Chapter 61
At the very last floor of the tower, just before a large, door of polished steel, which just at a glance looked so large and heavy it was a wonder how the structure of the tower could support it, a man worked with almost feverish focus, constantly going this way and that between the console one the wall by the door and the large open panel beneath it, which exposed a jumbled mess of cables and lights and assorted components, occasionally requesting tools or assistance from another man that stood patiently by.
Such was the situation that Wolfram walked into, working his face into the best expression of nervous, fretful caution he could manage.
"How's it looking, Doc?" He said, with the tone to match the expression.
"It shouldn't be too much longer now." Shield replied, not taking his eyes off his work. "I've found some slight setbacks with system modifications, but I'm close to getting through and opening the vault."
"That's great to hear." The mercenary said with exaggerated relief, before resuming the fretfulness. "But all the same, you might want to hurry it up, Sir. We might have company soon."
At that, the scientist did stop to look up at him, clearly expecting some elaboration, and here at least, no deception was needed. "We've lost contact with one of the guys in the lower floors. We trying to find out why, but it's entirely possible we might have someone loose on the tower."´
"That's… that shouldn't be possible, the system take-over should've kept everyone contained downstairs, how could…" Shield muttered, clearly very distressed at the possibility of unexpected problems, before shaking his head and steeling himself. "I'll hurry up. Keep an eye out of course, but if you do find someone and they can't be dissuaded by your act… then I guess all we can do is accept the trick has failed and stop. But until then, just try to give me a little more time, I am so close…"
"…Will do, Doc," Wolfram replied to the earnest plea, with all the reluctance of a man that looked way in over his head. "Best leave you to it, then."
The Doctor nodded once and returned to his work with renewed zeal, swiftly becoming so engrossed he didn't even see his faithful assistant giving a contemptuous roll of his eyes at the mercenary, whose façade had completely disappeared as he gave an agreeing nod before turning back around.
For someone supposedly counted among the greatest minds in human history, David Shield had sure turned out to be a gullible moron, still thinking his planned "heist" was all smoke and mirrors and paid actors. Wolfram had seen his type many times before throughout his career, the goody two-shoes who were so sheltered and idealistic they didn't realize when they were in over their heads while out in the real word.
Credit where credit was due, the fact the man was so willing to do something incredibly illegal, even if just in pretend, just to get what he wanted showed he wasn't all talk, but that just played in the favor of the real movers of the plot. Why waste time with hostages and threats to force compliance, when their person of interest was already so willing to do what was needed of them just with a little bit of lying?
Work smarter, not harder. One of the many lessons any good merc would swiftly learn.
"Hey, Boss, seems like we do really have problem."
And speaking of…
"Report." He acknowledged as he reached for the comm.
"We've found Breakdown. He was bound and gagged in a closet with his riffle. We woke him up and he said he'd found 3 kids dressed as waiters before something conked him in the head from behind."
The villain stopped as he heard that. By the description, obviously it was more than just 3 intruders. But still, kids?
"That's what he said." The man replied, as if hearing what his superior had just thought, but Wolfram's mind was racing, going through the data they had been provided for the job.
"Is Shield's girl among the hostages at the gala?" He immediately asked. It was a hunch, but still…
"…No boss," Another voice replied through the comm, one of the man in charge of the captives. "We don't see her anywhere, could be she was late and is stuck outside?"
…It seemed like their intel on potential problems was more accurate than expected. But then, he really should've expected as much. Their client was nothing if not thorough…
"It's possible, but we aren't taking the chance." Wolfram said, a deep frown on his face. "Especially because the kids breakdown saw are likely to be U.A. students, and we don't know were either is, it is entirely possible that they've joined up. I want the patrols team redoing their rounds on the double, and divert even more security bots to the tower, as many as is possible to without compromising containment on the rest of the island."
"Ain't that a bit much if we're really just dealing with a bunch'a brats, boss?" Swordkil asked, his ever so annoyingly cocky attitude loudly heard in his tone. "Just because breakdown went down like a little bitch-"
"Do not underestimate them." The red-haired man cut his underling off, his tone cold and brooking no argument. "If we are dealing with the kids I think we might be, we are dealing with kids that already got a little taste of how things work in the real world. They survived a villain attack in their own turf. Going by the whispers coming from Japan, some of them helped to take down Stain. That they got Breakdown on top of all that just goes to show that we must take them seriously. And if they are with the Shield girl and manage to get up the tower, that might clue in the Doctor that something's off at best or ruin this operation at worst. We are not letting that happen. I don't care if they're kids, stop them. Understood?"
"…Copy that." Came the confirmation from the entire crew, even Swordkil. They knew better than to challenge Wolfram when he took that tone.
Satisfied that he had gotten his point across, there was little that the mercenary leader could do but settle in and go through the worst part of any job, the wait for the prize to be vulnerable.
/
It was a funny thing, sometimes, to see how, even in the most mundane of actions, for all that they were just teenagers like any other in many ways, it was still very easy to see who in their little merry band was a hero student and who wasn't. The last while had been very tense, but mercifully lacking in any major incident, as they had managed to go unnoticed on their way up through around 50 of the tower's levels, in no small part due to the early alert system that was Kyoka's hearing. And while the exercise was strenuous enough that the girls had to ditch their heeled shoes to make it, the only two present who were actually visibly struggling at this point were Mineta, and in all fairness, anyone of his size would be struggling here regardless of physical conditioning, and Melissa, who was making a mighty effort not to be too obvious in her gasping for breath. All their training under Aizawa's demanding supervision had been good for something, it seemed. And frankly, Momo would have suggested a short break even if they hadn't just bumped into their next major hurdle.
"Well, that's inconvenient." She muttered, as she beheld the metal shutter that blocked their path into the next floor.
"Honestly, it could be worse." Melissa replied after a moment to center herself, although she did look sheepish at the admission. "There's actually shutter like this for every floor. I'd guess that the villains didn't shut them all off because at that level of security there'd be S.O.S signals being sent out to every nation in range of the Island, and more attention is probably the last thing they'd want right now." She then looked towards the map on the wall. "We're in the 80th floor, the plant level. Well, it is technically a research facility for plant based quirks, but it really just looks more like an in-house park. And it's a little under half the way up to the tower's top."
The admission earned her a groan out of Mineta.
"Couldn't we, just, I don't know, try to sneak through the garden to find another way up?" He suggested, as he made to reach for the door leading into the floor proper.
"Wait, don't!" The blonde hissed urgently, reaching out to grab Mineta under the arms and lift him up and away from the door, just a moment before his hand could finally reach the handle. "The tower's in lockdown, remember? Every single door to enter and exit the floors is tied to the system. If you open that, it'll ping to whoever's monitoring the control room that we're here!"
Mineta nodded his understanding of the frantic warning, but he didn't verbally reply, mostly because he was confused by his conflicting emotions at the moment. Normally being held in the arms of a hot babe would've been a dream come true to him, but in the current situation and position, it kinda felt rather demeaning to be handled like a baby…
"I could try to use my ice to break our way through?" Shouto suggested, eyeing the barrier with a keen look. "Maybe even my fire to melt it?"
"Fuck that, I'll just blow this shit up." Katsuki growled, hand already popping as he raised.
"Kaboom?" A suddenly very interested Midoriya asked with a wide grin as he reached for his pocket… only to be stopped by a hand suddenly grabbing his arm.
"No! Need I remind you guys that we're trying not to draw attention here?! No ice. No fire. No explosions." Momo hissed quietly, staring warningly at each of the boys in turn. "And certainly no "kaboom". We need Kyoka's hearing intact, thank you very much."
…The three of them just stared at their class president, rivals for once united in mutual surprise at the rebuke. They recovered quickly though, Shouto regaining his detached demeanour and Midoriya pouting, while Katsuki glared at her.
"Then what the fuck do you propose we do, Ponytail?" He grunted, clearly unamused.
"We already have a method of breaking through that is less likely to draw attention." She replied, looking towards the boy whose arm she had been holding and just now let go. "Just use your claw. Like in the exam."
After a couple of blinks, understanding seemed to dawn on the green-haired boy, and while he was still pouting and grumbling under his breath, he nonetheless complied, approaching the shutter as he pulled out the unwieldy, red-painted monstrosity.
"What are you trying to do?" Melissa couldn't help but inquire, eyeing the device with professional curiosity. "This shutter is at least 5 inches thick, surely that alone can't-"
She stopped speaking when with a hum a green glow briefly cover the claws and Midoriya leaned down, slashing a single talon from the ground up, cutting through the steel like a hot knife through butter. It was surprisingly lacking in any of the loud grinding noises she'd come to expect from metal being cut, more of a dull, light groan, as if the material was not offering much in the way of resistance.
"Mattah disruption field." The boy said as he went about his work, as if guessing what she had been wondering. "Me powah klaws can cut through pretty much anythin'."
"…And you used that during the U.A. Festival?" Melissa could help but ask, even as her mind raced through the various possibilities of how that might work.
"Well, obviously, I didn' turn it on den. Pretty sure it'da been against dah rulez if I had cut Bugsy Boy's arm off or somethin, no idea why." He replied simply, having by them carved a vaguely human shaped hole big enough for all of them to get through with a little effort pushed the cut part off, as casually as if he had just been using an over-sized cookie cutter.
Well, other than Melissa's uncertain look as to how to reply to that, Momo allowed herself a small breath of relief. At least they managed to keep it subtle for now.
"Uh, guys…?" Kyoka suddenly said, looking towards the door. "I hear movement. At least two people approaching."
…She had just jinxed it, hadn't she?
Chapter 63
"…Well, so much for subtlety." Denki muttered dryly, although he was man enough to admit the snark was just his way of masking his growing concern about their current situation, and that was why his words had a noticeable tinge of urgency to them. "So what's the plan now?"
Before anyone could so much as think about how to answer that question, suddenly there was a circular hole on the wall. Not that it had been blown up, or punched through, it was just suddenly there, right next to the door, at handle level. No debris anywhere, not a single sound besides the dull thump of something falling to the ground on the other side, where they all could see the vibrant grass fields and tress of the tower's indoor garden. Momo's mind, for some reason, had for a split second that there was a comparison to be made with something ancient and historical/mythical, but then their view was obstructed by the face of a man, heavily warped beyond typical human shame by what was obviously a mutant quirk even without accounting for the green hair, smirking the smirk of someone who had been craving violence and had just found an outlet for said craving.
"Well, well, well, what do we have here?" He commented, eyes going around and measuring up each of them in turn. "Someone's strayed way too far from the party-Shit!"
"WAAAAAAGGGGHH!"
Only reflexes born of years in a career that naturally encouraged the survival of the ones who reacted faster allowed the mercenary to just barely duck out of view as Midoriya opened fire with his pilfered rifle (nobody had even noticed him having the time to take off his gauntlet and pick the thing back up), clearly making the executive decision that if they had been made anyway then silence was kind of pointless. Despite how fast it all happened, it did not escape Momo's notice that the boy's expression seemed somewhat… disappointed, as if something about the weapon had failed to meet some sort of standard, as he kept it going for a few moments more before finally moving his finger of the trigger.
The silence that immediately followed was heavy as only the silence that follows a cacophony could be, as everyone took the moment to glance between the hole and the boy.
"Well, are ya'll'z just gun be standin' dere gawkin' or actually keep goin' up?" Midoriya said, sounding unimpressed by their stares, and even a little disgruntled, as he gestured towards the generously sized hole just freshly cut into the obstacle before them. "Go on, get. I'll keep dem gitz busy, make sure dey'z can't be goin' aftah you'ze."
With that, the boy made to take a step towards the door, but before he could, Todoroki called out.
"Midoriya, wait." The scarred teen said. "I'll stay, but you should keep going."
Credit where credit was due, the boy's stoic demeanour didn't crack in the slightest when faced with the red-eyed glare that was the reaction to his words, but even he had to admit that it was a rather frightening thing to have pointed your way.
"Oi, ya tryin' tah hog dah foitin', Frosty? Cuz far as recall, t'wuz I takin' dah first shot." Midoriya retorted in what felt more like a grunting growl than spoken words.
"I'm just saying," He explained, hoping against hope to appeal to whatever passed for a sense of logic in his… he decided to go with rival. "Considering what we're trying to accomplish here, the way your quirk lets messes with machinery might come in handy further up the tower, more than ice and fire would, at any rate. It'd make more sense if you went with the others while I hold down the fort here." He stopped and blinked as he considered his next works. "And think of it this way, these guys are just mooks, it's probable that whoever's calling the shots is up above. Might make for a more… interesting fight."
That did seem to catch Midoriya's interest, his expression going from aggravated to the suspicious, pondering face of someone trying to weigh the pros and cons of what they were being told in search of any signs of trickery, and that was the point when someone else decided they didn't like to be sidelined.
"Who the fuck died and left you in charge, Candy Cane?" Katsuki ground out, glaring contemptuously at the other two teens. "I could take care of those bozos out there with one arm tied behind my back before the rest of you chucklefucks got past even half a flight of stairs. I got this."
"Sez' who, Katsu?! I dun recall anyone puttin' you'ze in charge eithah!" Midoriya promptly retorted, once again in full on aggravation mode.
And as the words between the three teens degenerated into an argument over who got to fight that seemed to be growing steadily and alarmingly closer to turning into a full on brawl with the very privilege as the victor's prize, Melissa, completely flabbergasted by the sudden turn, could only turn to stare at the others present, none of whom looking particularly pleased with the development, but not particularly surprised by it either.
In particular, the blonde's eyes met Momo's, and they seemed, all by themselves and without any actual words, to ask a simple, but obvious question.
…Are they for real?
Momo didn't quite catch the look, but in fairness, that was because she was struggling mightily against the sudden and near overwhelming urge to facepalm. Not for the first time, she wondered. just how had they all survived to make it this far…?
"…Oh, for-Boys!" The pony-tailed girl suddenly cut into the rising argument, her patience having officially reached its limit, as she looked at each of the, the, the… morons she called classmates, giving each a stare of stern disapproval in turn. "Now is the worst possible time for a squabble, specially one over who gets to stay and fight of all things! I don't care who took the first shot or who called dibs, but Todoroki was the only one of you to make a halfway sensible point. Both he and Bakugou stay, because just in case I need to remind you, we are dealing with mercenary villains and need to pull out all the stops, but Midoriya comes. End of discussion!"
…
…
…
For once, the quiet Prodigy, the jolly Battle Maniac and the temperamental Pomeranian shared the exact shame expression, all three of them looking at their class president with confused surprise, briefly glancing at each other as they finally seemed to reach some sort of agreement under her stern annoyance.
"…Fiiiiine." Midoriya was the first to speak, clearly unhappy, but conceding with the grumble of a scolded child. "Ya gitz shuld be careful not tah let that weird git get to close yah you'ze tho. I'z bettin' he popped tha hole on dah wall, and at a glance I'z guessin' however dat workz he needz tah be up close tah do it…"
Todoroki nodded once in silent acknowledgement of the advice, while Katsuki tsk'd in aggravation, scoffing away from his nemesis.
"Ok, yeah, we wasted enough time as it is. You chucklefucks get going already." He growled.
So decided, giving out quick wishes of luck and words of support, the rest of the party started going through the hole in the shutter, leaving the two fighters behind.
"…Are they really going to be ok?" Melissa couldn't help but voice her concern once they had started making their way up the stairs again, glancing hesitantly back. Not like she could do anything to help in that particular situation, she knew, but still, she could help but notice just how easilyeveryone else was going along with this…
"Oh, yeah, don't worry, they'll be fine." Ochaco said, and to the blonde it didn't sound so much like she was trying to sound reassuring so much as she was just explaining facts. "The last time we got attacked by villains, those two practically soloed much more than just two. They'll be fine."
As if in response, a loud explosion suddenly made itself heard behind them, making Melissa nearly jump out of her skin, but no one else seemed to bat an eye.
"See? They're fine." The brunette said casually, and the American girl decided to let the matter drop.
Amidst all of this, no one seemed to realize that Midoriya, still taking point, had popped the silencer off the gun's muzzle and tossed it like it was something disgusting, offensive, disgustingly offensive and offensively disgusting.
/
"Hey Boss, I've found the brats."
"Report." Wolfram grunted into the comm. He didn't relax, because he somehow doubted the words meant the potential hazard to the plan was fixed. Not with the rumble he had felt just before the call.
"System pinged an alert on the 80th floor. I don't have a visual, but sensors seem to indicate Daigo and Nobu have engaged. There was a breach on the shutter on the west side stairwell, though."
…Meaning that in all likelihood the brats left someone behind to keep his men occupied while the rest continued on. A pragmatic approach he could respect. In most other situations he'd have thought it'd mean sentencing their own friends to death, but considering what he'd heard, Nobu and Daigo getting the job done was as sure a thing as he'd like, and he wasn't going to call them to confirm their status while they were in the thick of it. It'd be beyond stupid to cause their loss by potentially distracting them at a crucial moment.
"…The robots?" He said simply, trusting he didn't need to say more.
"The extra units are here, Boss. I was just about to tell'em where to go." His hacker promptly met his expectations.
"Good. Make them swarm through the levels between the 80th and the top of the tower. Full threat elimination mode. Flush them out."
Chapter 64
The noises of explosions and fire faded behind the group as they kept going up the flights of stairs, to be replaced by a tense quiet that was only occasionally broken by a low but clearly displeased grumble from Midoriya who, to his credit, despite his clear sour mood, was still taking his position at the front of the group seriously, always on the lookout for any other surprise, and ready to tear through any other shutter that might bar their path above.
That being said, when they did come across another shutter a few floors up, before Midoriya could even reach for his pocket to get out the klaw and tear another hole into it, the thing started opening by itself, with no prompting whatsoever. A few of the teens nearly jumped, and, as far as Momo could tell, it was probably only by the grace of some higher power that the green-haired boy hadn't immediately started blasting…
"…Well, that couldn't more obviously be trying to lead us to a trap if it had flashing neon arrows saying, "please come this way, there's cake"." Jirou remarked sarcastically. "We all agree they're trying to herd us somewhere, right?"
"Quite. Hardly surprising that they'd have a good notion of our position by now." Tenya agreed, glancing between the opening steel wall and the door to the floor they were currently in, which, as if waiting for the cue, also opened by itself with a click and a soft beep. "The question is, how should we proceed with this new development?"
"Melissa?" Momo promptly asked their foremost source of intel on their current location, the blonde frowning as she looked at the vanishing obstacle.
"Well, there's not really much worth noting about this floor, and…" She quickly leaned over the rail and glanced up and down the stairwell, tilting her head as if listening to something. "Jirou, you can hear it too, right?"
"You mean, the same rumble as this one did? Yeah, I'm hearing it." The noise sensitive girl confirmed. "You're thinking they're opening up the locked down areas?"
"At least the ones on this side of the tower, it sure seems like it." The blonde confirmed, but she didn't seem particularly sure what to make of the conclusion. "I'm just not sure why they'd be giving us a clear path forwards. Even if they know we can bypass the barriers, this just makes it harder to pin down just where exactly we are. Unless…" Her eyes went wide with realization. "The automated defenses. They're not opening the way for us; they're opening the way for the security bots that are probably swarming through the tower as we speak!"
Perhaps it was just the adrenaline of their extremely tense situation talking, or maybe it was just that they didn't know I-Island as she did, or maybe it was the other way around and they all knew something she did not, but all the same, it didn't escape the Melissa's notice that her conclusion didn't seem to worry her current company as much as it did her. If anything, a few of them seemed to lose the tension in their demeanour at her words.
"Well, about time something in this whole mess goes our way." Kaminari commented with a smirk, as he and Mineta high-fived, to the blonde's immense confusion.
"We're used to dealing with robots." Ochaco clarified for the newcomer to their little merry band, something that the brunette was beginning to note was happening a lot lately. "U.A likes to use them a lot for the big stuff like the entrance exam and the festival. And moreover, we got Midoriya with us. He's, like, robot kryptonite. I swear, sometimes it seems like the ones back at the academy are outright afraid of him."
The very wide and very eager grin that bloomed in the face of the boy in question at the prospect of an incoming fight did little to disprove the notion, unsurprisingly.
"Be that as it may," Momo said, not even bothering to sound like she disagreed, because stupid as it sounded it was the truth. "We shouldn't get complacent. Just because we're likely to see robots doesn't mean we're not running the risk of bumping into more villains. We should still try to be discreet for as long as we can." To her relief, nobody said anything to disagree.
"Well, we could always try to cross this floor and see if we can continue going up from the other stairwell. It's mostly just offices with nothing important in here." Melissa suggested. "With any luck, they'll be focusing on this side and that might buy us a little more time to get higher before we find resistance."
Nobody had any other ideas or any particular issue with this one, so, armed with the knowledge of what might be waiting for them, the group entered the office floor, making their way through the corridors, as quietly and swiftly as they could, fully alert for any possible threat as they went. Which was just as well, because, just as they were reaching the end of the hall that'd take them to the eastern stair…
"Wait." Kyoka hissed out quietly, focusing intently. "I hear movement, coming from around the next corner. This low, metallic droning, and from more than one source. Might be those bots Melissa mentioned."
Midoriya promptly glanced around the corner, seeing yet another, fairly unremarkable hall, with the doors to the stairs and the elevators right there, and… "Dey'z ain't in sight just yet, but I'z can see sum red lights comin' from dah next corner ovah. Ya wantz I shuld just go krump'em all?"
Momo made to reply, but to her confusion, and that of most others present, truth be told, someone else beat her to the punch.
"Nah, we got this one." Kaminari replied, as he and Mineta stepped forward. The blond teen, a cocky smirk plastered over his face, said it with such easy, firm confidence.
"Yeah, it's about time the two of us should do some of the work." Mineta concurred with unusual eagerness, nodding sagely. "And like Uraraka said, we know how to deal with robots. The two of us can handle a few, no problem."
…
…
…
…Needless to say, every other class 1-A student was verysurprised at the sudden display of initiative from these two in particular. Even Midoriya (though going by his expression, in his case it was less surprise and more incomprehension) and Kyoka, the two most likely to have something to say about it, were so caught off-guard that the former couldn't even feel aggravated as he had with Bakugou and Todoroki, and the latter's usual sarcasm when it came to the electric boy failed her.
Taking the shocked silence for agreement, the duo didn't wait for any reply before all but strutting around the corner and towards the other end of the hall, looking for all the world as if they were trying to mimic movie heroes in that stage of the film where a can of whoop-ass was about to be opened. Completely missing how Melissa started frantically gesturing to catch their attention or her urgent but low calls to wait.
The two of them stopped at the corner, and sure enough, they could hear what their classmate had described. They looked at each other, and grinned widely, as Kaminari raised a hand and started counting down with his fingers, yellow sparks flashing in the other, and Mineta popped a couple of orbs off his scalp, ready to throw.
Finally, a relatively risk chance to show their worth as heroes.
3, 2, 1…
As one, the two boys jumped from around the corner, quirks at the ready…
"Intruders detected, commencing containment."
…And immediately the confidence crumbled like sand, the cocky smirks vanished from their paling faces, the sparks faded from the taller teen's hands and the shorter one dropped his balls.
"…Fuck." They both said, in perfect unison.
And the very next second, Kaminari grabbed Mineta and bolted back the way he came. Watching the scene unfold from the other end of the hall, the rest of the group was, needless to say, momentarily confused, if not entirely surprised by how short lived the duo's initiative had been. But then a few seconds later, what had made them break so easily showed itself, and much as she liked to snark at Kaminari's expense, even Kyoka had to agree his reaction had been justified in this one instance.
"Too many!" The teen in question cried out in clear distress as he blitzed back towards them, just narrowly avoiding a multitude of taser blasts. "Why are there so many?!"
Sure enough, behind the teens, the hall had suddenly been filled with robots. Rows upon rows of glowing red eyes locked on balefully onto their targets, as the hall was filled practically wall to wall with lines of machines. The fact that they were less humanoid than the ones back at school, lacking any limbs save for the insectoid legs they skittered forwards with, did little to make the sheer numbers less worrying. If anything, the added creepiness factor just made it worse.
And as was so often the case when things started going pear-shaped, it was Midoriya who reacted first, turning to look towards Momo.
"Shuld I'z go krump'em all now?"
The pony-tailed girl didn't even dignify that with a response.
"Run!" She shouted instead. "Get to the stairs!"
The others proceeded to do just that, as Kaminari caught up with them, but before they could get to the intended door, it opened without prompting…
"Intruders detected, commencing containment."
And to general dismay, both the stair well and elevator were also full of more robots.
Without a word, everyone turned back the way they came, Midoriya covering the rear, and taking the opportunity to begin taking potshots at the pursuing wall of metal, and even managing to take down a few, but for every robot that crumbled under the hail of bullets, two more seemed to take its place.
And to make matters worse, Kyoka informed the others that she could hear more robots skittering in the direction they had entered this floor from, forcing the group to turn further into the maze of offices that was the floor, with the drones in unrelenting pursuit and never further away than just around the next corner.
"Quickly, in here!" Melissa hissed as she opened the door to one of said offices, once it had become clear that they were getting surrounded and with no other way to escape. "Before they see us!"
Needing no further prompting, everyone else filed into the room, a textbook picture of the standard paper pusher's office, and the door was shut. The skittering of the robots continued getting louder outside, and it was clear that the swarm was still moving outside, but after a minute or so passed by and the door remained close, the teens finally allowed themselves some time to catch their breaths.
"How long do we have before they figure out we're here?" Kyoka asked quietly, eyes not leaving the door.
"As long as we keep it down, we should be fine. They're programmed to hunt for things that look out of place, so they're not gonna mind a door that was supposed to be closed anyway." Melissa replied, shaking her head in clear disbelief at what had just happened. "I know I said they would swarm, but I didn't think it'd be this many. That's never happened before…"
"Guess we really pissed off whoever's behind this plot." Ochaco commented, looking around the room. "So what's the plan? We might be safe laying low here, but that's not gonna save anyone."
"I culd just krump'em all?"
"Melissa," Momo asked, glancing up towards the ceiling. "Could we perhaps burrow our way to the floor above?"
"Bad idea," The blonde denied with an emphatic shake of her head. "The next few floors are for the servers that maintain and oversee the whole island. There's no telling what could happen if we cause any damage up there."
"Could we perhaps use EMP to incapacitate the robots? It worked well enough when I did it back at the Festival?" The pony-tailed girl offered again, but again the blonde shook her head at the prospect.
"It'd be no use; the security robots are insulated against that kind of energy based disruption. That's what I was trying to warn these two about earlier, Kaminari's quirk wouldn't work."
"Wot if I just krumped'em all?"
"Could we perhaps try to come up with some camouflage, or something to trick their detection systems into not seeing us?" Momo tried again, with just a tiny hint of desperation in her tone.
"Something like that would either require technology of the kind that's kept in the top-tier secret projects we have around here, or to use the room we're trying to reach to alter the bots' protocols. And the system is designed to resist those sorts of tampering anyway," The American girl replied, having the decency to sound sheepish. "That's kinda why they needed my dad to get into the vault."
"Here'z a thought, why don' we just krump'em all?" Midoriya asked again, sounding, as always, entirely too nonchalant for the kind of situation they were in.
Momo, for her part, closed her eyes, and bringing her fingers to the bridge of her nose, heaved a long, weary sigh. In hindsight, it had been hopelessly optimistic of her to try to avoid the inevitable, hadn't it…?"
"Midoriya…" She said, in a tone of someone resigned to something they didn't want to, not even bothering to change her pose or open her eyes to look at him.
And something in her voice caught the boy's notice, as he suddenly looked towards her with unerring focus, the oddly calm nonchalance giving way to an the kind of excitement only a puppy who had heard their favorite treat being mentioned could pull.
"Krump'em all?" He asked, all but leaning forward in his eagerness.
"…"Krump" them all." The class president confirmed tiredly, making the boy fist pump with his free hand.
"Great idea, Boss! 'Ere, hold dis!" The green-haired teen said, passing the gun off to her as he reached for his pockets, gleefully muttering to himself in sing song. "Hay-ho, Hay-ho, to krump'em all I goooo…"
And as the boy began to prepare to fulfill his orders with immense enthusiasm and extreme prejudice, Mineta gave their class president a look of pure horror.
"…What have you done?" He squeaked, his voice barely above a whisper.
"What I had to." Momo replied, in a hollow sounding tone. "I can only pray that the incoming repair bills don't somehow find their way to my family…"
Chapter 65
Needless to say, there were a multitude of reasons for which All Might was growing increasingly more concerned about the current situation.
There was a tense quiet in the ballroom, only occasionally broken by some slight shuffling or some muffled words of reassurance from the naturally frightened but behaving civilians, and the movements of the villains keeping an eye on them all, while he and his fellow heroes remained restrained and unable to move. The slight silver lining there was that these mercenaries were professional or at least pragmatic enough to not openly antagonize and torment people that obviously couldn't or wouldn't cause trouble, but All Might had no illusions that they would hesitate to kill if trouble did happen, which was why even though he could have easily broken free he hadn't, even he was not fast enough to deal with all of them before anyone would get hurt or worse. And even if by some miracle he could have done it, the bastards still had David. He could only pray that his old friend would get out of this mess alright…
And then, a bit lower on his scale of priorities than the safety of everyone in the tower, was the fact that there was little to do but wait, and time was a luxury he could seldom afford these days. Every minute that passed in this tense quiet was a minute of his time in his heroic form burning away. He could hold out alright for a while yet, he'd been very careful with his available time on this trip, but things went on like this much longer, at best his secret would be outed, and at worst he'd not have his power available at a time he would really need it whenever something more did happen. He'd accept the first option if it came down to it, but the second one was too disquieting to consider…
And that, of course, led into the other concern that was foremost in his mind, the thought that right now, everything hinged on his students, on the children that he was supposed to watch over and that had already been involved in far more trouble than they should have ever been exposed to at their age, to be able to pull off something to shift the odds back in the heroes' favor. He didn't doubt their capabilities or their courage, mind you, these children had proven themselves in his eyes long ago, but it was only natural to be afraid of the worse possibilities…
Crash!
Suddenly the tense silence was broken by a loud crash and the ensuing reactions of fright and distress from the crowd, as well as the villains all looking up in alert. It wasn't the first such sound that had happened, they'd heard something similar a little while ago, but this one had been somehow louder. It was a safe bet that whatever was going on the upper floors involved the students.
Of course, the fact that after this last crash, All Might could almost swear that he was hearing faint, distant noises of battle and laughter inevitably brough his mind to the other, other, other in his current list of major concerns…
/
The waiting was always one of the worst parts of any job. Wolfram knew well that one of the biggest truths of his line of work was that no hunter could ever be successful without first paying alms to patience, but there was something on this whole situation that was starting to weigh on the villain. By all rights, everything was still going well enough. They had the civvies and the heroes restrained downstairs, Shield was nearly through the vault door, their escape route was ready, and the small, unexpected hiccup of the escaped hero trainees was currently being addressed with all the measures at their disposal. By all accounts, the chances of success were the highest they possibly could be.
So why couldn't he shake off the gut feeling that something was about to happen to skew said chances? It couldn't be just because Nobu and Daigo had yet to report back in…
Then, as if to answer his thoughts, a rumbling, distant crash could be heard from down below, on such that even Shield and his assistant looked up in alarm.
"What the hell was that?" The scientist said in clear worry, but to be honest, that's what Wolfram would like to know as well…
Not a moment after, his comm blared to life.
"Boss, something's wrong!" His hacker immediately declared, sounding legitimately caught off-guard, which the villain promptly took as a bad sign. "The security bots were all converging around the 105th floor, where they found intruders, could only be the kids, but shortly after that, drone units started dropping like flies! Like, Jesus, over a hundred went out since I started talking, at this rate we're gonna run out of drones in the tower in minutes, and I can't divert any more from the rest of the island or reinforcements will be able to get here! What the fuck are they feeding those kids in that weird ass country!?"
Wolfram blinked as he processed the information. He expected the man knew better than to bullshit him at this crucial juncture, so either I-Island's reputed security measures weren't as up to snuff as all the eggheads liked to believe, or his sources had downplayed the kind of freaks that U.A. was churning out these days. Either way, this was an unwelcome development.
"Swordkil, take the men down to check whatever is happening and deal with it. By any means necessary." He immediately ordered, knowing that his true meaning would be easily understood. "I'll keep an eye on the doctor." And make sure he stayed on tasked under the deception for just a little while longer.
His orders given, the scarred villain turned, his expression shifting into his "concerned actor" mask as he did, to reassure his patsy of a contractor.
Things seemed to be complicating, but with the contingencies he still had, Wolfram wasn't too worried just yet.
/
As was demanded of them by the protocols encoded in their programming, the security drones of I-Island kept swarming through the premises they were created to protect, all cameras and scanners searching for every minute anomaly that'd betray the presence of the intruders. First contact had already been made, and with all the units available, it was only a matter of time before it happened again. That the intruders to be detained were humans of teenage years, one of them even recognized by their systems as a resident of the island, didn't factor into their directives, they had been tagged as intruders, they were to be dealt with as such, that was all that mattered.
And so the unfaltering, unrelenting procession of steel continued.
Until suddenly several units found themselves flying when the door that they had either just been passing by or crawling through was opened. Or perhaps it would be more accurate to say, kicked clean off its hinges and sent crashing against the opposite wall, damaging a few units beyond repair in the process.
The nearest unit that managed to remain on its feet immediately turned its sensors and camera towards the scene, to see its sister units trying to scramble to regain their footing, the algorithms of its system working overtime to access the nature of the disturbance, processing the image of green flaring lenses and-kckhrruk!
That was all it had time to do before steel talons clamped around its head and squeezed, destroying its main processor and rendering it lost to the system. Other unit around were also reacting, and in milliseconds, the perpetrator had been moved up from designation "Intruder" and into "Threat".
Immediately these drones reacted by unleashing their primary containment measures, shooting off taser cords with enough output to knock out any human lifeform, and cords equally as capable of restraining them. None of the latter found purchase, seemingly bouncing off thin air before hitting their mark, as did most of the tasers, and the few that didn't, produced little to no effect on the threat's bulky form.
"Eh, dah gitz wot built'ya weren't dah only ones thinkin' tah take precautions." Izuku commented, in a jolly tone of eager anticipation. "Now den, down tah business."
The green-haired teen was once again donning the latest iteration of his Mega Armour. The blocky, patch-work design, the helmet with the signature toothy underbite and leering green lenses for eyes, that paintjob evocative of an obvious theme, they were all there, same as always.
The biggest difference came with the fact that during his latest sessions of tinkering, the boy had the realization that deciding which particular kinds of main armaments he'd like to have was way too hard, and as much as he would have loved to do it, building one armor for each was simply more time and effort than his usual schedule would allow, especially with Mah keeping an eye out and enforcing the curfew that ensured he had his 8 hours of sleep a day save very rare and important exceptions (Unknown to him, this was mostly because even Inko Midoriya knew that the best way of dealing with a cranky, sleep-deprived Izuku was to not let him get cranky and sleep-deprived in the first place). And so Izuku had resorted to working smarter instead of harder, and opted for an even more modular approach to his designs.
Basically, this was all to explain the two, shoulder mounted, multi-barreled emplacements, which for all the world looked like they been built from iron pipes welded into steel beams hammered and welded into a horseshoe shape to fit around the shoulder plates, as if it was material pilfered from some unguarded construction site. And the two equally massive rotary guns that had replaced the previous underslung barrel in the armors' claws. All of which were fed by linked cords of dakka that disappeared into open slits in the armor's bulky power source.
All of these and more passed through the processors of the security drones as they calculated how best to proceed, the sheer physical impossibility of how the intruder's bulk could possibly still be standing under such mass being filled away by lesser priority subroutines.
Then before they could do anything else, the armored teen spread his arms, turning each barrel towards each end of the hall.
In the momentary silence, a soft click.
"WAAAAAAAAAAAAAGGGGGGGGGGHHHHH!"
And then the dim, quiet gloom of the office floors under lockdown mode were filled with the roar of the firing shootas, and lit up by the muzzle flash of each shot, so fast and frequent in number that they could pull double time functioning as flashlights. Although the boy still tried, as he had been instructed by Boss Nagant during the internship, for once, there was no actual need to take aim in this, what his mind could only (or perhaps it'd be more accurate to say only his mind could…) consider a target rich environment. Even as bullets replaced robots as the most numerous metallic objects filling the space, all of them had a target to find, and all of them hit their marks.
The armored plating of the drones, specifically designed with gunfire in mind and designed to withstand great amounts of force, completely failed to provide any sort of meaningful resistance against the sheer deluge of ammunition brought to bear against them, and so the man-made security force of I-Island found itself cut down in droves, torn to shreds and crumpling to the ground, scores by the second, almost two fast for their processors to keep up.
Since the vanguard of the swarm had been to the left, there had been less robots in that direction, and thus pretty soon there were none, which left the boy free to turn his full attention the other way, and this time, the chorus of destruction got even louder as the shoulder mounted guns lent it their own roar, and the robots began going down twice as fast.
A few lucky and determined units that hadn't been immediately hit by the onslaught proceeded to massively increase the threat level of their opponent and thus tried to retaliate with the lethal measures they had available, tasers of deadly voltage and lasers trying to match the bullet trails in the air, and failing miserably as these few attempting to fulfill their purpose were summarily cut down.
And so the armored form took a step against the metal tide, and then another, and another, the swarm parting before him as he went, the roar of the guns only matched by the loud, boisterous, gleeful and complete and utterly unhingedlaughter of the perpetrator of this carnage.
A carnage that got to such a point that, eventually, something stirred within what passed for the minds of these security drones, something that wasn't a mandate of their protocols. For the first time in their existence, as they saw everything they did being so ineffective, witnessing their sister units being so utterly mangled not even the reprocessing plants in the island would be able make use of their materials, many of these constructs made for protection started finding their own survival taking higher priority in their subroutines.
And thus, against all their purpose, and all their programming, many units suddenly started to turn away from the fight, started trying to fall back, started trying to runfrom the threat.
"OI, WHERE'Z YOU'ZE METAL GITZ GOIN'?! GET BACK'ERE AND FOIGT LIKE YER MEANT TAH! YA WANT ME TAH FILE A COMPLAINT ON DAH GITZ DAT MADE YA?!"
And their destroyer followed after in a stomping but measured walk, cussing out the swarm even as he kept cutting them down in their attempts to fall back.
…
…
…
…And back from the door where the boy had burst from, down to the floor as she had been vehemently suggested to do, Melissa watched it all happen with a slack-jawed look of disbelieving horror. Not just at the destruction the boy was wreaking, but also at the collateral damage he seemed completely oblivious to. Most of the offices and cubicles that had made up that side of the floor had quite simply ceased to exist wherever the boy's contraptions passed by. And he was still going, like some sort of perpetual motion monster straight out of a nightmare…
Slowly, the blonde turned her eyes towards the others with her. They didn't seem surprised. Frightened? Yes. Contrite? Certainly. A tad worried and guilty? Absolutely. But surprised? Not in the slightest.
"Yeah." Jirou, hands over the set of ear mufflers Momo had the foresight of swiftly making for her, said to her, in a tone of understanding and deep commiseration with Melissa's current state. "Yeah…"
Chapter 66
"Come on." Momo said urgently as she got up, weapon in hand. "We've got to move."
"Are you insane?!" Mineta squawked, pointing a shaky finger towards the door. "You wanna get closer to that?!"
"Not particularly." The pony-tailed girl replied without a shred of hesitation, but more than a few of resignation. "But regardless of the method, he is clearing a path for us, and we should probably use it before more robots show up." Unlikely as that particular possibility now seemed… "Or the villains come to check what all the commotion is. Moreover, going by what Melissa said, someone needs to make sure he doesn't get into the next few floors guns blazing like that. Do you want him to hit something vital and somehow sink the whole island with everyone still on it?"
The blonde in question, jolted out of her shock by the question, made to open her mouth, intent on explaining that such a thing was impossible with all the measures in place… but in light of what she had just witnessed, she found that despite what logic told her, she couldn't really discount the possibility, no matter how remote it might be, and thus remained quiet. The motion and conflicted expressions didn't go unnoticed by the others.
"…I should've just stayed home." Mineta lamented despairingly, face a few shades paler after a moment of thinking it over, and realizing to his immense chagrin the class president was right. "Let's… let's just get this over with…"
Nobody else had any protests, even if they clearly weren't any happier than the diminutive teen, and so the group left the office, moving as quietly but swiftly as they could while braving the trail of destruction their psychotic classmate left in his wake.
"Man, he's really letting loose this time." Ochaco couldn't help but comment as she tried her best to step around the wreckage of so many slaughtered robots without any exposed or jagged edges ripping into her borrowed dress (yes, she knew right now there were way bigger priorities, but let her have something slightly less serious to focus on, dammit!).
"Is… is he always like this?" Melissa couldn't help but inquire. Sure, in the admittedly short time in which she'd known Midoriya, she had gotten the impression of a boy that while certainly excentric (hardly something anyone living on the island was going to judge), was inquisitive, observant, intelligent, and genuinely kind in the way any hero worth the name should be. She was also very much aware that a lot of people took to the profession at least partially for the thrill of it, for the opportunity of testing themselves that came with it. But this… this was something else entirely…
"Well, usually he'd probably be taking the time to grab whatever bits and pieces caught his attention on the way," The brunette replied without much thought. "Either he's actually considering that we're on a bit of a time crunch, or he's really just that happy to actually do something he'd consider more entertaining than how this night was supposed to go."
"Sure am glad someone's having fun in all this mess." Kaminari replied cheerily, tone positively dripping with sarcasm.
"Guys, focus, and stay alert." Momo called out. "For all we know, some of these robots might not be completely offline yet and-"
"Fffhzzh-intruder-fhhzzz."
"Eeep!"
Without a moment's hesitation, the pony-tailed girl turned to the downed unit right next to her, fritzing and sparking, but still trying to get up as its red eye lens stared up at her, and promptly opened fire, five shots ringing out until it stopped having anything that could conceivably be interpreted as a face.
Sighing as she came down from the fright caused surge of adrenaline, the girl took a moment to check the gun and take stock of how much ammunition she still had available. Less than she would have liked, probably because Midoriya had used it twice already and the boy couldn't conserve ammo to save his life. He had looted whatever reserves that villain had had on him, in fairness, but there hadn't been time for those to be handed to her. Maybe she should consider making some…?
Then she finally noticed the silence, and looked up to see everyone else was staring at her, trying to reconcile the stunningly dressed beauty they knew with the weapon in her hands and how they had just witnessed her using it.
"…What? You thought I was just holding this for safekeeping?" She said defensively, suddenly feeling self-conscious for some reason. "I did have some training on how to handle firearms before coming to U.A.. My parents spared no expense getting me training in whatever skills they thought I might need. And it just goes to show what I was saying, pay attention, just because Midoriya is drawing all the attention right now doesn't mean we can get complacent."
Nobody said anything to the contrary, but even as they kept moving to catch up to Midoriya, she could still feel their stares on her.
/
Swordkil had always considered himself the kind of guy who knew how to take things easy. Sure, he fully understood the kind of profession he was in, and how easy it was for things to go horribly wrong at the slightest miscalculation, but the opposite was equally as true. Overthinking and playing one's hand too hard could be just has hazardous, and the veteran mercenary certainly liked to believe that he had learned how to maintain the right kind of healthy balance that was optimal. Long as the job got done and he had a chance to do a bit of slicing in the doing, he wasn't too fussed about potentially unexpected turns, getting properly serious as needed on a case by case basis.
That was why he couldn't help but think, as he and the men with him were preparing defenses on some nondescript storage floor a bit above the server levels, that it kinda felt like the boss was fussing a bit too much.
Sure, them missing someone during the hostage taking and that said someone deciding to climb the tower and rain on their parade were, by any definition, unwanted developments to the plan, but still, the fact remained that these were kids.
Now don't get him wrong, Swordkil wasn't the kind of merc that deluded themselves that they were better than others due to having "standards" when it came to who got whacked on any given job, he'd kill them without a second thought it that was what it took, and had done exactly that on plenty a job before. No, what bothered him about the notion was how seriously the boss was taking the kids as a potential threat. Sure, they might be hero students, but what could a bunch of brats do against men as experienced and hardened by their job as this merry crew of theirs? So they'd had encounters with villains before and lived, big whoop, much as it paid to keep an ear to the ground when it came to the happenings among villains around the world, one should never forget that these were the sort of people who liked to make themselves out to be tougher than they really were, even if it meant making those they thought against seem even tougher by comparison, and thus the villain rumor mill was full of exaggerated bullshit. And the notion that some of those brats might have had anything to do with Stain going down? Puh-lease, as if that was possible. Even Breakdown being knocked out spoke more of the moron's incompetence than it did anything about the kids that did it.
So no, Swordkil didn't believe in the slightest that these brats were going to be a problem, and that all thoughts otherwise was just the boss being overly paranoid. But still, regardless of what he thought, he wasn't stupid enough to outright go against Wolfram's orders. The man had kept this outfit running and thriving for long enough to earn a measure of respect as the leader, and whatever that respect didn't cover, what the man could and would do to dissenters sure did.
All of this was to say, here Swordkil and the rest of the boys were, bored out of their minds as they awaited to put some kids who had pushed their luck way too far in their place.
Not even the clear sounds of guns firing coming from the lower floors earlier bothered him, though some of the men grew tense, the wussiest of the lot.
Even the news of the latest developments, of how the security drones had failed to stop the brats didn't worry Swordkil, not even the odd report that the surviving units seemed to be retreating down and away from the tower, instead of towards the vault to reinforce security as they'd been instructed. That just meant that likely one of the brats had some kind of quirk to influence the machines, which would be useless against him and the boys.
By the time the comms flared, and the control room warned that by all indications the intruders should be arriving at their location soon, Swordkil was just about ready to get this over and done with so that everyone could stop fussing and they could walk away rich.
Just watch, the blade-handed merc thought sarcastically, 10 to 1 odds the kids would be so lost in the heroic sauce they would simply be coming at them without a thought for subtlety against a crew that outnumbered them.
And to the man's credit, he turned out to not be entirely wrong in that assessment, other than there being two things that his cynical prediction failed to account for.
The first was that the arrival of the hero students came in the form of the doors to the stairwell being all but destroyed in the process.
The second was that this happened on both stairwells at the opposite sides of the floor at the exact same time, one with a clear explosion, the other by being struck sufficiently hard.
"See, Frosty, I told you I knew where the fuck I was going." A voice growled from the former side as the smoke died down, revealing a blond kid in a butler suit with ruined sleeves, glaring daggers at the other brat besides him.
"And yet this is clearly still not the control room." The other replied blandly, not even deigning to acknowledge the glare.
"Well now," Came a heavily modulated voice from the other side, as in through the door stomped a metal monstrosity, with all the casual tone of someone who had bumped into acquaintances on a supermarket aisle. "Weren't dah two a' you'ze supposed tah be keepin' dah gits downstairs busy?"
"Deku?!" The blonde replied venomously, his glare wiping that way instantly. "How the fuck did you get here?!"
"We took them down, by the way." The other one actually answered the question. "Wasn't that hard."
"Really? Well, dat'z a shame." Came the reply, as green lenses flared. "But not tah worry, still plenty left tah do before the night iz out."
…
…
…
…Perhaps it was the utter lack of concern that the kids were showing, or perhaps it was how only after that little chat did the 3 actually bother to give any attention to the mercenaries standing right in the middle of the floor behind their makeshift barricades, but for the first time that night, Swordkil finally started getting a bit worried that maybe, just maybe, Wolfram hadn't been fussing over nothing after all…
Chapter 67
Unfortunately for the blade quirk villain and the rest of the present mercenaries, his concerns swiftly turned out to both be absolutely justified and far, far too late in the coming, as what ensued were a few minutes of a violence of such precision, swiftness and brutality, that it defied description, of a sort that even they, hardened veterans one and all, villains with a body of work comprised of countless jobs so dark and dirty only the most classified of records made mention of them, found themselves completely surprised and unprepared for the onslaught that came at them on two fronts.
By the time it was done, that section of the floor looked like a tornado had passed by and tossed the hapless men around, nearly all of them spread out on the ground or whichever other surface they had been lucky or unlucky enough to land on, all of them down for the count. Alive, mind you, but all of them sporting injuries of a variety and degree of seriousness that only barely hinted at that being anything other than a (relatively) happy coincidence.
Only when the noise of battle and screams of pain started dying down did Momo dare take a peak from the ruined hole that had once been the stairwell's door, and a single a glance was all it took for her to feel glad and relieved that she had managed to get Midoriya to pack up the heavy ordnance before they had moved into the server floors proper (seeing the process in which the boy changed his armor's pieces, by shoving his arms into garbage chute doors built into the sides of the suit like they were pockets, almost gave Melissa a headache, and even the blonde wasn't quite sure if it was the physical impossibility of the fit, or her mind trying to figure out the mechanics that caused it…). Extenuating as the circumstances might have been, that particular degree of carnage would have had consequences on multiple fronts that she was pretty sure most of those present would rather not have to deal with anytime soon…
As it was, the only villain still conscious, who by all counts seemed to be the one in charge of this particular group, had his arms nervously raised in surrender as he stood very, very still, like he was desperately trying to avoid drawing the attention of the two monsters arguing at each side off him.
"Quit yer' bellyachin, Katsu. Dis git'z mine!" The armored bulk of one brat declared, the green lenses of his helmet flaring out in an annoyed glare, as he seemed about ready to grab the mercenary's arm to emphasize his claim (and Swordkil was at this point praying it didn't come to that, as he had learned the hard way what those claws could do when they'd sliced off his blades. Hurt like a bitch, and even if they'd grow back as long as he had enough of his hands left, he wasn't about to push his luck on that…)
"And who the fuck asked you, Deku?!" The ashen blond on the other side all but roared back, glaring contemptuously at the other brat, as if he himself was any less of a crazy freak (because seriously, who in their right might would so carelessly detonate bombs with that kind of force in this kind of enclosed space, when it was physically impossible to move away from ground zero to boot?!). "In case you didn't notice because that fucking shit ass tin can of yours makes you fucking blind or something, I got here first! And I would've beaten the shit out of these asswipes even easier and faster if you and Candy Cane hadn't been here to get in my way. If anyone's takin' down the leader of this bunch of losers, it's gonna be me!"
…No, Swordkil was slowly forced to realize, he wasn't hallucinating from a concussion he hadn't realized he'd gotten. These two brats were honestly arguing over who was the one that'd get to deal with him. Suddenly, he couldn't help but belatedly realize, he found himself agreeing with his colleague's prior assessment. Just what the fuck were the hero schools teaching the brats these days…?
"Boys. Seriously?" A clear, exasperated voice called out as someone else approached, and Swordkil dared glance that way to see a bunch more brats approaching, the girl that had spoken at the front, looking just about done with everything. "Do I honestly have to remind you of the kind of situation we are in? This is not a contest and it's not a game. No one is going to take that man down, especially when he's the only one still conscious and thus still able to answer our questions."
Swordkil wasn't quite sure what it said about the situation that he felt genuine relief at someone that was clearly sane having shown up, but considering how the two maniacs actually (if grudgingly) listened and backed off, he was hardly going to complain. And for her part, Momo didn't know what to make of the fact that, at this point, all that these sort of shenanigans made her feel was some sort of resigned annoyance, and right now she'd rather leave thinking about it for later. On her deathbed, at a ripe old age somewhere in the range of the 90s or higher, seemed ideal.
"Mineta, see if you can help Todoroki with restraining the others. Better your way than leaving them to get frostbite." She instead requested, staring towards he fellow recommendation student, who indeed has been moving to freeze the mercenaries in place, an unspoken but clear warning in her eyes, before once more turning to the man. "Now then, as you can guess, we have some questions."
Now that he had some breathing room again, Swordkil did not say anything, merely giving the girl a flat look. Despite everything, the man was still a mercenary and a professional. Unexpected as the circumstances were, being caught on a job was just another of the bones of the trade, a song and dance he knew well.
"And what makes you think I know anything you'd need?" He asked dryly. If he could stall just long enough for Wolfram to get the goods…
Unfortunately for him, this particular song and dance was also not unfamiliar to the girl, and at this point her patience had just about run out.
"On second thought, maybe the gentleman could do with a little bit more exercise." She stated, with all the casual air of a businesswoman making pleasantries, before her expression turned serious, and her tone flat. "Midoriya, go ahead."
…Ok, maybe this chick wasn't quite as sane as she appeared.
"Wait, wait, wait!" Swordkil immediately said in a panic as the armored freak approached with an ominously jolly squint in his helm's lenses. "Alright, alright, I'll talk!"
"See, was that so hard?" Ponytail replied with a quaintly raised eyebrow, pointedly ignoring her classmate's annoyed and disappointed grumblings. "Now then, the most important thing first, what is your goal here? What are you villains after?"
"We're here for the vault." The man replied promptly. "More specifically, the job was to break into it and steal one particular item that was just recently put in there. Some sort of gizmo that amplifies and increases the power of quirks. Everything we've done tonight was planned around buying us time to get that thing and bail."
The revelation had most of the teens look at each other with wide eyes, surprise and concern running through them in equal measure. Such a machine, if it truly existed, was a technological marvel the likes of which could easily change the world, but in the hands of the ill-intentioned… no wonder it had been locked away…
Then, Melissa stepped forward, her expression one of impatient frustration, the look of someone who was seeing the pieces, but not how they fit together just yet. Or rather, perhaps it'd be more accurate to say she wasn't certain she wanted to see how they fit together…
"How could you possibly know about that?" She asked, her expression stern, but with noticeable cracks from the accumulated stress of this whole mess. "What goes into that vault is the kind of top secret stuff regular people and even researchers like me don't have the clearance to know about. The only way anyone outside the island could've learned of this was if… was if someone who does have the clearance leaked that intel." There was a moment of uncertainty and hesitation. "Who hired you?"
"Why, who else but the one who created the damn thing?" The mercenary replied, feeling like he had regained enough control of the situation to give the girl a taunting smirk. "Shield was none too happy the Island's top brass didn't see eye to eye with him on the gadget. Something about "not seeing how important it was" or some such. He's the one who gave us all the intel we needed to pull this off."
Melissa recoiled as if struck, her eyes going wide, her expression one of horror. Many of those present didn't fare much better, only Todoroki, Katsuki, Momo and Midoriya not reacting with any particular surprise, the former three because they had been suspecting such a possibility from the start, the latter because he wasn't really all too fussed about the details.
"No…" The blonde say weakly, looking about ready to faint. "No, nononono! That can't be true, you're lying!"
"Uuuuuhhh, yeah, about that…" Another voice suddenly cut in, turning the inventor's attention towards Jirou, who was cringing at the knowledge that was she was about to say, while necessary, wasn't going to be well received. "Look, I hate to be that person, but while this guy gets rather nervous whenever those three so much as glance at him…" A thumb was quickly pointed at the perpetrators of the previous beatdown. "…His heartrate and his breathing just now were completely steady. Sure, a pro could probably pass it off, but I don't really think he's lying…"
Sure enough, as she expected, her words made the local girl all but break, looking defeated and tears started building up in the corners of her eyes.
"…What have you done, dad?" She said, to no one in particular as she broke down crying, Ochaco and Kaminari approaching to place their hands on her shoulders, both to show their support and to help keep her steady on her feet. "Why…?"
Not that anyone else present could really blame her, of course. This revelation had rattled them all, and they were just passing by visitor. To hear one's father was responsible for something so awful… It'd break anyone.
It certainly knocked the wind off their sails, as the hero students just stood there for a bit, unsure how to proceed with all of this. Even Bakugou kept silent, for even he could read the room and know better than to be his usual self in the current situation.
But in the silence, someone else stepped up to the villain, making him flinch.
"How many more a'ya gitz are dere?" Midoriya asked, oddly calm.
"Uh, in the Tower, besides the guys keeping watch on the hostages downstairs, there's only our hacker up in the control room and our boss in the Vault, keeping an eye on Shield." The man replied nervously. "We do go a few more men coming in the chopper that's our way out, but that's pretty much it. Honest."
"…Ok, den." The armored teen replied, nodding even though it wouldn't be seen through the helmet. "Thankz fer dah answers."
Then he backhanded the villain so hard across the face that he man did a full spin in the air before falling flat on his back, knocked out cold. That done, he promptly turned to the rest of the crew, all eyes once again on him, and walked over to Melissa, standing before her with the stillness of some junkyard statue before with a hiss and a click his helmet opened, revealing the surprisingly average face beneath.
"Now den, how'z about we get up dere and give ye Dah and dem otha gitz a piece of our minds?"