In the control room of Tower I, the bluish glow of the monitors illuminated Mirage's face as she stared at the tablet in her hands. Her eyes were wide, scanning the screen over and over as if she expected the data to change on its own.
But it didn't.
Forty icons were grayed out.
Each one marked with the same status:
OFFLINE
"…That doesn't make sense."
Her voice came out low, incredulous.
"How is this possible…?"
She swiped her fingers across the screen, watching the structural integrity graphs and failure reports pile up like a cascade of errors.
"The S-V3s are stronger than most top Pro-Heroes…" she murmured, her teeth clenching. "For that kid to defeat all of them in… minutes… this is completely ridiculous!"
The room's silence seemed to weigh on her as she breathed heavily.
"How is this happening…?!"
"So you really screwed up the goods?"
Wolfram's voice came from behind, laced with irritation.
He ran his hand forcefully through his red hair, pulling the strands back as he paced back and forth. His footsteps echoed on the metal floor.
"What the hell did you do, Mirage?"
She didn't even turn around.
"Shut up."
"No, I'm not shutting up!" he shot back, pointing a finger at her. "With this goddamn disaster, my clients aren't getting the merchandise! And I'm not getting the fucking money! All because some demonic brat caught your attention and made you throw away all the goods, literally all the goods, and they ended up destroyed somehow!"
Mirage clicked her tongue in irritation.
"Don't exaggerate, all of that is easily replaceable anyway."
"Oh, don't tell me." Wolfram retorted, sarcastically irritated.
Mirage's eyes went back to the tablet.
Among all the grayed-out icons, there was only one still active.
A single green dot.
The last Sentinel she hadn't deployed.
She stared at it for a few seconds.
Should she send it?
She hadn't sent this one because she was saving it in case they had to deal with All Might, but ended up not using it when he was easily restrained.
But seeing how things were going, she didn't have many options at the moment.
Especially when she wanted to capture that boy.
"Screw it."
Her finger touched the icon.
"Capturing Rito Takeda is worth more than anything in this mission."
The command was sent.
Somewhere on I-Island, the last Sentinel received the interception order.
Meanwhile, on the screens of the central control room panel, a progress bar continued to slowly advance.
Tower I Data Transfer
50%.
----------------------------------------
On the 137th floor, the group had stopped for a few moments.
Jirou crouched near a side wall and connected the jacks from her earlobes to the concrete surface. The cables vibrated slightly as she concentrated on listening to the vibrations inside the building's structure.
After a few seconds, she opened her eyes.
"I hear… metal wheels," she said, frowning. "Lots of robots… but they're below us."
Midoriya leaned in slightly.
"And above?"
Jirou listened again, focused.
"Nothing." She pulled out the connectors. "Above is clear. We can continue."
With that, the group resumed running up the stairs until they reached the 138th floor.
Server Room
The automatic door slid open with a hiss, revealing a gigantic room filled with endless rows of servers. Red lights blinked, the air vibrating with the constant hum of cooling systems.
Melissa pointed to the back of the room.
"Just follow through to that door! After that, we can access the next hallway!"
They had barely taken a few steps when the massive door at the far end opened.
And from it, robots began to pour out, hundreds of them at once.
The machines advanced in formation, red sensors lighting up simultaneously.
"Was this a trap?!" Iida's eyes widened.
Kaminari took a step back.
"I think… we underestimated these guys' intelligence."
Bakugo cracked his knuckles.
"Tch!"
A small spark jumped between his palms.
"Doesn't matter. I'll just blow up all these tin cans!"
Midoriya stepped forward beside him, green energy coursing through his body as he assumed a combat stance.
"Let's—"
"Wait!" Melissa shouted.
Everyone looked at her.
"If you fight like that, you'll destroy the servers!" she said, pointing around them. "If these systems are damaged, it could affect the tower's security system!"
Todoroki observed the rows of machines.
"In that case…" he said calmly, "those with highly destructive, wide-area attacks are practically useless here."
More robots kept pouring through the door.
"This… is too many…" Sero muttered.
Then a blond blur shot past them.
Dash crossed the robot line at high speed, knocking down several before they could even react. Strangely, some were sliced in half instead of just being thrown.
The robots tried to retaliate, firing containment cables.
Dash leaped at the last second.
He spun in the air and landed on top of a robot, brandishing two strange blades he was holding.
No.
They weren't blades.
They were Pony's horns.
He held them in his hands like daggers.
The class stared for a few seconds.
Dash sliced, stabbed, and destroyed robots with quick, precise movements, using the horns as makeshift weapons.
"Go!" he shouted without stopping. "I'll hold these guys off!"
But then another group of robots started entering from the opposite side of the room.
"He can't do it alone!" Kirishima said.
Iida advanced immediately.
"Then we'll split the line!"
Sero shot tape at the robots coming from the other side.
Kirishima hardened his body.
"Looks like those of us with more controlled attacks are staying here!"
Iida turned to Midoriya and the others.
"Midoriya! Take the others and find another exit! We'll hold them here!"
Midoriya hesitated for an instant.
"Got it!"
He grabbed Melissa and guided the rest of the group toward another route between the servers.
Pony stopped for a second, looking at Dash.
"Don't get hurt!"
Dash smiled briefly while cutting down another robot.
"I won't!"
That made the girl smile, more at ease.
"Pony!" Momo called from up ahead.
She nodded and ran to catch up.
Dash moved like lightning between the server rows, Pony's horns gleaming as he used them like daggers, cutting through joints, heads, and even splitting structures in half before the robots could even aim.
On the other side of the room, Kirishima crushed machines with hardened fists.
Iida fired off kicks with Recipro Burst, sending robots crashing into walls.
Sero immobilized several at once with his tape.
But there was a problem.
They kept coming.
Minute after minute, new robots emerged through the door.
During the fight, Kirishima was hit by a containment shot.
Metal cords wrapped around his torso.
"Dammit—!"
He was yanked to the floor.
"Kirishima!" Sero yelled.
Sero ran to help, but a shot hit him and the cords wrapped around him too.
"Oh, come on—!"
Both were immobilized.
Now only Iida remained on his side.
He kicked robots one after another, engines roaring.
But the engines in his legs began to fail after another ten minutes.
"Dammit…" he breathed heavily. "I've… reached my limit."
He looked ahead only to see the robots advancing en masse.
Meanwhile, Dash crossed the entire room repeatedly, destroying robots left and right.
Hundreds, maybe more.
But something was wrong.
Smoke rose from his body and mouth.
"Dammit…" he muttered.
He was getting tired, but it wasn't just that.
His body had reached its limit.
Due to his quirk, Dash's body operated in a state of extreme metabolism whenever he entered superspeed.
To sustain this state, his organism burned calories and lipids at an absurdly high rate, converting it all into fuel almost instantaneously.
Every run consumed his biological fuel like a high-performance engine.
Glucose, fat, electrolytes, water — everything was consumed too fast.
But now, his body was nearly empty after having used a lot of it in that punch he gave Daigo.
Energy reserves were at their limit, and with them, the hydration needed to maintain basic functions. His blood was thickening, his muscles receiving less fuel, and even his ability to sweat (a vital mechanism to prevent overheating) was failing.
He practically had no fluid left in his body to lose.
Dash stopped for a second.
The world around him spun as sudden dizziness hit him.
His stomach growled loudly.
"Shit… I need water and food…"
He braced one knee on the floor for a moment.
"I'm… getting slow…"
Another robot advanced.
He destroyed it with a weak strike compared to his previous ones.
"…and weaker."
Even so, he got up.
Robots began surrounding him from all sides.
Dash took a deep breath.
With difficulty, he assumed a combat stance again.
The horns still firm in his hands.
"Come on…" he said between heavy breaths.
A tired smile appeared on his face.
"I can do this all night."
----------------------------------------
Ryo cut through the skies in a straight line towards I-Island.
The air screamed around his body as he sliced through the sky at supersonic speeds, the invisible rings of Gauss Propulsion activating and deactivating in sequence around him. Each electromagnetic pulse hurled him forward like a living projectile.
His hair was violently pushed back by the air pressure, but his eyes remained wide open, steady, as if enduring that speed was the most natural thing in the world.
I-Island grew rapidly on the horizon.
"I hope the others are alright…"
The image of Dash immediately came to mind.
"He must be holding down the fort…"
Dash was, without a doubt, the second strongest in the class at that moment. His super-speed was absurd; in close combat, few could even react to him.
But he had problems with prolonged fights.
Ryo still remembered that day he visited his house. Dash had openly spoken about his weakness: his accelerated metabolism.
To sustain that monstrous speed, his body burned through energy like crazy, eventually leaving the blond exhausted.
Starving and dehydrated.
Ryo frowned.
"I hope you're not pushing yourself too hard…"
Especially after he had asked him to look after the others.
Ryo created more rings around his body.
The electromagnetic thrust intensified.
"I need to speed things up."
With that, he shot off like a green flash.
In seconds, he left the expanse of the ocean behind and reached the island. The technological mass of I-Island stretched out below him, illuminated by the artificial lights of the night.
Ryo crossed the sky over the artificial city like a green comet, heading straight for I-Tower.
Then something hit and intercepted him mid-air.
A gigantic mass collided with him from the side.
The impact completely threw off his trajectory, and both were dragged across the sky.
A massive hand completely engulfed Ryo's head, the metallic fingers covering his face.
Through the gaps between the fingers, his eyes gleamed.
A green flash exploded from the hand as beams of energy shot from Ryo's eyes, striking the hand that held him. The impact forced the entity to release him, and Ryo reacted immediately.
He twisted his body in the air and his fist drove into the figure ahead.
The impact echoed through the night sky like thunder, hurling the entity backwards dozens of meters.
Ryo stabilized his body in the air, sliding a few meters before stopping. He wiped his face and looked forward.
Another Sentinel.
But this one was… different.
It was slightly taller than the others.
The metallic structure had larger proportions, nearly the height of All Might, and the design seemed more robust, with thicker layers of armor.
Ryo furrowed his brow.
And noticed something strange.
The punch he had thrown, it hadn't caused any damage to the robot.
The Sentinel was still in a defensive stance.
Then it slowly lowered its arms, but Ryo reacted instantly.
He shot forward like a green lightning bolt and landed another powerful punch directly on the robot's face.
The impact echoed in the sky.
The head should have been pulverized.
But…
The robot merely leaned back slightly.
Ryo's eyes widened.
"What…?"
Before he could finish the question, the Sentinel moved.
The giant palm shot forward and struck him directly in the torso.
Real Impact
An absurd force exploded against Ryo's stomach, as if a wave of compressed energy had detonated against his body.
All the air left his lungs.
"GHH—!"
The blow launched him upward like a missile, tearing through the clouds in seconds. He continued rising until he finally managed to stabilize his body.
Ryo brought a hand to his numb and aching stomach.
"What… was that…?"
But he had no time to analyze.
The Sentinel soon emerged from below the clouds like a metallic projectile.
Ryo reacted and extended his hands downward.
—Gamma Blast!
A massive explosion of green energy shot from his palms, completely engulfing the robot. The flash illuminated the surrounding clouds like an artificial aurora.
But then…
The energy and light began to be absorbed.
The entire mass of the green explosion was sucked into the Sentinel's body in an instant, as if everything had been absorbed by a black hole.
Ryo's eyes widened.
"…What?"
The robot extended its hand again.
Real Impact
The palm glowed.
The next instant, the very same Gamma Blast that Ryo had fired was returned.
The green explosion shot directly towards him.
"—!!"
Ryo was completely engulfed by the green explosion.
The detonation ripped through the surrounding clouds, opening a huge circular hole in the night sky as the shockwave spread for kilometers through the atmosphere.
The Sentinel hovered in the night sky, motionless.
Before it, a massive cloud of smoke and energy still expanded slowly in the air, the result of the explosion that had consumed Ryo seconds earlier. The robot's sensors analyzed the environment as it moved forward in a straight line.
Searching for the target.
But its momentum was interrupted when a fireball crossed the sky, striking the Sentinel's head with an explosive impact, spreading flames across the metal.
The robot slowly turned its head to the side to find Igneel.
The Brazilian hero enveloped in intense flames that illuminated the dark sky around him, his fiery silhouette casting dancing shadows on the clouds below.
Igneel floated in the air, arms crossed as the heat from his body made the air ripple.
"Hey!" he pointed at the robot. "Identify yourself—"
He narrowed his eyes.
"…holy shit," he muttered, eyes now wide. "You're one of those robots!"
The Sentinel didn't respond and simply advanced.
Igneel reacted instantly.
"Oh no, you don't—"
He spread his arms and unleashed a massive jet of flames, an incandescent river that completely engulfed the robot's body. The sky turned orange as heat spread through the atmosphere.
But the Sentinel didn't stop.
It kept advancing through the flames as if they were merely a warm breeze.
And in an instant, it passed through Igneel's body like butter.
The hero's torso was split in half.
Igneel let out a grunt as his flaming body was separated into two distinct parts. The halves fell for a few meters…
…before dissolving into pure fire.
The flames spread through the air and came back together into a single flame.
The flame took shape and Igneel reappeared whole, the human silhouette forming again from the fire.
He looked at the Sentinel, now stopped a few meters away.
"This guy is way faster than the one I faced in Rio de Janeiro." He adjusted his fighting stance. "And way tougher too, this one's going to be trouble..."
But then he noticed something.
The Sentinel's gaze was no longer focused on him.
The machine's sensors moved.
Pointed at the massive smoke cloud still floating in the sky beside them.
Igneel followed its gaze.
"Hm?"
A green glow emerged from within the smoke.
Small at first, only to grow larger and more intense.
The next second, a brutal wave of wind exploded outward from the cloud, sweeping all the smoke from the sky.
The area was cleared in an instant, and Ryo stood in the center.
The green aura around his body was more intense than before, pulsing and rippling around him like waves.
The magnetic rings spun around him slowly.
Igneel's eyes widened.
"…a kid?"
He looked from Ryo to the Sentinel and then back to the boy.
"Wait… is he the one who was fighting this guy and the others?"
Ryo didn't even glance at him.
His eyes were fixed on the Sentinel.
He ran a hand over his shoulder, cracking his neck slightly.
"You've got a really annoying quirk."
His voice came out calm, but clearly bothered and irritated.
Ryo narrowed his eyes as he analyzed the robot.
"I'm pretty sure that…"
He tilted his head slightly.
"You're way stronger than the one that showed up at the USJ."
And he was right.
Because the Sentinel before them wasn't one of the S-V3 models he had slaughtered moments ago.
It was an S-V5.
The SV-5 Sentinel vanished from its position abruptly, as if it had been erased from a frame.
Ryo immediately sensed a presence behind him.
But as he spun his body to react, the robot had already thrown a punch at him, yet at the same instant, the space around his body distorted.
A translucent rectangle emerged, enveloping him, as if he had been frozen inside a solid frame of reality. His movement locked for a fraction of a second — more than enough time.
The Sentinel pierced through that "frame" with a brutal strike.
The impact shattered the frame like glass and hit Ryo's stomach simultaneously, knocking the air from his lungs and sending him hurtling through the sky like a projectile.
Before the machine could continue its assault, a pillar of fire surged from the side.
Igneel advanced and spread his arms wide, releasing a massive jet of fire from his body that completely engulfed the robot.
But the Sentinel simply passed through them, just like last time.
And in a movement that seemed to occur in successive frames, he vanished from in front of Igneel and reappeared behind him in a sequence of frames.
The mechanical hand reached toward the hero's back.
Compressed Air Cannon.
A point-blank blast of pressurized air detonated.
The shockwave completely unraveled Igneel's flaming form, scattering his flames across the sky like a fire suddenly dispersed by the wind.
Before the robot could react again, a green sphere materialized before it.
The energy exploded against the Sentinel, producing a violent detonation that lit up the sky for an instant. However, as had happened before, the energy began to fade rapidly — being absorbed by the robot's structure.
Ryo didn't give it room to do that properly.
He appeared beside the machine and delivered a powerful punch that sent the Sentinel flying.
The boy shot after it using Gauss Propulsion, intercepting it mid-air with another blow that altered its trajectory once more.
The fight transformed into a frenetic sequence of interceptions.
Punch.
Change of direction.
A kick that hurled the robot upward.
Ryo appeared above it and came down with both hands clasped together, attempting to smash it against the air.
But at the last instant, the Sentinel vanished again.
It appeared behind Ryo.
Another translucent frame enveloped the boy, trapping his body for a fraction of a second.
The Sentinel then rose a few meters above him and extended its hand downward.
All the energy absorbed previously began to concentrate in the metallic palm.
Real Impact.
A devastating green flash completely engulfed Ryo and tore through the clouds surrounding the island, opening a massive circular void in the sky that stretched for kilometers.
When the energy finally dissipated, the boy's body was plummeting at high speed toward the city.
His undershirt was completely destroyed, and several deep gashes marked his arms and torso. He managed to regain control of his body just before hitting the buildings, hovering in the air as he breathed heavily.
"This bastard…" he murmured, bringing a hand to his still-numb stomach. "He absorbs my attacks and returns them…"
Ryo looked at his own arms.
The injuries began to close before his eyes.
His skin regenerated rapidly, the cuts healing as muscles and tissues knitted back into place.
He opened and closed his fist, testing the movement.
"At least I can regenerate properly now…"
When he raised his gaze again, he saw the Sentinel descending toward him.
Then something caught his attention.
His hearing, enhanced by Inner Transition, picked up distant voices — his friends.
Ryo turned his head toward I-Tower.
On the exterior of the 149th floor, near the wind power system, Todoroki, Bakugo, and the others were fighting against several security robots. Higher up, a massive hole in the structure revealed the interior of the 198th floor.
Midoriya was hanging from the edge.
And in front of him stood Swordkill, its blade-arm extended and ready to strike.
Ryo's eyes widened.
He immediately activated Gauss Propulsion. The electromagnetic rings around his body aligned and launched him forward at supersonic speed.
But the Sentinel intercepted his path.
The robot grabbed Ryo from behind the moment it collided with him, locking his neck in a chokehold.
"Let me go—"
At that moment, a scream echoed.
Ryo turned his gaze.
Everything seemed to slow down.
Swordkill had moved.
Melissa tried to intervene… and was violently thrown aside.
For an instant, something snapped inside Ryo's mind.
A flash surged through his consciousness.
His fingers closed around the metallic arm restraining him.
The metal began to dent under his strength.
The Sentinel sensed it and tried to counterattack, thrusting its free arm backward in an attempt to impale Ryo from behind.
But the attack failed.
The metallic fingers bent upon striking the boy's body, unable to pierce it.
The robot released Ryo and immediately retreated.
Ryo brought his hands to his head, breathing heavily as rage built inside him like pressure on the verge of exploding.
"AHHHH—!!!"
He let out a scream so powerful it echoed across the entire island.
The green aura around his body exploded into a gigantic pillar of energy that rose to the heavens like a beacon. Anyone on I-Island could see it.
But immediately afterward, all that energy was pulled back into him.
And then released again in an electromagnetic pulse that swept across the island.
Lights failed.
Panels went dark.
Robots faltered.
Ryo released another pulse.
Then another.
And another.
Five successive waves swept through I-Island, disabling electronic systems everywhere until I-Tower itself plunged into darkness.
The Sentinel stood at the center of the electromagnetic storm. Its systems attempted to reboot, but failed.
And before it could regain control—
Ryo appeared before it.
His eyes blazed intensely. The green aura around his body seemed to behave like flames, leaking from the corners of his mouth and eyes.
He grabbed the robot's head with both hands.
The metal began to melt under the energy radiating from his hands, now consumed by an intense green.
"Stop…" his voice came out hoarse.
His fingers sank into the metallic casing.
"…hurting…"
The Sentinel tried to react, but it was too late.
Ryo wrenched with brutal force.
"MY FRIENDS!!"
The robot's structure tore open.
The boy ripped the Sentinel vertically in half, splitting it into two parts as his aura exploded around him.
Inner Transition
5% — OVERLOAD!
----------------------------------------
Sorry for the delay, I ended up having to go looking for job openings last week until the day before yesterday. Besides that, I was working on a chronological map of the new fanfics I'm going to write, so I didn't expect it to take this long.
I will be posting 3 new fanfics and another one that's more of a remake of one of my fanfics, but in a different universe and with better development. I will post two exclusively on my Patreon, and the other two here.
You must be wondering which fanfics you'll be getting, right?
Well, one is of Jungle Juice, and the other will be of... Hazbin Hotel...
Calm down! Hold on, don't crucify me just yet, because I wasn't expecting it either.
It turns out my brother paid me some money to do it, a Hazbin Hotel fanfic... and I haven't even properly watched the series; all I've seen are videos talking about how bad it was.
And now you're thinking my brother is a fan of the series, right? Nope! He finished watching both seasons and got really pissed off, especially with Charlie, and paid me to write a fanfic about someone who reincarnates as Metatron and wreaks havoc in Hell like Doom Guy.
It's a pretty interesting idea applied to a universe I barely know, but hey, he paid me, so it's not for me to complain and just write.
Anyway.
Regarding the updates for this fic, they'll be twice a week, on Thursdays and Sundays.
I hope you enjoyed the chapter, and I'll see you next time.