[A/N: Before we start, I'd just like to thank you all for 700 reads! It's only been a month since I started writing, so I believe to achieved this milestone so soon is amazing! Ok, enjoy the chapter :)]
Here I stood, facing this rather intimidating man twice my age, whose features I could barely make out due to the intense glow of his armour and weapon.
"Look man, I don't wanna hurt you. But Tokoyami is my friend, and a hero, he'd never hurt anyone. If you try to hurt my friend, I will stop you by any means necessary."
I didn't outright threaten to fight him, considering we weren't exactly allowed to fight villains by ourselves yet, but if it came to it I would take the blame and punishment for protecting Tokoyami.
But right then, I got a telepathic message from Mandalay. Mr Aizawa had given us all permission to fight, explicit permission.
"And Alex... Don't lose control." Was the end, especially for me.
The villain stared me down and seemed heavy-hearted to hear my words. He sighed and closed his eyes briefly before speaking.
"Very well then. I honour your courage and your morals. It's a shame that I'll have to kill you as well." He raised his light hammer and brought the handle down to strike the ground.
I smirked, knowing I had permission to engage in combat, "Sorry, but I don't intend on dying today. I'm going to beat you, and whatever other villains are with you, and save my friends."
At that moment, I tried to think about my goal. I attempted transformation as quickly as I could, but obviously I wouldn't have enough time as he charged at me.
Bringing his hammer back, the tip just behind his right side, he swung with both hands, a loud whooshing sound occurring as it just narrowly missed me, with me dodging it easily. He was way too slow for me.
Not underestimating his abilities, I went on the defensive first, and also tried to give myself more time to transform. The guy was definitely a weirdo, but he wasn't stupid. He saw straight through me, knowing I was up to something.
"You're small and nimble. How irksome. I suppose considering your stature, a whip would be better than a hammer, wouldn't it?"
With that, the hammer morphed into a whip. However, he grumbled and looked a little disappointed in his new weapon. "No, not quite. A scourge would be a better weapon for someone as fast as you."
The while grew six more tendrils from its handle, and each of the tips had sharp edges on them, reminiscent of a scourge from ancient Hebrew times.
Back then, the tendrils would usually have bits of bone, pottery, and the likes on the ends to rip into one's flesh. If even one of those hit me, it could slice a deep gash into me and end the fight.
Although I hadn't tested it, it seemed to be that I only regenerated when in battle form. If the injury was great enough, it would start regeneration and carry on through after turning back, like with my arm after my fight with Bakugo.
He also thinned his armour a bit, to give himself more mobility. He must have been expecting a huge fight with Tokoyami to have been this bulked up. Thankfully I'd been paying attention and was not underestimating him.
Lunging forward and cracking the whip, I had no choice but to teleport away a little. I was fast, but not fast enough to dodge a whip. A whip cracking was it breaking the sound barrier, which is three hundred and forty three meters per second.
There's no dodging that just with speed alone. He looked puzzled for a moment, looking to see where I'd gone. He turned to face me, and was more than a little annoyed at this point.
"You're a very vexing child, you know that? All you're doing is wasting time, if you're going to fight me, fight me! Otherwise I'll just leave and find the Son of Darkness myself!"
Spurring me on, I pulled back for a punch and teleported next to him, aiming for a punch to his face where the helmet didn't protect him. He'd tricked me though, egging me on to attack him and give him an opening.
He stepped back slightly and with a flick of the wrist, cracked the whip at me. I wasn't fast enough to dodge it fully, and it slashed me across the back of my right arm.
I blinked back a bit, and looked at my arm. The deep wound quickly turned red as blood started pouring out of it. Staring at the wound, I started to feel a little woozy, getting light-headed.
'No!' I thought to myself. 'Don't focus on that, pay attention to the villain! I must protect Tokoyami, I have to be better! Don't let a silly little cut finish me off! Wipe the smug grin off his face and beat him senseless!'
I looked up at him and clenched my fists whilst gritting my teeth. If I was going to transform and get the better of him, I'd have to do it soon. All, that was fuelling my ability to go through, was anger.
Anger at the villain of course, but also anger at myself. I nearly lost there and then just from a single cut. I was angry at myself. How pathetic was I? I felt like a child.
Just then, a shape that looked like Shoji ran past as a huge shadow followed him. The villain gasped, "The Son of Darkness! He's come upon us to receive his fate with open arms! Depart from me, child, as I humbly accept whatever ill will you harbour against me.
However, for the sake of the world I must rid it of this evil before it grows too strong and dooms us all into damnation."
I snapped my head towards him with a burning hatred in my eyes. "I said... You won't hurt my friend. No one hurts my friends!"
Finally, my body transformed into its battle form, all apart from my head which I was still nervous about transforming.
With huge green arms I ran at him and threw a punch. I missed as he suddenly started to panic, and went back to his thick armour and war hammer. He swung his hammer at me and it connected with my side.
I didn't even flinch, let alone buckle. There was fear in his eyes, and I fed upon it. It was delicious. I grabbed him and lifted him up, being a little taller than him now.
"You're an ant. I'm an aardvark. You are nothing to me." I said in a deep guttural tone as my neck was growing and turning green, crawling up to my face.
I slammed him down on the ground and smashed his armour to pieces, the armour shattering and disappearing into nothing. Gone, reduced to atoms. I ripped the hammer out of his hand and snapped it with my bare hands.
It, too, broke and disappeared into nothingness. Shouting, I cupped my fists together and slammed down onto him, knocking him out in a single hit.
"Pathetic weakling." I mumbled.
I heard voices, worried ones, that sounded like Shoji and Midoriya. My vision was slightly fuzzy but I ran towards them. As I got closer, I saw that Dark Shadow had taken over Tokoyami as a massive monster.
It raised its hand to swipe its massive claws at them, but I jumped in the way and took the hit for them.
"Alex-kun!" Shoji shouted out to me, as I was sent flying into a tree, my back bending around it.
I fell to the floor and felt even angrier. "Damn it Tokoyami, I just fought a villain who was trying to kill you because he thought you were a monster!"
"I'm sorry... Please... Run..." Was all he could say as he battled internally against Dark Shadow.
Shoji ran with Midoriya on his back, looking beaten up badly. Dark Shadow hit me again, and I blacked out. And not from pain.
"Oh no... No, no, no!" Midoriya said worriedly, as they ran to safety, catching up with Bakugo and Todoroki as they battled Moonfish.
Tokoyami was also worried as he saw that I'd completely transformed, and lost my temper against Dark Shadow. Two unstoppable beasts duking it out in the middle of the forest as our comrades were in danger.
Dark Shadow swiped at me, and I used both of my hands to grab two of its fingers and push back. I threw its arm back and jumped up to punch it in the face. It recoiled slightly before screeching at me and clenching its fist.
It punched me in return, and I flew backwards through several trees. Shrieking back at it, we continued tussling, punching and slashing each other. With my regeneration and Dark Shadow's virtual invulnerability the fight was going nowhere.
We kept fighting, Dark Shadow pushing me back until we eventually met up with Bakugo and Todoroki. Dark Shadow slammed Moonfish into a tree and knocked him out in a single hit. Bakugo seemed excited at the prospect of being able to fight me in my battle form again, but Shoji condemned it.
"If Dark Shadow is defeated before Alex, Alex will run rampant and defeat the four of us. We need to restrain Alex somehow. Until we get enough manpower, our best course of action is to just leave the two to fight. Perhaps they'll take out more villains, too."
They left the two of us to fight, knowing neither one of us could kill each other. It was within the next few minutes that Bakugo went missing. Meanwhile, Tsu and Uraraka had been fighting the strange girl known as Himiko Toga, and afterwards joined up with Midoriya, Shoji, and Todoroki to fight Mr Compress, who had at this point captured Bakugo.
All the current fights were coming to an end whilst mine with Dark Shadow wasn't even beginning to slow down. Neither of us were being worn out, nor making any progress. There was destruction all around us, tons of broken trees snapped like matchsticks. Our fight eventually came out into the open.
Most of Class 1-A and 1-B were gathered, alongside Mr Aizawa, Mandalay, and Tiger, as they mourned Bakugo's capture. Several of them stared at us in awe and fear as we continued fighting, and Mr Aizawa ordered Todoroki to make some flames to scare Dark Shadow.
In the blink of an eye, Dark Shadow shrunk back to his normal size, and Tokoyami finally regained control of his body, dodging my incoming attack. Mr Aizawa wrapped his scarf around one of my arms, as Shoji grabbed my other arm with all six of his arms.
Even with the combined force of just over a ton from Shoji, he was still struggling to hold my arm back, as was Mr Aizawa. Tsu helped Shoji with my left, wrapping her tongue around it and pulling back. Todoroki froze my feet and legs in place, and Kendo used her fists to hold my body in place.
Helping Mr Aizawa was Tetsutetsu. They were all shouting as the six of them still struggled to keep me in place, as I tried desperately to break free from their grasp. I kept breaking the ice with my legs but Todoroki kept freezing them instantly.
Tsu ran around in front of me and held my face still, staring into my eyes as she shouted, "Alex-chan! It's me! Stop, please! It's over, the fight is over, kero! Wake up, please, I'm begging you!"
I started to calm down as a glimmer of recognition flashed across my eyes, and I suddenly stopped struggling as I gasped. My consciousness jumped back to me and I teleported back a few steps and transformed back into normal.
I looked around, before looking at myself. "I-is everyone alright? Did I hurt anyone?"
"No thanks to you." Mr Aizawa started, furious. "What was the one thing I told you not to do?"
"Lose control..."
"And what did you do?"
"Lose control..."
Tokoyami stepped in, "He was trying to protect m-"
"Not now, Tokoyami. Do you have any idea how irresponsible, how reckless, how stupid it was to do that? If you hadn't transformed, you may have been able to help Bakugo."
"Bakugo? What happened to Bakugo? Is he okay?" I asked, worried for his safety. I didn't seem phased by his reprehension, which annoyed him further.
"He got taken by the League. We can focus on that later, but right now, you don't even seem to care about what you did!" He said, exasperated.
"Calm down, he's just a kid..." Mandalay said, putting her hand on his shoulder.
That hurt a bit, but not as much as what Mr Aizawa said next.
"He's a kid who's trying to become a hero, but he's never going to become one if he doesn't stop doing stupid things!"
I squinted briefly, and looked at Mr Aizawa. For just a moment, I saw my dad's face instead of his, and trembled slightly. I turned on my heels and started walking away.
"Hey! We're not done yet, where are you going? Come back here!"
That just made me start running, and as he was about to follow me, Todoroki grabbed him gently and shook his head. "Please, allow me. I'll talk to him."
I ran up to the mountain where Kota was, not seeing Muscular's unconscious body, and went to the very top which overlooked the forest. From where I was I could see some of the destruction caused by my ignorance. I sat down and brought my knees to my chest, wrapping my arms around them, and cried softly to myself.
A few minutes later, I heard footsteps coming towards me and I quickly sat up and wiped my eyes, sniffling to try and get a hold of myself. Todoroki came up close to me and sat beside me, dangling his feet off the edge of the cliff side and looking out over the forest.
He sighed, and spoke whilst looking outwards. "I don't know what happened earlier, but I'm sure you did the right thing."
"How can you know... The end result was me needing six people to just barely restrain me... I'm dangerous. I'm a monster..." I looked down at a puddle of water left by Kota and saw my reflection, the reflection looking back was a lizard's face.
"I know you made the right choice because of the choices you've made thus far. You're learning, just like the rest of us. You may not be perfect, but you've protected us several times already. You protected Tsu, you protected Ryukyu, you protected Tokoyami. A monster wouldn't do that."
I fought back tears and I cradled myself again, "It's just... When I looked at Mr Aizawa I just... I saw my dad's face instead of his and it was too much then... I just had to get away."
Still looking forward, he related tales of his own father. Mentally and physically abusive, beating him at just five years old to try to toughen him up to become a better hero. The story of that burn mark over his left eye. The way that it's affected his view of himself and his self loathing. He was... Like me...
"It doesn't matter what anyone says. You've always intended to do good, and since I've met you, you've only done good. You're both strong and smart, and you're friendly too. That's more than I can say for myself... Don't make my mistake and view yourself as worthless. You're a hero. Our hero."
I couldn't fight back the tears any more, I never knew Todoroki could be so caring. We may have ultimately lost that day, losing Bakugo temporarily, but I did gain something valuable. My friendship with Todoroki, which would prove to be invaluable later in our course. He smiled briefly at me and we made our way back down the mountain.
Mr Aizawa had also cooled down and apologised to me, to which I put my hand up and refused it. "Don't apologise. You weren't wrong in what you said. I accept full responsibility for my actions."
I gasped and remembered Amaraito. "Wait! What happened to the light villain?"
"Light villain?" He asked, everyone around me also confused. He'd gotten away, unlike Muscular and Moonfish who'd been caught.
Fifteen minutes after the League of Villain's attack was over, medical teams arrived to heal the injured students and firefighters extinguished the fires. The Vanguard Action Squad's attack resulted in twenty-seven students receiving injuries and caused the capture of Bakugo as well as the disappearance of Ragdoll.
The day after, there were huge protests being made about U.A.'s lack of security, and Yaoyorozu was unconscious for almost the entire day. We visited Midoriya and wished him to get well soon, to which he thanked us. Jirou and Hagakure were also unconscious, however they remained unconscious for longer.
Another day passed, and that was the day everything got worse. Sure, I'd meet a new friend that day, but we were about to lose several people whilst we made an effort to fight back against the League and retrieve Bakugo. The day we fought All For One.
[A/N: Intense things are happening on Thursday! The Hideout Base Raid arc will be very action packed, and will start the collaboration between me and Alpha_Wolf_Spirt as we have each other's characters in the next chapter! Check out her story too to see both perspectives! See you all Thursday!]