Chapter Text
Z-City released hell.
Monsters everywhere. Homes obliterated. Cities leveled. Lives… So many lives were lost in such a short amount of time.
The operation to save that rich guy’s kid was an absolute bust, and Badd felt guilty. He felt as if it was his fault that the Monster Association managed to take the kid hostage.
Because in a way? It was. If he hadn’t been careless when fighting that huge ass centipede and gotten flung, none of this would be happening. If only he’d beaten the shit out of that centipede faster.
Somwhere in R-City, Badd swung his bat against the monster in front of him.The bat crashed against the monster’s side, but the impact was drowned out by the matted fur and thick muscle, although he did feel like it did do a little– oh, no, no it didn’t do any lasting damage. He watched as the muscles contorted under its hide in repulsion.
It had to be a disaster level demon with how fast it was regenerating. It was going on about how it used to be a lab rat, and now it had crazy regeneration speeds and nothing could kill it, but he wasn’t listening. He just wanted to pummel any monster into the ground. He wanted to get rid of as many monsters as possible to make up for his mistake.
This rat wasn’t letting up, though. It was like it said, its regeneration was crazy! No hit that he landed on the rat was staying long enough to matter. It made him angrier than he already was.
“Just die already, ya fucker!” He smacked the rat square in the face, and its head tore off a little at the force of the impact, but in just a few seconds, it was completely healed.
“I’ve said it countless times! You cannot kill me, S-Class Hero: Metal Bat,” the rat exclaimed. It threw a quick jab with its paw, but Metal Bat blocked it with his bat and was sent skidding backward.
As he regained his footing, the rat stormed toward him, reeling his arm behind him to put as much force into its next punch as possible. Badd's grip tightened around the handle of his bat. The rat stopped just a foot from him and threw its fist down, colliding with the bat. The pressure of the punch cracked the ground beneath Badd, but that didn’t scare him at all. The rat’s knuckles were split as it let out a howl.
“The fuck is your bat made out of?!”
“None ya business.” He swung his bat again, shattering its arm.
Bones were poking out, but that didn’t stop him. He swung again, hitting its ribcage, and he could hear how it cracked. The hit made the rat fumble and spit blood, but the bones fixed themselves in an instant.
“I already told y-”
He swung again, shutting the rat up as he hit its head. This time, the head almost completely fell off. Blood sprayed out, coating Badd in a layer of red.
Badd's face scrunched in disgust; the smell was foul, but along with that, it was a gross sight, seeing a head dangle by a tendon and then muscles grow and pull the head back into place. As it did, the rat spoke again:
“I said I already told you-”
The hero jumped onto the rat and crawled up its arm and secured his legs around its shoulder before raising his bat into the air and driving it into the rat’s mouth, forcing it down its throat. The rat tried to scream, but it came out as a muffled gurgle instead. It tried biting the bat, but that only wound up chipping its gnarly teeth. Badd took the end of the bat and pulled it towards his chest, leveraging it through the rat’s neck and out the back. He felt his stomach lurch as its head bobbled around, but he pushed on. He repositioned his hand to force the bat to the left.
As he tried to twist his bat to fully tear off its head, he felt a giant paw latch onto his jacket. Suddenly, he was yanked away from the rat’s shoulder. He tried to grab the end of his bat, but he was a few inches short. The rat held him out, making him watch as his bat moved around, and, in a few seconds, further down the rat’s throat.
“Oi,” Badd barked, swinging himself back and forth to try and reach the handle of his bat before it was gone, but to no avail. The rat held him too far away, and he couldn’t slip out of his jacket because it was holding both his jacket and his shirt. He even felt a slight pinch in his back. Fucker was holding him by the skin too! He twisted around, hitting the rat’s fist, trying to get it to let up even a little, but nothing. All he could do was watch as his bat was swallowed.
The rat burped aloud as if to rub it in Badd's face. “Thanks for the meal, Metal– ah, there’s no point in calling you that now that you don’t have your bat, huh?” The rat snickered. “Might as well get rid of ya now that you’re useless!” Its grip on Badd tightened as it lifted him higher. Badd kicked his legs around, scraping the rat’s fists, trying to wriggle free. “You want me to let go that bad? Alright!”
The rat reeled its arm backward before hurling Badd across the street and into a wall. The wall cracked, a spiderweb forming in the brickwork, at impact, and Badd coughed up blood. He could feel as hot liquid flowed down his neck and his face. The world was blurring, but through it, he could see the rat making its way to him.
“Haha! After I beat you and bring your head, the Monster Association has to make me class Dragon,” it exclaimed before its voice dropped. “After I bring your head.” It stopped just short of a few feet from him. It squatted down in front of him and flicked him. His body fell to his side. “I was hoping for more of a fight from you. After all, you’re S-Class.” It watched as the hero crawled away pathetically. He barely moved a foot. “What a pitiful state you’re in.”
Badd groaned as he tried to gain some distance between the two of them. His whole back ached. His head was fuzzy. He was pretty sure some bones were broken, too. He just needed a clear head, to get back on his feet. Once he had that, he’d be okay, but the rat didn’t let him get the chance.
“Where do you think you’re going?”
He felt a tug at his calf and was dragged back. The rat stood up and lifted him up by his leg, watching as he dangled there.
“You’re almost not worth the kill,” the rat said as he swayed Badd back and forth. “Almost.” It brought its other hand to Badd's face. “I could flick your head off. I think I’ll do that.” It moved its middle finger down and put its thumb over the last digit, pressing it back to increase the impact it’d have once landed.
Badd grit his teeth as the rat hovered its crusty-ass fingers in front of his face. Everything was getting clear again, and he was pissed.
There I go again. Not thinking enough. You’re fuckin’ stupid, Badd.
“Bye, bye, hero,” the rat said with a grim smirk.
It let its finger slide off its thumb and sent its finger to Badd's face.
It expected a head to go flying, but nothing.
Instead, it felt hands wrap around its fingers.
And it felt its fingers twist off.
The rat let out a roar of pain.
“What the hell?!” It looked down and saw the muscles that were meant to be on its fingers, gone. They were in the hero’s hand. One furry layer of skin and another of red meat. Badd tossed the rat’s fingers to the side and reached further on its arm, digging his nails into its skin until he broke through, and that’s when he dug into the muscle. The rat winced. “You fucking bitch,” it screamed as the hero tore chunks of its arm out.
Badd burrowed his hand into the arm that nearly killed him and took a hold of its bone, yanking it, causing the entire arm to wrench in the wrong direction. The rat screamed again, and its grip on his leg loosened. He took the opportunity to pull his leg out, and he dropped to the floor.
The rat was already regenerating, so he worked fast.
He jumped up to his feet, ignored the way his head spun, grabbed the loose bone, and jerked it – the radius, he believed – out of its socket and tore it out, ripping apart its hand.
The rat wound up his free arm and threw a punch, and a full-force punch from it could easily break bones, but somehow, this mere human caught it! The force was all the same, making the ground break, but this guy didn’t budge. Instead, he felt his fingers getting crushed by the mere grip of him. “How the hell are you doing this?!”
The hero looked up at him as he broke the rat’s fingers. “You put up a good fight fer a rat.” He snapped the fingers off before stabbing it into the rat’s forearm and dragging it down, leaving claw marks down the length of it. The rat growled at him. “It’s ‘bout time you get back in yer cage. I’m sick ‘a hearin’ yer annoyin’ ass voice.” And then he kicked the rat in the kneecap. Hard. It cracked as it bent the opposite way, and he only made it worse by kicking the knee to the side after that.
The rat fell to one knee, now eye-level with the hero… but with that look in his eyes, the rat didn’t think the title ‘hero’ suited him. No, he was more of a monster than anything.
The ‘hero’ released the rat’s hands, only to bolt into the right side of its space and wrap an arm around its neck, securing it in a headlock from the front. He hopped and planted his feet in the rat’s thigh and hip before twisting his upper body to the left, effectively ripping off the rat’s head.
The rat sputtered in disbelief as its head bounced on the concrete.
How did it get beheaded so quickly?! And by an injured human, no less! It couldn’t accept this!
“You think you defeated me?! Think again!!” It let out a guttural bellow.
The noise echoed throughout the empty street and startled Badd. The decapitated body took hold of the hero’s arms and squeezed tight. The hero tried to scrape at the arms, but he couldn’t even move his arms with how the rat’s hands were holding his biceps down to half his forearms.
“Yer like a chicken now,” Badd said with a strained chuckle. “Movin’ without yer head.” He pushed his legs off the rat and caught the rat’s left arm in a vice. He lodged his knees into the elbow and thrusted up, ramming his knees in with such force, the elbow broke. The rat’s grip loosened as it screeched, and Badd slipped through. He kept his legs around the broken – oh, it’s fixing itself already – arm and swung around, switching from holding on with his legs to his hands, gripping on the fur. “Bawk, bawk,” he taunted before landing a harsh kick to the ribcage.
The rat stumbled onto the floor. Its head wasn’t growing back at all, so all it could do was watch as its body fought against this hero. It couldn’t believe that this human was getting stronger. This wasn’t even humane! And the hero wasn’t done either. No, he dropped from the rat’s arm and rose his hand as if he was going to reach for something–
BONK
Metal Bat fell to the ground.
He didn’t get back up.
“What a mess you are, Super Mouse.”
Super Mouse glanced at the figure above the hero.
It was Showerhead.
“I can’t believe you were getting your ass handed to you by some guy without a weapon,” it said.
“How- How did you-”
“Hit ‘em with my head.” It knocked against its literal showerhead. “I can do things other than shoot out any liquid substance.” It walked over to Super Mouse’s head and picked it up, staring at it (was it really? Super Mouse couldn’t tell since it had no eyes). It tossed the rat’s head toward its body. The rat’s body scrambled to pick up its head as Showerhead spoke again. “So, what should we do about this guy,” it asked, kicking Metal Bat’s arm.
The rat’s head linked back to its body. “Kill him, obviously. Bring his head to the Monster Association and get ranked up.”
“Please, neither of us are getting ranked up. You almost died against him. If it weren’t for me-”
“WOAH, woah, woah,” Super Mouse interrupted. “I was handling myself perfectly fine! And since you forgot, I can’t die.”
“Psh, sure.”
“You–”
A new voice joined the conversation. “Stop fighting and let’s bring the hero’s body back to the base,” Unihorn said. Its horn sparkled in the setting sun.
“Fine,” Showerhead and Super Mouse said at the same time. They glared at each other.
“You do the heavy lifting, Super Mouse,” Unihorn ordered.
“Don’t tell me what to do,” Super Mouse spat, but it listened anyway. It walked over Metal Bat’s limp body and picked him up by the arm. He swung limply. “Fuckin’ twerp,” it said before throwing him over its shoulder.
The trio began walking back down the finally silent street. Neither of them spoke further. It was nice, to be completely honest. There was constant yelling in the Monster Association’s base (Super Mouse would be lying if it said it wasn’t a part of all the noise), so this was an interestingly pleasant change of pace.
Well, until Showerhead was sent flying into a lamp post with a splintered head.
“Wha-” Unihorn was interrupted by a flash of black and orange to its horn, and it shattered. “MY HORN–” And then it was soaring down the path they walked.
Super Mouse took a defensive stance and watched for any movement, but there was none.
“Come out,” it yelled. “Fight me like a monster.”
And suddenly the intruder was face to face with Super Mouse.
“If you say so.”
And then it felt a sharp pain in its gut. When it looked down, it saw that a leg had gone through its body. The leg pushed further in and the foot gripped Super Mouse’s spine.
And tugged.
Hard.
Super Mouse’s head, along with its spine attached, laid unmoving beside its body. All it could do was watch as the intruder stabbed through its body with a clawed hand and yanked out its heart, then hoisted Metal Bat onto its back, muttering something under its breath. When it turned to stare at Super Mouse, that’s when it realized just who it was.
“You- You’re the–!!”
The monster stepped on the rat’s face, fragmenting its jaw across the floor. It could not regenerate. Not so long as the monster held the rat’s heart.
Its regeneration core.
The monster raised its foot again.
“Night night, rodent.”
And then it was lights out.