Discord: https://discord.gg/t7bHrdRY7Y
pat.reon: Keanu_Eugene (Unlimited chapters ahead)
CHAPTER START---
"Now die!" Wolfram says as he commands pieces of metal from the maelstrom to rocket toward where they are in the eye of this storm.
All directed at Horizon.
He doesn't expect to actually hit him on the first try, but he certainly wasn't ready for what happened next.
As shrapnel closed in on all sides, Horizon disappears, swapped with some floating rock.
And as if it was automatic, more and more shrapnel was fired at railgun speeds, causing sparks in the air and the scent of iron and ozone to spread out.
SHAMBLES: Flicker!
Among the metal storm Horizon begins warping faster than anyone else could keep up with.
Faster than the metal could hit, faster than the rogue sparks made from the magnetic storm could hit.
So fast that he appears in dozens on places simultaneously to Wolfram.
"Won't work, this is my world," Wolfram says as he narrows his eyes.
Instead of trying to lock onto one location or predict Horizon's absurd warping speed, he decides to rain hell onto this battlefield.
The entire 50m circle they were fighting in that had been scraped apart and cleared out, that had hundreds of small floating rocks spread out among it.
Became a dartboard for Wolfram.
And the darts? Thousands of pieces of metal, ranging from the size of screws, nails, bolts, or other fragments.
To entire crumpled up vehicles or pieces of the destroyed ships.
The sparks in the air kept growing and growing, until eventually large arcs of electricity appeared like lighting, constantly bouncing around the battlefield.
The entire battlefield was hit at once, and he could see a change in Horizon's after images.
There were about a dozen less of them, which still meant at least 20 were up simultaneously.
He suddenly felt the metal fused to his spine disconnect at the waist, then at the knees.
For a moment his eyes widen in fear, terrified that his contingency for Horizon wouldn't work. That the months of collaborative effort between himself, Tech, other mercenaries and villains, was for nothing.
"NO!" He increases the fire rate of the metal storm, and is relieved when more slashes don't come for a few seconds.
Precious seconds he used to magnetically control the metal in his body and the metal roots connecting him to the ground to reconnect himself.
He still saw Horizon's after images flashing around, and his mind continued racing trying to figure out what was going on.
But Wolfram is a world class mercenary, he wasn't as effective as Arsenal, nor did he enjoy cruelty and bloodshed as much as that monster.
But he was still at the upper levels for a reason, so he immediately figured out what was going.
All while constantly speeding up all the projectiles being sent at Horizon, and picking up more from around the island to keep his ammo supply healthy.
'He knows he can't slash me apart properly,' Wolfram thinks. 'He does that and my bluff about all the metal being shot into the city if I lose control could happen, at least in his mind.
That risk is too big for any Pro Hero to take. He has no choice but to wait for me to exhaust myself, and since he's a Quirk Specialist he knows this device is exhausting to use.
But all this warping must take some kind of energy toll on him, so its a battle of attrition, and if he retreats away from me I'll just rain metal onto the nearby city and bring it down.
Can't imagine why anyone would want to be a Hero, its so easy trapping them in shitty situations like this, now he's forced to keep warping until he makes a mistake or gets exhausted, then my metal storm will shred him down to nothing.'
"Agh!" Wolfram flinches for a moment, causing the metal rain to slow for an instant, then he grits his teeth and ignored the sudden pain in his chest, speeding up the metal even faster than before.
The sound of what are effectively thousands of bullets hitting the ground every second wakes Melissa before long.
"What kind of Hero, does that?" Wolfram asks as he's somewhat struggling to breathe now. There was a bit of blood on his lip as he kept exhaling more.
Melissa sees this, then meets his gaze for a moment.
With a thought he has a piece of metal fly by and not-so-gently tap the back of her head, knocking her out.
'The last thing I need is some annoying kid screaming in my head, can't even hear myself think here,' he struggles to take a few deep breaths.
By the second he tastes more and more blood on his lips.
'He used that 'Injection Shot' Quirk to fire a hole through me, piercing my lung. Probably not enough to kill me, or maybe just enough to kill me since---'
"AGH!" Wolfram winces as he feels the same sensation in his other lung.
'This kid, he doesn't fight like other Pro Heroes, he's trying to get me to near death, because he knows he can just heal me right after the fight...he's definitely no 'True Hero', I might be in real danger here.'
Wolfram flinches again, this time feeling the main artery in his right leg get torn apart, along with the bone and muscle in line with it.
The pain pisses him off, so much that he grinds his teeth hard enough to almost crack them against each other.
With a wave of his hand he calls for the stream of metal to continue raining from above while a horizontal sweep of shrapnel covers the battlefield.
CLINK CLINK CLINK!
The sound of metal bouncing against something different catches his attention, and he commands the metal tree holding up him and Melissa to turn.
Then he sees Horizon in a dome of pale blue energy, just like his shield earlier.
ANTIBACTERIAL CURTAIN: Barrier!
He narrows his eyes at this and focuses more and more on it, calling massive pieces of the ships and cranes to rain down onto this dome.
'Got you!' he thinks as the metal is about to make impact, only for Horizon to disappear.
But so do the massive pieces of metal he hurled at him.
He didn't think anything of it in the moment, but during the entire fight, the more threatening and larger pieces of metal have been disappearing from the battlefield.
But Wolfram's Quirk doesn't province a Scan like Hand of God, it simply lets him control metal, and with the new device, control magnetism like streams.
He has absolutely no idea exactly how many pieces of metal are in the maelstrom, or how big they are, or even exactly where they are.
He simply makes magnetic fields in the air and manipulates them that way.
But Horizon knew, in fact, from the very beginning Horizon has simply been stalling him.
Stalling him until either his injuries cause him to pass out, or till Horizon could warp enough of the larger pieces of metal down below the seabed.
Using Scan to find loose rocks that he could swap them with to send them all the way to the bottom.
Because, 'if he's so focused on me then he won't be reaching far for metal,' Horizon thought at the start of the fight. 'He'll be more focused on exerting control on the pieces he has than on collecting more or tracking where they are...'
In addition to using Scan for constantly tracking every piece of metal and searching the nearby seabed, he's also using it to predict where the lowest concentration of metal will be at any moment, before using Shambles to put himself there.
All while also using Takt to barely slow down or alter the trajectory of the shrapnel at his desired location so he won't get shredded the moment he arrives.
Which explains the question Wolfram couldn't find an answer to, 'how the hell isn't he dead yet? I made the concentration of attacks too close for anyone to survive, even a rat couldn't dance between them this well.'
After nearly a minute of this dance, Wolfram noticed something different about the after images.
BA-DUM!
As if they began glowing blue.
'Are they releasing blue mist, what the hell? Does he have a water Quirk too, this could be bad with the ocean right there...'
But in truth the combination of mental strain and adrenaline was quickly getting to Horizon, it took much more than before, now power that has been bubbling below the surface was punching the barrier.
And his higher functioning mind wasn't quite ready to process it just yet.
BA-DUM!
Luckily, it was time for him to act, all the larger pieces of metal, namely the pieces torn from ships and cranes, as well as many of the whole shipping containers, were at the bottom of the ocean nearby.
So Horizon went on the offensive.
There wasn't anything near to Wolfram, and he needed to knock him out, as to his knowledge killing him could cause problems for the nearby city since the smaller pieces of metal were still swirling.
TAKT!
With much mental effort Horizon launches one of the smaller rocks from the side of Wolfram, out of the floor, carefully weaving through a path of shrapnel, directly toward the villain.
Wolfram doesn't even notice it, so focused on his Quirk even as his nose was already bleeding, until the pebble is directly in front of his face.
He'd made such an effort to prevent anything from getting this close to him that he couldn't miss it, his fear of Horizon being able to warp to him was now realized.
SHAMBLES!
Horizon swaps with it, sword held, blade out but to the side.
The last thing he wants is to touch Wolfram with the blade and lose his sword because of it, so in his other hand he already had a fistful of blue lightning.
But as he's about swing his fist into Wolfram, the man's skin begins glowing bright red and releasing steam.
His fist makes contact with the man's chest, and his bones shatter as if he punched a wall of iron.
BA-DUM!
"Weak!" Wolfram says as small sparks erupt over his body, then an invisible force slams into Horizon.
He's sent hurtling backward into the rain of metal, before warping away.
He appears nearby, and his dome barrier is already active, constantly being battered with metal.
"Before Tech, my previous employer paid with a pretty handy Quirk, Muscle Enhancer!" Wolfram says. "Even if you get to me, you can't win. And now that my electromagnetic barrier is up, you'll never get anything close enough to warp to me again, just die already!"
Horizon hears this as his barrier is being beaten more and more, the strain on his mind feels like it'll break his brain in two.
BA-DUM!
His barrier itself begins shrinking, causing Wolframs eyes to widen, preparing for the euphoria that he's sure will come from this kill.
BA-DUM!
Being the man who killed a Mystery Class will put him at the top of the world.
Except it would never come, in fact, the person who enters a state of euphoria is Horizon himself.
BA-DUM!
The power bubbling below the surface manages to spill out for a moment, brining a wave of euphoria and adrenaline with it as his entire body begins releasing the blue energy vapor.
Wolfram sees it and every instinct screams at him to run away, but he's in too deep.
So he sees the Hero down on one knee, hands up as if he were trying to physically hold up the dome barrier that was constantly shrinking and cracking around him.
BA-DUM!
Pouring more and more energy into it, losing himself more by the second to a power he wasn't quite ready for, yet.
Wolfram lets this fear fuel him as he focuses, and within the barrier Scalpel shatters into hundreds of pieces and begins swirling around.
BA-DUM!
When Horizon was hit with his electromagnetic barrier earlier, he'd taken control of the sword, and this was the time to use it.
Horizon doesn't react as the bits of his own sword swirl around for a moment, but as they begins rocketing toward him.
His head snaps up, as if he was staring into Wolfram's very soul.
BA-DUM! BA-DUM! BA-DUM! BA-DUM! BA-DUM! BA-DUM! BA-DUM! BA-DUM! BA-DUM!
Wolfram doesn't even have time to react as Horizon's face is suddenly inches away from his.
The villain doesn't even have time to realize it, but Horizon warped into his barrier.
Into a area where he made sure there was absolutely nothing to swap to.
He swapped with nothing.
Breaking a fundamental rule of Hand of God, at least when not in space he was familiar with.
But just as human conventions never applied to Horizon.
A fully realized Horizon will completely shatter the limits and rules created by his previous self.
And now, looking at this Horizon, with thick blue energy vapor poring off of him, then clumping together like a layer of liquid and clinging to his hand, the hand that was moving to grab Wolfram's face.
This villain was the first to experience the reality of a fully realized Horizon.
The first of his many, many victims...
END CHAPTER---
Discord: https://discord.gg/t7bHrdRY7Y
pat.reon: Keanu_Eugene (Unlimited chapters ahead)
CHAPTER START---
"Fuck..." Horizon mutters as he sits on the floor, inside a small crater.
The port island was a complete mess, torn up not just from the metal storm and Wolfram's Quirk, but from his reaction to it all.
He now sat in this crater, with his jacket shredded apart and pants torn up, exposing the body glove beneath.
His visor was cracked, but still intact as not to reveal any of the features beneath, even as a small steam of blue energy vapor was seeping out of it.
Both his hands, up to the elbows, were drenched in blood and bits of flesh, but he himself was completely fine, even now as he tried to catch his breath and focus his mind.
Feeling himself crashing after the high he just experienced.
In the small crater, at the middle of it, was Wolfram, or at least what was left of him.
His face was smashed in, no, it was missing.
His head and upper torso were beaten until it looked like ground meat, his right arm was mangled with chunks of flesh being torn off.
And his left arm was completely torn off from the shoulder, the separate limb resting only a few meters away within the crater.
His entire torso suffered the same fate, being beaten into a pile of unidentifiable meat, with bits and pieces of his guts scattered about.
Taking a few deep breaths Horizon gets up, swaying side to side, feeling as if he's experiencing the worst hangover imaginable.
He looks down at his bloody hands, and decides not to think about that right now, instead reaching up to his visor and tapping the side of it.
"Call Pantu," he commands, while walking out of the crater over to Melissa.
Swaying with each steps he feels his legs burning as he steps out and sees the girl, laying on the floor with some cuts and bruises across her body.
"Horizon," Pantu's voice is projected into his visor. "I assume this is good news..."
"Not particularly," he says while walking over to her.
"Did you retrieve Melissa Shield?" Pantu asks.
"Yes, she's right here," he steps on Melissa, not using his Quirk right now but nudging her, hard enough to make her groan, which she does. "She'll be fine."
"Well then, the only reason you'd call me is if something went wrong, and if she's alive...what went wrong?"
"I was a bit too heavy handed with Wolfram, I need your cleanup crew."
"How heavy handed?"
"Bring a mop," Horizon sighs. "I got a bit...I honestly don't even know."
"Were you conscious when you fought him?"
"Mostly, I can't explain this over the phone," Horizon says. "Can you send your team."
"Yes, and I'll keep the press and police away from the scene until they're done, the last thing we need is the news getting wind of this."
"Thanks."
"I'm not doing this for you," Pantu says. "Japan simply can't afford to be put in a position where we could lose you, drop the girl off at UA and come see me, and don't tell anyone but Nezu exactly what happened."
"Got it," Horizon hangs up and takes a deep breath, looking around at the destruction.
---1 Hour Later...
Standing atop a skyscraper in Fukuoka, Horizon is leaning on the railing while watching the port island be swarmed by police boats and helicopters.
The news drone and helicopters were barely seconds behind the emergency services and first responders, and he breathes a sigh of relief as the most stressful part of this is now over, at least for tonight.
After he called Pantu she sent in people she trusted, so they had to wait on the port island for almost an hour.
But her people made short work of cleaning up the crime scene.
Officially nobody was allowed to venture there, so he had to warp her people onto the island for them to do their jobs, then send them back to the city.
Now the regular emergency services and media were allowed to venture to the island to investigate and spin the story in a positive light.
Minutes later he takes out his phone, held by his cleaned gloves. His jacket and pants were shredded beyond any usable state so he cast those aside, given to Pantu's team for destruction. Now he was simply wearing the body glove.
Luckily they were high above the roof so nobody would see, especially since nobody was focused on the city itself.
He sees the first news feed to go live is from Chitose's media outlet, as usual.
"We're here live on the port island, just miles away from Fukuoka!" the woman says, gesturing to the city behind her.
She then begins walking as the camera follows her, showing the completely destroyed man-made island being scoured by other news crews and emergency services.
"The destruction of this island will set Japan back countless billions of dollars in trade, not to mention the repair and reconstruction cost of any infrastructure that was here just over an hour ago.
The Hero Public Safety Commission has released an official statement of what happened here, assuring the public that the matter has been completely deal with."
The woman begins walking over to the crater, not able to get too close but just enough for the camera to zoom in on it, nearly 10m wide and half as deep.
From the drones above the public could see inside, and there was not a drop of blood or any semblance of DNA within the crater to be found.
"As it turns out, a international mercenary and Villain, codenamed 'Wolfram', used his Metal Manipulation Quirk to battle Horizon here.
This villain entered Japan weeks ago and Horizon had been diligently tracking him on his own, this led to a confrontation at this port where Wolfram was making arrangements to import extremely destructive and potentially nuclear weapons.
This same Wolfram was also responsible for the now confirmed sabotage at the Keito Nuclear Reactor. This confirms our suspicions that the gas leak scare within that city was simply a cover up, but the Hero Public Safety Commission assures us that the situation there was resolved via the combined efforts of everyone's favorite disaster rescue Hero, 13.
As well as Horizon who greatly assisted in containing the radiation. We believe that Wolfram used that as a trial run to see exactly how capable our Pro Heroes are at dealing with nuclear threats, and when his attempt was thwarted, he resorted to trying to buy large scale nuclear weapons.
Thankfully Horizon was able to intercept his order, and not only was it stopped on our end, but the sellers of such heinous devices oversees were simultaneously apprehended."
The woman continues talking while Horizon nods along, genuinely impressed, 'Pantu came up with all of that so quickly, no wonder she's the head of the Commission...'
He sees the woman pause for a moment and hold her earpiece, then she smiles brightly. "We now have confirmation that not only was no one hurt, thanks to Horizon warping all the civilians and workers away from the port and into the city. But Horizon himself is entirely unharmed, as we've come to expect from our strongest guardian.
In addition to that wonderful news, Wolfram has been secured in a facility and is awaiting private trial to pay for his crimes!"
Horizon nods along, thoroughly impressed, already seeing some notifications from his social media accounts flooding in.
He hops over to his 'Yay!' app, and the first thing he sees makes him chuckle.
'Ryukyu's boyfriend is so strong!' as the caption, followed by a picture of the destroyed island.
He immediately takes a screenshot and sends it to her, knowing when she wakes up to it that'll annoy her.
He then quickly scrolls past thousands of posts singing his praises before hopping back over to the news.
Most of the world would believe this, they'd think he solved this serious matter, saved millions of lives and arrested Wolfram without suffering so much of a scratch.
But then he got one message from someone who could see through it all, a simple, 'Are you alright?' from Ryuko.
'I'm perfect, handling paperwork,' was his only response.
Just in time to hear groaning beside him.
Because this entire time Melissa Shield was laying on the floor, completely knocked out.
"How are you feeling?" was all he asked, not even looking at her as she gets up, all the cuts and bruises healed, yet she stumbles slightly before holding onto the railing.
"Where are we?" she asks. "What happened?"
"Wolfram kidnapped you, I saved you, now we're in Fukuoka, how are you feeling?"
"Sleepy," Melissa says as she now focuses her mind, and sees the island in the distance being swarmed by boats and helicopters. "Is that where we were?"
"Mhm," Horizon casually reaches out and rests a hand on her forearm, using Scan to check on her, but mostly to know if she's lying. "I'm just running another checkup, I already healed you earlier."
"Oh, ok..."
"How much do you remember, what do you remember from the fight?"
"I remember you blinking about everywhere, then I got knocked out, then I woke up here," she says, and luckily for her, he doesn't detect any lies.
Then the concussion wasn't that bad, "he lets go of her and continues scrolling."
"Is my dad alright?"
"He should still be asleep," Horizon says.
Melissa breathes a sighs of relief, then just leans on the railing and begins quietly crying.
Horizon stops his scrolling, glances over at her, then just goes back to scrolling.
"Sorry for all of this, for causing you so much trouble," Melissa says.
"Yeah well, its the job," Horizon shrugs. "You really don't have to feel bad about it. You just got caught in the crossfire of your dad and Tech."
Melissa sighs at the thought of that, "yeah, I guess you're right."
"I usually am."
Melissa chuckles at that, and actually manages to crack a smile, "you know, you aren't as bad as I initially thought you were...and certainly not as mean as your classmates make you out to be."
"I've literally never been mean to them, ever," Horizon says.
"Well I wouldn't say that, but at least you've mostly been nice to me. And now that everything is over and the danger is gone, its kind of nice having a strong hero protecting me."
"Sorry but the last thing I need is to have a third girl at UA trying to get my attention."
Melissa scoffs at that idea, "oh god no! You're a great Pro Hero, but as a person...you're kind of, the worst."
"Ouch."
"Wait, that sounded super mean! I mean I'm thankful for all you've done especially with saving me, but just, you're not my type you know!"
"I got what you mean, and believe me its a relief on my end too, even if you're one of the few girls at UA I actually respect, it wouldn't work out."
Melissa looks confused at that, "you actually respect me? Why? Aren't you like a all powerful god who always speaks down to everyone?"
"I'm not all powerful, and I don't speak down to anyone," Horizon says. "I speak to them in a manner appropriate for their worth, they just happen to mostly be trash."
"Jerk," Melissa mutters.
"But as for respecting you, well, you're Quirkless, which means anything you can do, someone with a Quirk can do better. In fact, a certain bear-mouse thing with a High Spec Quick is more of a genius inventor than you and your dad combined, but, you still try."
"Because I try, you respect me?"
"Because you succeed," Horizon says. "Most Quickless people are worse than trash, because not only can they never match up to people with Quirks in a competitive sense, they're also genetically weaker.
I mean you guys don't even have the ability to regrow teeth, or the inherent superhuman adaptability, its like you're humans from hundreds of years ago. But most Quirkless people make themselves even worse by dwelling on these aspects their entire lives and allowing it to destroy them, they don't even bothering to try.
And if they do try, they don't do enough work to be competitive, much less succeed. But you did it, and so did your dad. And as for him, well, if he didn't cause such a big headache for me I'd like him a lot more..."
Melissa looks at him in a new light, taking his words to heart and almost crying again, being recognized by the man most of the world looks up to as the pinnacle of superhuman potential.
"You know, if this was the side of you I met first, maybe I would have fallen for you," she says. "Good thing I saw the jerk side of you first, saved me a lot of heartache."
"Tch, you wish you could get a guy like me," Horizon says. "Besides you're leaving UA at the end of this semester and moving across the world, so its for the best really."
"Yeah, but if you ever come to America, we should catch up."
"Ha! Pantu doesn't even like me leaving Tokyo and Musutafu, like hell she'd ever let me leave Japan, now lets get out of here, or ride just called me..."
END CHAPTER---
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