Mineta Minoru didn't know what made him move. He was scared, terrified, and more than anything, he was just... tired. He was tired of the trembling on his knees, tired of crying, and tired of being the coward who hid while his friends bled.
Even for someone like him, there was a limit. A person can be pushed only so far before he snaps.
His breaking point was Riko.
He had seen her fall. He had seen her fight those two monsters, Nomus and almost beat them, and he had seen her die. He had watched Shigaraki shoot her and her fall, and yet, here she was.
A girl, who by all means should be dead, was here defying death and charging to fight, what was by all means a nightmare made true. If that wasn't a calling, Mineta didn't know what was
His legs moved on their own, fueled by a hysterical, desperate sort of bravery. He sprinted toward the towering shadow of the Behemoth, his hands flying to his head.
"Take this! And this! And this!" he shrieked, his voice cracking.
He began spamming his Quirk, ripping the purple spheres from his scalp and hurling them in a frantic hail. The adhesive balls pelted the Behemoth's legs and arms, sticking to its skin and anchoring the beast to the cracked plaza floor. For a heartbeat, it worked. The Behemoth was stalled, its massive forward momentum halted by the sheer volume of the sticky orbs.
But the monster was none other than the Behemoth. The red electric currents dancing across its skin flared to a blinding brilliance, the heat melting the purple spheres into a foul-smelling goo. With a guttural roar, the Behemoth flexed, and the remaining balls tore apart under the sheer, impossible strength of its muscles.
The opening had lasted only seconds, but to the heroes, those seconds were an eternity.
"Move, Mineta!" Todoroki's voice rang out.
Todoroki didn't hesitate. He slammed his foot down, sending a colossal ice glacier surging across the plaza. It swallowed the Behemoth's legs and climbed its torso, encasing the beast in a frozen tomb. Immediately after, Todoroki unleashed a torrent of fire from his left side. The sudden, violent shift in temperature, from sub-zero frost to a white-hot inferno, created a lethal pressure change.
"Now, die!" Bakugo's roar followed the flames.
Bakugo dived from the sky, his palms glowing with a terrifying light. He channeled every ounce of his stored sweat into a single, massive blast aimed at the Behemoth's torso.
The impact was cataclysmic. Just when it seemed the monster might endure the hit, the ground beneath the Behemoth, weakened by the thermal shock and the blast, began to glow. A secondary explosion, a subterranean eruption of kinetic energy, consumed the beast entirely. A pillar of fire and debris roared toward the ceiling of the USJ, hiding the Behemoth in a cocoon of destruction.
The smoke from the triple-layered explosion cleared, revealing a sight that chilled the blood. The Behemoth stood at the epicenter of the scorched crater, its skin torn, tarred and slagged, yet its massive silhouette remained unbowed. If anything, the assault had only served to feed the storm. Red, jagged currents of electricity hissed and spiralled around its frame with renewed ferocity. The creature was growing purely, incandescently angry.
With a guttural roar that vibrated in their very marrow, the Behemoth dug its claws into the shattered pavement. It began uprooting chunks of debris, boulders the size of sedans and hurling them at the charging students with the force of a catapult.
But the fear that had paralyzed them earlier had been burned away. Instead of scattering, the class tightened their formation. Bakugo, Sato, and Ojiro led the vanguard, a wall of pure destructive force. Incoming boulders were pulverised mid-air; Bakugo vaporised them with precision blasts, while Sato and Ojiro smashed the remaining shrapnel into dust with sugar-doped punches and tail-whips. Under this protective umbrella, the ranged team, Mina, Todoroki, and Riko, unleashed a relentless barrage. Acid, ice, and kinetic projectiles rained down on the beast in a frantic attempt to find a chink in its armour.
The battle raged until the Behemoth reached a fever pitch of rage. It slammed both fists into the ground, sending out a concussive shockwave that buckled the concrete and stalled the students' momentum. Capitalizing on the pause, the beast leapt, a mountain of meat and lightning soaring into the sky before crashing down directly into the center of the student formation.
The landing sent bodies flying. But Class 1-A had found its rhythm. As some students scrambled to regain their footing, the rest immediately pivoted into a counter-attack. Todoroki surged forward, attempting to flash-freeze the monster where it stood, but the red arcs of current surrounding the Behemoth flared with blinding heat. The ice didn't even have time to harden; it turned to steam the moment it touched the beast's skin.
"Stand back!" Todoroki shouted, his voice cracking over the hiss of evaporating water. "Don't get close! It's radiating too much energy!"
Todoroki maintained a wall of suppressing fire, joined by Mina's corrosive streams and Riko's relentless assault. Seeing the shift in tactics, the close-combatants, Bakugo, Kirishima, Sato, and now recovered Shoji, quickly pivoted to a rescue role, hauling their dazed or injured classmates away from the blistering heat zone.
Pushed back by the sheer volume of ranged fire, the Behemoth let out a final, ear-splitting shriek. It dropped into a low crouch, and suddenly, the air was filled with the sound of tearing flesh and metal. Spikes of varying lengths, jagged, obsidian-tipped thorns....protruded violently from its back and shoulders. They shot outward like a forest of spears, forcing the students into a desperate retreat just to avoid being impaled.
This lethal thicket created a "no-man's land" of about 300 meters between the heroes and the monster. Worse still, the Behemoth began to steam once more. Its body vibrated, the red glow in its chest deepening to a sinister crimson, the unmistakable herald of a new evolution. If they let it finish, the monster would become something they couldn't even dream of fighting.
A heavy, suffocating stalemate fell over the plaza. The students watched in despair, trapped outside the range of their own effectiveness.
Then, Riko moved.
As if propelled by a force beyond logic or survival, she dashed forward, her boots crunching on the shattered ground as she dove into the thorn-choked waste the Nomu had created.
"OI! IDIOT! WHAT DO YOU THINK YOU'RE DOING?" Bakugo's scream echoed across the dome, raw with a rare, panicked terror.
Riko didn't slow down. She twisted her head back, her face a mask of blood and absolute defiance. "DON'T YOU SEE IT, YOU DAMN MORON? NOW IS THE ONLY CHANCE! ATTACK THE FUCKER WHILE HE'S MID-FUCKIN-TRANSFORMATION!"
Her scream acted as a catalyst, snapping the rest of the class out of their shock.
The Behemoth, sensing the incoming threat, locked its glowing eyes on Riko. More spikes launched from its back like guided missiles. Riko danced through the obsidian forest, sliding under jagged arcs and leaping over obsidian spears. Just as a spike surged toward her blindside, a massive explosion pulverised the projectile into dust.
Bakugo was there, soaring through the smoke, his face set in a snarl. "Who are you calling Moron, CRAZY IDIOT!"
Side by side, the two of them charged into the heart of the nightmare, determined to end the evolution before it could begin.
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Author no dead
Unfortunately, no missiles or natural disasters struck the fine establishment I go to pursue mine education, thus, the exams happened.... anyways
I know chaps bit short, but it felt right to end this one here...and hopefully we have a small period of consistent updates. (if I'm not dead)
Also, thanks people for all ya support, BOB liked it.
fin