The Apex Hero: Bioterror

Chapter 8

The rubbery texture to his body proved to be a hydrophobic layer that kept him completely dry despite being surrounded by water. And the webbed limbs combined with the powerful biomass enhanced muscles in his legs essentially turned him into a torpedo in the water. Of course, since he didn't consume Tsuyu's brain he didn't gain any of her skills, so this new style of fighting included a lot of trial and error. He managed to perfect it eventually, but those first few villains might struggle to walk for the foreseeable future.

Other than simply torpedoing his enemies and kicking them, his tongue also proved to be a useful weapon. Thanks to his ability to combine Tsuyu's frog DNA and the DNA of various reptiles, his tongue was incredibly toxic and anyone he managed to whip with it exhibited symptoms like rashes, mild paralysis, and in a few extreme cases where he bit the person, hallucinations followed by foaming at the mouth. They'll... probably be fine.

Once most of the villains are incapacitated or swimming away in abject terror (it's like they've never seen a one year old rip a chunk out of a shark man's side with his giant metal teeth before) he leaps out of the water and lands back on the boat. "That was fun. I hope there's more aquatic fights in my future. How are you feeling Tsuyu? Croak."

"I'm feeling better. But I want you to call me Tsu."
Izuku shrugs. "Fair enough. Most of those villains should be down for a while. You ready?"
She nods. "Yeah."
"Alright then." He scoops Tsuyu up into a bridal carry, then grabs Mineta's cape with his tongue and effortlessly clears the lake in one jump, landing on solid ground.

"Oh sweet land." Mineta drops to the floor. "I shall never take you for granted again!" Izuku and Tsuyu look at each other and shrug, with Izuku putting Tsuyu down as tendrils course over his body and return him to his default state.
"We need to get out of here. We can't keep this up for long and they have us outnumbered and the other might not have been as lucky as us with their placement." He peeks over the bushes that hid them from the rest of the courtyard. "And not to alarm anyone, but I think Aizawa is dying."

Mineta and Tsu peek through the bushes alongside him and see Aizawa getting manhandled by a bird-faced villain that rivaled All Might in size and stature while a guy that made Izuku's skin look healthy covered in hands delivered an honest to god monologue. "Say hello to the anti symbol of peace. We call him Nomu."

Tsu and Mineta both turn away as Aizawa's limbs begin snapping beneath the crushing force of the Nomu, but Izuku, with his virus altered brain chemistry, watches on, silently considering the blood being spilt as a waste of genetic code. The power to disable quirks within your line of sight combined with, theoretically speaking, the power to spawn several more eyes, seemed like an interesting proposition.

While that takes place, the portal guy that scattered them appeared. "Kurogiri. Is 13 dead?"
The newly named Kurogiri shakes his head. "They're incapacitated, but a student managed to escape for help."
The hand covered guy starts scratching at his neck almost violently, muttering to himself. "It's game over. If you weren't the only way out I'd kill you." He sighs. "Fine. I guess we're leaving."
Mineta looks up at Tsu and Izuku. "They're leaving? Does that mean we're saved?"
"I guess so. Ribbit."

Izuku would frown if he had a mouth. He could have collected the genes from that hulking behemoth called Nomu. Oh well. Can't have your genes and consume them too. At least he got Tsuyu's DNA. He probably owed her for that. What's a good gift for a teenage frog?

"But first, let's ruin him." Before any of them could react, the hand guy was in front of Tsu, poised to grab at her. He didn't know what his quirk was or even what he was capable of, but he wasn't going to let him touch her.

Izuku swings a fist, ready and willing to pop this villain's head off and consume his splattered remains to protect his friends, only for his fist to impact some kind of black wall. Looking up, Izuku comes face to face with Nomu. Looking around it, he sees the villain with his hand on Tsu's face, but nothing seems to be happening. "You really are a whole other breed, Eraserhead."

Izuku turns and can see Aizawa pulling up his head with Herculean effort. Unfortunately that means he misses the hand villain peering at him through the fingers on his face. "Nomu, kill the black one."
Izuku looked up to see a giant hand veering back. "Oh shit." A backhand sends him hurtling across the courtyard and smashing through the water fountain at its centre.

With that taken care of, the hand villain turns back to Tsu and Mineta, who had used the momentary distraction to back away from him. "Now, where were we?" He advances on them, but hesitates when he hears something.
"Hey!"

Turning back around, he sees Izuku pulling himself out of the rubble of the water fountain, completely unscathed. "You think you can kill me?! YOU DON'T DESERVE TO KILL ME!"

The hand guy glares at Izuku, ignoring Tsu and Mineta making a break for it. "Nomu." At the command, Nomu makes a dash at Izuku and sends a fist down, only for Izuku to leap up and out of the way and come back down, stomping on his head. Despite Izuku's enhanced strength, the behemoth simply got back up. The hand guy monologues. "Don't bother. Nomu has shock absorption. Your attacks mean nothing to him."

Something as basic as shock absorption wouldn't be able to stop Izuku. Forming his claws, he slashes at his chest but to his shock, the cuts simply heal themselves. "What happened to shock absorption?"
"Shock absorption isn't his only quirk. He can also regenerate. He is the perfect weapon to defeat All Might. Sounds like game over for you." 

Admittedly, both shock absorption and regeneration wasn't ideal. But there were workarounds. Izuku traded attacks with Nomu for a few minutes, and noticing that Izuku didn't seem to be slowing down, the hand villain very quickly became impatient. "Nomu, you're embarrassing me! Just grab him and I'll do it myself."

Seeing an opportunity, Izuku allows Nomu to snag him in a bear hug. As the hand villain reaches out, most likely to use his quirk, Izuku gives him a one liner. "You really shouldn't have told him to grab me." Several feeder tendrils latch onto Nomu, Consuming him completely in front of the villain.

Unfortunately there seemed to be side effects. Collapsing to his knees, Izuku's skin bulged and bubbled. "Oh that doesn't feel so good."
The hand villain backs away from him in shock. "Kurogiri, get me out of here!" He was quickly enveloped in black and purple smoke, leaving Izuku alone in the trashed courtyard.

He could feel his cells churning and bubbling inside him, rapidly replicating themselves and sending him into a painful version of Critical Mass. "That thing's regeneration must have given me indigestion or something. Oh fuck." He needed to burn the excess biomass, and he only knew one way to do that without manually cutting off parts of himself. "Tendril Barrage!" The drops exploded out in every direction, thrashing around angrily in response to Izuku's pain.

When the cancerous burning went away, the tendrils retracted back into him. Standing back up, he looks around, deep gouges marring the ground and destruction being rampant everywhere. "Oops."