Chapter Text
"Deku, speed the hell up, would ya?! That goes for you as well, icy-hot!!! If all you're gonna do is slow me down I might as well just ditch you two here and finish this myself!" Bakugou blasted himself forward, weaving between buildings. Todoroki was slightly behind him drifting on his ice, Deku running after both of them.
“Bakugou, you can't just be chasing after him like that! We only have a slight idea of what his quirk does, and my father said that we were responsible for public safety and tracking him down; not chasing him down!" Todoroki shouted after him, leaping over a car.
"I don't give a damn about what your father said! If you didn't want to catch the guy, you shouldn't have come!"
"Kacchan, please! Can't you just slow down and think rationally for a second?! We don't know what will happen if we get hit, and besides, we only had an idea of which way he went! For all we know, we could've sped past and already missed him!"
"I am thinking rationally you damned nerd!" Bakugou abruptly curved a sharp turn as he barked back at his competitor with green hair. Todoroki and Deku missed the alley where Bakugou had gone, which forced Todoroki into curving his wall and heading backwards. He quickened his pace, and as he made the sharp turn, he cut off his ice slide's path and launched himself forward, leaving Deku behind. Deku took advantage of the situation, however, and slid quickly across the progressively melting ice. As soon as he made the abrupt curve, he threw all of his power into his legs. When he was about to slip off the ice, he flung himself forward, propelling himself way past Todoroki, who was once again sliding.
In the close distance, he saw his angry friend about to scale a tower for a better view. "Goddamn it Kacchan, what if you get spotted?" Deku sighed, already expecting the worst from him, and launched himself off the side of a building. He used blackwhip, grabbing the blonde mid-air by the leg and yanking him backwards, then slamming him into the concrete road below.
It wasn’t a big height; Katsuki was fine. But the force Deku had used with the impact itself was enough to knock the air out of him and leave him slightly bruised. Plus, he’d done it so suddenly that Bakugou didn’t have a chance to react.
Deku landed next to him, Todoroki finally catching up to the two childhood “friends”. He reached out an apologetic hand, but Katsuki just slapped it away and sat up. He was still trying to catch his breath, so Deku took this as a chance to speak before he got threatened.
“Sorry Kacchan, but I really couldn’t figure out how to stop you. I mean, you were wide out in the open and could’ve gotten hit from any direction easily; it wasn’t safe.” He said then paused. Todoroki was silent behind him, slightly nodding his head in agreement. “I didn’t want to hurt you, but we have to work together. We can’t just have you running off on your own like-“
”Oh shut the hell up!” Bakugou finally exclaimed after a deep inhale. “If you want to play it safe and be a little bitch then fine, but you can never be the number one hero if you don’t take any damn risks.” He hissed, standing up.
”But you can’t be the number one hero if you aren’t even you, can you now?”
There was a brief pause. “Fuck did you just say icy hot?”
”The villain that you were chasing can swap out your consciousness with a you from a different time period. We don’t know anything else though. What time line you end up in, how long this effect lasts, what happens to your present body; it’s all information we don’t have. So tell me, how are you gonna be the number one hero if you aren’t you?”
Todoroki’s bluntness and ice cold expression almost scared Deku, and it sure as hell shut Katsuki up. He wasn’t ever going to admit that the icy hot bastard was right, but he knew he had to be more careful. Still though, he wasn't about to submit and go with whatever plan Todoroki had in mind.
”Huh?! Fuck are you saying, you think I can’t dodge a few attacks?!”
”Kacchan, we’ve only seen the guy once. He’s extremely slick and we don’t know his attack pattern." His voice faded for a second, considering his words. "And let’s be real, you couldn’t even dodge my attack..” Deku mumbled, almost proud of himself for it.
Bakugou clearly didn’t appreciate that, his eyes blazing. ”Are you trying to say I’m weaker than you?”
Deku immediately regretted what he had said, putting up his hands in defense and waving them around. ”What? No of course not! I’m just saying that we aren’t properly equipped and we’re all tired and we're just trainees, we aren’t-“
"Help!!”
“AAAA!!!”
"SOMEBODY SAVE US”
A series of distant shouts came from the southern part of town. Deku snapped his head, seeing smoke start to rise from the buildings, as a series of explosions set off.
”Oh my god we were so busy chasing Bakugou we didn’t make sure everyone in the area was ready to evacuate.” Todoroki started his icy path once more, instantly speeding over to the town ahead. “We have to go, now!”
”Don’t. Tell. Me. What. To. DO!” Bakugou jumped up in the air, putting his hands behind him and blasting forward. Deku instantly took off with him, not holding back this time around and keeping up with the two.
”I can’t believe we got so absorbed in the chase we forgot about the civilians! We should’ve just stuck to the plan and let the pro heroes hunt him down!”
”Shut the fuck up you damned nerd, this isn’t the end of the world! You’re a fool if you think that guy has a chance against the pros and us; besides, I doubt anyone will get seriously hurt - not on our watch!”
"Maybe he’s right? We did know he was going to carry out his attack here, and we did have multiple heroes patrolling the area… we should be fine?”
Deku’s thoughts raced, guilt and fear overwhelming him. He wouldn’t be able to call himself a real hero if someone got injured, or even worse, died, over their stupid mistake. The trio crossed an intersection and quickly approached the area of combat. Before them, they saw panicked civilians, flipped over cars, broken streets, scattered belongings, and a series of smaller fires spreading quickly. Further on ahead, a few pros, who were previously patrolling nearby, surrounded some figures on a floating blob of dark matter. It was hard to tell from a distance, but the figure seemed to be holding on to a bunch of weapons and explosives, and nobody dared to approach him directly.
"Oh I got you now, you little shit!" Bakugou exclaimed, blasting himself forward.
"Kacchan don't, it isn't-"
"Midoriya, it's fine!" Todoroki cut off Deku and swished a wall of ice over some flames. "There are pros there that will stop him, for now, I need you to focus on evacuating the civilians while I put out the fire!"
"...Alright, got it!" He shouted back over the commotion before frantically running towards a bigger group of people. Using blackwhip to pick up a few elders along with some infants, he urged the rest to follow him towards the evacuation zone.
As their group started moving, an enraged, unfamiliar voice echoed through the town. "You truly believe you can capture me?! I'll send you all to hell!" Deku's gaze shifted to where the voice was coming from, his eyes slowly filling with terror. The figure from earlier was now in the dead center of town, spinning violently, his hands flailing in the air and shooting out some strange black orbs.
"WHATEVER YOU DO, DO NOT GET HIT!" Some pro shouted, diving behind a car for protection. Deku sped up, expanding his blackwhip to grab more people. He knew that if he wanted everyone here safe he'd have to hurry. But before he was able to grab anyone else, he heard the voice of a crying little girl.
"W-where's momma..." She sniffled, standing in the wide open and falling behind the group. In his peripheral vision, Deku saw an orb headed straight for her. His eyes widened, and it was as if everything was suddenly frozen. He carefully dropped all the civilians and launched himself forward, his body moving on its again, just like it had done before with Kacchan and the sludge villain, landing right in front of the girl.
He took the hit for her, absorbing the orb, a shiver going down his spine. Instantly he felt weakened, his consciousness fading away. Fighting to stay awake, he heard screams approaching him and saw the little girl crying even more now.
And then everything went black.