Chapter 4: Bullies and Villains
Unlacing his red sneakers in the entryway to his apartment, Izuku thought about how happy he was to be home. School today had been a little too much for him. To start his day, he had spectacularly embarrassed himself in front of the entire English class. As if a mortifying mistranslation hadn't been enough, he realized that his only two friends were nowhere to be seen when he got to lunch. Not wanting to sit with the kids who were only nice to him because of his quirk, he sanctioned a remote table for himself. He had made it a habit to avoid the cafeteria whenever he knew his friends weren't going to be there, but they hadn't given him any warning today. Which, conveniently, left him wide open for a couple of Kacchan's lackeys to come by and poke fun at him. How Kacchan managed to keep all of these guys around him like loyal attack dogs with his deranged personality was one of the world's greatest mysteries. Perhaps it was just a matter of moths being drawn to a flame. Might makes right, after all. Everyone around Kacchan had been constantly reminded how gifted he was since the time they were four, so perhaps they just wanted to bask in his greatness — to feel good about themselves through proximity to someone predestined for success.
Luckily, the spiky-haired devil hadn't appeared, or things in the cafeteria would have really heated up. Lunch wasn't what tipped him over the edge, however. In the final class of the day, his homeroom teacher had brought up a topic that Izuku knew would only bring him trouble. He still had the memory burned in his brain; his teacher had gone to the front of the class and brought up high school applications. He had positioned himself at the front of the classroom and pretended to start a speech about the many different avenues students can take in high school. The pretense was short-lived, as after a few seconds he dropped the facade in favor of whirling around the room excitedly and rhetorically asking if everyone dreamed of going into hero academies. The teacher had even thrown a stack of papers into the air for dramatic effect. Of course, the room had gone wild in response.
~~~
Ever since America had set the precedent for government-sanctioned crime fighters, heroes have become status statements in Japan. It wasn't until All Might had broken onto the scene roughly forty years ago, however, that the entirety of the nation's youth became obsessed with heroics. The number of applicants to hero academies around the nation has grown year over year for the last fifty years, but the growth of the actual hero academies paled in comparison. This disparity naturally resulted in more and more people getting rejected from their hero-centric dreams. While rejection is a normal piece of life, it had become a major problem in recent years, when large percentages of quirk-related criminals cited rejections from hero academies as their reason for turning to crime.
The media and the entire world had held heroes on a pedestal, so, justifiably, people wanted a piece of that spotlight. Good intentions can still have negative consequences, though. The drive for heroics took too much attention away from the public's support for industry, inadvertently causing the youth to no longer dream of furthering technology or finding a cure for cancer. They wanted to be heroes. When that didn't work out, crime became increasingly enticing.
Izuku groaned while everyone had begun celebrating the teacher's antics. He had written a whole paper describing the dangers of overvaluing and oversaturating the hero market for his writing class' final a few weeks ago. He glanced around the room and eyed the celebrating students. 'So,' Izuku thought, ' Everyone here wants to apply to some hero school. At best, two or three of us will get into any of the dozens of hero academies in the nation. Which leaves about twenty devastated and highly impressionable kids with no goal in their lives. I just hope we can all find something to fulfill ourselves with if things don't work out. Before any of us turn to crime.'
His eyes caught on one of his classmates popping out his eyeballs and swinging them around in a circle above his head like a lasso. 'What exactly would he be able to do as a hero with that quirk? His optical nerves are still intact, so he'd feel pain whenever he would sustain any damage to his extendable eye sockets. Plus, he doesn't have enhanced vision, just the ability to view the world from about a foot above his normal height.'
Izuku considered the applications of the quirk before slumping in his chair in shame, 'God, I'm such a hypocrite. It was less than three years ago when I was quirkless. I was even worse off than he is! And I was still dead set on becoming a hero! Thinking in terms of quirks is reductive, and I should know that from first-hand experience. Maybe the guy's quirk isn't very directly applicable to hero work, but maybe he'd be able to find a way to become one anyway. Support Items were always an option. He wouldn't be the first person to attempt to become a hero with only support items, so it's definitely possible. That was MY plan if I never developed a quirk.'
He glimpsed to his right, where a pretty orange-haired girl was seated next to him. She was currently spewing a stream of red flames from her arm and waving it eagerly. 'Even with a quirk, it's not like I'm horribly special. I know my flames are above average, but that doesn't change the fact that flame quirks are still a dime a dozen. Making a name for yourself when there are thousands of people with quirks just like yours isn't exactly a walk in the park. It's amazing that Endeavor has been able to stand his ground at number two with a fire quirk.'
A loud laugh interrupted his self-deprecation. Kacchan's. With tired eyes, he glanced to his old friend who was lackadaisical, casually leaning back in his chair, "Don't lump us all in the same group. I'm not going to be stuck at the bottom with the rest of these rejects!"
'Oh boy. Here we go.' Izuku thought as the room grew even louder in protest. Several students tried chastising Kacchan before they were chewed out and called "extras." As if the teacher was trying to stir the pot even more, the teacher mentioned Kacchan's intention of getting into UA. Immediately, Izuku knew what was about to happen. Kacchan was currently boasting about his success on the UA entrance mock exam, but since the teacher already had privately discussed with each student their plans after graduating junior high, Izuku was willing to bet the conversation was about to shift to him. He breathed deeply in preparation.
The voice of the teacher drowned out Kacchan's speech, "Midoriya, you wanted to go to UA too, right?"
Yup. There it was. The tension in the room immediately became palpable as everyone's heads snapped to look at him. Izuku sat up straight, "Yeah, that's right. Can't let this hothead get all the glory, can I?"
A few chuckles erupted in the room before a flash and a blur of an explosion landed on his desk. His chair was pushed backward by the force and threatened to tip over, but he managed to firmly plant his feet in time to prevent himself from falling over. His chair fell to the ground beneath him with an echoing crash. While his confidence had grown immensely over the last couple of years, his height unfortunately hadn't gotten the memo. He stood up as straight as he could without looking like a soldier and looked at the boy standing next to his scorched desk. "What did you say, pissant?" Kacchan screamed.
"I said, Kacchan, that I'm applying for UA too. You weren't the only one to take the mock exam. You would've known that if your quirk hadn't destroyed your hearing." Izuku replied snarkily.
An usher of "ooohs" filled the room before the teacher stepped in. "Bakugo. Absolutely no destroying Midoriya's or the school's property. Return to your seat. Now."
Izuku bent down and picked up his chair, 'Imagine that. I get a quirk and the teachers start defending me. How unpredictable.'
Once everyone had sat down again, the teacher continued, "Bakugo. You have an amazing quirk and are incredibly intelligent, so I have no doubt that you'd be able to get into UA. But Midoriya also has a fantastic quirk and is just as smart. He's going to give you a run for your money, and you can't just attack him every time you feel threatened. You pull that behavior during the entrance exam and there's no way they'll let you in. Remember that."
The teacher continued talking, but Izuku wasn't interested in what he was saying. The anger welling up inside of him needed to be addressed first. He assumed it was a side effect of his quirk, but for the past three years, his temper had been put on a shorter fuse. It rarely flared up like this, but Izuku imagined that his fire quirk had made his emotional state more volatile. If he felt an emotion, he would feel it stronger than he would have previously — and it was especially vulnerable to anger.
Izuku closed his right hand into a loose fist as he focused in on what was happening in the classroom. Papers were being handed out. Probably the high school application forms. Izuku only had two high schools in mind. UA and Shiketsu. The eastern and western powerhouses of Japanese heroism. While he was hoping for UA, he had to be practical. UA has had the lowest acceptance rates of any hero school for the past twenty years. It would be a challenge for him to get into it, even if he had the greatest quirk on Earth. Shiketsu would also be challenging to get into, but it wasn't as prestigious as UA, which meant that it could accept more students.
The teacher had announced that once they filled out the high school application form, they were free to leave, so as soon as Izuku was handed the application paper, he quickly filled it out and handed it to the teacher. As he handed it to the teacher, his eyes leveled with his teacher's, "You know Midoriya, you shouldn't let Bakugo get under your skin. You did excellent on the mock exam, and you've got a very powerful fire quirk. That's not even mentioning that black goo you secrete. You're also one of the most dedicated students I've ever seen. A combination like that is hard to beat. The entrance exam for UA is in less than a year. Work on the physicality of that quirk and I bet you'll have pretty good odds of getting in. Now get moving, I got other kids to worry about. See you tomorrow, Midoriya."
All he could bring himself to do was respond with a weak, "Thank you, Sensei" before doing a lazy bow and leaving the classroom as quickly as he could. Izuku was hoping Kacchan and his cronies would stay for a couple more minutes so that he could get a head start on his way home before they bothered him. He rounded the corner to the stairwell and was met with a head-on collision with Kacchan. Izuku's right shoulder drove into Kacchan's chest by mistake and sent the blonde boy stumbling backward. 'Huh,' Izuku considered, 'I guess the extra bone density and the weight training I've been doing have paid off.'
"Sorry, Kacchan, I was just leaving." Izuku realized something, "How'd you even get over here so fast in the first place?"
Kacchan brushed his hands against his midnight black uniform, "Loser. Can't even see where you're going. I can't believe you think you have any chance in hell of getting into UA. You should have it in your head already that you're small fry compared to me. Always have been and always will be."
Izuku scoffed, "Yeah, yeah. I'm not quirkless anymore. I bet I could scorch your ass."
He turned away from Kacchan and began walking away, already tired of the bickering. "I already have, actually. If you've forgotten, I can always give you a reminder. Jog your memory a bit."
Kacchan sneered before retorting, "I feel bad for you, Deku. Still living in a fantasy where you think you're hot shit. You should just jump down that stairwell right now. Maybe in your next life, you won't have to compete with me."
Izuku didn't bother responding to that. Without looking backward, he flipped Kacchan the bird and made his way down the stairwell. 'I think Kacchan reads too many Isekai manga.'
~~~
He shook his head, stopping the mental reenactment as he pulled his second shoe off of his foot. At least today didn't get physical. Ever since that confrontation with Kacchan on his first day at Aldera, neither of them have been willing to escalate things to the point where they had to use their quirks. Over the past few years, they've gotten into physical altercations a couple of times, but they had agreed to limit it to just fist fights. Now that Izuku worked out regularly and had a mostly healthy diet, he was no longer a pushover. While Kacchan still had a leg up on him physically, he was able to hold his own. And since the school feared their ranking would go down if their fights ever went public, time and time again, their altercations were swept under the rug.
That didn't change the fact that the student body knew, however. It was common knowledge at this point that he and Kacchan couldn't be left alone for more than thirty seconds. A majority of the grade also took Kacchan's side since he had the preexisting popularity heading into junior high, while Izuku was known widely as the 'Quirkless Deku'. Of course, with time, he had gained a few sympathizers and some friends who weren't so enamored by Kacchan's violent robustness. That made the past two years a little more tolerable. Plus, it finally allowed Izuku to develop his rusty social skills, so it could have been worse.
Right as Izuku walked out of the entryway and into the kitchen, he heard his mom yell from down the hallway, "Izuku, honey, is that you?"
Izuku smiled, "Yeah, Mom. It's me."
His mom emerged from her room carrying a gray laundry basket full of clothing, "I'm glad you're back. No fights today, I hope?"
Izuku idly opened up the fridge, "Not today, luckily."
He didn't have to look to know his mom smiled at that. "That's great Izuku. That means you can help me out. A work call ran a little late today, so I couldn't go to the store for food. Can you run back out and do that for me? The list is on the table there."
An internal groan was released, "Mom, but I just got home!"
"Izuku."
"Fine, fine." He walked over to the other side of the countertop and grabbed the handwritten list of grocery items, "I'll be back soon. Love you!"
He heard a faint, "Thanks, sweetie!" as he reached for his dull red shoes.
As he grabbed a carton of eggs out of the store's refrigerator, Izuku overheard a woman an aisle over talking, "Did you hear that All Might is becoming a teacher at UA? Isn't that crazy? What is he becoming a teacher for? He could be out there saving people!"
A masculine voice responded, "Well, technically, he has been a hero for like, 40 years now. It would make sense if he's getting a little old, he'd want to help out the younger generations. I think it's awesome. Just think of what kind of heroes we will get if they're trained by All Might!"
The rest of their conversation was inaudible as they walked further away from him, but the topic of their conversation hadn't left his mind. 'All Might being a teacher would be fascinating. He would know a ton on battle strategy and takedown maneuvers. All Might can probably only give me general advice for the fire side of my quirk, but maybe he'd have some valuable pointers for how to develop the substance secretion. In the past three years, all I've discovered about it is that it reacts to my flames like oil, it's charcoal-colored, and I can very weakly telepathically push and pull it from my hands. I bet he's come across a quirk like that before. If not, I guess I could always talk to Vlad King. His blood manipulation works similarly, so I bet he'd help me out. But this all depends on me actually getting into UA. I can't afford to get rejected when All Might is a teacher! Too much is on the line to fail now.'
'Speaking of heroes being in the area. There are rumors of a joint mission between several different heroes that is taking place nearby. I guess Musutafu is just a hotspot for heroes right now. I wonder if whatever group of villains they're taking out is well-known enough for there to be footage of the fight. It'd be a bummer if they all come together and none of it is recorded.' Izuku mused as he moved on to his last item on the list.
Without realizing it, several minutes had passed while he was staring at the vast selection in front of him.
'Ok, Izuku, this shouldn't be this hard. Just pick one. Crunchy Crunch or Flake O' Corn. It's just cereal. I doubt Mom will be mad at either.' He frantically debated in his head.
The curse of options weighed heavily on Izuku at the moment. His mom had just written down 'cereal'. She didn't specify which one, and now he was left with guessing, hopeful that he wouldn't receive the 'Wrath of Mom' when he got back. He was still deciding when something out of the window caught his eye. It was a person. They were running and gesturing for people to follow. 'A villain attack?'
Izuku patted his interior jacket pocket. Yup. It was there. His 'Hero Analysis for the Future #13' notebook. He quickly grabbed the Crunchy Crunch cereal and made his way to the checkout. It took longer than he would've liked, but he finally got rung up and began sprinting after the stranger he had seen. There weren't any giant people around, so he didn't exactly know where to go, but he at least knew which direction it was in. After a bit of running, he heard the murmurings of a crowd and raced after the source.
As he turned a street corner, he saw several things all at once. There were dozens of people huddled together at a wide alleyway entrance. Beyond the bystanders were several sets of roaring flames, and in the middle of the inferno was a dark green fluid that moved wildly. The bags of groceries made it hard, but as Izuku approached the group, he fought and wiggled his way to the front of the crowd. Once he had a good line of sight, he dropped his bags and pulled out his notebook to document the situation. Backdraft was to the right, putting out fires, while Kamui Woods was elongating his arms to aid in the rescue of any nearby civilians. He seemed to have been placing them on a neighboring rooftop. Death Arms was… standing still?
Why was Death Arms standing still? The villain was a fluid-manipulating quirk user, right? Even if he couldn't tell what the dark green goo was, he was sure the villain had a physical body nearby that Death Arms could fight. "Hey," Izuku began to the person next to him, "What's happ-"
'Citizens, please back away from the alleyway entrance! The fighting area is expanding, and you are all in danger! This is Mandalay of the Wild Wild Pussy Cats. I repeat, the fighting area is expanding, please back away from the alleyway!' A loud feminine voice screamed in his head.
"Mandalay?" Izuku questioned out loud.
'The Wild Wild Pussy Cats don't operate anywhere near Musutafu. What are they doing here? ' Izuku thought as he picked back up his bags and took several steps back.
The goo was still sloshing around violently, but most of the action was happening on the other side, so it was hard to tell what was happening. As the bystander group stopped backpedaling, Tiger from the Wild Wild Pussy Cats appeared and acted as a guard rail, preventing anyone from getting closer to the scene. Behind him stood Pixie Bob, who began throwing mounds of dirt at the slime.
'If they're attacking the slime directly, then is the slime the villain? I've never seen a sentient liquid before. And where's Ragdoll? Usually, all four of them come in a group.' Izuku questioned the situation as the scene became more dire by the second.
He glanced up at the rooftops where Kamui Woods was placing civilians, and there she was. Out of the entire Wild Wild Pussy Cats ensemble, he found Ragdoll's quirk to be the most interesting. She can track a person, identify their quirk, and instantly know their weakness by simply looking at them. It was incredibly useful and could be used in a multitude of different situations. 'Maybe that'll help the heroes in this situation; if they can figure out the sludge villain's weakness.'
Once the fascination with the present heroes faded, his mind began to play catchup on the situation. It has already been several minutes since he's gotten there. The heroes were losing. They couldn't find anything that would stop this guy. That would explain why Death Arms is just bordering the fight—his physical attacks must do nothing. That's also why Tiger is playing the role of guardrail. Backdraft's water wouldn't do anything either. His water isn't pressurized enough to cut through the dark green substance, so he's been reduced to firefighting. This is bad. Really bad. They need someone with a more viable quirk, but what quirk would even work against a liquid-based villain like that?
His thoughts were interrupted by an ear-piercing scream originating from the direction of the slime monster. It had now wriggled around to face the crowd. Its face was weirdly just floating atop the goo, and its mouth seemed distorted somehow. 'Wait,' Izuku's blood went cold, 'Is that a person?'
Izuku squinted his eyes through the growing amounts of smoke. Those were definitely thrashing arms and legs. He couldn't get a good look on the face of the person, though. He craned his neck and that's when it happened. A spark, quickly followed by a muffled explosion.
'Shit.'
Ragdoll slammed her forehead onto the edge of the wooden 'desk' she had been stationed at. The large table's circular nature was more suited for a mission debriefing than an office desk, and it only made her agitated condition worse. She let out an elongated sigh of frustration as her eyes started tracing the simplistic geometric pattern of the carpet beneath her. Mindlessly, she stroked the bulk of green hair that hung over her right shoulder. The past week had been nothing but bureaucratic nonsense and goose-chasing. It was exhausting and irritating. The organized crime subdivision that she had been hunting down for the past two months vanished into thin air three days ago. No trace of them has been reported since. They weren't big-time, like the Yakuza, but they were still large enough to be capable of serious damage. When Ragdoll received the report that their leads had gone cold, she immediately wanted to leave the case to a different hero team. It meant more overtime and more sleepless nights. Ragdoll had enough of those for a while.
Unfortunately, the Hero Public Safety Commission didn't see things her way and immediately declined her request for the Wild Wild Pussy Cats withdrawal from the case. Worse yet, they appointed her as head of the operation. Hence, she hasn't slept in… Ragdoll checked the cheap leather strapped electronic watch that hung loosely off her wrist. 52 hours. When she finally accepted the fact that she was stuck with the case, she contacted some nearby underground heroes who were more suited for the role of covert reconnaissance. Even the top brass like Kesagiri Man came up with nothing, though. ' How the hell does a villain group just vanish? '
It didn't make sense. She was missing something, but she was at a loss as to how she could find out what that was. If only she had been able to tag one of the criminals with Search, then this whole thing would be a lot easier. Now, the Wild Wild Pussy Cats were pressured into arranging a joint hero team up with several of the local daytime heroes, and Ragdoll was feeling severely under-prepared. She lifted her head from the table and could already feel the curved red line starting to form on her forehead. She glanced to the right of the empty conference room. Besides her laptop, papers, and a couple of empty coffee mugs, the table was barren. Empty chairs were circling the table, but she hadn't seen anyone use them yet. On the right wall was a television that was broadcasting the news. It had become a background noise for her. She focussed on the breaking news segment the anchorman was discussing.
"Rumors of All Might sightings are flooding the streets here in downtown Musutafu. The reports of him taking up a teaching position at UA High School seem to have some credibility behind them if All Might is making an appearance in the area. Here is an eyewitness testimony of-"
Ragdoll turned off the television with a short wail and subsequent smack of her forehead against the table. "Why?" She groaned. "Why the hell does All Might have to be in Musutafu right now? The best lead we had was in this city and now with the goddamn Symbol of Peace in the area, there's no way that the criminal group is going to slip up. They're just going to go deeper into hiding. Fuck!"
Her wallowing was cut off by the sharp ringing of her cell phone. She wiped her face with her hand and grabbed the phone with her other. Pixie Bob. She pressed the green accept button, "What is it, Tsuchikawa?"
The muffled voice of Pixie Bob came through, "Well, hello to you too! It's a villain attack. Tatooin Shopping District. It's a hostage situation where the criminal seems to be someone with a sludge quirk. Reports say that he's practically a sentient liquid. He has a child in his grasp, and none of the local heroes have quirks that can do anything substantial against him. They're grasping at straws out there. I've already gathered Mandalay and Tiger, and we're en route. Mandalay says to rendezvous with her first."
Halfway through the debriefing, Ragdoll had already begun putting on her costume. There was still one thing she needed to know, however, "Wait. I just saw a report of All Might also being in Musutafu. Is he not already on the scene?"
The faint noise of an argument could be heard through the phone before Pixie Bob's voice returned, "Mandalay says that there's been no sign of him in the shopping district and that we can't rely on him showing up. Tiger says 'hi' by the way."
Ragdoll finished putting on her left paw. "Ok. Got it. I'm heading out. I'll see you guys in a minute."
The bumpy gravel beneath her scratched her leg as she crawled towards the ledge of the building. She had just met with Mandalay and was given a short summary of the situation. Pixie Bob had been right, the heroes here were out of ideas. When they arrived, she had even seen Death Arms just circling the villain like they were in an old-school boxing match. Even if his advanced strength did nothing to the sludge villain, he could at least be helping with the civilians or reinforcing the alley.
As her hands grasped the serrated concrete edges of the roof, she got her first aerial view of the fight. It was a shallow alleyway with several shops lining the sides of the street. It would have been pretty if it wasn't alight with prancing flames. A horrible aroma of burning trash and smoke filled her nostrils. She could feel tears forming in her eyes from the rancid stench. In the middle of the alleyway was the main event. A murky green mass thrashed against the walls of the alley, and she could make out glimpses of the citizen who was being held hostage. Adrenaline coursed through her as she realized the severity of what was happening. The villain had begun to waterboard the hostage with slime. Ragdoll felt her stomach flip as she heard the scream of a young boy come from the direction of the villain, "Get off me, you freak! And stop using my damn quirk!"
The hostage was a kid? And the villain was trying to take over his body? Was that possible? She didn't know, but she also didn't want to wait and find out. A crunch beside her alerted her of Mandalay's presence. They shared a glance before Mandalay quickly pointed to a growing group of bystanders watching the ordeal from the alley's entrance. "We need them to back up. They're too close. Use your quirk on the villain and try to figure out how that kid is doing.", Mandalay ordered before sending out a telepathic message.
Ragdoll only nodded in agreement. She glanced to her right, where she saw Kamui Woods place down several more citizens. She yelled over to him, "Get these people farther away from the fight! If this fight escalates, they're still in danger. Can they walk?"
Kamui Woods looked over to her. His eyes were dazed, and his movements were sloppy. 'He's not holding up well.'
Just when she opened her mouth to repeat herself, he seemed to get the message and moved them to the other side of the roof. Better than nothing. Her eyes darted back to the writhing sludge below. Numerous sparks and minor explosions seemed to be coming off of him. No wonder there was so much fire. Reaching down into her energy reserves, she activated her quirk. In an instant, she gathered enough information on the villain to know that the hero's current quirk selection was horribly insufficient for the situation. A flash of shame erupted in her heart. The child, who had an explosion-based quirk, ironically had the best quirk to take out the monster.
Ragdoll looked back to Mandalay, "The villain's liquid is dense with water, almost like sewage. He's invulnerable to most physical attacks, but he's not immune to blunt-force trauma. The only reason that kid down there is still alive after twenty minutes is because he has an explosion quirk. The force of the blasts is keeping the monster at bay, while the heat of the explosions is capable of vaporizing the sludge entirely. We need either a powerhouse like All Might or someone with a fire quirk, and I don't think we have either."
Mandalay groaned loudly, "So what do we do then? We cannot, under any circumstances, let that kid die down there."
Ragdoll racked her brain while Mandalay relayed the villain's weaknesses to the nearby pros. She was the team strategist. It was her responsibility to think of something that could work. How do you stop a liquid? She shut her eyes tightly in concentration, but nothing was coming to mind. None of the quirks here were much help. Maybe Backdraft could control dense enough water to encase the villain? No, that would drown the kid. Maybe Pixie Bob could-
Her thoughts were interrupted with a shove from Mandalay and a distressed exclamation, "Ragdoll."
She opened her eyes and followed where Mandalay was pointing. A young boy was thrashing wildly in the arms of Tiger. He was wearing an all-black uniform and had untamed green hair. His face was a mess. Tears streamed down his face in clumps as he rammed his fists against Tiger's elongated triceps. His eyes were watery, but his expression wasn't one of sorrow or trepidation. It was determination. A knot formed in the pit of Ragdoll's stomach as she looked on. The boy couldn't be older than fifteen and wore the same black uniform as the hostage. They must know each other.
Her heart ached as she realized the implications. That boy was watching his friend die right before his eyes. She didn't know if it was her lack of sleep or her physical exhaustion, but her emotions ran rampant at the sight. Tears began filling her own eyes as shame engulfed her. She cursed her own lack of ability to help. She could find the villain's weakness, but she couldn't magically make someone with the right quirk appear, nor did she have the physicality to keep up in a fight with sewage.
Mandalay looked at her softly but still remained focused on the situation at hand. Several small flashes illuminated the alleyway in waves as multiple explosions erupted from the blonde-haired kid's palms. Even in the grips of the villain, he was doing more damage than any of the heroes could. Trash was being flung to and fro while the fires still raged. Suddenly, Mandalay's voice broke Ragdoll out of her emotional suffocation, "Ragdoll! That kid got past Tiger! He's headed for the villain! Where's Kamui Woods?"
That was a surprise. How had the boy escaped Tiger's grip? Her eyes darted to the alleyway entrance, where the green-haired boy was now in a dead sprint towards the fight. Behind him was a blazing path of green that prevented Tiger from pursuing him. He was wielding a notebook in his right hand, and his left was becoming soaked in some black liquid. The adrenaline from moments before returned in full force as Ragdoll activated her quirk.
A loud gasp broke through her lips. Whatever sadness she had been struggling with was hastily replaced with dread. Her blood ran cold, and her mind blanked momentarily. Ragdoll felt wrong . This kid. He was exactly what the heroes needed. A powerful fire quirk. But, something was off. Her quirk was panicking. It was reacting erratically to her scan of him, but she couldn't fathom why. All she could discern was that she was in severe danger. Her heartbeat drowned out the surrounding chaos as the boy threw his notebook at the slime villain. The internal debate she had been wrestling with was decided as the shadowy green mass whipped around to face the child.
Ragdoll harshly tugged the puffy trim of Mandalay's costume, "Mandalay, we need to get back right now. Tell everyone to retreat."
She took a second to glance down at the scene below her. The kid now had bright, glowing green fists and was throwing wild punches at the monster while yelling something indecipherable. "Mandalay, I'm being super serious right now. We need everyone to get away from the fight. Something isn't right!"
Mandalay stumbled backward from the elevated ledge of the roof, "What? Ragdoll we can't just retreat, we-"
Ragdoll didn't listen and just gripped her teammate's costume tighter as she dragged Mandalay farther from the edge, "MANDALAY. You need to give the order to retreat NOW. Tell Pixie Bob to throw up a protective wall of mud around the entire alley! Something is happening!"
She didn't bother looking back towards the fight as she ran towards the civilians on the opposite side of the roof. The dread that had filled her consciousness morphed into fear as her quirk alerted her of a sudden change in the green-haired kid's quirk. With a hefty yank, she pulled Mandalay and several civilians behind the protruding stairwell entrance. She hoped this cover would be enough.
Just as the last civilian made their way behind the cover of the building entrance, the loud slapping of mud against concrete could be heard from behind them. The world seemed to pause around Ragdoll as a deafening silence filled the air. Mandalay was wide-eyed beside Ragdoll and was saying something that Ragdoll wasn't hearing. After many seconds of silence, a brilliant flash of white filled the day-lit sky and was followed by a constant green glow. Ragdoll felt ripples of heat rolling across her body from the direction of the fight but refused to peek around the corner to see what was happening. A piercing hiss consumed the airwaves before horrific screams followed. ' I really hope that's the sludge screaming. '
Ragdoll looked at the face of a young woman who was huddled beside them. She had tears in her eyes and dirt on her cheek. Her jeans were torn in several places, her jacket was coated in soot, and gashes on her arms were trickling out blood. Ragdoll winced as the woman began sobbing. She couldn't remember the last time she had ever felt this sick. Between the sickening sight of the hostage situation to her quirk triggering every survival instinct in her body, the nausea and relentless emotional turmoil she was going through was debilitating.
Next to her, Mandalay began to move out from behind the cover of the stairs, intent on jumping back into the fray. With the screams dying down, Ragdoll risked another glance in the direction of the alleyway. Her quirk immediately backlashed, prompting her to grab onto Mandalay and sternly warn, "Not yet! We're not done yet! The boy with the green ha-"
A flash of light behind Mandalay erupted, and Ragdoll swiftly jumped back behind cover with her teammate in tow, "Everyone, brace yourselves!"
As her body fell, she felt the building quiver underneath her. A resounding roar pierced her ears as the ground shook from an explosive blast. Her ears popped from the pressure, and she felt the building begin to sway back and forth unsteadily. A blazing green light encompassed her vision as she felt the temperature skyrocket. She shut her eyes tightly and covered her head with her arms. The building they were on wouldn't last.
Ragdoll wanted nothing more than to curl up in a ball and sit this out, but her responsibility as a hero ate at her. She opened her eyes hesitantly and locked eyes with Mandalay. "Tell Kamui Woods to get over here! This building will be nothing but rubble in a matter of moments!"
Mandalay nodded and turned away to console the frantic civilians. Ragdoll slowly shimmied her way out behind their cover and internalized the situation. The first thing she noticed was that the world had become green. Flames had engulfed every surface of the alleyway. The other side of the building where she had just been observing the fight from was now seven meters below, on the ground level, in a puddle of semi-liquid cement. The parts of the building that hadn't been liquified were either charred beyond recognition or collapsed. It was holding itself together by a thread. A glance around informed her that every neighboring building was in a similar shape. The green flames were eating at everything with an unnatural voracity.
Ragdoll found herself lost in the moment as the horrors of the scenery washed over her. Pixie Bob's mud was gone without a trace. The bottom of the alleyway was blanketed in a thick black cloud of smoke, making anything within it vague and undefined. She shook herself after a few solemn seconds passed by and ran towards the nearest way to the ground. The ground burned her skin as she scaled down the rubble to the ground. As she jumped the final bit of the way to the ground, a strong breeze blew into the alley, uplifting the smoke and demystifying the explosion's aftermath.
At one end of the alley, in a small puddle, was the dark green sludge villain. He had been drastically shrunk and now wouldn't even be able to fill a bucket. Ragdoll examined the body of the villain briefly. It wasn't moving, so either it was dead or knocked unconscious. She didn't know which one she honestly preferred.
Her tired eyes followed the trail of dominating flames to the opposing side of the alley. What she saw caused her to lean over and hurl. Slumped against the wall was the green-haired boy who had sent her 'fight or flight' instinct into a frenzy. With his left arm, he held the blonde boy who had been held captive in a death grip. The boy's other arm had been partially reduced to a bloody lump of flesh. It was profusely spouting blood, while the white bone of the forearm was fully exposed, slightly swaying with the breeze. Ragdoll wiped her mouth as she carefully navigated through the war zone between her and the boys. She looked down at the grisly amalgamation of flesh that had once been this poor boy's hand. It was incredibly gory, but his arm was likely salvageable from just below his elbow. If she acted fast then maybe… She didn't know what. Maybe the boy could have seventy-five percent of an arm? The anguish she felt was fatiguing, and the last of her strength had been spent.
She could hardly keep herself together as she desperately rummaged through her costume pockets for gauze and disinfectant. Ragdoll knew how to perform first aid, but looking down at the poor boy's unconscious face, she was overcome with another wave of nausea. Splattered with blood and some sort of black substance, he had a depressingly grotesque complexion. Swallowing down bile, she began disinfecting the wound. Black dots began swirling around in her vision as she felt herself drift. 'No!' She scolded herself. 'Finish the job!'
Through the dreariness, she applied as best first aid as she could. As she finished wrapping the wound, she heard the whistling of air and the crunching of solid ground behind her.
A deep, bellowing voice boomed into the crackling of the flames, "I AM HERE."
Ragdoll didn't know what was happening to her. She had been a hero for twelve years now, and she had already had the misfortune of seeing several devastatingly horrific crime scenes, but none of them had made her feel as dejected as she did right now. She was sitting in the back of a parked ambulance truck with her legs dangling out of the back door. A shock blanket had been placed on her at some point, but she couldn't recall when. Or by whom. All she could think about was the feeling that arose in her chest when the boy had run into the battle. The intense urgency that every fiber of her being had resonated with. As a pro hero, she had forced herself to develop a solid resistance to intimidation and danger. Her 'fight or flight' reflex should have been just 'fight' at this point. So why had this situation been so different?
Images of the aftermath flickered in her mind. The two young boys' limp bodies. Their bloodied faces. The exposed forearm bone. The gruesome way the arm had been reduced to tendrils of loose skin and muscle. The way that the once-connected hand had been utterly erased from existence. Perhaps she was getting softer as she grew older, but the look on the green-haired boy's face was heartbreaking. Even with his hand blown off, his own blood strewn across the alleyway, and half the block in shambles, the boy still held onto his friend with a smile and an expression of pure contentment.
Once All Might had arrived on the scene, the downcast mood of the public shifted to inappropriately cheery. As if a tragedy and a failure of monumental proportions hadn't just taken place. The heroes were humiliated. Saved by a child, who sacrificed his own arm. In the process, several buildings had been destroyed. Whose fault was that, really? The boy's, since he unlawfully used his quirk? The heroes, for not stopping the villain sooner or being unable to prevent the boy from rushing into the fray? Ragdoll didn't know. She just knew she felt incredibly sick.
After landing, All Might quickly examined the situation before funneling the sludge villain into empty soda bottles using the kinetic energy of his punches. He had thanked the nearby heroes very loudly before breaking off a wooden board from one of the destroyed buildings and setting it beneath the two unconscious boys. Ragdoll vaguely remembered creating a make-shift tourniquet on the green-haired boy's right arm before All Might had secured them to the board and in a single leap, made his way to the nearby hospital. The rescue efforts had gone by relatively quickly with Kamui Woods and Death Arms. Backdraft was crucial for extinguishing the spreading fires. Once the crowd had dissipated and the injured hauled away in ambulances, only a solemn silence remained amongst the heroes. While the public was seemingly satisfied with how things turned out, the heroes knew better. They knew they lost.
Ragdoll was pulled out of her thoughts as two shadows impeded her vision of the floor. She glanced up to an irate Mandalay and an overwhelmed Tiger. Mandalay crossed her arms and stood expectantly in front of her. She glared at Ragdoll for a second before bursting out incredulously, "What the fuck was that? A fucking kid runs into a fight, and you tell us to back off?? What were you thinking? Not only did you let a civilian join the fight, you told the heavily trained pro heroes to retreat so that a child can run in and blow his own goddamn arm off! Not to mention the fact that he destroyed several buildings in the process! Hell, Ragdoll, Pixie Bob got hurt!"
The glare from Mandalay was furiously sharp. Ragdoll couldn't recall her ever being this visibly upset. Not since her cousin had been murdered, at least. Tiger's look of overstimulation had also been replaced by one of anger; although it was slightly softer than Mandalay's. Ragdoll didn't even know what to say to them. She had no gratifying explanation for her actions. She didn't even know if her actions were the correct ones to take. She had blindly followed her gut instinct and things still turned out horribly. The more she tried to come up with a response, the more she relived the disaster. Each thought bringing a gruesome image of the aftermath. Of the horrified faces of the bystanders. Of the dejected faces of the heroes who were incapable of preventing the carnage.
Mandalay was becoming increasingly disgruntled and waved her arms in frustration, "Well?! We followed your instructions because we're a team. Hell, I thought the slime villain was about to pull out a bomb or something. But you knew better AND let the boy run in like a goddamn vigilante! So, what the hell is going on?"
Ragdoll's mouth was dry. Words wouldn't form, and for a few seconds, all she could manage were indecipherable stutters. With a weak tone and as soft as a whisper, she finally managed to string together a sentence, "I don't know. I don't know. That boy, the one who ran in… his quirk. It's not- It's not normal."
Tiger was the one to respond to that cryptic explanation, his voice course from the smoke, "What do you mean 'not normal'? The way I see it, you trusted an untrained kid to take out a villain in a hostage situation more than pro heroes — more than us."
A grimace enveloped Ragdoll's face. Her left ear had started ringing again, and her eyes stung from dust and tears. "I don't know what I was thinking. The boy's quirk is fire-related, but my quirk told me something was drastically special about it. Or him. I couldn't tell. Something about him, either his quirk or himself, isn't normal. Once I caught sight of him, there was this dangerous gleam in his eyes. I knew we wouldn't be able to stop him and I- my quirk gave me a horrible feeling in my gut. That something was about to happen. I didn't have time to think. I just- I just followed my instinct and told everyone to get back. I'm sorry."
Mandalay's jaw was tightly shut, and her aggressive expressions had become unreadable, "Did your quirk tell you we couldn't stop the boy or was that just your own conclusion?"
Ragdoll averted her gaze. She tapped her dangling feet together nervously. Minutes passed in a tense silence between the three before Tiger spoke, "Ok. We can deal with this later. We need to check on Pixie Bob at the hospital and then get back to our meeting. I'm sure the people we recruited for our mission are quite unpleased that their hosts are nowhere to be seen."
Mandalay let out a huff, "Fine," her eyes fixed on Ragdoll's, "This isn't over. We'll talk about this later."
With that, Mandalay spun around and briskly walked in the direction of where they had left their car. Tiger looked at Ragdoll with a mix of sympathy and disappointment.
Ragdoll's eyes went big the moment Mandalay's figure turned a corner, "Tiger. I know this is asking a lot, but I need you to cover for me at the conference."
Tiger crossed his burly arms, "Now why would I do that? You're not exactly off the hot seat yet."
Ragdoll swung her body off of the back of the truck and landed on the ground with a thud. She discarded the shock blanket she had been wearing and looked past the city skyline to the barely visible UA towers. "I need to speak with someone."