Chapter 32: Heroes Menagerie Part 3
This is another of those Core Chambers... but what do these cores control.'
Tsuyu crawled on the ceiling and looked down at the machine that was surrounded by a cage of thick glass, with a small crystal being placed in the middle of the machine... a small broken crystal. There was a powerful electrical charge that, just by being in the same room as the machine, made her hair try to stand on end. She mentally marked this place down, and noticed that there was a Hero Pod inside of here as well. The Hero Pod that was inside of this room seemed to belong to the hero, Ms. Joke, and there was the woman in her pod. Frozen in stasis until she was ready to be used, it would seem her power and popularity wasn't high enough to be placed with all of the rest of the best heroes in the Main Chamber. She had visited 5 of the 15 Core Chambers already, in the few hours that she had managed to slip through the bars, and she had noticed that so far, there was a Hero Pod in each chamber.
Were they guardians for the Core Chambers.
So far, the only Hero Pods she had seen in the chambers, contained Ms. Joke, Snipe, Kamui Woods, Mt. Lady, and Ingenium, all of which she noted down as having been captured heroes. Knowing she didn't have much time left, she started to crawl back into the direction of where her cage was. It was soon going to be dinner, and while she was in the cage, she was being treated moderately well. She was being given three meals a day, all of which came at the exact same time, and soon it would be dinner. He had told her this much himself, since she was suppose to survive the end of the world in order to be a reminder for the man. The fact the machines weren't looking for her was enough to prove that they didn't know she was gone yet.
This place was massive, how had the man managed to do all of this without anyone noticing over the years, and moreover, she had yet to see another living human being as well. The only humans were in pods, and all of the workers were robots disguised to look like humans. All of them looked exactly the same, and dressed the same though. She had yet to see the Man's face either, even though he had taken to dragging her around on a leash.
'I was the first to disappear, so somebody in my class might have put a connection there. If they can track me down, we might be able to destroy these cores... that might power this place down.' Tsuyu didn't know how the man planned on cleansing the world. If she could find where that machine was, then maybe she would be able to try and break it... or at least make notes on it. As it soon, she was crawling as quickly as she could to get back to her cage. She didn't have long now, and thankfully she was close to her cage.
"There are only 2 Pro Heroes on your list left uncaptured Boss."
"Good-" Tsuyu froze and looked down at the room she had crawled in, and saw the Man walking with a robot following him. She held her breath, and she stuck herself to the wall, and closed her eyes. Praying that she could do this, she changed her body heat and the color of her skin. Using her Frog Quirk, she forced herself to camouflage herself to match the ceiling that she was on. It wasn't perfect, and her underwear would give her away if anyone payed real attention to her. "-and my machine, how much closer to completion?" The Man asked, and he sounded almost like an excited child.
The machine... she needed to hear this.
"Our earlier calculations were off. The machine will be ready by 4:30 AM tomorrow morning, but right now, it is slightly operational."
"Good... Capture the last 2 good Pro Heroes, and prepare for a test fire. I'm going to announce to the world the end of days, and provide them with a little preview of whats to come. It will give them time to make peace with their end. There is a small abandoned island nearby has always been a stain to me." The Man spoke, and with that knowledge, Tsuyu started to quickly and quietly crawl into the next room. She dropped down from the ceiling, and ran towards her cage, squeezing herself between the bars. She didn't have long, maybe a minute or two, but she had to get dressed again so she didn't look suspicious.
How was she going to relay this to her friends?
As it stood, it looked like the world, he family, her friends... everything she loved was going to come to an end. Tsuyu couldn't help as tears tried to escape the edges of her eyes, calm headed she was, but she had emotions like anyone. She squeezed her eyes shut and closed the tears out of them, wiping them from her face. Part of her wanted to give up hope, because if the world was destroyed, her hope would be destroyed with it. The rest of her was trying to deny that part of her, because she wanted to be a pro hero... and dealing with hopeless situations came with the job.
'He needs Naruto's... Hoshi no Tama thing to power that thing... if I get it, and break it... no, he mentioned something about a connection... I can't risk Naruto's life for a plan that might not work. If he releases the Pro Heroes on me, I won't get close anyway.' Tsuyu wasn't going to get close to the ball, and she knew it. She was starting to get an idea on how the man's Quirk worked though, after seeing him use it on several Pro Heroes, and she had seen several flaws in it. She didn't know just how he was able to control so many Pro Heroes at the same time, but the man never stood in front of a person he wanted to control for starters. He never let anyone see his face either, so one of those things had to be connected with a Quirk trigger.
-U.A. Hero Workshop-
'Still don't like her a lot...'
Didn't matter that Mei was currently their biggest lead to finding the Pro Heroes and Tsuyu, and it didn't matter that the girl was being so compliant with their demands... considering that Naruto had promised the girl a trip to I-Island AND had given her some super-high tech. It didn't even matter that, even Mina knew this, that both she and this girl had similar levels of enthusiasm about the stuff they liked to do. The fact this girl was so attractive, plus with how open she was with what she wanted and what she liked, finally combined with the fact she was kissed by this girl cemented her dislike. After this girl had kissed her boyfriend as well, and threatened to steal him if she ever broke up with Naruto.
"What do you have?"
"Well, I was able to trace the tracker in this coin... which I will dub the TPC... and I know where it will teleport things to. Also, with what I had in the lab, I was able to make 20 copies of the coin." Mei spoke as she showed the stacks of coins. She had been able to remake them, without improving them like she wanted. It was easy now that she had taken the coding in it, and been able to replicate that.
Mina smiled.
"We can take the entire class to save Tsuyu!"
"Wrong! 5 of these coins will Teleport you to the Enemy Base... and 15 of them will Teleport you back here. You have 21 usable coins though, and my copy coins can only open portals for maybe 2 seconds... after one to three people crosses the portal, my coins will break." Mei corrected her with some frustration. The coins she had made were inferior in quality to the originals. She had tested them by opening portals in her own lab, and broken quite a number of different coins doing it. Her TPCs were vastly inferior to the originals, and that angered her. Even with several hours of hard work, she hadn't surpassed this person's invention. "If the Pro Heroes were captured... then only about 10 people can use the portal coins to get here... and maybe 45 will be able to come back through my portal coins." Mei didn't like the limits of her own copy-inventions when compared to the damn originals.
Whoever made these was a frustrating super-genius, with a level of tech savvy that she couldn't even begin to compete with.
She loved the feeling of competition, and hated these feelings of losing.
"21?"
"The sound we started with... it can teleport there or back I take it. Mina, lets split up and get some people we can trust to join us, or we think will help." Naruto told her with a nod in thought. They were going to need to build a small team, at least 3 fighters, and 2 people more geared towards rescuing. "Can you get Ochaco? Her Zero Gravity is the best thing for safely transporting people." Naruto's first thought was her. With her ability to negate gravity, their mobility would vastly improve, and if everything went south, she could be a good method of escape.
"Who?"
"Classmate of ours... So, her, and Bakugo and Todoroki?" Mina asked, since she figured those two would be better for battle roles than most of their other classmates, herself included. With her Acid though, she was a good fighter with both long and short range. Not to mention she was good for a variety of situation. Naruto thought about it for a second too, which gave her confidence in her idea.
He shook his head.
"They-"
The TV in the room turned on by itself, and it was completely static at first. Mei blinked in confusion, as did Naruto and Mina, when she reached for the remote and tried to turn it off, but it kept itself on. The static slowly started to vanish though, and instead of static, it revealed a man in a black suit with a white mask, standing on a boat with a view of an island behind him. The man's arms were crossed behind his back, and sitting next to him was a briefcase.
"Hello world, my Master wishes to relay a message to the world. Don't bother trying to turn the TV off, the signals are all being interrupted. My Master wishes all of you have been having a good day-" The Minion bowed to the camera slowly, and politely. His robotic-like voice lacked any emotion, showing on sincerity in his words.
"What the hell?" Naruto asked quietly, and he wasn't the only one.
"Total robot." Mei pointed at the guy on the screen, and guessed. She was sure that man was a robot made to look like a person, his movements completely gave him away in her eyes. If the man had built a coin capable of bending space and time, then he was capable of building a robot that could seriously pass for a human in looks. "What is that in the sky above that island?" Mei asked with some curiosity in her voice.
It was massive, visible from a distance, maybe the size of a western castle.
It started to fly down out of the clouds into frame, and it looked like a high-tech flying castle, with several flying rings around it. It had a massive cannon coming out of the bottom of the fortress, and it was unknown what was keeping this giant metal masterpiece in the air. If Mei had to guess, it would be some kind of Anti-Gravity device that was holding it up, with some kind of flight control built into those rings.
"As you've all noticed, your heroes-" The Minion spoke, and the screen switched to what looked like a view of the inside of a beautiful cathedral. Yet, letting the walls of the cathedral were display pods, pods showing some of the heroes that had gone missing, and in view were several of the Top 10 as well.
"That's Midnight, in her original costume... these guys were the ones who broke into her apart... and might have taken Tsuyu!" Mina shouted when she saw a brief glance at Midnight in a pod. The screen switched over back to the view of the Minion that was overlooking the island, and the massive mechanical fortress. With that one look at Midnight, it was easy to guess what had happened to her apartment. Those people had grabbed her original costume for some reason, which didn't make a ton of sense to her from an evil standpoint.
Mei grinned.
"Bring me back some of their tech."
"-have been captured. Any Pro Hero that could have had any hope to stop us is gone, having been easily captured with my Master's genius planning. Now, before first sunlight tomorrow morning, this world will be cleansed." The Minion spoke as the cannon on the fortress, the one hanging from the bottom, started to charge itself up. A blue glow started to escape the bottom of it, and the sky started to darken around the fortress. Lightning bolts tried to zap the fortress, but they were absorbed by the rings outside of the fortress. "Now my Master wishes you to see a taste of what awaits."
"What the-" Naruto started.
The island was a beautiful island, it was an old abandoned island with a city on it that had long since lost human contact, but nature had blended with it well. Suddenly though, a massive torrent of blue flames shot out of the cannon, and liberally coated the entire island in seconds. Plumes of smoke rose up high into the air, and large amounts of hot steam rose from the ocean as the flames made contact with that as well. For 10 seconds, the island was bathed in flames of blue, and for those 10 seconds everyone could only watch (across the globe) in shock as the flames were cleared away... to reveal nothing. Everything that had been covering the island was gone, melted to the ground, or turned to ash and glass. The city on the island, gone, reduced to nothing in the wake of the flames.
Mina's eyes widened, and she felt a sudden fear echo through her entire brain, and even Mei, the excitable girl, dropped to her knees when she suddenly realized what was going to happen to all of them.
"... We're going to die..." Mei was going to die without achieving any of her dreams.
Naruto grinned.
Now it all made sense... those weren't just flames... those were the flames that were produced by his Quirk. Tsuyu's disappearance, since she was the last person in possession of his Hoshi no Tama made sense now. She had refused to give it up, and had been taken with it to that sky castle. The heroes all vanishing, those who were worth anything or could stop this villain... this supervillain... it made sense to. The guy didn't seem to want to kill them, and was collecting them for some reason. The reason why he could feel his Hoshi no Tama always on the move, and why the GPS on the coins were saying their portal location was always moving. The flying fortress was in the air, above the clouds, so naturally it would always be on the move.
"Everything we've done... it's for nothing..." Mina had tears form in her eyes.
"By the time the sun rises tomorrow, this world's cleansing will begin."
The screen went black, and then a doomsday clock appeared on the screen, counting down until the start of the end.
"You're... grinning?" Mei asked with a shocked look on her face. Mina's head spun and looked at Naruto in shock, before he placed his hand on top of their heads. Mina didn't know why, but she could feel as if some of his confidence was flowing through her.
Naruto pointed at the clock.
"Now... our enemy has revealed himself. We know what he plans to do... we know where the pros are. After all, now we can focus on a single goal. Mina, go get everyone in Class 1-A! If he thinks there isn't anyone left to stop him since he has the pros... lets show him what students can do." Naruto grinned wide and proud. With the final boss in front of them, they had a goal and a target finally. They weren't just searching around for clues anymore, and they had a time limit for when they would lose. Everything had fallen into place.
Mina looked at him with wide eyes.
"You have a plan?"
"You think we can win?" Mei asked over Mina, and Naruto slammed his hand on the table. The two of them both jumped in shock, the fear they had been feeling was gone. They could only look in his blue eyes, and see nothing but confidence.
"Mei, I need you to track where that Fortress is going to start, what part of Japan he's going to start his cleansing... right now, I'm sure the air force and navy are going to try their best to fight, and the pro heroes that weren't captured will be helping them... I have no doubt in my mind they won't be able to do anything. You want to go to I-Island right Mei, then you better hurry!" Naruto pointed at her. Her eyes widened in shock, before she nodded and opened up her computer. She plugged some wires into a coin, and she started to look over the GPS coordinates that were constantly changing.
She could track the fortress, it was possible, meaning that Naruto might have a plan.
"The fortress will reach land at this spot... I'll send the coordinates to your phone." Mei typed away as fast as she could. Naruto heard his phone go off, showing she sent them to him. She worked as fast as she could, and slowly a smile worked it's way back on her face."You're not going to use the coins?" Mei asked with a confused look when she saw Naruto preparing to head out.
He grabbed a single coin from her, the original coin.
Mina started to text all of the people from their class that she had the numbers for. Naruto tossed her his phone as well once he had the location memorized, and looked it up on his phone. She and Naruto had different numbers saved into their phones. Naruto transformed into his 2-Tail form and leaned down so that Mina could get on his back and ride him.
-The Beach (3 Hours Later)-
"Are you sure anyone is going to come?"
Mina stood with Naruto as the two of them looked at the fortress in the distance, and it was a distance away from them now. They were watching as jet fighters tried to fight against it, only to be shot down out of the sky. Naruto saluted the fallen men in the sky, since their sacrifice was a noble one. Trying to defend the lives on not only their own nation, but also the world. Sadly, this wasn't going to happen without a loss of life this time, and Naruto wanted to make sure these brave men were honored for their sacrifice... honored by victory.
"Of course they are..." Naruto spoke.
The first arrived in the form of a limo, and Momo opened the door and slammed it shut as she ran towards them. She was in her hero costume, like asked, just like Mina and Naruto were. If they were going to play the part of the pros, then they needed to look the part. Naruto grinned when he saw one of the most important parts of the plan show up right on time. Mina smiled wide when she saw not only Momo show up, but she saw Tenya running down the street towards them as well, jumping off the railing and landing in the sand nearby them.
"I came as fast as I could."
"Are we really going to fight against that?" Momo asked as she ran up after Tenya. She had originally just planned on spending her last moments with her family, but she had gotten a text from Naruto's phone saying that there was a chance that they could do something about this. She wasn't sure about it, so she had taken the family limo without permission, and decided that she would trust Naruto.
Tenya looked at the giant fortress as it came closer.
"It's massive... can we really take it down?" He asked curiously, and Naruto looked at Momo, ignoring him for the moment.
"Yes... and Momo, I need you to make a boat that can fit about 5 people... make it as light weight as you can." Naruto told her his orders for her. Her Creation ability was key for them not needing the coins to get onto the fortress. "Tenya, you're important for this plan, so you should go and fuel up." Naruto told Tenya, who actually came prepared, and showed that he brought several cans of orange juice with him.
"On it!"
He started to drink it.
'She uses a limo... think on that later...' Mina thought with a shiver, but her eyes almost sparkled when she saw more and more of their classmates coming towards them, in whatever mode of transportation they had to them. She saw Kyoka coming with Denki, running with Sero right behind them. Momo opened the front of her leotard, and it took a lot visibly out of her, but a small boat shot out of her body and onto the sandy beach.
"Good?" Momo asked with a look that wanted to know why she was doing that.
"Hey, got the text, we really doing this?" Denki shouted to Mina, who he had gotten the text from. Kyoka ran up to Naruto, before she looked at the boat, and then back to Naruto, before at the fortress.
"... That's not getting us to that." She pointed out plainly, seeing as this small boat, wasn't going to fit 20 of them... and the boat wasn't going to fly. "You got a better plan in your head?" Kyoka had to ask him.
Naruto just grinned wider.
"It'll work."
Not long after they arrived, while Momo was eating snacks from a nearby vending machine, Izuku arrived with Ochaco and Yuga. The three of them came from different directions, but they had gotten there with a pretty good time. Izuku ran up to Naruto the quickest, and looked up towards him, with a downright shocked look on his face for the most part.
"100%... really?" Izuku asked that question alone, because Naruto had sent him a very different text after everyone else had been texted to meet up at this beach. Izuku looked around, and saw it was the very same beach that he had used for his One for All training. "I brought what you asked..." Izuku said as he took out a small rag and haded it over to Naruto, which Naruto pocketed.
Good.
"Were are all the others?" Ochaco asked, since so far, a little less than half of their class had shown up. She asked Mina, who had sent her the text to start with. She had come as fast as she could, because if there was a chance she could save her parents, she would gladly take it. You would have to be completely selfish to not answer the text this time.
Even Bakugo came running in angry minutes later.
"Ochaco, Bakugo! Once Todoroki gets here, I need the two of you and Tenya to come talk with me!"
"Screw you!"
"Bakugo, if you don't want me to kick your damn ass before you die, then you're going to do it!" Naruto threatened Bakugo flat out when he got that response. Unable to really answer that, Bakugo just nodded with an angrier face. Slowly but surely, everyone else in the class other than Tsuyu, started to arrive and gather in behind Naruto at the beach. Momo finished what she was eating, and restored her power, while Tenya finished filling up his stomach with juice, promising that he would have enough fuel to do whatever it was he needed to do.
Naruto turned around and faced all of them.
So many of them seemed scared of what was happening, and that was normal. Only a few days previously, they had come face to face with real villains for the first time, but this was something on a different level. Some were confident like Naruto, and all were confused at what they could possibly do for this. Naruto didn't grin at them, instead he gave them his confident smile.
"Tenya, Momo, Kyoka, and Tokoyama... I need the 4 of you to get into the boat. I'm not going to give you all a speech to tell you we're going to make it... I'm just going to say, if we fail then the world ends. If we want to win, then put your faith." Naruto spoke and pointed to the boat. The four students that he pointed out actually followed his instructions and got into the boat. Tenya saw that there was holes in the back of it that looked like his thrusters, so he sat there and put them through the holes. He could guess that was where they were going to go.
Ochaco stood next to Naruto.
"You needed me?" She asked, and Naruto pointed at the boat.
"You're going to get in the boat with me too, you're vital to the success of this as well. I need you to make the boat, and everyone in it other than you, weightless... think you can do that?" Naruto asked the girl. She blinked in surprise at the request, before she nodded her head with a smile.
She could do that!
"What about the rest of us?" Sero asked with a grin.
"Anyone who isn't going up there... is going to be defending the city down here. If those of us going up there fail, it's up to all of you to try your hardest to protect the people of the city." Naruto's words hit hard for those in the boat. Naruto grinned again moments later, before he turned around and pointed at the fortress in the sky. "We're not going to fail though! Come on everyone, lets do it!"
-Five Minutes Later-
Play: You Say Run
"Everyone ready!? Come on, it's time to go above and beyond! Bakugo, hit me with your most powerful explosion!" Naruto stood at the back of the boat, holding onto it with his bare hands, and the boat only on the ground because of Ochaco's weight. Bakugo grinned and a small explosion came out of his hands as he prepared himself for something that was going to feel extremely good.
Everyone prepared for the shockwave that would come.
Todoroki got ready, and the right half of his body started to freeze, lowering his stance.
He created the largest, most powerful Ice Wall that he could, a ramp that was pointed right at the flying fortress. In a second, his part was done, and he looked back towards the others.
"Go!"
*BOOM!*
"DIE!"
Naruto took Bakugo's explosion straight to the chest, and like a rocket, the boat was pushed forward right up the ice wall. Naruto powered down from his 2-Tail form with moderate burns on his chest, nothing serious. Everyone on the boat had been pushed back by the speed they were going, and suddenly Ochaco looked extremely dizzy. She held herself towards, and Dark Shadow came out of Tokoyama and started to steer the boat as it approached the end of the ice wall, taking careful aim towards the fortress in the sky. Quickly, they had less than a second, they approached the end of the ice wall and soared through the sky.
"I've got it! Iida, now!" Momo shouted as she used her Quirk to create more orange juice canes for him. Activating his Quirk, and using it's fullest power, flames shot out of the engines on his calves.
Any speed they might have lost in the air was regained instantly, and they started to fly through the sky in their boat. Dark Shadow used his wind-like arms to guide the boat in the air. Kyoka pointed her ear-jacks towards the fortress, and acted as a sonar for any enemy attacks incoming.
Attacks came.
"Missles!"
"Momo, brains and brawn time!" Naruto called out to her, and she created several spears from her arms. As fast as she was creating them, Naruto grabbed them from the air and throw them towards the incoming missles. Hitting them dead on, they exploded in the air, and their boat sailed right through the flames, with Dark Shadow shouting a whimper as he protected them from the fires and continued to steer them. Tenya started to sweat at the force it was taking for him to keep up his max speeds, shooting the boat forward, even if the boat only weighed as much as Ochaco did thanks to her being the only one with any weight.
If it weren't for that fact, his engines would have already stalled.
Naruto reached into his pocket, before he placed something in his mouth, and gave it a quick swallow. Frowning to himself, and hating what he had just done, Naruto looked towards the fortress with determined eyes.
"I'm about the stall!" Tenya called out as his engines started to sputter.
"Ochaco, Momo, do it!" Naruto shouted out to the two girls. Dark Shadow wrapped around everyone in the boat as Naruto transformed into his 1-Tail form, and wrapped his arms around everyone. Momo created a bomb, while Ochaco touched her cheeks with her hands. Suddenly, she too was weightless. Tenya only saw darkness as Dark Shadow surrounded all of them. The bomb that Momo created landed in the boat underneath them as Naruto gave one last push forward.
The boat exploded, and the 5 of them were sent flying even faster towards the fortress.
-Inside the Fortress-
"Master, sensors indicate the object approaching us has exploded."
"Fitting." The Man spoke simply as he looked at the footage of the explosion with a small smirk on his face. The children in that boat weren't even worth his attention, and now they were dead. It was a fitting end for those so low on the hero totem pole, that they weren't even worth him researching them or their Quirks.
Good riddance.
-With the Rescue Squad-
"Blaaaaaaaaah!"
Ochaco threw up over the side of the fortress, as they stood on the bottom layer of it all, right next to an open window. She had pushed herself too far with her Quirk, and now she was going to have to deal with the side effects. Tokoyama looked at the burnt blue blanket that was over their bodies, which had surrounded Dark Shadow just before the explosion.
It had been a last second camouflage, to make them look like the ocean underneath them, so if they were being recorded, nobody would see them flying through the air if they only watched the footage for a second.
All of them stood up and looked towards the inside of the fortress with determined looks.
Other than Ochaco.
She was still throwing up.
Weekly Power Status
-- Power
Ranking 
-- Power
stone