Chapter 69: Everybody Wants to Rule the World
"Nice."
In a dark tunnel overflowing with water pipes, standing in front of a closing black portal, a figure stands wearing dark green armor that covers the entirety of their body. The wind, created from the multitude of drones surrounding him, softly blows his dark purple cape. "Very nice."
Underneath the dome-shaped acrylic glass helmet, Mustard studies the video feeds being fed to him from his various cloaked drones he had already sent out. They confirm what the cameras in the control room already did. Izuku Midoriya is here. It's a shame he has to worry about Ochako Uraraka and Tenya Iida as well.
At least, it was a shame, until he watched back the footage of them training together. Footage that gave him some…fun ideas.
Typing a few commands into a touch screen control pad located on his forearm, most of the drones surrounding him deploy, making their way through the tunnels and to the trio. All the while, they softly spray Mustard's hallucinogenic gas behind them, filling the confined area with his quirk, making it impossible to avoid.
Afterall, it won't be much of a tunnel of fear if his guests aren't afraid. But there's nothing to worry about, because if Mustard is anything, he is a most gracious host.
"Here they come!"
Sero jumps down, hiding around the corner of one of the bombed buildings just as a new wave of fighters streaks down from above, opening fire on what's left of the rubble. But as they do, they fail to notice the numerous strands of tape Sero has left in between two of the structures, catching the first two fighters by surprise.
His quirk's new strength is put on full display when the tape tears apart the ships, whole sections of each ripped clean, sending the fighters careening to the ground in dual explosions. And while the rest wisely swerve to avoid the tape, they can't avoid Tokage jumping on them from above.
With her arms and legs protected by Venom, she roars in excitement (possibly partly due to Venom's own anticipation) as she morphs her hand into a giant claw, slicing through the first ship with barely any resistance.
And while the resulting explosion stings, she's falling too fast for it to affect her greatly, landing with a heavy thud onto the next ship and forming a giant spike that she quickly uses to stab through the hull of the fighter.
Jumping away from the doomed ship, the rest of its companions become wise to her, circling and opening fire, but Tokage meets the challenge with another smirk. "Is that the best you got for us!" She splits her body into dozens of pieces, becoming far too small to be hit.
Each piece maneuvers its way in front of a different ship, using Venom's goo to form themselves into large balls of spikes. With no time to dodge, the ships hit the floating impromptu mines, exploding all around them.
Great for the heroes. Less great if one of them has a weakness to fire and sound. Tokage yells in pain, regrouping what's left of herself on top of one of the buildings, panting on her hands and knees while sweat drips down her face.
Which makes the sound of more ships flying straight towards her even more devastating.
"I…I…"
"No, Setsuna! Our story has just begun! We cannot be defeated so quickly!"
"Yeah…yeah!" She rises to one knee. "You're right! I just found out I can see dinosaurs in real life, and no way am I dying before I get that chance!"
"That is… not exactly the motivation I was looking for, but I accept it irregardless! To living so that we may have the opportunity to find out what dinosaurs taste like!"
"We aren't eating them!"
"Then what is the point in going?!"
Tokage ignores it, using the symbiote to create a large shield to protect her from the blaster fire while she recovers, but before the fighters can begin their assault, she hears another voice.
"I got you, girl!"
Kitty jumps out from a wall behind her just as the fighters open fire, holding onto Tokage from behind and making them both intangible and allowing the blaster fire to pass through them both harmlessly.
In the distance, they see Tenko using Blackwhip to swing around the fighters as she had, grazing each one with his hands and decaying the last of the ships before they realize what is happening.
Sighing in relief, Tokage hops down onto the ground with Kitty still on her back. Tsu snags Tenko from the air with her tongue and reels him over to the rest of their group, with Sero being the last to join.
"That had to make a dent." Tenko leans over, breathing heavily with his hands on his knees.
"I don't know…" Sero narrows his eyes, watching the other areas closely as more fighters attack them. "Since these things are drones like Venom said, and don't need pilots, there could be thousands of them."
"And the bad news?" Kitty wipes her forehead, laughing nervously.
"We still don't have a signal." Tsu sighs heavily, putting her phone away. "So, we still have no way of contacting Sensei or figuring out what's happening."
"Then, instead of sitting here with our dicks in our hands, let's take the fight to the enemy!" Venom shouts triumphantly, bursting from Tokage's back. Its host, Kitty, and Tsu all give Venom a look. "We know what we said."
"As inappropriate as it was, Venom has a point. Ribbit." Tsu moves on. "We are never going to figure out what's going on by sitting here and waiting for one of those ships to get lucky with one of its shots. We should go to the control room Cosmo told us about. She might be there. Sensei too. We can plan our next move after."
"That's better than anything I can come up with," Tokage shrugs.
"Same," Sero nods. "We should get there pretty quick with how fast most of us can travel." He looks over at Tenko, who's staring at one of the destroyed buildings. "What about you, Tenko? Sound good?" He doesn't answer. "Yo, Tenko!"
"W-what?" The decay user whips around, looking a bit paler than usual, maybe even a little shaken. "Oh. Yeah, going to the control room. Yeah, yeah that sounds good. You guys should go."
"You're not coming?" Tsu's expression doesn't change, but he can tell when she's zeroing in on him.
Tenko shakes his head. "There's still people who need help getting to shelters and protection from the ships. We can't just leave them to die. I can grind that side mission until you all figure out a plan and then pick me up later to finish up the main quest."
"Then we'll leave someone with you," Kitty offers, with Tsu immediately stepping forward, but Tenko shakes his head again.
"Our senseis need as many party members as they can to find the rest of our friends. There only needs to be one of us to direct people to the shelters." He looks Tsu right in the eye. "Trust me. I'll be fine."
"It…makes sense," Sero eventually says. "With us gone, the fighters won't have much reason to come around here. And Tenko's quirk means he can handle just about anything that comes his way anyway."
"Ribbit. I still don't like it. Ribbit," Tsu replies bluntly, before moving a few steps closer to Tenko so he couldn't escape looking at her wide eyes. "But you're sure I can trust you to look after yourself?"
Much to Tsu's surprise, even if it doesn't show on her face, Tenko moves forward, keeping eye contact. "You can."
They both hold each other's gaze for a second more before Tsu nods, stepping back. "Okay."
"Alright, if that's settled, we should get going!" Kitty interjects, grabbing an unsure Tokage. "We'll be back for you soon, Tenko! C'mon." She bumps Tokage. "I need you to carry me."
"I-I mean, I can do that." The two turn to a stuttering Sero, flushes a little in embarrassment. "You know, if you need."
Tsu makes a motion with her head as if she's rolling her eyes without actually rolling them while Tokage snorts. "Respect the play, dude, but with Venom I'm a lot stronger than you. She won't slow me down."
Sero grins sheepishly, shrugging a little while Kitty giggles, tucking some of her hair behind her ear. "Maybe next time, Tapeman." She gets on Tokage's back, a few black tendrils leaking out from the green-haired girl to secure the other girl in place. The group all take one more look at Tenko, saying their goodbyes, before leaving.
The first thing that registers for Izuku is the smell. He had been training in these tunnels for hours, running down a multitude of corridors and dead-ends and never smelled anything close to this. Iida, Uraraka, and himself keep running through the dark maze, only avoiding walls with a small flashlight he keeps in his pocket dimension. The trio tries to remember the right way out, so they can figure out what the heck is going on above them.
The smell becomes stronger, too strong to ignore. And that's when Izuku can finally identify it.
It's his mom's Katsudon.
Now Izuku isn't an expert on space travel, but last time he checked, his mom isn't here, nor could she have gotten here in the last few minutes. And while his dad is many things, he isn't a cook, usually preferring to take Izuku out to eat for ramen or to Big Belly Burger.
That's a long-winded way of saying that Izuku should not be sniffing his mom's cooking right now. But it's so intoxicating. And when Izuku turns down one particular hall, the scent disappears from his nostrils, and his body practically screams at him to get it back, forcing him to continue straight and follow the Katsudon.
"Do you guys smell that?" Uraraka's smile is contagious as Iida and Izuku look at her. "Like a freshly opened box of mochi."
Before Izuku can ask what she means, Iida beats him to it. "I'm afraid I must disagree with your assessment. The odor is remarkably reminiscent of my brother's cologne which, I'm afraid, is not Mochi scented."
As the two begin to argue, Izuku leads them almost absentmindedly forward, lost in thought. What is going on? His only experience with differing smells are the fleeting moments when his father opened up to him about his grandmother and showed him some of the last potions she ever made before becoming sick.
But if someone had doused the tunnels with potions, Izuku would know…or at least he should be able to sense it. Even if it's faint, the traces of magic coming from old brews of potions should be enough to inform him of what he's looking at. But now? Nothing.
He turns another corner. "Guys, does any of this look familiar-" Izuku turns around but when he does, his friends are gone. "Guys? Ochako?! Iida!" He runs back the way he came. "Where'd you go?! Hello!"
His voice bounces around the empty halls, only being met by the sound of slow dripping water from the pipes and his own echoes. The darkness seemingly swallows any external light or sound, even blocking the chaotic sounds of battle from above.
Shaking his head, the demigod runs through the darkness, ignoring the ringing in his ears and rounding another corner- only to have to cover his eyes as he's blinded briefly.
When he opens them, the dark tunnels under Knowhere are gone and he's…back at UA? Looking down, Izuku tilts his head at the school uniform he now wears, standing alone in the hall.
"I thought it'd be best to start with a location you are familiar with." Looking up, he spots a boy wearing a black middle school uniform with messy light-brown hair smirking at him as he leaned against the wall, arms crossed with one foot lifted up. "How did I do?" A song plays over the speakers above them, cutting in and out.
"Where are my friends?" Izuku asks, a sharpness to his tone. Usually, he would be up to play along with whatever's going on, but if Ochako and Iida are hurt…
"Busy," he shrugs. The answer is infuriating. Is this how people feel when he's purposefully vague? Maybe he should do that less. At least a little. "If it helps, I give you my assurance that I will bring no harm to them. I'm here for you." The boy pushes off the wall to face him. "Humor me and I will not lay a finger on Ochako Uraraka or Tenya Iida."
"I'll do you one better and never give you the chance." In a flash, Izuku flicks a pair of throwing knives at the boy, aiming for his legs. But in a blink, the other boy is gone, his knives soaring harmlessly through the air. "What-"
"What? Didn't see that coming?" Izuku spins around to find the boy down the hall, hands in his pockets. "I'll be honest, with your…unique physiology, I was unsure if my quirk would work on you. I am very pleased to see it does."
It doesn't take being Mr. Fantastic to connect the dots. "Only my dad's illusions have ever been able to trick me. Your quirk, that gas, is doing something to me." It's less of an accusation, and more Izuku stating a fact.
One that the kid doesn't deny, choosing to shrug again. "It is very useful at making my potential victims more susceptible to my illusions." He types on some unseen device on his arm. "The files we received on you and your class were quite extensive. I know all about the experiences you all have endured, giving me plenty of ammunition to use."
He waves his hand in a dramatic fashion, causing the walls and floor to tremble violently, threatening to split apart and send Izuku crashing down below to whatever horrors await him.
"That information was not easy to come by," the boy continues. Every sentence seems to send the structure they're in into more of a frenzy. "And I've had to spend nearly every waking moment preparing my hallucinations but you! You can make anything you want appear with nothing but a simple thought! And yet, you constantly choose not to!"
The middle-schooler stalks forward, chunks of wall and floor tiles being ripped from their places around the pair and spinning, faster and faster like a tornado that's targeting them. "I watched you at the Sports Festival, and I read the USJ reports! You were lucky enough to be born with an amazing power! One that could dazzle as well as instill happiness in all of those around you, but you barely use it to its full potential!"
The chunks of wall begin hurling themselves at Izuku and at first, he doesn't shy away, figuring they're illusions. But when the first smacks him on the side of his head, staggering the demigod, he begins to move, feeling blood dripping down his face.
"Do you know what it's like to be discarded, to be hidden away and treated as a pariah, even by your loved ones, all because of just the potential of your quirk to cause fear?!" The boy screams. "Well, I do! And I know what it's like to watch someone on the outside, someone with such a similar but different power, with abilities I could only dream of having, just squander them like they're nothing!"
The kid's school uniform disappears, being replaced by dark green armor and a purple cape. "You can call me Mustard. And today, Izuku Midoriya, I will show you that you do not deserve your powers, and who the true Prince of Illusions is-"
Izuku snorts.
The shaking stops and the pieces of rubble and wall drop to the ground as Mustard stands frozen in a dramatic pose, mouth gaping at him. "Did- did you just laugh at me?!"
"What?" Izuku covers his mouth to stifle another snort. "N-no, I'd never do that." He takes a shaky breath. "I-it's just…" his voice starts to break again. "Is your name really Mustard?"
The kid stares at him incredulously. "Yes."
"Like the condiment?"
"No!" Mustard's voice gets a little more high-pitched than normal as he throws his arms down in anger. "Like the gas! Like the very deadly gas!"
"Ohhhh okay…" There's a brief awkward pause. "But you know when people hear Mustard, they're going to think of Ketchup, right?"
"Not with me!" the younger boy insists. He raises an arm and sprays a little amount of gas out. "See? Gas. When people see my quirk, and hear Mustard, they're going to think of the gas!"
"…Are you sure?"
"Yes, I am completely sure!" Izuku's laughter isn't helped by Mustard stomping his little feet in protest. "Stop laughing!"
"Right, right, sorry." Izuku waves him off, taking a deep breath and exhaling slowly to calm down. "Okay, I'm good. Sorry, I can tell this was a moment you wanted to relish and I kind of ruined it."
"Did you just-"
"Using illusions takes practice though. Don't worry." Izuku winks at him. "You'll ketchup to me one day."
"Stop that…"
"But still, it must've taken a lot to mustard up the courage to come here and-"
"ENOUGH!"
"What?" Izuku feigns surprise. "You told me to humor you?"
Mustard tsks. "You're going to regret that." He swipes his hand and suddenly, all of the chunks of walls rush Izuku at once, trying to crush him. Unfortunately, still under the influence of Mustard's quirk, he can't tell what's real and what isn't, so he doesn't take any chances.
This is going to hurt.
With still no real way to control the recoil, Izuku lifts his pulsing hand, green magic barely contained inside his closed fist, and fires a large energy blast in front of himself. And while it succeeds in destroying the rubble, Izuku is also sent flying back into the wall, hitting it hard.
He groans, opening his eyes, widening them when he sees UA is gone.
Tenko doesn't move, watching his friends depart until they're gone and out of sight, leaving him alone and in the eerily silent ruins of one of Knowhere's towns. Almost as if the ships are now actively avoiding this part of the station. Not that it would surprise him given what else he had seen.
He clenches his hand. Tenko isn't sure if lucky is the right word, but unlike I-Island, here he's been training and preparing for his next fight with villains, which means he has his hero gear.
Watching as the Stark Tech covers his hands and feet, Tenko blinks a few times, allowing the HUD from his contacts to activate and warn him of the multitudes of danger around him as if he couldn't see it for himself.
His trenchcoat blows in the soft breeze around him, the noise somehow dissipating around him, making it even quieter. Not that it should surprise him with how similar this is to the last time. That's probably by design.
"You must have some serious kind of fast travel to find me all the way out here," Tenko says aloud.
"You can say that," a voice responds behind him. "I half expected you to tell them I was here."
Tenko doesn't turn around, still watching the area where his friends had disappeared. "If I did, you would've just returned to base. No one is dumb enough to try a one v five."
"So, you sent them away to fight me by yourself? How noble of you."
Despite the situation, Tenko can't help but chuckle. "I know you wouldn't want it any other way, and to be honest, I think I feel the same." He flexes his hand. "Did you know that most fighting games are decided in the best two out of three matches? We've already fought once…"
He finally turns around to find Hirona, standing a couple of meters away from him with a small grin on her face. "So, it makes sense we'd get a round two."
Picking himself up off the ground, Izuku feels the grass beneath his feet with his hands, studying the texture and sound. He knows this isn't real, but whatever this quirk is doing to him is telling his brain this dirt is really here and that he can actually feel it.
But he can't.
He's back at the Sports Festival arena, fighting Denki for first place when suddenly, an illusion of his cousin's mom being attacked in the stands and thrown down stairs interrupted the match. As a gun is shoved in her face, Denki leaps over to save her, exiting the fight area and disqualifying himself from the fight.
The area around him fades and flashes back to his final exams, showing instances where Izuku could've used his illusions to pass. Whether it was making Snipe believe he had accidentally shot a student, creating an illusion of Uraraka being sucked into the hero Thirteen's quirk, or even faking Laura's death by Wolverine's own claws, they all had one thing in common.
Every illusion is cruel, twisting the person's own fears and insecurities back onto them to gain an advantage during the fight.
The area fades again and Izuku realizes he is looking out over the center of the USJ, watching a recreation of the attack by the League of Villains. And in the center is himself, staring down dozens of villains just as he had done on that day. In front of the fake Izuku is a villain, on his knees, eyes wide and terrified.
Fake Izuku grins at the rest of the USJ thugs as he slowly digs his knife into the villain's neck, twisting the blade to get through the various layers of muscle and tissue, before dragging it at an agonizingly slow pace across the neck. The man pleads and screams as he does, blood gushing out as if from a hose onto the ground, staining it.
The man's screams are eventually smothered by his own blood filling his lungs, the fake Izuku having stopped slitting his throat, content with letting the villain slowly and painfully choke and drown on his blood, all the while the other villains watch, horrified.
Fake Izuku drops the quivering body, now drenched in the dead man's blood. He puts his hand around his dagger, dragging it across to wipe his dagger clean before stalking to the rest of the villains, who yell in fear, falling over themselves to get away from the deranged boy.
"What do you think?" Mustard reappears next to a disgusted Izuku, the illusions of the dead bodies vanishing. "A simple illusion of your opponent's mother in danger would've won you the Sports Festival. A little emotional trauma would have passed you with at least half of your teachers during the exam. And finally, one display of you brutally murdering a villain and the rest take off, running like the cowards they are. That's what illusions are for! That's what you haven't been doing!"
Mustard points to the spot, the blood still on the floor. "You could have won the fight before it even began! If only you'd use your illusions to their fullest potential! Don't you see?!"
It takes a few seconds for Izuku to answer, still staring at the spot where his fake self had dispatched the villains before he blinks, slowly turning his head to face the excited boy. "You don't know anything about illusions."
Mustard's face twists into a snarl, his voice becoming a little too high-pitched once again. "Liar! You're just mad because you finally met someone who's superior to you in every way! Someone who isn't scared to use his illusions to mentally break his opponents! To show them things they could never unsee! Someone who can actually use his imaginations and bring the darkest corners of everyone's mind to life!"
Running out of breath from his rant, Mustard stops, gasping for air, but satisfied. Izuku continues to stare at him, green eyes looking the boy up and down before once again, much to Mustard's fury, he shakes his head.
"Illusions aren't about hurting people." The look of disagreement on Mustard's face is telling. "They're about misdirection, about making other people perceive the world around them in the way you want them too so that not even their senses can make heads or tails of what's going on." Izuku pauses. "It's about making them question their own reality."
"I know that!" Mustard yells, impatient. "Which is clearly what I've been doing!"
"No," Izuku frowns. "You've been using those methods to cause only pain. But illusions are so much more. They can let you see a world you've never seen before, bring ideas to life, keep you company on lonely nights," he creates fireworks from his hand, "let a little girl know that the world isn't as bleak as she thinks." He shakes his head. "The point is, you're barely scratching the surface of what illusions can do." Izuku smirks. "Like for instance, using your illusions to distract some kid with a clone while you find out how he's doing all of this."
Mustard's mouth drops. "No!" He reaches out, his hand going through the clone as part of the USJ illusion begins to glitch out. He turns to his side to see the real Izuku bringing down one of his drones with his dagger.
"These make a lot of sense! They can camouflage and move with me, making sure the world stays exactly the same! Mind if I borrow some? I think I can fit a couple in my pocket dimension-" One of the drones materializes, firing a taser that shocks Izuku back.
"Fine!" Mustard yells, fed up. "I'll show you some real illusions!" With a wave of his hands, everything goes dark.
Shota whirls around, quirk already active and scarf raised when they hear the sound of someone cutting through the sealed door of the security office. Cosmo leaps in front of Aoyama, crouched down in a protective position.
But both heroes quickly relax when they spot the three familiar claws slicing through the barrier as Logan kicks down what's left of the door. "Sorry. No doorbell." He walks in with Kendo and the Big Three close behind him. "Also picked up some strays." He motions to Sero, Tokage, Kitty, and Tsu.
"You didn't find any of the others on the way?" Shota questions. Logan shakes his head, peering up at the cameras.
"Any idea what we're up against?" The mutant continues to scan over what's left of their feeds. "And where the hell is Shit-Lord?"
"Trapped, I'm afraid." Cosmo lets out a low whine, hopping back into her seat to continue working on the system. "As are we." She tilts her head at Shota, the underground hero going uneasy as he realizes his thoughts were read again. "I know you wish to gather all of the students at the cortex and teleport them away from here, but that is impossible currently."
She nudges her nose against a joystick, using her telekinesis to hit another few keys to focus on a burning tree. "As long as the Spirit Tree burns, we'll never have enough power to activate the cortex."
"The easy answer is we go and put that fire out," Logan crosses his arms in a huff, "but with all those damn fighters, I don't know if any of you can make it there."
"And even if you do, there's someone waiting for you." Cosmo focuses the camera on a scarred man, lounging by the burning tree, who uses the raging fire to light a cigarette for himself. "And he would not be the only one." Cosmo switches the feed again to the control room that the villain's control, Shota's stomach does a flip as he recognizes the mist man from the USJ. The League.
"One of the intruders can teleport his comrades anywhere in Knowhere at any time." Cosmo shifts back and forth a little. "He could send reinforcements in an instant no matter where we go."
"I'll take the control room," Shota speaks up instantly. "I can shut him down with my quirk immediately." He very much chooses to ignore the flare up in the scar beneath his eye as he spots a black Nomu also sitting in that room.
"I'll go too!" Mirio clenches his fist. "We take their cameras away and they're blind, so the faster we do it, the better!"
Cosmo nods. "It is not just the control room we must take back from the villains. We need someone to stop the Spirit Tree from burning to restore power to the station, a team to free my comrades from the prison cell blocks, another team to re-open the hangar so we can launch a counterattack against these fighters, and finally, someone to head to the Cortex and defeat the man guarding it."
Shota frowns. "It's just Logan, me, and the big three…" he thinks it over, hand to his chin. "Okay, change of plans, we free the Guardians from the prison cells and then tackle the rest of our objectives."
"Not possible," Cosmo cuts in. "The prison cells are designed to stay sealed shut while there is no power, you must save the tree first."
"It doesn't matter which one we take on first, bub," Logan says, pissed off by the situation. "Teleport guy will just carry all of his friends to us in an instant no matter where we go. He needs to be dealt with first."
"The um, the cell blocks…" Aoyama shrinks a little when all attention turns to him. He swallows, choosing to focus on the camera feed. "They are q-quite far away, Monsieur. The fighters may, um, intercept you before you can get there…"
The silence seems to stretch on for hours for Aoyama, when in reality it's just seconds, before Logan grunts. "Yeah, that too. We gotta demolish whoever is in that hangar too."
"But are there enough of us to accomplish all of that before the Guardians are-" a cough interrupts him, Shota snapping his gaze over to his innocently grinning students. "Absolutely not."
"Same goes for you, Kitty and Kendo," Logan adds, raising an eyebrow at the young girls who were joining her new friends in their attempts to join the fight.
"Ahem." Venom slithers out of Tokage's back, licking his lips. "You misunderstand. We are not asking. We are going whether you like it or not."
Logan and Shota look at each other before sighing.
When light returns for Izuku, it's in the form of raging fires, so vast he can feel his skin prickling at anticipation of the heat but it never comes. Because just like everything else, this is another illusion by Mustard.
He's back at Hosu during Gorr's attack, watching helplessly from the roof of a mid-sized building as civilians in the taller skyscraper next to him have to choose between the raging fire in their apartments, or take their chance with the ground. Many choose to leap to certain death. And they are the lucky ones. The rest are caught in the grasps of Gorr's shadow creatures to meet a much more brutal fate.
"Lovely sight, isn't it?" Mustard taunts from one of the windows. "Still think I can't make a good illusion?"
"You're right," Izuku snarks back. "This is very good. I even mayo you an apology!"
Mustard's smile falls. "Oh yeah? We'll see if you're making jokes after this!" He reaches down beside him and yanks up a battered and bruised Ochako, her hands tied behind her back with her fingertips forced to face up, rendering her quirk useless. "Got something to say now?!"
"I still know none of this is real!"
"Maybe so," Mustard shrugs, holding the weakly struggling girl out of the window. "But are you willing to ignore the chance that it is?"
As Mustard drops her, Izuku finds that no, he isn't willing to ignore that chance.
Leaping off the edge of the building, Izuku catches his girlfriend mid-air, realigning himself while still mid-jump to collide with the next window they hit, the pair rolling as they land roughly in the apartment.
"Ochako!" He rolls her around to check she's okay, but reels back when he finds Stain in his arms instead.
"My hero," the serial killer coos with derision, before stabbing Izuku in the shoulder with a very real knife. The demigod screams in pain as he backs up to his feet, Stain slowly rising to his full height.
"Throwing yourself out of the window, that's not bad actually," Izuku laughs between chokes of air. "Probably something I'd do if I knew Ochako would never find out." He rips the blade out of himself before freezing the blood dripping from his wound, sealing it. "But don't forget, I know how you're doing your little party trick now."
He whisks the knife at open air, piercing a drone, and causing the illusion around them to falter. "How about I show you mine?" Izuku raises his hand, glowing green with magic, before spartan kicking Stain/Mustard out of the window and into the flames below.
When the teen villain lands, he thrashes all around to put the fire out, not realizing for a few seconds there is no fire anymore. Opening his eyes, Mustard sees swamp, complete with water, old trees and foliage… and gators. On all sides of him.
"You'll have to do a lot better than this!" Mustard shouts in anger, spraying gas at each of the alligators as they get close to him, snapping their jaws. As he predicted, the gas exposes each one as fake until there's one gator left, growling at him. "And this must be the real one. Did you forget I read your file? I know you can turn into animals."
The gator snaps its jaws at him in response, it's tail flickering. Mustard rolls his eyes, a drone materializing next to him and firing a blaster bolt at the animal, his drones having been upgraded with all kinds of weaponry thanks to I-Island.
But to his surprise, the bolt goes through the gator, hitting a water pipe he hadn't seen through the illusion and getting promptly doused in water. Water that quickly freezes him, trapping him to the floor.
"Yeah." Mustard locks in on Izuku, giggling as he leans against a tree. "I figured you'd think I was one of the gators." The green-haired boy offers him a tiny salute in solace. "Misdirection, remember?"
Mustard growls in annoyance as his drones appear once again, using focused heat beams to free him before changing the environment again, the swamp's water rushing up at Izuku, causing the teen to involuntarily hold his breath as he plunged into darkness once again.
"You made a mistake in challenging someone raised on movie special effects! Try to guess what's coming next!"
Stars form around Izuku, who suddenly finds himself strapped to a rocket flying through space. A rocket that's on a collision course with the moon. Ignoring the fact that for some reason, the moon has a face that's winking at him, Izuku's magic washes over him and the environment once again as wings spread from his back, freeing him just before the rocket collides with the moon's eye, allowing the demigod to glide away.
The moon violently shouts at him as the blue of Mustard's drones takes over again, blowing up the rocket, the heat from the explosion melting Izuku's wings as he falls again, being thrown into New York City in a blink. But before he can collide with the nearest skyscraper, a humongous hand bigger than his entire body catches him, lifting the green-haired boy until he's face to face with the biggest ape he's ever seen, roaring in his face.
Smirking, green magic explodes from the boy as the ape looks down, confused as it realizes it's standing on a pixelated platform, a ladder behind it leading to the clouds above. A boing! next to them catches the monkey's attention as a mustached man in red overalls jumps high into the air, striking the ape on the side of the head with an oversized hammer.
Freed from the monster's grasp, Izuku falls the rest of the way to the skyscraper's roof, rolling as he lands. A wave of blue covers the sky, darkening it as a giant alien UFO slowly lowers itself from the dark clouds above Izuku's skyscraper. Before he can react, the alien ship fires a powerful blue beam right on top of him, blinding the trickster.
"Oh, I missed your gamer talk, little brother." Tenko can't get over just how giddy Hirona sounds. "It's- it's okay if I call you that, isn't it?" She asks in a mock-worried tone. "Unless you still think I'm in the wrong cutscene?"
"No," Tenko shakes his head, making sure his HUD has time to finish calibrating. "I don't. And I'm glad you're not. You wanted to keep this in the family, right?"
"I did." Her grin grows. "If this is round two, then who won the first?"
"Me." Hirona opens her mouth to object but he beats her to it. "The heroes weren't the one retreating."
She studies him briefly before shrugging, her smirk still on her face. "I suppose I can't fault ya there. But I'm ready to make up for it."
Neither of them make a move for a few long seconds, giving Tenko's systems enough time to come fully online. "What?" Tenko asks. "No questions about my likes or interests this time? Did you stop caring about getting to know me?"
He's not sure why he's asking. Maybe he expected her to attack him already? Maybe he expected himself to do the same if he's being honest. Maybe that little part of him that hopes they can end this without fighting is still badgering him. Or maybe he wants to get to know her too.
"There'll be plenty of time for that once I bring you back down to Earth." She wiggles her head a little side to side. "You know, both figuratively and literally because this time, I'm not leaving without you."
"Funny, I was about to say the same thing to you, Hana."
The satisfaction he feels as Hirona's grin is wiped off her face, only to be replaced by her eye twitching is immense. Is it because he's a hero getting one over the villain? Or is it because he's a brother annoying his sister? He won't say it aloud but he'd like to think it's the second one.
"I told you, that's not my name, Shimura!" Without warning, Hirona creates three small energy discs that she hurls at Tenko, forcing him to squeeze his hand, using his Stark tech in his glove to create a shield, blocking the attack.
After the discs are deflected, Blackwhip explodes from his wrist, with three of the tendrils catching the discs and whisking them back to sender. "What-" Hirona backs up a step, taken off-guard before waving her hand, swiping the discs away.
Unfortunately for her, the action distracts her long enough for Tenko's spare tendrils of Blackwhip to wrap around her waist, dragging her toward him and his awaiting shock glove. Right before she reaches him however, Hirona creates a new disc to cut the tendrils off and then creates a barrier to block his hand right before he can shock her unconscious.
Tenko yells in frustration as he tries to force his hand through her blue force field with no success, electricity dancing around the pair. It's hard work to keep her shield up but Hirona smirks at him anyway. "I guess you are the kind of guy to attack from the front now, huh?"
"A lot's changed since the USJ," Tenko replies, his arm beginning to shake. "But I guess you still haven't leveled up enough to use your discs and shields at the same time!"
Hirona's expression sours. "Shut up!" she growls through gritted teeth. "You're not the only one who's been practicing!" she screams, releasing a wave of energy from her force field that forces Tenko back, letting them both reset momentarily.
He doesn't like it when his sister adopts her grin again, another force field forming around her. "When All for One gave me my quirk, he said it was called Force Field Manipulation. But all he ever cared about was if my quirk could shield me or cut someone in half." Tenko grimaces. "So, that's all I ever learned how to do. With a few small extras on the side. But when I told Lady Nagant about it…" The force field begins to disappear, its energy transferring to her hands. "She asked me, if I could manipulate my shields in any way I wanted, then why was I only making discs?"
Her narrowing eyes are the only warning he gets. "I've been saving these for you!" Hirona throws her hands forward repeatedly, flinging a multitude of blue energy spheres at Tenko. Like before, he tries to use Blackwhip to grab one to throw it back at her, but when his quirk wraps around the sphere, it explodes, leaving him with a nasty concussive blast for his troubles.
When another sphere hits the ground next to him, knocking him clear off his feet, Tenko realizes enough is enough. He reaches into his belt and grabs a pellet, throwing it straight into the ground and covering the entire area in a thick smokescreen.
"That won't work anymore!" She forms another bubble shield around herself. "Did I also mention I've gotten a lot better at controlling the density of my quirk?" She spins her finger around a few times before swiping her entire arm forward, expanding the bubble force-field to take up the entire area. As it moves outward, it takes all of the smoke with it, revealing a mid-air Tenko, being kept aloft by his repulsor boots.
He fires several strands of Blackwhip at his sister once again, but she counters by simply making another bubble force-field around herself. "You're boring me! Let's talk your thing! Let's talk video games! I tried a game based off one of my movies and it sucked!"
She's taken aback when the Blackwhip tendrils stab the ground in front of her instead of hitting her shield. "Licensed games based on movies are almost always terrible! Even casuals know that!" He pulls on his arms. "And how's this for boring you?!"
Hirona has no time to react to the tremors underneath her feet as Blackwhip snakes its way out of the ground, having gone underground to avoid her barrier, and wraps around her body. The quirk forces her arms down, dissolving the force-field, shoves Hirona to her knees with a pained gasp.
Tenko winces at the sound she makes, but shakes his head, trying to find his resolve. He once again charges the taser functionality of his gloves. "Sorry! I don't want to do this!" He lowers his glove onto one of his Blackwhip tendrils, watching as the electricity travels down the black gooey substance to shock Hirona into unconsciousness.
"Could've fooled me!" Tenko's eyes bulge as Hirona's next bubble shield expands outward from her body, both freeing her from Blackwhip and protecting her from his taser. The force-field explodes, taking Blackwhip with it and she raises her arm. Tenko realizes too late she's formed a new force-field around him, trapping the decay-user inside. "Not sorry! I totally want to do this!"
She brings her arm down and with it, sends Tenko crashing back down to the ground. Hirona dismisses the shield just before he hits the ground, just to add insult to his incoming injury. The teen smacks the ground hard enough to crack it, creating a small wave of dust around him to go along with his groan, which racks his entire body.
His boots spark and creak, continually attempting to power on before failing over and over. When he tries to activate them again, only black smoke pours out from the bottom. Shit, they're damaged. No more flying for him.
Hirona practically skips up to him. "You've gotten better, Shimura, I'll give you that. But you-" She stops when she looks down and sees Tenko has covered half of his body with Blackwhip, protecting him from most of the damage of the drop. "You've got to be kidd-" She screams when he blinds her with a flashbang from his glove.
Opening his eyes, all Izuku sees is ash, the alien ship having decimated New York and turned it into rubble.
"Look familiar? This is what you almost let happen on I-Island! You should know what's coming next."
A hand emerges from the ground and grabs Izuku by the leg, pulling him down to the ground as a horribly mangled Tokoyami pulls himself out of the ground like a zombie. Half of his body is covered in machine parts while bits of flesh peel off the other side as the Ultron Virus continues to spread through his body, forcing his friend to attack him, clawing at his face.
Izuku readies to throw him off when dozens of other hands explode from the ground, holding him down as the entirety of class 1-A, all infected with the Ultron Virus, dog pile on top of the verdant, threatening to pull his skin off themselves before the infection ever could.
"You…can't…scare me!"
A green energy blast throws his classmates off of him and breaks the illusion, with Izuku finding that he had somehow gotten out of the tunnels and back to the surface of Knowhere, a number of battles occurring around him.
But he has more pressing matters at the moment. Like the infected versions of Ochako and Iida still attacking him as Mustard watches from nearby. Izuku dodges but misses an infected Denki getting behind him and blasting him with a powerful lightning strike, hurling the teen into a nearby destroyed building.
'Dang drones replicating his cousin's moves!' Izuku gets back to his wobbly legs as Mustard laughs.
"Ready to admit defeat?!" He laughs obnoxiously some more, but stops when he looks back at Izuku, who had gone back to grinning. "What could you possibly be happy about?!"
"Oh, nothing…" Izuku answers innocently. "I was just thinking if you could turn my friends against me, why couldn't I do the same to you, Mus-Turd?"
The teen villain doesn't get the chance to wonder what he means before he hears crunching metal near him as an illusion of Himiko Toga stabs infected Ochako in the gut, forcing the hologram to drop and reveal the drone before it powers down. "Really? Mustard? Were you eating a hot dog when you chose your villain name?"
"No!" Mustard calls more drones to him but before they can reach him, numerous marbles hit most of them, exploding on contact, destroying them.
An illusion of Mr. Compress lands softly next to his companion, destroying the infected Iida and Denki in the process. "Now, Himiko, be nice. This young man could be a fan of the color."
"It's because of the gas!- why am I arguing with you, you don't exist!" Mustard yells in frustration.
"But I do." One of the drones Mustard had called to him fades, another illusion by Izuku that lets the demigod get right next to him. Mustard raises his hand, pushing a button, but it's too late as Izuku's dagger slashes across the boy's helmet, destroying it.
Just as he does, one of the drones hits Izuku in the chest with a blaster bolt just before it loses connection to its host, causing both boys and drones to fall on the ground at the same time, all of the illusions around them fading.
"Dammit!" Mustard cries, closing his eyes to hold back tears and slamming his fist into the ground. "No no no, it's not fair! All of my preparations, after everything I've been through, you can't win! You just can't!" He punches the ground again. "I didn't ask for this quirk! I didn't ask for any of this! It's not my fault I was born this way!" He opens his watery eyes. "Why can't I ever be allowed to win?!"
Izuku grunts, thinking for a moment as he gets to his knees, breathing heavily. "You're right… being born with your quirk and treated the way you were wasn't right and not your fault." Mustard's eyes widen a little. "But what you're doing now, what you're using your quirk for, that is your fault. And all you're doing is proving all of those people right."
Two figures walk up behind Izuku. "It's like I said, it's not about hurting people, it's about misdirection."
Mustard looks up at who had joined them, expecting Uraraka and Iida. "Huh?" He peers around at all of the destroyed drones. "What's going on? All of the illusions faded, I thought? At least mine did…"
"I let all of my illusions go too." Izuku chuckles weakly. Mustard looks up in alarm, eyes impossibly wider. He knows from Izuku's file he can't lie. That all of the illusions are gone which also means-
"You guys shouldn't have come here," Izuku starts, trying to stand. "I could've handled it."
"If there is one thing we have always been consistent at, it's our ability to not listen to you, Midoriya." Mr. Compress shakes his head. "And for good reason."
Mustard's jaw drops as Compress and a giggling Toga each grab one of Izuku's arms and gingerly help him to his feet. "What?" The Prince of Mischief can't help himself. "You didn't see that coming?"
Before Mustard can respond, he feels a tap on his shoulder and turns around to see Ochako waving at him with a dumbfounded Iida next to her. He has no chance to react before Ochako punches him in the face, knocking him out.