Chapter Text
It’s said by some that relationships forged in fire are the strongest ones. Like iron, like steel, like weapons, gleaming, sharp, and white-hot.
Genos’s core is white hot, his arms glowing with plasma. Lightning arcs around his body, a symptom of his struggling core. Drive Knight is next to him, his arm wrapped around Genos’s waist. They’re falling, plummeting towards a destroyed City Z, battered by a counterattack neither of them saw coming. Genos’s vision is unstable, flickering with the stutter of his core.
“Genos. I request your cooperation.” Drive Knight speaks, and Genos turns towards him, blinking as he tries to clear his vision. It’s clear for only a moment, and he looks up at Drive Knight until it begins to fade again.
“With what?” His voice comes out strained, tinny.
“...I have very little energy left.” Drive Knight answers. “With one of my transformations, I can combine our cores for higher power output.”
Genos squeezes his eyes shut, watching warnings flash across his HUD. His core is on the edge of failing.
“There’s no guarantee it will work, but we may be able to end the fight. Are you with me?”
It's a last resort. It may not work, it may not be enough, but they're running out of everything else. Running out of options. Genos's core is at a tipping point, Drive Knight is out of energy. Running out of time. The ground rushes towards them.
"... Let’s do it." He says.
“Understood.” Drive Knight reaches up, the pieces of his weapon flying towards them. They link into an armor shell as they approach, and Genos blinks away notifications on his HUD as it connects.
“Drive Knight. My core is nearly at it’s limit, and it will explode if it’s pushed. As soon as I give the signal, disconnect. Okay?”
Drive Knight nods, after a short pause. Genos more feels his response than sees it before he lets go, pulling the transformation into place around them.
Genos curls his hands, watching the mech’s hands curl in turn around the handle of the blade that builds itself in front of him. He can feel the engines firing up, slowing their descent and slinging them towards the monster. Psykos-Orochi is focused on the heroes in the rubble below, allowing them to cut her path off.
The sword swings down, striking with a resounding crash that echoes across the battlefield, like a hammer striking an anvil. Psykos shouts something at them from the inside of her construct, her face twisted in anger. The next pieces of weaponized debris are already flying towards them, with life signals on board this time.
Psykos fires at it, but her attack is deflected. Before she can react, the building falls to pieces, the S-Class heroes inside leaping forward to attack. Above them, Tatsumaki rises into the air pieces of the ruined Monster Association headquarters tearing out of the ground with the motion of her arms.
Genos smiles. “This fight is ours.”
The battle was done.
----
It’s not done.
They’re still in the air when the cadre reemerges, announced by a flare of white fire from the ground.
Genos’s core whines louder even as he turns to look, the warnings flashing across his HUD getting more and more urgent. He opens his mouth to warn Drive Knight to begin cancelling the transformation, but he’s choked by the smoke flowing from his artificial lungs.
Notifications blink into Genos’s vision as the transformation disconnects. He supposes a signal has gotten across, even without speaking.
They’re falling, Genos’s body is unresponsive, his core unstable and struggling with the changes to output. Drive Knight is holding onto him again, balancing Genos over his shoulders in a fireman’s carry. They can’t fall any faster, and below them, the battle with the cadre begins in earnest.
A blinding flash of energy explodes across the battlefield again and Genos squeezes his eyes shut against it. He closes out alert after alert from his HUD, and braces as Drive Knight calls in his transformation again.
The impact with the ground is softer than he expected. Drive Knight’s Bishop transformation has taken the brunt of the landing, locking into place at the last second. His transformations have slowed, lagging behind the instantaneous activation that he’d had at full power.
Genos slides to the ground from the shoulders of the transformation, testing the connection to his body as he strides forwards. His core winds down, whining as the cooling system finally gets a respite after near-failure.
Drive Knight detransforms, assessing the fight ahead of them. They’re far enough back to see an overview of the battle, and Genos is able to identify some of the figures. Amai Mask and Zombieman strafe around a figure that Genos recognizes as “Homeless Emperor”, dodging the spheres of energy he commands.
Underneath them, more life signatures are working their way upwards.
“Can you still fight?” Drive Knight assesses him for a moment, tilting his head. Genos knows how strange it is to be asking, when he was on the edge of collapse moments ago, but Drive Knight is limited by time, not by his own recklessness.
“For at least a few minutes.” Drive Knight answers. “The fusion depleted more energy than I initially estimated.”
Genos nods. It’s not good news. Drive Knight’s transformations and adaptability make him a valuable asset in such a varied fight, so losing his assistance will be a significant drop in their ability to respond to new enemies. They’ll need to work quickly.
“Let’s go.” Drive Knight says, and Genos turns away, looking for the quickest route in. There are buildings still standing in a ring around the worst of the fight, and he jumps on top of a partially-demolished apartment building, using the momentum to leap across to the next structure. He takes a wide arc, gradually getting closer to stay out of the line of fire from the cadre who are on the surface. On the opposite side of the rubble, he can see Drive Knight doing the same.
As they approach, the other cadre members begin to appear. First comes a small, humanoid creature, Black Sperm, his database identifies. Atomic Samurai steps in to challenge it, and Genos returns to scanning the ground for another enemy.
The next to the surface is Fuhrer Ugly. Amai Mask looks as if he’s going to intercept for a moment, but he’s distracted by an attack from Homeless Emperor. Genos looks over the data on the monster. Extreme strength, speed, and agility. All things Genos can handle.
He crouches, and lunges forward. The sound of concrete disintegrating under the force of his jump and the rush of wind across his face focus him, and he winds up his first blow of the fight.
His fist meets flesh with a resounding crack, sending the monster flying backwards. As Genos lands, the monster recovers, swinging his own punch towards Genos. Genos drops down, sweeping his leg out to kick the monster down. Flipping in midair, Genos punches down, a spiderweb of cracks radiating out from the point of impact. He opens his fists, and his cannons flare.
The flash of fire blinds him for a moment, his optic sensors still off balance from the overload, and the monster knocks him back, sending him flying back. When he skids to a stop and looks up, he sees the injuries on the monster’s face begin to close.
Regeneration. Still something he can handle. He’s fought it before.
He braces on the ground, ready to charge forwards again, but the monster beats him to it, lunging forward with a fist ready. Genos barely has time to react, and he feels the pressure of the blow skim past his face as he dodges. He moves with it, whirling to land a quick punch on the monster’s jaw. As he staggers, Genos flips into a kick, bringing his heel down hard. The ground shudders, rubble rattling around and settling as it connects.
A retaliatory strike grazes his face, and he counters with another cannon blast. The monster falls back, momentarily stunned. Genos takes the moment that it gives him to check on the state of the other heroes. It’s under control. Zombieman has restrained Homeless Emperor, Drive Knight is picking off offshoots of Black Sperm from the edge of the fray as Samurai battles the main body. The other two cadre are facing the remaining group of heroes. Against a cohesive force, instead of one-on-one in the catacombs, they’re struggling.
Movement in front of him brings his vision back to his own opponent. Fuhrer Ugly is back upright. His regeneration is slower than Genos had initially calculated, and the monster’s face twists with fury when he sees Genos still standing. It’s clear that Genos is winning.
Behind the monster, rubble shifts. There’s another threat surfacing. He needs to finish this fight quickly.
Genos charges forwards, his core rising close to full power again, his arms and chest sparking and melting. Even his low-power blast earlier in the fight had caused visible damage, and it slowed his regeneration. This should be enough.
His cannons fire, flashing bright as the blast meets it’s mark. The monster’s torso burns away in a bare moment, the remains toppling to the ground in sync with Genos’s core winding down.
As Genos stands upright again, the rubble behind his defeated opponent begins to fall, destabilized by whatever is escaping from the ruined headquarters. He can hear the other heroes moving in as well, finished with their own fights. They form a semi-circle behind him, readying themselves for the next threat.
It's not a long wait. Just as the first pieces of disturbed concrete settle, the ground explodes. Genos has no time to react before something strikes him, hard. He feels himself hit something as he flies back, and they skid across the ground, Genos struggling to regain his footing.
"It's Garou." Drive Knight says as they stop, his voice crackling. He must have been behind Genos when he was struck.
Genos looks ahead of them as Drive Knight stands, just in time to see one of the other fighters fall, struck by a figure that he barely recognizes. There's almost nothing left of Garou as Genos fought him. He's a husk, his eyes empty, and Genos charges forward as the other heroes fall back, using their moment of regroup to try and distract Garou.
Garou turns as if feeling his approach, the empty sockets of his eyes suddenly trained on Genos. There’s no time to back off. Genos fires his cannons, watching his opponent slip past the blast. He’s able to dodge the first counter, but the second lands off-center.
Even the light blow rattles him, and he steps back to brace himself. Garou doesn't let up. There’s no hint of the playfulness, however twisted, that he’d had in their previous fight.
Genos loses his footing with the force of the following blows, being pushed back. As he falls, Garou slams a final blow into his chest, sending him flying backwards.
Genos’s back slams into the remains of an apartment building. As he tries to stand, the building collapses. His vision is blocked by the rubble falling, and his vision failing, but he can see the other heroes rushing Garou, and a man in a yellow jumpsuit running in from the distance.
He closes his eyes.