at said invisible girl, decked out only in boots and gloves which would have been really scary the more superstitious amongst the students if they didn’t know about her and her Quirk. “Hey Toru!”
“Yes?”
“You secretly a blonde?”
“I don’t know. I haven’t seen myself since I was very, very small. I don’t have much memory of it.”
Turning back to Mineta, still struggling to get his costume on, Mina said, “I guess that’s probably a no then, which only leaves you with Pony from Class 1-B, and that’d be trouble for you because she’s literally hornier than you are!”
The volume of the collective, “Ooooohhhhh!” that ensued could be heard all the way outside in the hallway.
“The burn! The burn!” said Cyborg, putting on the last piece of his superheroic ensemble: two silvery rings, one on each middle finger.
“Hahaha! It’s funny cuz it’s true!” Pony Tsunotori said, being a very good sport about things as she tapped both her horns with both her fingers.
“Mina, stop! The little guy’s been cooked enough!” Ben said between laughter.
“No. No he hasn’t,” said Kendo, fastening her attire’s corset. “In fact, I’ll have you and the other exchange students know that he holds the school record for the most smacks ever given to a boy by yours truly for his lecherous behavior.”
And then almost everyone, especially the Legionnaires, pointed and laughed at Mineta’s humiliation.
After his fill of Grape Juice roasting, Kaminari helped Mineta get properly suited up (though not without much effort and frustration on both their parts) and helped him get back on his feet.
With that, everyone in Classes 1-A and 1-B, local and Legionnaire alike, was finally dressed to impress, and ready to go.
“I think we should split up into fireteams of three,” Midoriya said, cracking his knuckles. “That way, each person has two backup people, and one of them can run if necessary to summon help!”
“Yeah, but that leaves out one person to basically do nothing in each squad!” Kaminari said.
“Not exactly,” the broccoli teen said. “One person will be the ears and eyes of the group!”
“You…are a genius,” Mikey said.
“No, it's pretty simple, really! I didn’t do anything special…honest!”
“Wait though. I like that idea, but for me personally, I would want the outlying person to be the one coordinating the others,” Spidey said, putting a hand on his chin. “He or she could also be the one to step in as a fourth hand if things got tough.”
Izuku ran the specs in his brain and said with a nod, “That would be advantageous. Very well. Let’s do that!”
“But wait, doesn't your lame, heavily 1-A weighted squad have eleven? Isn’t that cheating? How selfishly 1-A of you,” said Neito.
Spidey, grumbling in slight annoyance, said, hands up defensively, “Hey man, don't be getting all up in my grille. It’s not my fault you ran off while we were voting because no one voted for you to be a squad lead.”
“Yeah, Neito. Even for you, that was pretty petty,” said Kendo, hands on hips.
“Bah! I already told you all it wasn’t that, but simply because I just couldn’t stand being subjected to the foul stench of 1-A anymore after school hours!”
“Yeah. Sure, bud,” Spidey began, rolling his eyes. “And I guess for you, denial is more than just a river in Egypt.”
“Is that supposed to be some sort of English pun? Because I assure you, baka 1-A gaijin, it does not work in Japanese!” Neito up turned his nose at him. “Just like your squad having one extra person does not work if you’re trying to be fair to all the rest!”
“Well, we couldn’t actually help that because there’s an odd number of us between both classes nowadays,” said Izuku, shrugging.
“Yeah man. Don’t be hatin’ on the players now,” said Static.
“Be hatin’ on the game,” said Spyke.
“Or gamemaster Nezu for divvying up the influx of exchange students so that 1-A and 1-B altogether had an odd number of students.”
Suddenly, the intercom crackled to life, and Principle Nezu’s voice interrupted with, “There will no hating of your grorious principle! He is far cuter and smarter than the average dog-mouse-bear, and thusly deserving of your adoration and/or admiration and not your ire! That is all.”
Cyclops turned and whispered into Rogue’s ear, “Please don’t try him. I know what your cover story says you did, but please oh please oh please don’t try him.”
Whispering back, Rogue said, “Wasn’t gonna, hun. Wasn’t gonna. Nezu made himself real loud and clear the last time.”
Everyone took a good ten seconds to get over their shock from that reminder for many of them of the power and influence Nezu had on school grounds.
When it was over, Spidey just shrugged at Neito’s point and said, “Eh. Oh well. Guess squad-1 gets to have its leader hang back and play director AND someone else play recon duty.”
“But that’s not–”
Spidey, tiring greatly from Neito’s bloviating and grandstanding and general derailment of things, had enough. He blasted a web at Neito’s gaping maw mid-sentence, the silken strands keeping him from opening his mouth to do naught but mumble in surprise, fear, and then frustration not matter how hard he tagged with any or both of his arms.
“Shush chatty monkey!” Spidey said, shushing Neito with his pointer finger. “This kiddy conversation is over, done, finito. The curtain is closed. The crowd has gone home. There is no more pizza at the parlor–sorry turtles and everyone else from NYC. Now get out of my hair, get back to your own squad, and while you're at it, go into the corner and think about what you’ve done young man!”
Neito stood his ground and tried to form a comeback.
That was until Kendo sighed, stepped up, and pulled him by the ear with one of her big hands back to Robin. “Come on, let’s go, Neito. Stop embarrassing yourself in front of this clearly better leader than you’ll ever be. We don’t want him or all the other foreigners thinking that we’re all like this. Plus, I don’t think they want your particular brand of stupid rubbing off on them.”
As Neito’s grumbling quieted down in sad resignation, Froppy and Toad looked on at Spidey with newfound appreciation after that rousing display of leadership.
“Wow. I’m glad that guy’s my squad leader. Giru, giru.”
“Babe, you and me both.”
Leonardo had his hand on his chin, and said contemplatively, “A three-man fire team works for your team, but I’m just concerned that three men might not be enough to cover the grounds for say, the Tokyo squads, or even my squad safely. What if instead of three man fireteams, we have five-man? That way, we can cover more ground in the bigger areas without spreading ourselves too thin?”
“Smart idea,” AcroBat said. “Except, I liked the three man squad, so I’ll stick to that. I work better coordinating smaller teams anyway.”
The other leaders determined for themselves which method they would use. The groups were soon quickly and properly formed as the squads filed out in orderly fashion out the door. The only one not in favor of having ANYONE at his back…
Was Katsuki Bakugo.
It took five of his squad to drag him kicking and screaming away with them. At least until they remembered they had A-Bomb and surrendered Bakugo duty to him, the big blue bruiser football (American and true) carrying him kicking and screaming even more out the door while the rest of the students all chuckled, groaned, or simply shook their heads. There was no saving the fact that Bakugo would always fancy himself a one-man-army. Emphasis on ‘one-man’.
The rest of the heroic groups, thankfully, were all eager to do their duties (even Mineta, if only because it would take his mind off of losing his new moped) and leapt into action to their respective districts like fire from Endeavor was on their tails.
The button was pressed. The lockers slid out of the walls and pushed open, revealing an array of briefcases with different numbers on them corresponding to the seat number of a given student. The locals instantly took theirs as if on instinct, dashing into the locker room belonging to their respective gender to suit up. The Legionaries were slower in their motions yet no less enthusiastic.
Izuku tossed Peter his costume and dashed with him to the boys’ lockers to get ready. A red sweatshirt with sewn-in kevlar accents and a spider decalled on soon covered the latter’s torso, a ninja/robber style cowl slipping over his face. Blue sweatpants were fitted over legs set to deliver butt-kicking blows, and Nikey-escue shoes with added support and armor colored red and white were tied onto his feet. Red and white gloves were fitted to his hands, the final piece of the sketch.
Izuku finished putting his costume on and looked at Tobey in pride before geeking out, Midoriya style.
“Do you have any hidden tech? Do you have enhanced soles for your shoes? Are you fireproof? Are you stab proof? Are you bulletproof? Do you have enhancements that improve your bio-organic webbing? Tell me everything!!!”
“Kaeru-san! Hold me! I’m scared! Deku-chan is doing Deku-chan things again!” said Froppy, leaning into Toad’s awaiting and very willing arms.
“Don’t worry babe, I gotcha. The big, bad mumble text can’t get you now.”
“Geru.”
Ben grumbled a few feet away as he finished putting the teal visor for his own superhero outfit based off his old Ultra Ben design he’d first dreamt up when he was a kid on that fateful summer vacation. “Grrrrr… lucky amphibian. Scoring the cutest, most awedorable chick in class.”
Ben, seething to the point where smoke would have come out of his ears if he had the requisite Quirk, anxiously ran his fingers through the black CF emblazoned on the shield on his costume’s chest.
Mikey, decked out in an orange variant of his Turtle Titan outfit (with some improvements for durability and a KO on his chest instead of a TT) put a three-fingered hand on the seething teen’s shoulder. “Hey, dude, don’t take it so hard. Some of us guys just have higher standards for the ladies, and they can’t take it!”
“Are you trying to make me feel better?”
“Depends, dude. Is it working?”
Ben sighed and threw down his head low. As he did though, he caught a glimpse of Mina putting on the finishing touches of her costume, her glorified and somewhat low cut bathing suit with pant legs and fur collar around the neck. His face blushed when, after having finished putting on her burgundy and gold combat boots, she noticed him looking, waved, and winked. Smiling a bit, Ben said, “Yeah. Maybe a little.”
Sero chuckled nearby, before ribbing Luke, the powerful man having gotten ready lickity split because of the simplicity of his hero suit and having joined the group in 1-A’s dressing room. “Well, I see love is in the air more than danger. Hope those two can stick to their assignments, eh?”
Luke Cage chuckled next to him in his Street Shield attire, which consisted of a sleeved yellow shirt with a plunging v-line showing off his manly muscles and a solid gold chain with the letters SS emblazoned on a gold shield, silvery bracelets around his wrists, ocean blue jeans, silvery chain-link belt around his waist that did nothing but hold his pants up, yellow cuffed combat boots, and silvery circlet adorning his head attached to a big faux ‘fro on top that held many advanced pieces of communications equipment bundled together.
Despite the relative simplicity of his undercover superhero attire, it actually took him longer than one would think to put it on because Mei from the support course had invented the thing and she would not leave him alone jawing about how glorious her baby was as she gingerly put it on his head and poked, prodded, activated, and deactivated things to give him a primer on exactly how said baby worked. It took the intervention of Gear and an explosion to finally tear her away long enough for him to make a prompt escape out the door of 1-B and to 1-A to assemble with the rest of Squad-1.
“Man, in my experience, those two are liable to cause all kinds of trouble making kissy faces at each other.”
“Indeed. Love is a distraction. Distraction leads to mistakes. Mistakes lead to death,” Iron Fist said as he finished putting on his outfit closeby, which looked more like a stereotypical ninja outfit, more aligned with what Scorpion wore to New York, and less like his recognizable hero attire.
“I’m just glad they ain’t on our team this time,” said Luke.
“Me too!” said Sero.
The two attempted to high five each other in agreement, but it ended with Luke accidentally knocking Sero flat on his bum on the ground.
“Uh… sorry. My own strength… sometimes I don’t know it…”
“I can attest,” said Danny, helping Sero up. Looking at Luke again, he said, “I told you that you needed to train your strength so your allies would not end up next to your enemies in hospice.”
“Ahhhhh! Maybe you should have told him louder! Like, seriously! I think I might need to see Recovery Girl to literally kiss my ass to make it better! Gahhhh that hurts! Ow!”
“With him, I need not to increase my volume. He must increase his ability to practice disciprine.”
Jiro rolled her eyes at Ben and turned to Raven, and sighed. “I don’t look forward to working with these morons….Honestly, Mineta has poisoned them all with his lecherous ways.”
“Sadly, I can safely say he hasn’t. He’s only… emboldened them.”
“That doesn’t make my point any less true, at least generally.”
“No. It only shows he used what was already there to start.”
“MY NEW MOPED BLEW UP AND IT'S TERRIBLEEEEEE! HOW AM I SUPPOSED TO GET MY HAREM NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOW!” Mineta shouted as he rushed into the class, late as a certain Ferris Bueller on his famous day off, his eyes all ocular gushers.
“And I rest my case,” said Raven, dryly.
The little midget rushed in and in a flurry of dust that thankfully covered up his entire body and prevented anyone from seeing him, he hurriedly put on his super suit. The problem was that he was moving with such haste that he wound up with his tea cup pants on his head, his purple body suit backwards, his yellow boots on his hands, his yellow gloves on his feet, and his yellow scarf-cape around his forehead like an oversized and misplaced headband.
“Ah! Someone please, help me! Help me! I need a hero! I’m holding out for a hero till the end of the night! Specifically a woman hero, please! And she’s gotta be hot and she’s gotta cook well and she’s gotta be busty and blonde! Busty and blonde!”
Mina danced to the impromptu take on a Bonnie Tyler classic, and when it was over said, “Sorry. all the blondes in Class 1-A are all dudes, dude. Unless Toru’s secretly a blonde.” She looked over at said invisible girl, decked out only in boots and gloves which would have been really scary to the more superstitious amongst the students if they didn’t know about her and her Quirk. “Hey Toru!”
“Yes?”
“You secretly a blonde?”
“I don’t know. I haven’t seen myself since I was very, very small. I don’t have much memory of it.”
Turning back to Mineta, still struggling to get his costume on, Mina said, “I guess that’s probably a no then, which only leaves you with Pony from Class 1-B, and that’d be trouble for you because she’s literally hornier than you are!”
The volume of the collective, “Ooooohhhhh!” that ensued could be heard all the way outside in the hallway.
“The burn! The burn!” said Cyborg, putting on the last piece of his superheroic ensemble: two silvery rings, one on each middle finger.
“Hahaha! It’s funny cuz it’s true!” Pony Tsunotori said, being a very good sport about things as she tapped both her horns with both her fingers, having just entered the Class 1-A lockers.
“Mina, stop! The little guy’s been cooked enough!” Ben said between laughter.
“No. No he hasn’t,” said Kendo, fastening her attire’s corset as she walked in. “In fact, I’ll have you and the other exchange students know that he holds the school record for the most smacks ever given to a boy by yours truly for his lecherous behavior.”
And then almost everyone, especially the Legionnaires, pointed and laughed at Mineta’s humiliation.
After his fill of Grape Juice roasting, Kaminari helped Mineta get properly suited up (though not without much effort and frustration on both their parts) and helped him get back on his feet.
With that, everyone in Classes 1-A and 1-B, local and Legionnaire alike, was finally dressed to impress, assembled, and ready to go.
“I think we should split up into fireteams of three,” Midoriya said, cracking his knuckles. “That way, each person has two backup people, and one of them can run if necessary to summon help!”
“Yeah, but that leaves out one person to basically do nothing in each squad!” Kaminari said.
“Not exactly,” the broccoli teen said. “One person will be the ears and eyes of the group!”
“You…are a genius,” Mikey said.
“No, it's pretty simple, really! I didn’t do anything special…honest!”
“Wait though. I like that idea, but for me personally, I would want the outlying person to be the one coordinating the others,” Spidey said, putting a hand on his chin. “He or she could also be the one to step in as a fourth hand if things got tough.”
Izuku ran the specs in his brain and said with a nod, “That would be advantageous. Very well. Let’s do that!”
“But wait, doesn't your lame, heavily 1-A weighted squad have eleven? Isn’t that cheating? How selfishly 1-A of you,” said Neito.
Spidey, grumbling in slight annoyance, said, hands up defensively, “Hey man, don't be getting all up in my grille. It’s not my fault you ran off while we were voting because no one voted for you to be a squad lead.”
“Yeah, Neito. Even for you, that was pretty petty,” said Kendo, hands on hips.
“Bah! I already told you all it wasn’t that, but simply because I just couldn’t stand being subjected to the foul stench of 1-A anymore after school hours!”
“Yeah. Sure, bud,” Spidey began, rolling his eyes. “And I guess for you, denial is more than just a river in Egypt.”
“Is that supposed to be some sort of English pun? Because I assure you, baka 1-A gaijin, it does not work in Japanese!” Neito up turned his nose at him. “Just like your squad having one extra person does not work if you’re trying to be fair to all the rest!”
“Well, we couldn’t actually help that because there’s an odd number of us between both classes nowadays,” said Izuku, shrugging.
“Yeah man. Don’t be hatin’ on the players now,” said Static.
“Be hatin’ on the game,” said Spyke.
“Or gamemaster Nezu for divvying up the influx of exchange students so that 1-A and 1-B altogether had an uneven number of students.”
Suddenly, the intercom crackled to life, and Principle Nezu’s voice interrupted with, “There will no hating of your grorious principle! He is far cuter and smarter than the average dog-mouse-bear, and thusly deserving of your adoration and/or admiration and not your ire! That is all.”
Cyclops turned and whispered into Rogue’s ear, “Please don’t try him. I know what your cover story says you did, but please oh please oh please don’t try him.”
Whispering back, Rogue said, “Wasn’t gonna, hun. Wasn’t gonna. Nezu made himself real loud and clear the last time.”
Everyone took a good ten seconds to get over their shock from that reminder for many of them of the power and influence Nezu had on school grounds.
When it was over, Spidey just shrugged at Neito’s point and said, “Eh. Oh well. Guess squad-1 gets to have its leader hang back and play director AND have someone else on recon duty.”
“But that’s not–”
Spidey, tiring greatly from Neito’s bloviating and grandstanding and general derailment of things, had enough. He blasted a web at Neito’s gaping maw mid-sentence, the silken strands keeping him from opening his mouth. The 1-B supremacist could naught but mumble in surprise, fear, and then frustration because he couldn’t pull the webbing off no matter how hard he tugged with any or both of his arms.
“Shush, chatty monkey!” Spidey said, shushing Neito with his pointer finger. “This kiddy conversation is over, done, finito. The curtain is closed. The crowd has gone home. There is no more pizza at the parlor because the kitchen just got shut down by order of the fire marshal and Gordon Ramsay–sorry turtles and everyone else from NYC. Now get out of my hair, get back to your own squad, and while you're at it, go into the corner and think about what you’ve done, young man!”
Neito stood his ground and tried to form a comeback.
That was until Kendo sighed, stepped up, and pulled him by the ear with one of her big hands back to Robin. “Come on, let’s go, Neito. Stop embarrassing yourself in front of this clearly better leader than you’ll ever be. We don’t want him or all the other foreigners thinking that we’re all like this. Plus, I don’t think they want your particular brand of stupid rubbing off on them.”
As Neito’s grumbling quieted down in sad resignation, Froppy and Toad looked on at Spidey with newfound appreciation after that rousing display of leadership.
“Wow. I’m glad that guy’s in charge of something. Giru, giru.”
“Babe, you and me both.”
Leonardo had his hand on his chin, and said contemplatively, “A three-man fire team works for your team, but I’m just concerned that three men might not be enough to cover the grounds for say, the Tokyo squads, or even my squad safely. What if instead of three man fireteams, we have five-man? That way, we can cover more ground in the bigger areas without spreading ourselves too thin?”
“Smart idea,” AcroBat said. “Except, I liked the three man squad, so I’ll stick to that. I work better coordinating smaller teams anyway.”
The other leaders determined for themselves which method they would use. The groups were soon quickly and properly formed as the squads filed out in orderly fashion out the door of the 1-A lockers. The only one not in favor of having ANYONE at his back…
Was Katsuki Bakugo.
It took five of his squad to drag him kicking and screaming away with them. At least until they remembered they had A-Bomb and surrendered Bakugo duty to him, the big blue bruiser football (American and true) carrying him kicking and screaming even more out the door while the rest of the students all chuckled, groaned, or simply shook their heads. There was no saving the fact that Bakugo would always fancy himself a one-man-army. Emphasis on ‘one-man’.
The rest of the heroic groups, thankfully, were all eager to do their duties (even Mineta, if only because it would take his mind off of losing his new moped) and leapt into action to their respective districts like fire from Endeavor was on their tails.
MHA-TTT-MHA-TTT-MHA-TTT-MHA-TTT-MHA-TTT-MHA-TTT
“I am living my dream!” Punch Buggy said to the less-enthusiastic Khaji-Da as he flew over and through the streets of Osaka with Shemage riding on his back and Marvel Girl levitating beside him.
“What’s that, Lopez-san?!” Shemage called as she held on for dear life with her arms around his neck as his creepy, membranous, insectoid wings flapped close to either side of her head, causing her honey brown hair to flap wildly in the wind.
“I’m surrounded by muchas chicas calientes!”
“What was that last part?! I’m sorry! I didn’t catch it! I’m still an English noob!”
“It’s not English, it’s Spanish,” Marvel Girl called.
“Oh! I like sombreros! I love sombreros! They look like mushrooms without any stems, but that’s as far as I know the language!”
“He said he’s surrounded by lots of hot chicks!”
“Oh!” Shemage said before doing a double take. “Oh… I see how it is. Looks like we really do have ourselves a gaijin Mineta on our caps!”
“He didn’t mean it like that!”
“What if I did?!” Punch Buggy turned back and gave Shemage and Marvel Girl both a playful wink and several over the top comedic kissy-faces.
“Eric! I’m trying to help you out here!”
“No need. This blue cherub seeks to surround himself with knowledge. We should grant him his dream, so long as his heart remains pure and uncorrupted. Unlike the purple one,” Vine said as she used her hair to propel herself on the ground and caught up to Buggy, positioning herself directly below him. She suddenly frowned and closed her eyes, stopping to regard something. “There are children in great pain nearby. They have been uprooted, the poor dears. Watering the ground in red and fire, and crying tears of destruction.”
“What?!” Punch Buggy demanded.
Rule stopped running, looking towards where the green-haired vine queen was turned, and frowned as well. “She said there’s something causing trouble nearby and people are getting hurt….and from the sounds of that crowd over there, I think it's a pretty big something!”
There was an explosion and a ringing alarm, and people screaming as a putrid smell filled the air. A nasty tentacle the color of olive snot was just visible from the ground.
But from the air…
“Oh… that’s just disgusting,” said Marvel Girl.
“Like, totally grody to the max!” said Phaser.
“Make’s Kaeru’s slime look like Mississippi mud pie!” said Mimic.
“Wait… you guys eat mud pies in Mississippi?” asked Emily.
“Hmmm… I wonder what that tastes like…” said Pinky absentmindedly.
“No wonder I hear your state is dead last in virtually every metric if it's putting mud in its pies and eating them. Your kinsmen should make more mille-feuille like properly civilized people,” said Creati with an upturned nose.
Mimic fumed silently and seriously contemplated avenging that besmirchment against her birth and home state (and subsequently all the good boys and gals back in Caldecott County) while Creati was distracted looking down on her and her kin.
But then she thought better of it since that would mean she had to touch the stuck up, seriously plunging v-neck tart. Plus, to use her stinkin’ powers, Mimic would have to get fat like Creati. “Stupid creek. Why’d ya have to go and rise like that?”
“Is that even human? Even a mutant? What is that thing?” asked Punch Buggy.
“Indeed it is, Jaime Reyes. But no normal human or mutant,” Khaji-Da said in his mind.
“Oh no…..” Creati gasped in sudden realization when her nose and eyes were level with the ground again. “It can’t be….It’s the sludge monster! Deku and Bakugo nearly lost their lives to that monstrosity on national TV, and now, it’s somehow grown well over sixteen meters tall! We have to alert the pros! NOW! We can’t engage--”
“--This thing? Psssh.” Punch Buggy waved aside her concern, Shemage slapping him hard on the helmet as his sudden motions almost made her lose her grip on him. “We could all smudge out this sludge in about–”
“Eleven minutes, Jaime Reyes. Twenty-two if you all play with your food and trip over yourselves. Like I sadly calculate you will.”
“Eleven minutes! Twenty-two if we pussyfoot around and can’t coordinate well!”
“It took All-Might a while, and he has a hundred percent more strength and experience than all of us combined! And now it's about five stories tall! Don’t you understand?! We shouldn’t put ourselves in unnecessary danger!” Creati insisted.
Punch Buggy was about to argue further with his squad leader, when Khaji-Da suddenly interjected in his head with, “Jaime Reyes, I suggest you take cover.”
“What? Why?”
“What do you mean, why? I just said!” Creati called up.
Grumbling at his forgetfulness not to air his grievances with the scarab’s AI aloud, Jaime listened as Khaji-Da said, “Because in approximately ten seconds of me finishing this sentence, that coal plant ahead of us will explode. Nine seconds. Eight seconds. Seven–”
Punch Buggy’s eyes widened.
“Vine! Shield us! Now!”
“Protect your children Oh higher beings!” The vines covered over the group in a domelike shield, absolutely impenetrable from the outside, Punch Buggy plus his local ride along and Marvel Girl rushing to get inside before it snapped shut like a verdant maw and left them without cover.
When the ground stopped shaking, Vine retracted her namesake foliage enough at the front for the squad to safely file out but to still be able to retreat within the lush green safety of the dome if need be.
Creati took point and was about to say something once she looked back and saw that the last squaddie, Shemage, was out. But then, a sign flew out of the air and landed in a shower of dust in front of her, startling her and making her leap back in fright and almost knock her and Emily over because the Poltergeist Quirk wielder was so close behind and mid stride at the moment.
Thankfully, with a little split second help from her power–which involved her telekinetically shoving Phaser, the next squaddie in line, closer to her and telekinetically bracing the foreign exchange student’s stance–Emily was able to hold herself and Creati up at the last second and prevent a literal domino effect from taking the whole squad down before a fight had even begun to break out.
That was nice of Class 1-B’s resident ‘spooky one,’ even if Phaser grumbled at suddenly being used as a human phone rest without her permission.
All thoughts of trying to defuse any accidental flare ups in her squad’s figurative tension meter by explaining the situation and taking the heat off Emily for her knee jerk spontaneity soon went right out the proverbial window of Creati’s mind, however. For it was then that she caught a better look at the true culprit that had made her literally recoil in fear in the first place.
The sign.
It was utterly mangled, all the other words eligible, except for…
YAOYOROZU INDUSTRIES
“Oh HELL NO!” came her immediate, incandescently incensed, response. “Disregard everything I said before! This snot rocket is about to be wiped from the face of earth!” She created a lipid cannon, and several exploding grenades to go inside it, filling it to the brim. “Even if I have to send him straight back to Tartarus myself!”
Wide eyes abounded in the squad at the sheer heat and venom in her tone of voice.
“Uhhhhh… girl… not that I don’t love this quick change of attitude of yours to pieces or nuthin, but don’t that seem a mighty bit… harsh?” asked Mimic.
“It’s a prison, you uncultured, southron, yankee hick!” Creati shouted, finishing up the last second adjustments to the cannon’s firing arc along with the final mental calculations for its firing solution. “We’re not going to kill him, just make him hurt! A lot! Get it?!”
A collection of gasps, several instances of ‘Oh no she didn’t!’, and a few ‘Ooooohhhhhh!’s rang out amidst the rest of squad-7.
“Okay now, see, all the rest of that smack I could just turn the other cheek and take on the chin. But calling ME of all folks a yankee?! A yankee!” Mimic threw her fists in the air in a fit. “Them's pretty big fightin’ words comin’ from a tramp peacockin’ ‘round half naked with hair on her head out here lookin’ like a crane’s butt!”
More gasps, several instances of ‘What a clapback!’ and a few ‘Preach it sista!’s were uttered by the others.
“That’s crane’s tailfeathers, you crass, common, boorish, fashionably challenged, ignoramus,” Creati said with a cold calmness that surprised everyone, not even dignifying Mimic by looking at her direction even once. She smirked, finally getting the giant snot rocket that was her true focus right where she wanted him. “Now how’s about you kindly shove a mud pie down your pie hole and shut up already and get ready to fight?”
The remainder of the squad could barely contain themselves, this unforeseen verbal drama between the two was reaching such a fever pitch. Vine even swooned from the intensity of the trash talking and fainted backwards onto Marvel Girl, who caught the melodramatic chlorokinetic girl and awkwardly patted her head to get her to calm down, rolling her eyes all the while.
Mimic, of course, had by this point reached the apogee, nay, the apex of apoplexia.
“You prissy, stuck up bi–”
Just then, Creati lit the fuse and all of the ten grenades in the cannon were launched like a steel rain upon the sludge villain as he sauntered slowly out of the ruins of the coal plant. Doubtlessly, he expected zero resistance to blowing up a vital piece of municipal infrastructure run by her family’s company since nothing in his rampage had likely even dared to challenge him at this point.
He was sorely mistaken, his head splattering every which way into so many splotches of whatever dark green, mud-like substance made up his form’s make up as Creati scored a bullseye with all the explosive projectiles she propelled downrange on his disgusting, amorphous face.
A predatory, downright sadistic smile graced said squad lead’s features as the badguy’s rounded, sickly yellow eyes reformed alongside the rest of his grim, grimey visage and fell squarely on her and her nine squadmates.
“That’s right, baka!” she yelled at it in defiance. “You liked that taste of mama’s home cooking, huh?! Well then get over here and get some more lipids in your diet, ugly!”
“Jaime Reyes, if you were ever so lucky as to acquire a life-mate from this SHIELD initiated misadventure, the Creati meat has just shot up to be the ideal candidate. I know how much you prefer bossy, daring, and passionate females.”
“Not now, Khaji!” Punch Buggy loudly thought in his head.
Though he kept his words internal, he could not stop an angry grimace from forming on his face. This naturally confused most of the rest of his feminine compatriots except for Mimic, Marvel Girl, and Phaser, who, knowing full well of the alien AI he frequently conversed with, only feigned confusion to maintain their covers, and by extension his. Though, for the first of that trio of X-Men Legionnaires, she also did it to prevent herself from doing something she’d probably live to regret to Creati. Something especially bad in light of all ten of them now having the full attention of the blobby monstrosity and the likely fact things were soon to get real, real quick.
When Punch Buggy realized his little slip up–and that the sludge villain had finally stopped just standing there menacingly giving them all the literal stink eye, now charging their position at full steam–he sighed and shook his head. “Gonna be a long day.”
“Yet perhaps if you play your cards right, you can endear yourself enough to the Creati meat to eventually sufficiently woo her to have the love, marriage, and babies in the baby carriage you so desperately–”
“Khaji!”
MHA-TTT-MHA-TTT-MHA-TTT-MHA-TTT-MHA-TTT-MHA-TTT
Hosu.
Iida thought he was ready to face the district again. He thought he had grown mature enough to step foot here without a bad taste in his mouth and a knife stabbing him over and over in his very soul.
His shaking knees and reluctance to run at the moment told him otherwise.
As he stood lost in a vision of blood and helplessness, a warm hand slipped into his own. He glanced down, helmet off, to find Uravity looking up at him with her large, kind eyes. No words needed to take flight, yet so much was said.
He smiled at the small gesture and replaced his helmet. Ingenium then raised his hand for the group of ten to pay attention.
“Split into two and spread out, all of you! Remember, you are from the UA Campus, so conduct yourselves as such! NOW GO! GO!”
With that, Iida took off at breakneck pace, his own team consisting of Uraraka, Rocketti, Kame Akai, and Creature Feature as Terraspin not far behind in a staggered column.
Battle Fist’s team took a more perpendicular and westerly direction, Sunrise, Lucky Girl, White Monkey, and Tetsutetsu following close in an arrowhead formation with the Big Fist Quirk user taking point.
“Help! Help me! I’m falling! Someone please! HELP!!!” cried a poor woman as she hung by her fingertips to a windowsill nearest Battlefist’s team.
Ingenium’s group, meanwhile, had their hands full dealing with a gang of Stain Supporters. A crowd of them. Fifteen to be exact… and none of them Quirkless.
Ingenium quickly placed Uravity on crowd control duty, the fundamental force wielder quickly running to cordon off the area and ensure no innocent bystanders were in the vicinity or would be in the vicinity.
Thankfully, though they were down a member, the remainder of the group still had two turtles with them to act as shields with which to rely on. Even if one wasn’t a teenage mutant ninja, but a teenage mystic alien instead.
“Remember, these are just misguided civilians, not arch villains,” Ingenium instructed firmly. “Try not to hurt them too badly. UA doesn’t need the lawsuits and we don’t need to be arrested for assault and manslaughter. Pull your punches!”
“Buddy, I’ve been doing that since I was thirteen,” said Kame Akai, withdrawing his sais and twirling them around like they was drumsticks and he was Phil Collins. He expertly caught a knife in one of his weapon’s yoku (a prong on either side of the blade), disarmed the Stain Lover, and sent him flying unconscious into a trash can with a kick to the sternum.
“Oh yeah? Well I’ve been doing that since I was ten!” said Terraspin, pointing a flipper at his own shell-covered chest as three of the Stain Supporters tried desperately in vain to hurt him with the baseball bats and Quirks they wielded as he just stood there and ignored them.
“Oh yeah? Well I’ve been training to do that since I was five!” Kame Akai said before leaping over a Stain Lover rushing him from the side, landing, and sweep kicking the rotund man off his feet and into a restless sleep on the ground once his head hit it. “Regular Spartans plus two years extra, me and my bros!”
“Terrapins! Please concentrate!” Ingenium said as he kicked three knife-wielding ruffians away from their ambush of Kame Akai. “These people will not wait for your banter before attacking!”
“Awww! But that’s half the fun of fighting!” said Terraspin before casually cutting through all three baseball bats futilely assailing him with a swipe of a flipper and then knocking all three of the baseball bat wielders into a pain induced sleep into a nearby wall with a casual swipe of his other flipper.
“Yeah! Getting your kicks conversatin’ is dank!” said Kame Akai, grabbing onto a crowbar wielding Stain Fanatic’s hands midswing, stopping him, and then forcing his hands back to effectively hit the criminal himself with said crowbar until he collapsed.
“Boys, it don’t matter how moist it is! Y’all are just wastin’ valuable breath and time yappin’! Didn’t your teachers stateside ever teach that in your hero courses?” Rocketti said annoyed, ramming into a perp who was trying to honeyglaze her teammates.
The horned heroes’ hallowed attempt to keep her team nice and safe and free of being covered in any foodstuffs went well until one of the people decided to inject themselves with Trigger and flood the entire area with melted butter. “Slide away, FAKE HEROES!” she said as half the group got caught in the hot, yellow waterfall that both drenched them and pushed them out of the alley.
“NO!” Ingenium groaned, slipping and sliding all over the place, eventually falling into the oily mess. “My Quirk is useless without traction!”
“Bah!” said Kame Akai, spitting out copious amounts of the butter, his two toed feet likewise unable to get a surefire enough grip to stop every attempt of his to stand up from ending with the butter soaked ground. “And I can’t believe it IS butter!”
“Creature Feature!” Rocketti called, leaping on his back. “Let’s rustle these varmints up a flyby! You fly, I shoot!”
Terraspin smirked. “All my years of playing Halo have prepared me for this exact moment. I’m OVERQUALIFIED and it feels so good!”
Like a jet-powered turtle-copter on the attack, Creature Feature leapt into the sky, zooming around the area, flippers spinning around at insane speed with the horn hero he carried rapidly spamming missiles of keratin at the now fleeing fanatics.
“Yeah, you best git along now, lil dawgies!” she hollered, her true Tennessee accent on full blast as she pumped her fists in the air. “YEEEHAW!”
Terrapin landed…and sunk.
“What the…??”
“Shoo! You’re sinkin’! Who’s doin’ that?” Rocketti asked, looking around. She leaped off him and rode a horn away just in case.
“Hahahahaha! It is I! The Hero Binder: Repave!” said a Stain Supporter coming out from the shadows. He was a big (by Japanese standards), burly man in tattered and soot covered construction worker garb minus the standard steel toed boots or socks or anything at all over his bare feet. “And I will repave this entire alley way so that there are no more fake heroes and cleanse it from all you selfish, money grubbing, self-righteous–”
A second was all it took Uravity, fresh from crowd control duty, to flip him over and pin him to the ground. “GUNHAND MARTIAL ARTS!” she growled as she introduced the fanatic to his much-loved asphalt…painfully. Once she had him down, he started begging.
“Let me go!”
“Okay!” she Engrished, activating her Quirk and throwing him in the air where he flew…indefinitely.
His lack of connection with the ground made the molten asphalt surrounding Terraspin reharden to normal, although Creature Feature was still left with only his head exposed above ground.
“Dunghead blastin’ off again…” Raf chuckled, pointing to the ascending Stain boot-licker ignoramus.
“Speaking of, mind helping me blast off again?” asked Terraspin. “I’d do it myself, but I don't exactly have the strength or leverage here.”
“Awww… the little horror movie marathon got himself stuck and gots to admit that he’s a beta male? Awww. Look at his little head,” Raphael teased as he poked Creature Feature on the head with the pommels of his sais.
“No… this form just isn’t strong or haxy enough to break out of asphalt from a stand still. Give me a couple inches though, and I’ll gladly show you how tough Terraspin is up close, Harry Pin.”
Uravity was concerned and ran to him. “How terrible! You poor thing…” She touched him then asked Rocketti to break up the asphalt so she could levitate it completely.
“Sure shootin’!” the horn hero said, firing four horns in a square around Terraspin. Using the strength of her control, she cut a nice circle using the sharp edges.
Once that was done, Uravity flung the entire Terraspin-asphalt doughnut into the air and brought him down hard enough that the ring shattered, but the turtle inside was just ducky.
“Thanks, Ochaco. Can I call you Ochaco?”
“Well sure. All my friends do.”
“Cool. You’re cool.” Creature Feature got up onto his back flippers and waved a front flipper up at Rocketti. “And so are you, Pony! Can I call you Pony?”
“Boy, I’m American. Why you even gotta be askin’?”
“Right. Silly me.” Terraspin smiled which, given his terrapin features, made him look like a kindly old grandpa, which naturally made the two female members of the team go: “Awwww!” He then looked at the red turtle with a frown and said, “And silly Akai over there for just standing around gawking at nothing.”
“Hey man, I was just along for the show,” Kame Akai said, getting out something stuck in his teeth with a sai. “Wish I had popcorn. And my smartphone. It was just too good. A real showstopper.”
Creature Feature sighed and said, “Ya know what? Just this once, I’m gonna risk it. Even if there is no biscuit.”
“What are you jawin’ off abo–”
Terraspin hovered in the air and blew out a rather strong gust of focussed wind targeted at Kame Akai. The red turtle’s smart and quick thinking and ninja reflexes let him duck to the ground and embed his sais there, thus keeping himself in place as the wind billowed.
However, this was exactly what Creature Feature expected, and Akai, being immobile as he was, could do nothing but take it as the melted butter from earlier was splashed all up in his face, coating him in the oily yellowness of utter humiliation. The wind was unrelenting, and soon, the wet savory slime covered him from head to toe, making him resemble raw tempura.
“Wow! Look everyone! He’s all ready to be fried and put on a stick!” Terraspin laughed. “A perfect Turtle Tempura dish!”
Ingenium finally got traction and ran up to the two of them. “Are all American heroes so unapologetically irreverent?”
“Hey! I resemble that remark!” said Rocketti.
“Not you! Shush! These two baffle me. We are heroes in training. We treat every single problem like it’s the most urgent thing at the moment, and even a simple rescue is treated with the utmost seriousness. But you two Americans treat everything like a game!”
He got very serious then, his eyes sad and lacking in any humor whatsoever. “I know this better than anyone. My brother was cut down in this very city, in that alleyway there.” He pointed to an adjacent dark corridor. “He can no longer walk. He passed his mantle to me, in his stead. I was nearly killed in that alley as well, trying to avenge him… overestimating myself.”
He paused to gesture to his hero outfit, the amount of pride and responsibility radiating from his body language. “When we put on these uniforms…we are saying to the villains that we mean business, and we’re telling civilians that they can count on us to keep them safe…that we’re serious about protecting them.”
He turned away, turning his head to face the two. “I’m not saying you shouldn’t enjoy yourselves. But try to conduct yourselves more like heroes…and less like selfish, impertinent teens.”
Uraraka patted him on the back, and followed him wordlessly as he resumed the patrol, leaving the two testudine exchange students to contemplate his words.
“You boys better sit here a spell and have a hard think about what y'all just heard,” the horn hero said as she mounted one of her horns and followed suit.
Alone now with Creature Feature, Kame Akai instantly had a flashback to when he, as Raphael, was run out of New York by a certain supervillain with a penchant for shredding things along with the rest of his family and his friends. The image of his brother on what he’d thought to be his deathbed in his darkest moments would not leave his mind.
Alone now with Kame Akai, Creature Feature instantly had a flashback to when he, as Ben Tennyson, was a ten year old boy traveling through New Mexico on the summer vacation of a lifetime before a D-tier rogue of his with a penchant for highway robbery almost put it to an abrupt end with a single blast of her laser and a large chunk of collapsed pump station roof. The image of his grandpa on what he’d thought to be his deathbed in his darkest moments would not leave his mind.
MHA-TTT-MHA-TTT-MHA-TTT-MHA-TTT-MHA-TTT-MHA-TTT
“I’m telling you man, she was a beaut! Amazing! Astonishing! Sensational! Spectacular! Superior! Ultimate! An all new, all different marvel!” Grape Juice bellowed as both he and The Human Spider (but really Spider-Man in disguise) and Earphone Jack and Deku sat on the ledge of a particular bluish-grey water tower atop a roof with a lot of history none of them were aware of except one of them.
Spider grumbled. He had hoped when he had made the general order to his squad to take a half hour break on this thankfully crime-free Friday morning, he’d have a nice, relaxing, and delicious Japanese breakfast in relative peace and quiet. And while the ad hoc breakfast sandwiches they’d constructed from the yakiniku, tamagoyaki, rice, and toast they had ordered were bangin’, Grape Juice’s conversation… was not.
“Uggghhh! Give it a rest already!” said Earphone Jack, annoyed, before becoming happy again by taking a bite out of her grand slammin’ breakfast.
“Yeah, man. It was just a moped. Not like it was a Bentley or, like, a certain spider themed mobile from my inspiration back home when he did that one stint of his in Boston.” Spidey took another bite of his samich and made the same look Grape Juice would at a beautiful woman in response.
“The Harem Humbuggy was my life! She was my pride! My joy! My inspiration! My Angel of Night! And the day! But mostly the night! My that-one-lady from Titanic! My entire reason for living!” Grape Juice could not hold back the wellspring that were his tears anymore. Fittingly enough given they were atop a water tower, he began the water works again like back at school, his eyes gushing like fire hoses down on the rooftop proper below.
“I thought women were,” said Deku, innocently, before also making all sorts of funny faces after taking a bite of his sandwich like the Human Spider.
“What a pathetic loser. I can’t believe I have to work next to him,” said Earphone Jack before making to take another bite of her sandwich to make herself happy again, only to bite on solid air and be resigned to being miserable because she’d already scarfed all the ad hoc deliciousness down.
“Minoru, buddy–can I call you Minoru? I heard your culture was super formal and uptight, so I’m not sure if we’re tight enough yet for me to use your first name…errr…given name.”
Grape Juice suddenly went as dry as San Antonio in a drought and casually shrugged, going, “Eh. It’s fine. I totally understand you Americans tend to be more chummy and friendly faster.” Then, he promptly went back to his ocular gushing.
Rolling his eyes, Spidey went, “Ohhhhh my goodness, this is gonna be like milking black widows.”
Earphone Jack reeled back with an expression that read, ‘Hol’ up!’
Deku raised a brow and looked weirded out. “Wait… you’ve milked THE Black Widow before? Or one of the other agents of the Red Room? Or–”
Grape Juice stopped crying on a dime again and asked, excitedly, “Yeah, Maguire-san! Tell us more! Tell us more!”
Spider, eyes widening in stunned realization, quickly put his hands up and shook them agitatedly, saying quickly, “What?! You thought I meant–no, no, no! Not the former Soviet secret agent turned superhero! Or her crazy ex-comrades! The spiders! The type of–”
Earphone Jack’s ears and her face suddenly perked up and she grounded her namesakes hanging from either earlobe against the rooftop water tower and went, “Guys! Shush! I’m picking something up!”
Everyone, even Grape Juice, regardless of their prior emotional states, sat in rapt attention and shifted gears into hero mode… even if the fresh picked hero really wished he could still shift into high gear on his glorified motor scooter.
“Where?” asked Spider, quickly stuffing the remainders of his samich in his mouth and pulling down the rest of his mask to fully cover the lower half of his face again.
“Don’t know the details yet. Attempting to triangulate exact coordinates. Eastbound… Near the…” Her eyes widened and she stood up dramatically. “Tatooin Shopping District!”
As soon as she said that, an explosion shook the ground, and smoke could be seen pluming up in the distance.
“How far?!” Deku asked, hurriedly scarfing down the rest of his samich much like Spidey.
“About two thousand meters–” Earphone Jack pointed in that direction. “Thataway!”
“Uhhhhh… approximately how much is that in blocks?” asked Spider, scratching his head.
“Uhhhhh… I dunno… around… ten, maybe? I think?” Earphone Jack said, shrugging.
Deku was already gone, having leapt into action instinctively when Earphone Jack had said the distance to Tatooin in metric.
Grape Juice sighed as the broccoli haired teen became a speck on the skyline. “Someone please curb his hero gene…PLEASE?!”
“Grape Juice my guy, frankly I wish you had Deku’s hero gene. I mean, wow! Look at him go! Took off like the Road Runner if he was green and almost as agile as yours truly!” He looked at Earphone Jack. “Kyoka–can I call you Kyoka?”
“Eh. Yeah. You’re not as annoying as most of the boys in my class, so I guess.”
Spider thumbed up. “Great. Kyoka, you stay here and tell the rest of the squad there’s a situation. Tell them to be on standby but stick to their sectors just in case something else crops up unless I say we need backup.”
“Gotcha.” Earphone Jack nodded.
Spider-Man turned to face where Deku had gone and went in after him at full speed, running, web slinging, parkouring, and doing everything he possibly could to build up speed and catch up to the immense head start his new green friend had over him.
Grape Juice for his part, merely shrugged and continued to casually munch on his only half eaten breakfast sandwich. “I guess I’ll just stay here and keep Jiro–” he swallowed a bite and smirked lecherously. “Company.”
“Nope!”
A webline grasped onto the back of Grape Juice’s teacup shorts and reeled him in with such force towards Spider as he thwipped his way through Mustufu that his sandwich was knocked out of his grasp and flipped through the air like a squarish coin made of beef, egg, rice, and bread. Flopping like a fish, he yelled out, “Ahhhhhh! I’m not a balloon! Why do I have a string on me?!”
“Because I’m not dumb enough to leave you alone with her, even if she could give you a serious buttkicking!”
“Ha! Don’t I know it!” Earphone Jack heartily agreed as she called out to him.
Swiftly, Grape Juice was pulled close enough to Spidey that the wall crawler was able to grab him and football (american and true) carry him underneath one of his arms.
More than a tad humiliated, but bigly hungry, Grape Juice said, “But my sandwich! My unexpected morning deliciousness! I never got to finish–”
Spidey casually thwipped the sandwich over, sticking it to the side of Grape Juice’s face.
“There! Finish up! And make it snappy! We’re on the clock, little buddy!”
“Awww… how am I supposed to eat this now? You got your sticky, disgusting white goo all over it! Why couldn’t you stick it to my balls! It would have stuck to my balls and I could have just as easily unstuck them!”
Spider sighed tiredly but in good spirits, struggling with all his might not to make a joke about how that sounded out of context and instead saying, “While I so want to pounce on the golden comedic setup you’ve hand wrapped for me, I’m just going to nod and say: yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes.”
Meanwhile, Deku was leaping from building to building, and used his comm to alert the rest of his fireteam exactly how to get to the location by the quickest route possible, while also saying he’d wait and observe before making any movements. Earphone Jack replied that he was not only to wait, but also that he couldn’t make any moves until the rest of the team got there, to which the analyst agreed.
However, his agreement nearly ran secondary to his instincts when people were seen screaming and running away from…
A Nomu.
He gripped his off-white gloves and grit his teeth, One-For-All’s power crackling around him as his nerves went taut. True to the plan, however, he did nothing but stand his ground and observe. He would wait, if the Nomu wasn’t hurting people. Which, for the moment, it didn’t seem interested in doing, not even turning to observe the screaming mobs that exited the district. This monster wasn’t paying attention to the civilians, but instead, seemed obsessed with the nearest department store, even rumbling repeatedly, “Too small…Too small….WHYyyyy Too small?! Get…right…SIZE!”
A Nomu…shopping?!
The Nomu were known to be virtually mindless, biological drones with multiple Quirks like He Who Must Not Be Named. They were monsters, programmed to destroy and cause chaos. They didn’t speak. They didn’t reason. They didn’t do anything they weren’t coded on a genetic level to do, and they most certainly did not SHOP!
“I’m looking at a possible level 3 threat here! Where are you guys?!” Deku hissed, crouching low to the ground, getting ready to spring. “The target is neutral for now, ignoring the civilians and concentrating on the merchandise, yet could be dangerous if not engaged immediately!”
“Need some extra hands, Deku?” Powerman asked. “My team is in the area!”
“It’s a small Nomu, medium threat level… for now. We’ll be ok for a good chunk of this engagement if we play our shogi tiles right,” was the response.
“Whyyyyy…Not right size?!” the Nomu asked, ripping off a stripey shirt in despair “Why?!….Need…Jeans!” It entered the next store over, but first toppled the first one with a savage punch. Deku gasped as a concrete chunk fell towards an old lady that couldn’t quite move fast enough to get out of the way.
Just as he was about to leap into action, The Human Spider cut in front of his line of sight, fresh picked hero in tow, and swung Grape Juice to smack the lady gently and just out of the way of the debris.
“I am NOT A BATTERING RAM EITHER!”
Spidey reeled him back into his grasp.
“Or a yoyo!”
Spider then ripped the webline off of Grape Juice’s teacup shorts and tossed it aside. The webline that is. Not the shorts. That would have been awkward.
Deku brought the Human Spider’s attention to the Nomu. “What do you make of that?” he asked as the purple/black monstrosity began trying on hats just beyond one of the store’s windows.
“NANI?!”
“I know right?! Strangest Nomu I ever saw. I don’t know whether to Smash it, or ask it to just shop somewhere else…like on Mars,” Deku said.
“Hmmm… that certainly is a bit of a pickle.”
“Uhhh, no, Spider-san. That’s a banana hat.”
“Uhhh, no, Deku, that’s a figure of a speech.”
“And a euphemism!” Grape Juice warbled, thumbs up. “But in the context Spider-san used it, it means problem.”
Deku nodded. “You’re the leader. I’ll follow your lead, Spider-san,” Deku said to The Human Spider, activating Full Cowl and getting ready for a fight. “Just be careful. The Nomu are unpredictable. It can have any combination of Quirks.”
Spider already knew full well the truth of that statement. The file SHIELD gave him and the other Legionnaires on Chenso Nomu was very thorough, even going so far as to mention in great detail the originally encountered Nomu that was strong enough to give Japan’s very own number one hero, Deku’s very own sensei, a run for his money.
Yet still… Spider had to agree with his broccoli haired chum’s assessment. Even if this Nomu was as high end as either of those two in terms of the damage it could cause, its temperament was… rather mild, all things considered. If this was a normal supervillain, it’d be fairly typical fodder by his experience. Not quite a one-two punch, but certainly a… three-four-five punch and a kick to the jaw for good measure.
“I don’t see its weaknesses,” Deku whispered. “Should we…try to talk to it? It speaks…maybe it can be reasoned with?”
“Or maybe we can appeal to its apparent… better nature?” Grape Juice asked, scratching his chin in thought.
“What?! Grape Juice, that’s crazy talk!” shouted Spider, disbelievingly. “I mean… look at it!”
“Yes. I am looking at it. It seems very… shapely, don’t you think? Dare I say… feminine even? And do you hear that tone in its voice? It is…” He smacked his lips and drooled a little. “Voluptuous.”
“Oh come on! That thing sounds like a demon!”
“Indeed. It sounds as if someone took a girl’s voice and put it through a filter to pitch it down and then made her swallow a bunch of tacks. But it’s still clear enough to be identifiably a girl’s voice. A voluptuous, girl’s voice.”
Spider growled, really wanting to drop his freshly picked cargo face first onto the asphalt beneath his feet. “Grape Juice, Grape Juice, Grape Juice… why couldn’t you be Blueberry Juice? Then you might actually be good for the well being of my brain.”
“But then I’d be too expensive in this economy and no one would suck me all up!”
Deku cringed and stepped away in disgust at that supposed clapback.
Spider merely sighed and, throwing caution to the wind, let go of Grape Juice and let him eat pavement without a care to give.
Not long after, the Nomu had gotten bored with the hats and was now trying on different Kimonos…or trying to anyway. Her head ripped through one and she wailed and tossed it away, where it landed on a car and frightened the driver so much it made him crash into a building nearby.
“Okay, that tears it! We’re going in with intent to tussle!” Spider commanded, rolling up his sleeves and stepping powerfully towards the current store the Nomu was in. “Deku, make sure that driver’s okay! I’m gonna–”
Deku held up an arm to stop The Human Spider from showing the bioengineered abomination why he was the emissary of hell too soon. “Actually, Spider-san, I think Grape Juice here has a point… for once. You shouldn’t discount what he has to say out of pocket just because he’s… well… him. He was there with me at USJ during the first Nomu related attack and also at Summer Camp with the Pussycats.”
Spider’s eyes narrowed as the Nomu before them now had switched to trying on shawls.
“Bet your life on it? Would you bet other people’s lives on it?”
“No one else needs to be involved. I don’t bet innocent lives, Human Spider. Just my own. So, to answer your first question: yes. I would.” The green eyes were deadly serious, their spark as fierce as Superman’s heat vision…with pure resolve in place of lasers.
Mineta shivered. “Please do not anger him further. I don’t want to know what he’ll do…”
Spider, however, was not afraid.
Only… impressed.
“Good. That’s the right attitude to have. I like your gusto, I really do, along with your sense of justice.” Cracking his neck, Spider said, “Well alrighty then. Since your words have been gold so far, I’ll take them and the leap of faith on Minoru here, Deku. However, I want you to play crowd control starting with that guy who just crashed so no hapless bystander winds up like him, okay? Then I want a cordon around this shopping district, got it?”
“Hai!” Deku said, bowing in the far eastern manner. “I’ll have it done within three minutes!”
“Double time it and make it one and a half then get back here! I might need you in case whatever Grape Juice’s clearly got planned backfires spectacularly.”
“Oh, believe you me, Human Spider, it won’t. Because if there’s one thing I know on this green earth beyond even my mastery of the finer points of the Japanese language and my self-taught journeymanship of the English tongue–” Grape Juice began to drool with little hearts in his eyes. “It’s babes.”
Deku nodded determinedly at Spidey. “Full Cowl…100%!” He then zipped off like a little green bolt of lightning, the resulting wind wake from his passing slamming like a fist of air into Spider and Grape Juice’s face and covering them in an assortment of debris.”
“Ok, Grape Juice…you’re up! What’s on the agenda?” Spider asked as he brushed aside all the blades of grass and specks of dirt and this one newspaper showing there was a sale of Sapporo Ichiban ramen at Maruetsu’s off his visage.
“It’s simple, my good spider-like human man.” Grape Juice raised a finger like a teacher teaching a student who didn’t know nuthin as all the flotsam and jetsam Deku had inadvertently slapped into his mien and the remnants of his breakfast sandwich dribbled down his nose and chin. “I shall stroll over yonder and woo yon maiden with my masculine wiles and convince her to turn herself into the police without fracas!”
“Okay then… uhhh…” Spider began, exasperated by his short compartriot’s try hard attempt to show he knew english better than his local peers using fancy fifty dollar words when just some ones would have done. “Then go and… dazzle the little big lady, wouldja? I’ll be here to pull you back with a webline or two as insurance.”
The purple lech cracked his knuckles. “Just watch me work, oh ye of little rizz!” With that, he went right up to the unusually busty Nomu. He noticed it was now trying on a shawl that seemed to actually fit it comfortably that was a cherry blossom pink with a print styled onto it of the very same flowers. Batting his eyes, quickly coming up on the spot with a proper Japanese name to refer to the creature as, he said silkily, “Sakura my love…of all the purplish black babes in my life, you are the most lovely. Won’t you join me for…refreshments?”
The Nomu looked down at him, a generic flowered pattern Kimono on her head, and roared, covering herself and dashing away from him, as if she was totally embarrassed. “Nooooo!... Looking!.... NOOO!”
Her rampage sent her crashing through the right and right through the wall there into a very particular adjacent building. A futuristic looking building. One might even say the design looked…alien…in style.
Except to Mineta. To him, it was more than that. Far, far more.
“Spider…Get her outta there! She’ll cause me to have to go job hunting! This is where I must slave away to repair the Harem Humbuggy! SHE…SHALL NOT…PASS!!”
The Human Spider web-swung himself feet-first through the front facade of the building and into the right cheek of the monstrosity, making her elongated neck bend back before snapping back into a neutral position as he bounced off and took his trademark spider crouch.
Sakura roared and lunged to grab him in retaliation, but The Human Spider blinded her with some webbing in her face and deftly cartwheeled to the side as she passed and smashed into a support pillar.
“Yes! Go Human Spider!” Grape Juice shouted as he entered through the hole in the wall from the department store, slinging his big purple balls onto the monster’s feet in an attempt to pin her in place. “Stick her with your white goo! I’ll help with my balls!”
“Noooo! Go AWAY!....NOOOOO!”
The little purple lech’s eagerness to cover the Nomu thoroughly with his balls caused him to get danger close and catch a wild backhand from Sakura that sent him spiraling out the front window. It would have sent him colliding face first into a lamppost outside if Spider hadn’t grabbed him and slowed him down to a crawl with a quick yank from a webline just before the moment of impact. Instead, Grape Juice merely fell relatively gently and face-first onto the asphalt… again.
Thankfully, this momentary distraction didn’t give Sakura an opening to jump Spider. As suicidal as Grapce Juice’s grape flavored ball banzai charge was, it did accomplish the purpose of binding the Nomu’s feet to the floor of the store, despite her protests and attempts to break free. Several tactically placed weblines attached to all the strong points in the building Spider could see or just make educated guesses about and an extra thick and sturdy one tying the Nomu’s arms firmly around its waist sealed the deal in his mind… for the moment, anyways.
“All the civilians have been cleared out of the area!” Deku’s voice came through the comms. “I updated Earphone Jack about the situation and she alerted me that Updraft, Kamori Woods, and other pros are putting up barriers and making sure no one comes near. Circling back now to assist!”
“Good! Cuz we need you here stat! Minoru’s talk-no-jutsu just went up in smoke!”
“It was working fine tho!” Grape Juice said, rapidly getting up and standing next to the Human Spider in the store. “All I needed was some shades and a breath mint and some deodorant and some cologne and some cash and it would have been a done deal! Honest!”
“Yeah, ONLY those five things that are nowhere around here!”
“Dude, we’re in a giant open air shopping mall! That stuff’s everywhere here, like rice!”
“Grrrrrr….” Sakura growled from the store, struggling in vain. “GRRRRRRRRRRRRR! Evil…..evil!! Not good! Leave….me…..ALONE!”
The webbing began to fray as the two teens continued to bicker.
“Then why did you rush into a charisma skill check instead of getting them!?”
The purple balls at Sakura’s feet began getting coated in a slimy, yellowish substance that eroded their adhesive qualities.
Yet the two were STILL TALKING.
“Because I didn’t want to risk her slipping from my hands!”
“Dude, she almost turned you into your superhero name, literal grape juice, with one of her hands!”
“And I would have died happy knowing a woman caressed me in the face! It would have made my entire tenure on this planet tolerable!”
“Do you think of anything else other than girls and how they can make you happy?!”
“I’m a teenage boy! That’s ALL we really think about!”
“Dude, speak for yourself you overgrown whine berry! And for the record, since you know English SOOOOO well, that’s W-H-I-N-E!”
“Grapes aren’t berries in the culinary sense! They’re just a fru–!”
Finally, the Nomu roared and used all her strength to pull the rest of the webbing taut. The rest of the webbing that was connected to the four support beams of the building. The support beams that immediately began to crumble under the torque the monster was putting out.
“I did not think this through…” Spider mumbled as he braced himself to be crushed under more than six tons of rubble. As he put up hands to try to shove Grape Juice out of the way of the swiftly falling ceiling with all of his train-stopping spider-strength, he expected to see his life flash before his eyes….
Instead, all he saw was a flashing green light, before a small monorail slammed into him at the speed of mach 10, an arm wrapping him in a football (american and true) carry, with Grape Juice in tow as well in the other arm. One second, the upper stories of the building were about to crush him. The next, blue sky was blinding his face and Deku was standing over him, concern in his wide green eyes, and his Quirk sparking in full display.
“Are you ok?” he asked the Human Spider.
It was Grape Juice who first answered, in despair, as the building continued to collapse. “No! No, I am not ok! Today was PAYDAY!”
“Wait… you worked here?”
“Not anymore I don’t! Waaahhh! No harem for me! Oh woe is me!”
As the waterworks began in earnest again, Deku sighed, shook his head, and said, “Well, at least I’m glad I could save you both in time. Human Spider, I think we need to alert the others and compare notes. If there was a Nomu here, there may have been more sightings of them in Mustufu. Or even a glimpse of one of the League.”
“Have I ever told you how much I love your analytical brain?” Spider said as he noogied the other hero. “Earphone Jack, I know you’re listening! Convey the order please.”
“Got it, Spider!”
Within ten minutes, the full group of squad-1 (minus Earphone Jack, who had elected to stay atop a nearby highrise on overwatch to make sure no one snuck up on them just in case) was gathered, picking through every piece of rubble trying to find clues. While they searched, the other fireteams informed Spider that there really wasn’t anything going on in their sectors besides petty crimes, which were easily dealt with by even Plamo, who Spider had taken to calling his squad’s Trapster. In his mind of course. No one deserved to be compared to Mr. Paste-Pot-Pete himself out loud.
In five teams of two, they sifted through the wreckage quickly and methodically.
Street Shield and Plamo were the first to strike figurative gold, finding Sakura heavily injured, covered in innumerable cuts and bruises beneath the rubble. Yet, thankfully, the Nomu was merely unconscious and still very much alive if her heavy labored breathing and her enhanced healing factor knitting her wounds back together in real time were any indication. With the duo’s efforts combined with those of Spider, Deku, Daughter of Darkness, Grape Juice, and Welder, they managed to fashion Sakura an ad hoc prison out of whatever sturdy or sturdyish materials they could easily find in the wreck plus a couple of street lights they had to borrow from the rest of the mall just to be safe. It may not have been built up to super-supermax prison standards in any country’s penal code, but it would hold long enough for the Pros and the cops to come in with more official, stress tested, and focus tested means of subdual. The Nomu secured, they set her gently on the sidewalk and kept sifting through what had been the building.
After, while they all continued to play clean-up with the remains of the store, Kame Orenji found a white sign with red text on it. The orange turtle couldn’t quite make out what it meant despite actually knowing way more Japanese than the average Legionnaire bear without a Stark Tech boost. Getting the attention of his partner, Cellophane, he asked, “Hey Hanta! Over here a sec!” After waving the taping hero over and waiting a moment for him to shuffle carefully over with the mangled chair he’d been carrying over his head, the orange turtle then asked, “I’m kinda embarrassed to ask, but do you mind telling little old me what this sign says? Doesn’t look like any kanji or katakana or hiragana I recognize.”
Setting the chair down for a moment, Cellophane took the sign out of Orenji’s grasp for a sec. Eyes narrowing as he scanned it using all of his accumulated knowledge of the Japanese language and its assorted writing systems, he thoroughly and swiftly concluded that, “Dude. It’s just upside down. No big mystery, really.”
Slapping himself far more happily than annoyed that the head scratcher was solved so easily, Kame Orenji said, “Of course! It’s so obvious! Why didn’t I think of that?”
“Because you overthought it?” asked Cellphone, shrugging.
“Huh. Weird. I usually never overthink anything. In fact, to hear my bros tell it, it's a miracle when I can just think normally.”
Cellphone exhaled a single chortle at that before narrowing his eyes on the red text on the white sign again and going, “Huh. That’s… weird.”
“What is?”
“Here, take a look.”
Cellphone held the sign up for Orenji to see easily and clearly.
In Japanese, it read:
HUMAN HELP
WANTED
“Human Help Wanted?” the orange turtle asked, repeating the sign’s words.
“Yeah. See? Weird.”
“What, was this place turtle-phobic or something?”
Cellophane shrugged. “Dunno. Maybe it was run by a Quirkless person who really hated Quirkusers. I’ve heard about some people deep in the mountains who discriminate against anyone with powers.”
“Maybe…” Orenji said, massaging his chin. “Or maybe it was run by a guy super paranoid about aliens because of all the activity and invasions the world’s had.”
“Guess is as good as mine. Could’ve even been both for all we know.”
Not being able to contain his curiosity, Kame Orenji tilted his head back and shouted to the others, “Yo guys! Come check this out! Me and Cellophane are confused and could use some help!”
“I don’t care!” Grape Juice shouted, shoveling through debris left and right and right and left like a blind badger looking for some tasty grubs with his yellow gloved hands. “Until I find the register and deduct my labor-fee for the week, nothing else matters! NOTHING ELSE MATTERS!”
“Hey! That’s technically stealing! No technical stealing! And they call me sticky fingers,” said Plamo as he sprayed Mineta’s hands and feet to the ground with his white sticky glue like goo from the seven holes on his face. “There, that outta teach ya!”
Grape Juice began ocularly gushing again as he said, “It’s not as much fun being the stuckee instead of the sticker! Especially not now in my time of ultimate need! Nooooo!”
Daughter of Darkness had enough and levitated a brick into his mouth. “Enough with the histrionics. It’s too early in the morning for this.”
Grape Juice muttered a protest that was almost audible. This was too much for the dark heroine, and she put in another brick for good measure, which thankfully, completely silenced him.
“Oh, thank you. His bellyaching was making my belly ache,” said Welder.
“Wait… hol’ up. How’s that supposed to work?” asked Street Shield, carrying a busted oven on his shoulder.
“Look, I have a very sensitive stomach, okay? I can only handle so much Mineta at a time.”
“Relatable,” said Daughter of Darkness.
Aside from Grape Juice, the rest of the squad present soon gathered around Kame Orenji and Cellophane to see what they’d found.
“See dudes? Mondo gnarly way to say things, am I right?”
“Yeah. Almost like the proprietor had something against people with Quirks,” said Deku.
“Or extraterrestrials,” said the Human Spider.
“Perhaps we should investigate not the what, but the why?” Dragonfist suggested.
Daughter of Darkness nodded. “On that subject, I’ve seen something like this before. I can’t quite place it… but something crawling up my spine into the back of my head is telling me we should find out more of the why, ASAP.”
“It’s NOT HEEERE!” Mineta wailed, spitting out the bricks. “The holy grail of sacred green is not HERE! I must venture into the bowls of the back room to acquire my prize!”
The punitive employee, finding the strength to break his sticky white bonds, ventured deep into the bowels of the destruction, searching for his manager. “Ummmm…Bobu? It’s payday. I know the store needs a little… remodeling after today… but I really needs the cash now you stingy—oh…what the–”
The ground suddenly caved in and just as suddenly, Grape Juice found himself falling far deep into a hidden abyss.
“Oh no…he’s falling,” Daughter of Darkness deadpanned, noticing the midget’s plight right as she finished saying what she had to the others, reaching out a hand half-heartedly.
“Daughter Darko!” the Human Spider said. “Dude! You could have nabbed him before he went!”
“Yeah! Not cool!” said Deku.
“What? It’s not like he’ll actually DIE. Unfortun–” she was in the process of saying, before the ground decided to be a comedian and cracked open to swallow her as well. “Oh nooooooooooooooo,” was dryly stated as she fell into the depths, face planting next to Mineta.
“I dunno whether to be relieved, or incredibly terrified that you were the one to try to rescue me.” Grape Juice whimpered.
“Cute. You know your place. Except you’re still so deluded to think I’m here to save you.”
Grape Juice rubbed the top of his purple balls nervously. “Hey, a guy can dream, can’t he?”
“Not if he doesn’t want his dreams to all be nightmares for the rest of his life.”
“But I’m already in the middle of a waking nightmare without any funds for the Harem Humbu–”
Suddenly, he was hit by falling debris and then all eight of the bodies of Deku, Human Spider, Cellophane, Kame Orenji, Street Shield, Dragonfist, Welder, and Plamo landing in a heap right on top of him.
“Ow. Such, such, SUCH… ow.” Grape Juice was so utterly dismayed he didn’t care to try and dig himself out of the dogpile even though Welder’s body was seated on his spleen, his face was pressed firmly against Kame Orenji’s turtle tail, and the back of Street Shield’s heel was pressed firmly on his butt. He would have gladly remained there beneath most of the rest of squad-1 for the rest of his life if they didn’t soon recover, get up, dust themselves off, and help him onto his feet with sheepish grins all around. “Thanks, I guess,” he said, massaging his numerous, new bruises as he patted himself clean as he could. “For all the good it’s gonna do me in the long–”
“YOU MAY APPROACH THE PEDESTAL, LOYAL EMPLOYEE!” a voice suddenly boomed from the strange, metallic, colossal cylindrical contraption at the center of the massive chasm they all then realized for the first time they were in.
Grape Juice smirked at the scary heroine next to him so fast that if mood whiplash could ever truly physically affect a person, his neck would have bent like a pretzel. Cracking his knuckles and his back, he said, “Fancy that. Someone is finally going to acknowledge that I, Grape Juice, do exceptional work! The chicks will be lining up to see me after this!”
“Lucky you. I am sooooo enamored.”
“You know what…you are no longer on my ‘to get’ list.” Grape Juice snorted, walking off with an exaggerated swagger and umph to his step to what he presumed the voice meant by pedestal, a slightly raised platform just before the mystery mondo cylinder thing. “Time for me to get my long-awaited prize!”
“Minoru, buddy, I don’t think this is such a hot idea!” called The Human Spider after him.
“Yeah, you don’t know where that voice’s been! Or that giant metal vat it seems to be emanating from, Mineta-san!” said Deku.
“Nonsense!” Grape Juice cried back. “I can see no possible outcome where this could come back to bite me or anyone else!”
Cellophane somehow simultaneously sweat dropped and shivered, goosebumps forming on his forehead as he looked around. “Speaking of, ‘anyone else’ get the feeling we might’ve just fallen into some deep canola oil?”
A medley of murmurs of agreements and head nods passed through the squad.
“Oh, we’re definitely hosed for sure,” said Daughter of Darkness. “Especially if Mineta thinks we aren’t.”
Grape Juice snarled and waved aside her obvious concern trolling as the stubby hero finally stood atop the pedestal in front of the enigmatic device in the middle of the room. It then immediately began to slowly unfurl, revealing, at the heart, in a glass container that somehow floated in the middle of the air as if by some unseen force…
A…block of tofu?
With teeth?
A unibrow?
And YELLOW EYES???
“What…in the…Otokomae…are you?! Tofu with a face!?”
“I am not a what, foolish loyal employee human, nor am I tofu. I am… a WHO. I am…NEWFU! I am… THE SOUUUUUUURCE!”
“No. No… this is not happening again,” Raven said to herself in deadpan horror as she abandoned all pretense and called out through the psychic link:
“Beast Boy…we have a problem.”