Over on the other side, Mei was also getting back in her feet, her head having a small, bleeding cut where Izuku had slammed a rock into it.
-Break the gauntlets, NOW!-
Izuku didn't need to be told that, having felt their bite himself just now.
Once more he took the offensive, a webline slamming into Mei's harness, and a mighty pull sending her through the air, in Izuku's direction.
Halfway there, however, one of the arms snapped out a knife, and cut straight through the web, while another slammed into the ground ahead of her.
The other two arms, however, shot forward straight at Izuku, who just barely managed to avoid them by moving sideways.
As the tentacles followed, Izuku danced around them, and once more, he launched himself straight at Mei.
He landed straight in front of her, and this time, both the gauntlets were immediately leveled at him.
He dodged backwards, not by jumping, but instead slamming his upper body backwards, and bending his knees, while keeping them firmly attached to the ground, making him look like the world's best contour artist with how flexible he was.
His hands slammed up and around the gauntlets, and just like he had with the lightsaber, he broke them apart with nothing more than a super-powered grip.
This time though, he had done so with metal gauntlets that had massive amounts of electricity running through them. A very, very bad idea.
He and Mei both screamed as red lightning slammed into and through their bodies.
Around her, the arms immediately went silent and crashed to the ground.
After about 10 seconds of burning seething pain, however, a click was heard from the belt, and the lightning was cut off.
Mei had fallen on top of Izuku as she screamed, and for a second they just lay there panting in pain.
The black suit, that had pulsed and bubbled, and broken apart under the lightning, reknit itself over Izuku's skin once more, and a black hand shot up and around Mei's throat.
"Seems… Your arms aren't built to handle lightning. You should really look into that."
Mei's hands shot up, trying to break apart Izuku's grip, but as she herself had said, she did not possess superhuman strength, so that was a fruitless errand.
"I… Did… Re… Re…boot… 4."
The arms, which were programmed to immediately cut off from the harness at the first sign of foreign electricity, immediately came to Life once more.
"Oh" was all Izuku got out before two arms snapped around him with titanic force.
Then, he was ripped up from the ground into the air, and as Mei was lifted up from the ground by the other two tentacles, he was SLAMMED down into the ground with such force, that he made a crater with his own body.
The blow knocked all the wind out of him, but it wasn't the end.
Instead, he was hoisted into the air again, and his body made another human-shaped crater into the ground.
The tentacles tried to wrench him up again for a third time, but this time he was saved by Venom. The black suit detached from the body at the spots where the tentacles had closed around and the back of his body was kept firmly on the ground.
Thus the arms ripped themselves up while sliding off from Izuku's body, leaving the teenager still in the crater, from which he barely managed to wrench himself out off and move to the side before a tentacle slammed straight down on where his head had just been.
As he put distance between himself and Mei, Izuku groaned, his body really hurting, first from the electrical energy that had burned through it, then by being pummeled into the ground.
Mei for her part seemed similarly beaten up.
She had seemingly shaken off the head blow from earlier, but she had handled the electrical currents way worse than he had, judging by the shaking of her body.
The fact she used the tentacles to keep herself off the ground was a pretty telltale of that.
"Clever. I should have seen that as a way you could escape my metal grasp."
Her face, still keeping that damned smile, twisted again.
"It won't work next time though. I didn't want to risk breaking the claws of my babies hands by slamming them directly into the ground beneath you. This time, I'll crush the grip completely around you."
"Won't that break them?"
"Not if I just pummel you with the other ones instead, no."
Mei prepared herself to launch at him again. Then, with impressive speed, she did just that.
One more Izuku sent a line at her.
But not to wrench her out of the air.
Instead, the line slammed into her Google, coating the glass completely.
Mei's movement immediately suffered, and rather than landing smoothly, one of the arms she was using to land instead went into the ground at an awards angle, making her stumble.
Right into Izuku's fist.
Izuku took her straight in the jaw with an uppercut. But because she was locked to the ground by her own mechanical arms, she wasn't sent flying, but instead, she was lifted off the ground by the punch, then remained there, right in front of Izuku.
The next punch hit her in the left ribs, making a knuckle shaped dent in the metal, as Izuku could feel the impact of the force he had used. And if he couldn't, the spit Mei harked up above him, certainly illustrated the point.
Izuku did land a second liver blow at her, but this time, he managed to really make the punch hit, as he was sent flying by a metal arm slamming into him sideways.
This time though, he didn't land skidding unto the stone, instead rolling around the ground, then stopping into a hunched over position, and then bouncing back unto his feet.
Mei by comparison was hunched over in pain. One arm's claws closed around the gauntlet, and ripped it off, and threw it to the side.
Mei gasped in pain, then with a start, she moved up, her arms slamming into the ground, moving her to face Izuku.
Izuku, who had been fully prepared, flinched at her expression.
The fake, playful smile was gone, leaving something feral, and primal in it's place. Mei's eyes were wild, her pupils had changed, the circle around her pupils having shrunken so much, that now it looked like a perfect, small circle around the tiny dots that were her eyes centers.
And they burned. Burned with hatred, with a loathing that Izuku would have been pretty sure he could actually, physically feel.
As she stood there, her feet barely touching the ground, and just panting from the pain, Izuku was overwhelmed by the feeling of complete, and total hate, that this girl had towards him.
He had asked before, but the question just came out of his lips again without him being able to stop the words.
"Why…? Why do you hate me so much?"
"Because… You took everything from me… You… Pathetic... four-limbed excuse for a Spider!!! "
Then with massive speed, 3 of the arms ripped themselves up from the ground, and just Izuku had started the match, they threw cement pieces straight at Izuku with such speed, that when he failed to dodge one of them and it hit him in the arm, the piece tuned to a dust cloud as the hit snapped Izuku around in a circle.
He cried in pain, but he forced himself back to face Mei… then he began running to the side as piece after piece of concrete flew through the air, all aiming straight at him.
Mei had taken his opening gambit, and improved upon it, as piece after piece flew as the arms ripped, and then threw them with amazing speed.
It was a testimony of his reflexes and agility that he managed to dodge them.
Finally, though, another line of black shot out.
This time, however, an arm shot up and took the webline instead of it hitting Mei between the eyes.
Then Izuku was wretched off his feet and sent flying straight at Mei.
Was almost hit by one of the arms, but he kicked it with enormous force, such that it was sent flying, the metal dented.
Unfortunately for him, two other arms buried themselves into his sides with force, slamming all the air out of him.
Then, the third he had sent flying hit him strain in the face.
He flew down and sideways, and this time he did indeed skid across the ground, only Venom's grip on the ground preventing him from going out of bounds.
He forced himself to his feet, both his lungs burning.
-Two ribs cracked on the left, 1 on the other side-
Izuku winced as the pain really began to set in. It wasn't anything compared to the pain he'd experienced when Rhino caved in his ribs, but damn it was bad.
He felt like both his lungs were in a fire, on top of a ringing in his ears from that last blow.
On the other side of the arena, Mei was making her way towards him, though this time she went slowly obviously not wanting to put herself into the air again.
Izuku could feel blood on his lips. That could not be a good thing.
...
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