As Tel teleported out and left Izuku, Mina, and Venom alone with Rhino and the yellow guy, a silence arose, as the two sides just stared at each other.
Izuku and Mina were both incredibly tense, and on guard, both of them staring with complete scrutiny at the other duo, awaiting some attack or charge.
On the opposite end, maybe 7-9 meters away on the other side of the roof, Rhino and His buddy seemed far calmer, collected, and at ease.
It was Venom who broke the silence.
"So, who is this exactly?"
On instinct, Izuku almost went into a tangent laying out all he knew of Rhino and his history.
For once though, he bit the answer down. This wasn't the time to stand around like a moron and give a long-winded tangent.
Rhino apparently felt differently.
"Oh, of course, how rude of me! We haven't introduced ourselves yet. Allow me, to rectify this error."
He lifted his hand up nonchalantly like he was an enthusiastic teacher motioning as he explained some problem or something before his class.
"I'm The Rhino. And don't forget the "The" part of it. There are plenty of rhino themed guys in the world. But there's only one of me."
Well… That was true enough.
The Rhino grinned, then he struck a bodybuilder pose as he continued.
"My quirk is RHINO! Letting me do anything a rhino can do! Like tank sniper shots to the head! Or shatter a street beneath my blows! Or survive explosions! Or-" "They get the point." His companion interrupted his rather inaccurate, and inane comparisons.
"Right! And THIS is my good buddy shocker! He is a cripple! A genetic throwback to an earlier age, where humanity as a whole was weak and puny! A quirkless man with no abilities beyond that of the old human race!"
Izuku, for the first time in The Rhino's ramblings, was genuinely thrown off guard. The shock of learning this guy was quirkless, almost overshadowed the very personal sting of the comically ableist way Rhino described quirk less people.
If shocker took any offense to being described like this, he didn't show it. Instead, he kept his eyes on firmly on Izuku and Mina, obviously expecting an attack of some kind.
"Wait, he's quirkless?" Mina interrupted in a surprised tone. "Then… What's with the costume?"
"Ah, yes! Good question pink girl. Unlike the rest of his kind, he did not contend to simply wallow in powerless obscurity, or rage, rage against the establishment who put those like him down, and passively resents them. NO! He instead created his SHOCKER technology!"
The Two teenagers and the Alien stared at him.
"Truly, the most eloquent of naming schemes we have here. Let me guess. It shocks people with bolts of lightning."
"Nope, it produces explosions with compressed burst of Air."
Venom sputtered, before replying in an angry voice.
"Then why is he called Shocker?! He isn't shocking people at all! That name makes no goddamn sense!"
Shocker surprisingly agreed.
"Aye… Tha higher-ups decided on it." He shrugged his shoulders. "Personally ah, wanted to be Soundwave, but tha higher-ups told me to get bent when Ah suggested it."
"It is what it is."
His voice turned darker, as he raised one of his hands up, and pointed it towards Izuku and Mina.
"Now… Let's get this show on Tha road."
Izuku and Mina were both about to move when Rhino interjected.
"Wait, Shocker, we can't start yet, they haven't introduced themselves yet! We can't start before Introductions are over."
Izuku and Mina just stared at him incredulously, while Shocker groaned.
"Is this guy for real?" Venom asked in a tone like he couldn't believe the stupidity of this guy.
"Unfortunately." Morris replied from the roof floor. Izuku had honestly kinda forgotten he was there.
"Oh, hi Morris!" Rhino replied cheerfully, seemingly having just noticed him.
"You okay buddy?"
"I've got several broken ribs." He winced. "So it could have been better.
"Ah, can't believe you lot got beaten up by Middle schoolers." Shocker shook his head. "Christ that's-"
Mina made her move.
So quickly, that Izuku, even with his enhanced reflexes had trouble keeping up, Mina darted to Izuku's side, spun him around as she grabbed his hand, and pulled him along as she sprinted towards the roof edge.
"WEB!" She screamed at him as they ran.
Then, faster than Izuku would have believed, they were at the edge of the roof. Without even a hint of hesitation, she jumped off the edge, dragging Izuku along after her.
Panic set in inside Izuku's mind, as gravity took hold.
For a small eternity, the ground came up, unavoidably and unstoppable.
Then, by instinct, his hand shot upwards to the side and a black line sprung forth and attached itself to the top of one of the buildings on the other side.
Almost instantly, the momentum of their fall was veered sharply sideways, as they began going downwards in a pendulum arc like they were swinging on a vine. As Mina's hand gripped tightly around his own, in a grip like iron the entire way down.
Then without warning, as they began reached the lowest point of the arc, Izuku's arm, and the liquid encasing it, was hit by an explosion of pain!
Izuku and Venom both screamed out in agony as the line keeping them up suddenly burst into countless black pieces of liquid.
Thankfully, they slammed into the ground at a sideways angle, sending the duo rolling from the momentum, rather than just slamming into the ground.
Which was good, because suddenly, all around them the ground burst to pieces, as invisible explosions hit all around, sending pieces of rock flying.
Mina had also entered into a roll as they hit the ground, but unlike Izuku's it was a much more controlled affair, and at the end, she jumped right back unto her feet, in a flash of pink and black.
Izuku forced himself to his feet, pushing himself up, as bangs of pain echoed through his body with every single explosion all around him.
His hand didn't show any external signs of injury, other than the liquid that should have covered it having seemingly disintegrated, but to Izuku it felt like it had been literarily run over by a car.
Fucking hell it hurt.
"YOU OKAY MIDORI?!" Mina screamed over the sound of explosion all around.
Then she yelped in pain as a piece of Rocky shrapnel hit her in the head.
She didn't fall over, thank God! But the red that suddenly dyed her pink hair, was probably not a good thing.
-FUCK THIS SHIT!-
Izuku's arm, shot around, completely unprompted, as his entire body turned around, facing the rooftop they had just jumped off from.
-THERE!-
Izuku saw what he was aiming for. A figure in yellow on the rooftop.
He instinctually moved his hand to aim, and on an internal command, a line of black goo shot from the white piece on his hand, much MUCH thicker than the webline he had used to anchor them to the roof.
He couldn't hear it, but he both saw and felt his surprise as the man was hit by a black mass hitting him straight in the chest that sent him flying, and burst out at the point of impact to engulf him in a huge black mass.
For a second he just stood there, crouched, panting as the adrenaline still pumped through his body, the pain in his hand beginning to fade as the black liquid once more flowed forward to engulf it.
Then reality hit him again, as he remembered Mina was wounded, and he spun around.
"You okay!?"
"Yea-yeah." Mina answered though she winced as she said it, one hand over the spot where the blood came from.
"It's just a cut."
Oh, thank God! Izuku thought immediately. If it had been a hole…
He quickly got to his feet and walked over to her.
"Venom, can you help her?"
The Black mass around his head detached itself once more and formed a head.
"We can close the wound and stop the bleeding, Aye! Healing it is another story. We can only heal you."
He bit his lip.
"It'll have to do."
He reached forward his hand to Mina's wound, and though she flinched at his touch, she did lower the bloodstained hand and allow his black hand to touch the wound.
Suddenly, making both of them jump in startled surprise, a massive crash sounded, as something slammed into the road not too far from them.
Both their heads and attention snapped towards the origin of the sound.
Rising up from a small crater was Rhino still with a huge grin on his face.
"So, you kids want to just skip Introductions and instead jump straight into tangling with the American Elite eh? Okay, I'll oblige you."
As Izuku and Mina just stared for a second in shock, a piece of black liquid detached itself from Izuku's hand, and jumped over to Mina's head, closing around the wound and stopping the bleeding.
Then, Rhino lifted his hands, up and backwards in preparations of slamming them down forwards.
Izuku and Mina both realized what was about to happen, and both of them jumped sideways away from the center of the road.
With a massive crash of Sound, Rhino slammed his hands down into the road in a ground pound, looking like more like Stan Lee's Hulk than anything else, a comparison only reinforced by his only piece of clothing.
The road, BROKE in half like it had just been cleaved with a giant knife, smaller rocks flying everywhere, and pipes filled with steam bursting up from the ground.
Izuku landed on a wall, clinging to it, whereas Mina landed on the sidewalk.
Both the two teenagers gaped in shock an horror at the titanic display of strength.
-Huh. Yeah, that's not good. Not good at all.-
...
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