THIRD PERSON POV
Riko clawed her way out of the crater, her vision swimming in a haze of black. She stared... no, dazed at the spot she had occupied only seconds ago.
I barely managed to detonate a counter-blast to deflect that strike, she thought, her breath coming in ragged, shallow hitches. She looked down at her arm, and her stomach did a slow, nauseating flip. The limb was a mess; the bone spikes from the Nomu had shredded her costume and punctured her forearm in three different places. Blood was pouring out, staining the dark fabric of her sleeve a heavy, wet crimson.
She clenched her teeth until her jaw ached, a hiss of air escaping her lungs. "Fuck… this is gonna hurt like a bitch tomorrow."
She didn't get a chance to catch her breath. Her eyes widened as she looked up. High above, a dark silhouette was blotting out the artificial sky of the dome, a small black dot that was getting bigger and bigger with terrifying speed.
It was the behemoth.
"The fuck… it's gotten even bigger?!" Riko screamed, her voice cracking.
She threw her body to the side, rolling over jagged rocks and debris as the ground shook. The place where she had been standing was pulverised into fine sand as the Nomu crashed down. The creature slowly emerged from the ground up and turned with a slow, mechanical movement to face her, but before it could take a step, it looked down.
The ground beneath its massive, taloned feet began to pulse with an orange light.
BOOM.
A violent eruption of fire and rock engulfed the monster. Riko scrambled to her feet, wiping blood from her mouth as she watched the smoke. Fuck… I didn't have enough time to charge the earth properly before I jumped. I don't think it was enough.
True to her fears, the Nomu stepped out of the crater. It was steaming, its obsidian hide glowing with a dull, internal heat. But then, something shifted. Thicker, red veins began to throb beneath its scales like molten lava. A massive hiss of steam escaped its joints as the creature's muscles buckled and expanded. Its chest cavity split open slightly, and new, thicker bone spikes emerged; these ones jagged like obsidian saws, protruding out from its ribs.
Riko stared at the transformation, her blood running cold. "Why the fuck is it still growing?!"
She didn't wait for an answer. She reached into her pouch and began hurling a flurry of charged pellets. They struck the creature's chest, but the explosions that had once cracked its armour now seemed to do nothing but scorch the surface.
"Fine! More! You want more?!" Riko roared.
She poured every ounce of her focus into the next few pellets, the kinetic energy so unstable that the steel began to vibrate and hum with a high-pitched whine. She flicked them. This time, they did the damage.....ripping holes into the Nomu's torso and shattering its shoulder spikes.
But the victory lasted seconds.
The red veins in the Nomu's body glowed brighter again. The old, shattered armour simply fell away like a dead husk, and new, raw flesh knitted together beneath it, turning into even denser plating. It was getting bulkier. Heavier. More monstrous.
Riko froze, her analytical mind finally catching up to the horror in front of her. Is it regeneration? No… It's more than that. My pellets were doing damage at this charge level before, yet now they barely scratch it. This fucker is evolving mid-fight. It's absorbing the impact and building back harder.
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The fuuuuuuck!
The behemoth's transformation was nearing its peak. It stood nearly Nine feet tall now, a wall of jagged bone and obsidian muscle. Riko looked at her remaining pellets and let out a long, weary sigh.
"Fuck it," she whispered.
She dropped to her knees and slammed both of her palms onto the solid ground. She didn't just tap it; she anchored herself. She poured a staggering, reckless amount of kinetic energy into the bedrock beneath her. For the first time, she felt a sickening "dip" in her energy reserves, a cold, hollow sensation in her gut that signified much.
The ground turned a glowing, molten orange and started to vibrate form the the amount of energy it contained. The pebble started popping and cracking like fire cracker, while the stones and metal debris simply melted, succumbing to the heat.
The Nomu, sensing the threat, lunged at her one more time, its massive shadow stretching across the ruins.
BOOM!
An earth-shattering explosion, ten times the size of her previous blasts, consumed the entire clearing. A huge chunk of the Nomu's body, along with a leg and its left arm, was vaporised in the white-hot flash.
The creature hit the ground, screeching as it tried to stabilise its shattered form. It looked around through the settling dust to locate its target, only to find emptiness.
Meanwhile, a blur of red and yellow was seen running
Riko was a streak of desperate speed, ignoring the pain in her arm as she sprinted away from the monster and directly ran toward the fountain.
Toward Tomura Shigaraki.
THIRD PERSON POV
Elsewhere in the facility, the air was a shimmering, distorted haze. The battle between Shoto Todoroki and the Slim Nomu (author - gonna call him green-slimshady from now on.) had devolved into a gruelling war of attrition, a stalemate that was slowly but surely becoming a losing battle for the young prodigy.
Shoto's side of the plaza was a wasteland of jagged ice sculptures and scorched earth. He had unleashed everything: towering glaciers meant to crush and incinerate, freeze combos meant to shatter cellular structures. But the Nomu was an entity of terrifying, infinite stamina. No matter how many times Shoto vaporised its limbs or pierced its chest with frost, the pale green flames would surge, and the creature would regenerate before the steam even cleared.
Todoroki was reaching his breaking point. His breathing was a series of ragged, icy stammers. His stamina was plummeting, and with it, his control over his temperature. Frostbite was beginning to creep up his right arm, while his left side felt like it was being scorched by the proximity of the Nomu's unnatural fire. His hero costume was a tattered mess, soaked in sweat and singed by the near-misses of the creature's claws.
The Nomu, sensing the weakening of its prey, surged forward. It didn't feel pain. It didn't feel fatigue. It launched a frantic torrent of attacks, its slim, blade-like fingers cutting through Shoto's ice shields as if they were made of glass.
Shoto threw up a frantic wall of ice, but the Nomu smashed through it, the pale green fire licking at his face. He stumbled back, his foot catching on a piece of rubble. He was exhausted, his vision blurring. Todoroki felt it in his bones the chill of death.
The Nomu screeched, its body wreathed in green light as it lunged for Shoto's throat, its hand transformed into a spear of hardened, burning flesh. Shoto watched it come, his muscles refusing to move, his quirk flickering like a dying candle.
Is this it? he thought.
Suddenly, the air behind the Nomu exploded.
"DIEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!"
A deafening, orange-tinted explosion roared through the zone, slamming into the Nomu's back with the force of a falling star. The shockwave was so violent it sent the creature tumbling across the concrete, its green flames momentarily snuffed out by the sheer pressure of the blast.
Shoto blinked through the smoke, a small, weary smile...the first of the entire day, gracing his lips.
He recognised that voice. He recognised that unadulterated, explosive rage.
Emerging from the settling debris came Katsuki Bakugo, his palms crackling with sparks and his face twisted into a mask of murderous intent. He looked like he had clawed his way back from hell just to kill something.
"Don't you dare go dying on me, you half-and-half bastard!" Bakugo barked, his eyes locked onto the regenerating Nomu. "This freak is mine!"
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Author's harem
Smol chap, I know, but consider this a gift for valentine day, also a message from the next chapter
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"STAND READY FOR MY ARRIVAL WORM" quote chapter 35.