….
In the vanguard–
Rumi Usagiyama leapt moving through the broken tree line, the sheer scale only made her face darker and darker.
Right behind her was Stain, and flanking them were Twice and Spinner.
The four of them are moving towards the huge blast that had happened a few minutes ago.
Obviously, when they landed through helicopter, they caught the huge titan, and were actually gonna land there, but Dabi refused.
Right, during the whole attack on the students, Dabi had been contacting the U.A., HQ time to time through voice notes, and when caught the reinforcements, he immediately commanded to land at the hideout.
Rumi agreed without hesitation, though not because she wanted to. Every instinct screamed at her to abandon the evacuation and rush to Dabi's aid, and it took every ounce of discipline to keep her focused on the priority mission of securing the students.
However, she understood moving near to such titan through helicopter is practically suicide.
In the end, she didn't have any choice but to take out the small fires, before she could go for titan fry, and now that most of the villains were dealt with, they are sprinting to the location.
However, the ground shattering sounds they had been hearing from the time they had landed was nowhere to be heard.
'….what does that mean?' Rumi couldn't help but feel agitated.
And that's when she caught a massive shining structure a mile ahead, and inside it seemed to be the…?
"Boss Lady…." Spinner called out, watching the same thing but more clearly.
"What is that damn thing over there!?" Stain couldn't help but curse.
If the destruction they had witnessed on their way here until now was a playground, then what they are seeing now is nothing less than a war zone.
The tall long trees enveloping the forest had been reduced to splintered toothpicks and cratered trenches.
Yet, the strangest detail wasn't the raw destruction; it was the micro-climate.
Traces of a massive firestorm remained in the blackened soil, but not a single stray spark remained alive.
Instead, the ground was slick with melted frost, pooling cold water, and jagged shards of unmelting ice.
"It's giant ice!" Twice shouted, waving his arms erratically as he stared at the frozen monolith. "But where is BOSS? He promised he is gonna train me! Heh, I hope we find him soon… or never!"
Ignoring Twice rumbling, they surely can't help but be in awe of what they are seeing.
Whilst, Stain and Spinner are gonna make sure Dabi will know of what Twice said once this was done.
Coming back, as they moved closer, just a few hundreds metres away from what seemed like the final phase of battle, they got the full scale of what just might have happened.
The titan they had caught through the helicopter before landing was now inside a shell of massive ice, and inside it was blinding signature blue flames of Dabi.
They have many questions about where the ice came from, how it is now being melted by the intense fire inside, but their priority is to find Dabi, as the titan was already neutralised.
"….search every nook and canny until you find him."
"""Yes Boss Lady!""" the three of them shouted in-sync.
….
Four kilometers away, the students of Class 1-A were also sprinting in the same direction albeit a lot behind.
Back at the primary training facility, the remaining Pussycats.
Mandalay, Ragdoll, and Tiger, stood watch over the uninjured students.
They had initially tried to stop them from running into the fray, wanting to maintain protocol and keep the children safe.
But looking at the determination etched into Midoriya's, Todoroki's, and Bakugo's faces, the commands had died in Mandalay's throat.
Sometimes, you can't stop heroes from running toward danger, and sometimes, the only thing left to do is let them go and pray they return.
Unlike the Pro's who ignored everything on their way to the location of blast, the students couldn't help but notice the weird temperature combination:
It was freezing hot, sending shivers down their spines while making sweat pour from their brows.
Shoto Todoroki's eyes scanned the distant horizon.
Because he was also an elementor user, his awareness was sharper than anyone else's.
He could feel the pressure differential in the air, the unique micro-climate expanding outward from the battle site. Even from miles away, his senses confirmed something, he wasn't sure how to express it outside.
'...this is possible only with Ice quirk….' Shoto thought, his jaw tightening in disbelief.
'But how?'
Nobody he knows other than him has such a powerful Ice Quirk other than him in U.A, including students and staff.
'Was it a villain then?'
He tried to guess it.
But somehow he had a bad… feeling…. And he certainly really doesn't wish that to happen whatever it is….
However, he also couldn't help but think something else too-
And not just him, Katsuki Bakugo, Izuku Midoriya, and the rest of the students, sprinting behind him at their pace.
'How is Dabi?'
Neither Shoto, nor his classmates are dumb.
They knew there was no way Dabi wouldn't present when they were going through life and death battles.
That only point out to one thing–
Dabi is busy dealing with something else.
And from all the tiny earthquakes they have been feeling for more than an hour, all learning the previous encounters Dabi had with villains, they knew it was a battle they could never part off with their current strength.
"How far is this damn itt!" Bakugo cursed. He added turning back. "And you fools! If you can't keep up, don't bother coming!"
Further back in behind Shoto, Izuku, Katsuki, and few more–
Ochaco Uraraka and Tsuyu Asui were barely hanging, trying to maintain the pace, but due to the earlier fight, they were more exhausted than they had assumed.
"We should... we have to help..." Ochaco gasped.
"Ribbit... we can barely walk." Tsuyu replied as she kept a protective arm near Ochaco. "If we push blindly, we will just... slow them down and become liabilities. Lets, trust the front runners."
"Guys–!"
"Tsk, what is it, Deku? Don't tell me you were already tired just because of fighting some street thugs."
Bakugo shot back, just as he heard Midoriya's concerned tone.
"I am fine Kachhan."
In the center of Midoriya's chest, a sharp, needle-like spike of sensation began to spread, and his obvious guess was his new Quirk [Danger Sense].
But he is surrounded by many of his classmates at the front and back, so for a danger to be approaching there would have already been a disturbance.
"I don't know why... but I am having an horribly bad feeling." Nevertheless, he didn't hesitate to voice it out. "...we need to hurry!"
Hearing the warning, Mezo Shoji increased his pace immediately, using his Dupli-Arms to propel himself over the rough terrain.
Beside him, Fumikage Tokoyami matched the acceleration too, Dark Shadow coiling protectively around his shoulders to provide extra boost of speed.
None of them questioned the warning.
Midoriya's instincts had saved them too many times in the battle they had just fought.
He had countered and assisted many blows that could have turned fatal if it wasn't for him.
They don't know how his instincts increased in such a short time, but they trusted his ability.
…..
[Back at the Hideout]
Meanwhile, at the base, Shota Aizawa stood guard over the captured villains.
He had chosen to stay behind to secure the perimeter while his students advanced.
Luckily the reinforcements also brought the hand cuffs and multiple quirk restriction tech to capture the villains, and they also informed of their victory to U.A. HQ, who in turn returned informed to HPSC, and was told they are finally sending reinforcements.
But Nezu knew they were just coming to take the credit.
However, he doesn't care until the students and staff are safe.
Currently, the Pro Heroes managed to bind all the villains: Muscular, Moonfish, Mustard, the mysterious new unregistered villain with the basket, and many more that were knocked out and locked in temporary mud prison.
Tiger stood mere inches from Muscular, while Pixie-Bob maintained the earthen barrier around them with her Quirk.
Without warning, the temperature plummeted, and a foul, pungent stench filled the air. A thick, bubbling puddle of black sludge violently erupted directly beneath Mr. Compress.
"Move!" Aizawa barked, his eyes snapping open as his hair floated upward, instantly locking his [Erasure] onto all the present villains.
But it didn't work!
It means. 'The quirk isn't from any of the captured villains!'
Aizawa realized and announced. "It's a long range Quirk! Tiger! Secure the villains, I will handle it!"
He launched his capture weapon toward Mr. Compress, securely wrapping his torso, but the moment Aizawa pulled, the black sludge generated a terrifying, high-pressure vacuum.
With a sickening, liquid shulk, Mr. Compress was pulled downward, slipping through the capture scarf like water and vanishing entirely.
Before the Heroes could even process the loss, four more geysers of black sludge erupted with explosives beneath Muscular, Moonfish, Mustard, and the villain named 'Purple'.
"Like hell you are!"
Tiger roared, lunged into the sludge beneath Muscular, wrapping his massive arms around the villain's neck in a brutal chokehold.
"Pixie-Bob, reinforce the ground!"
Pixie-Bob slammed her hands into the earth, attempting to use her [Earth Flow] to solidify the dirt and crush the portals.
But the sludge wasn't solid earth, and the mud she manipulated was instantly dissolved into the black void.
Mr. Compress laughed, a dark, raspy sound, even as Tiger choked him. "Too late, cat!"
The sludge beneath them expanded violently, erupting upward like a geyser, and the spatial explosion force blasted Tiger backward, tearing his grip away as the foul-smelling liquid forced him to shield his eyes.
When the spray cleared he was gone.
Aizawa sprinted across the clearing, trying to find an anchor point to stop the remaining villains.
He threw his capture scarf toward Mustard, but Moonfish's blades stopped them and deflected Aizawa's cloth to buy just enough time for the black sludge to swallow them both.
The final portal, holding the mysterious recruit, began to sink.
Tiger, recovering from the blast, threw himself face-first onto the ground, plunging his arms straight into the bubbling black slime to grab the villain's collar.
He felt solid fabric, but the moment he pulled, the sludge generated an immense, crushing counter-pressure that threatened to tear Tiger's arms out of their sockets.
The spatial rift snapped shut with the force of a vacuum implosion, severing the connection and blasting a shockwave of wind, and Tiger was thrown back onto the grass.
They escaped!!
All of them.
"Dammit! Dammit!" Tiger slammed his fist into, his knuckles bleeding. "What the hell is that!? Didn't we already capture their teleporter? Did the League of Villains have a back up spatial user all this time?"
The Pro Heroes recognised the disappointment in his voice, and felt similar.
They had fought with everything they had, but facing a spatial teleportation Quirk unlike anything in their experience left them constantly a step behind, and although the intelligence gathered from the previously captured villain had given them some idea of what to expect, this version proved even more elusive and difficult to counter than anyone had anticipated.
However, that isn't their biggest concern right now!
Did the villains really retreat for now, or were they planning to regroup for another attack?
Mandalay instantly pressed her fingers to her temples, activating her [Telepath] quirk. She pushed herself to her maximum, trying to cover as much ground as she can, so that the alert can reach as many Heroes and Students as possible.
"Attention all forces! The captured villains have just been forcefully extracted! A long-range black sludge teleportation quirk was used! Be on high alert… the enemy is pulling back their forces!"
.
….
[To be continued…]
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