Chapter 65: Fire and Steel

Mellissa ran as fast as she could, even as she heard the sounds of roaring flames and twisting metal echoing in her rear. Even with a giant flaming serpentine skeleton throwing her onto its back, its burning body only feeling comfortingly warm as it blitzed down the halls, she kept her focus. Even as she was still confused, angry, and heartbroken over what she had learned in the last 5 minutes, she kept moving forward, directing Koharu towards the control room.

'Everyone…papa,' Mellissa steeled her resolve as they reached the mercifully empty control room, the security system still running. Getting off Koharu's back, she jumped into the seat and input her access codes, and the system gave her full entry.

'I will save you, I promise!' Mellissa affirmed as she accessed the hacked security protocols and quickly rebooted a full system, purging whatever commands and software the intruders had implemented. Moments later, the system restarted, reporting all green as it recognized no security threat.

Across the higher levels, there was a sigh as the system reversed course and shut down its security protocols. With Wolfram, he frowned, his attention on the brat who seemed to be burning himself up just to keep fighting, yet he was still standing.

"She got control of it?" He asked, only to shift the metal beneath his feet, riding it to avoid an explosive fireball from Midoriya. The boy had a charred smile as he knew Mellissa would make it. And if the system was back under normal control…

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Out on the wind deck, the security drones' eyes flashed green before they retreated into their shells and shut down, awaiting further orders on what to do next.

"Did they?" Kaminari asked a hopefulness to his words.

“They did it!” Uraraka cheered.”

"That means we can stop, right? With the hostages saved, the pros can move now!" Mineta cheered as Jiro sighed, helping to keep Yaoyorozu standing. The girl had gone through a lot of lipids, but she, along with the rest, was just happy that they accomplished their goals.

"Come on, we can use the elevator and head up the rest. I'll contact All Might and fill him in on things." Vlad stated, already pulling out his phone to do just that.

Line Break

In the reception hall, the pros who had been restrained found themselves being freed without reason. But when the feed, which still showed the main areas of the island, showed the security drones returning to normal and letting people through, they knew, if not the explanation, then the reality that the villains had lost control of the security and, with it, their only ace.

That assurance that the people were safe meant that before the remaining gunmen could act, they were all quickly taken down and restrained, and the other guests sighed in relief. All Might wasn't among the cheering or those who had acted to apprehend the villains.

However, he was proud of his colleague. "Great work, Vlad. Now, just leave the rest to us." All Might muttered before turning to the crowd and, with a booming voice, started directing the heroes present to quickly disarm their captors turned captives, restrain them, and for someone to get information on things before he rushed out of the room to find somewhere he could switch to his weakened form. As he shrunk, he got a call.

Whipping his phone, he saw the caller ID and quickly answered. “Vlad, good work on retaking control. What’s the situation?”

“I had to recruit our first-year students who were visiting the island and deputize them for the duration of the crisis, and they're all still in play. Our goal was to escort Ms. Shield to the top, where she could reboot the system, which she managed to do. We split up because of an issue, but Midoriya should still be with her.”

"The top, you say? I'm on my way!" All Might replied as he reversed course, swelling back to his full hero size. He was confused and worried that Vlad had to rely on students and that Mellissa had put herself in danger, but that could come later, especially as Vlad's judgment proved sound. "Listen, they took Professor Shield earlier. Have any of you seen him?"

“No, any clue where he could be?" Riding in the elevator along with the rest of the students, Vlad replied.

“I would assume somewhere up there, probably because they wanted something from some lab. But with the system back in working order, they got limited.” All Might answered over the line, to which Vlad grunted in agreement, but considering this bunch had been willing to use lethal force-

"We both know that cornered villains are perhaps the most dangerous. We'll keep on the lookout, but just know that there could be other villains in the tower." He advised that they had taken out just those 3 earlier, but with 200 floors, who knew how many there were?

“We’ll handle them!” All Might turned and dashed towards the exit. The stairs would be too slow, the same as the elevator, but he had another means of getting to the top.

Line Break

Back inside the vault, the battle continued between the two. As their respective elements clashed, the cold steel and tungsten of the room heated to a healthy orange as they confronted the scorching hot emerald flames.

Wolfram pressed a hand to the floor, his quirk ripping entire sections of it along the walls and ceiling above. The vaults buckled and twisted, forming creeping pillars and tendrils that lunged towards Midoriya. Having switched to Yellowstone mode, Midoriya responded to the incoming swarm attack by taking a deep breath before unleashing a deluge of emerald flames searing through the attacks. The steel lost form and exploded, leaving just tungsten to continue the attack.

Midoriya bounced and flipped to safety, side-stepping them, his hands and feet frequently contacting the bits and splatter of molten metal collecting in the room. Still, to Wolfram's annoyance, the kid didn't even flinch as he horribly burned himself. 'Why would he? His jaw is about to drop, and he's still going like a madman.'

The room groaned as Wolfram reshaped the floor into jagged blades, sparing only where he, his man, and David lay. Midoriya saw this and realized that Sam was in danger of being skewed. Launching off towards the greedy scientist, he didn't hesitant to grab him, Sam shrieking at both Midoriya's hot touch and the burning look of utter contempt in his eyes as the boy tossed him up, following a moment later but not before the soles of his feet got pierced, leaving a trail of blood, steam, and volcanic gasses in his wake.

Flipping mid-air, he both caught Sam and took another deep breath, his already hot body burning brighter as his spine lit up. “Serpent’s Fireball!" Midoriya cried out as he sent out a giant, scorching ball of green towards Wolfram, the man ticking his teeth as he created an even larger barrier to defend against it.

Crashing into the metal, the fireball ate away at the barrier, superheating the metal to its failing point and beyond, sending a splatter of molten, red-hot steel all over the room. This forced the one non-combatant to run around like a headless chicken to avoid it, but again, the barrier held.

"You're something else, kid. Do you know what an attack like that could do to the old doc, or are you trying to save yourself the trouble and punishing him now?" Wolfram taunted, only for Midoriya to appear to the side, having blown off both legs in a steam explosion to give himself the thrust needed for the mid-air surprise move.

"I needed the opening," Midoriya replied to the man, whose eyes widened in shock at the daring, if incredibly risky, move. Time seemed to slow for both as Midoriya was already shifting out of Yellowstone form into a full transformation, forcing it to start from his hands. Thus, in slow motion, he could aim it for where the professor lay, and without rapture and a blast of steam and lava, his hand went flying towards the professor.

Midoriya banked on this working. His legs were still reshaping, and he couldn't create a tail in time. He had to get this done. Even before his hand tightened around the professor, he had already retracted it.

“No!” Wolfram reached as well, creating a hand of metal to try to grab the professor, but he failed as he slipped through his grasp.

"Arg…" David groaned as he was violently pulled towards Midoriya, the boy landing on his stomach but holding both men as close as he could.

"I'm sorry!" He quickly apologized for his rushed rescue. The boy had no time to assess Sam or David's wounds as Wolfran yelled at him.

"I'm not letting you off so easy!" Wolfram's palm glowed again as the floor beneath the trio bulged before exploding. A steel pillar rammed into Midoriya's chest, shattering the stony-scaled exterior and allowing magna to bleed out like a geyser. He had to swing his arms and command his snake hair to move the two very much non-heat-resistant men out of the way while his hair created a sort of shield.

Forgoing legs, his lower half came to form a tail as he was slammed into the vault's ceiling, his grip never loosening on the two scientists. Wolfram thought this would be enough, but Midoriya's tail came into play. Its superheated tip plunging into the side of the spiked pillar before venting a massive surge of heat and flame into it, causing the pillar to buckle and bulge before it blew up at the point of entry.

With the sounds of metal hissing and clattering as flames bellowed and explosions rang, it was hard for the two scientists to keep track of what was happening. While Sam struggled against Midoriya's hold on him, which kept him dangling, he was far too weak to break out.

With his chest open, he couldn't gather flames nearly as effectively, not without spilling them out, so that was what he did. "Stay behind me!" Midoriya called out as he took another breath, funneling it into his exposed core. A blast of half-charged flames flowed out his chest like water from a container, forcing Wolfram to create another barrier, which had an easier time standing up to the flames.

He sealed up the damage, new scales forming while others repaired themselves. That done, Midoriya now had to work on getting out of there. This room was already being torn apart, enough so that it was a miracle that, as far as he could tell, none of the other containment units had been compromised. 'It's also far too convenient for this guy; he can strike and defend from any angle as long as he has a hand on the surface.'

They needed an out, but he couldn't use the hallway; it was covered in metal and far too narrow for it to be feasible, so he would need to improvise.

 Standing on his tail, he looked up towards the ceiling and formed a plan. Turning towards Wolfram, he took a deeper, stronger breath, his jaw falling open, allowing a view of the building flames at his core.

“Dammit, he’s not holding back, is he-!” Wolfram thought that Midoriya was aiming for him, only for the last moment, the bow to shift his aim towards the ceiling, bending back to ensure as straight a path from his core to his jaws.

“Boa Flame!" He unleashed a huge blast of flames, shifting its form into a snake with open jaws as he twisted and curled its body before it crashed into the ceiling. The metal rose to its melting point within seconds, but before that, he buckled as the fiery vortex continued upwards, smashing through everything in its way. With a thundering shake felt by his friends and allies, it exploded out into the open.

Again, his snake hair fanned around, creating an umbrella to protect his two civilians so they had been left without injury from the shower of molten debris. Grabbing onto both, Midoriya crouched before leaping upwards, landing on a ledge; before, with another leap, he was out of the room.

“B-b-boss? What do we do…?” Wolfram ticked his teeth at the escape, as that was something he hadn't expected. 'Kids these days, they're a hell of many problems.' He thought to himself.

He was about to tell his man they'd pull back and try to make it to the escape chopper, but then he noticed something. In the confusion, the brat had made off with his golden goose, but he hadn't been able to smash the golden egg.

Line Break

Getting to the roof of the tower through the hole, Midoriya finally put the two researchers down. A glance around showed that it was nearly empty, with 10 different helicopter landing pads placed on 3 sides and the final one in the middle, which had a helicopter present. Seeing the style of dress that the surprised pilot wore, he knew he wasn't part of the regular staff.

So, with almost casual effort, he sent a fireball to its tail, his green flames sticking to the tail and deforming its tail rotor and other control services as the pilot jumped to the side, looking on in shock at what Midoriya had just done.

Assured that he had destroyed the Villain's means of escape, he turned to the two scientists to inspect their wounds. "We should be safe here for the moment, " he said, though Sam still seemed unnerved by his hellish appearance.

"Just…just what are?" Sam whimpered as Midoriya glanced at him, making the obese man shiver as the boy sighed. There was no point in being angry with such a sad man, but he didn't have the time or, frankly, the desire to calm him.

"Sorry about this, Professor." Midoriya apologized as he tore off the man's jacket and shirt to inspect his wound. He lay a stone hand on it and then looked at his chest to confirm his suspicions. “Through and through, that’s good. But you're bleeding pretty badly; that bullet had to have hit something important." He scrutinized.

“Did you…get the case?” David asked, struggling to speak through the pain.

“Case?” Midoriya asked as he held David in place and bathed his wound in fire. The man grunted as he fought to keep the screams down. Midoriya worked as fast as he could with a cooler flame. Cutting off the heat, he inspected his word on his back, the entry point, and confirmed that the damage was healed. Now, he moved onto the front.

"The…device, it was in the case." David reminded him as Midoriya laid him on his back, the man wincing as the sensitive, burnt skin touched the cold, rough floor. As Midoriya got to work, he recalled the case, how it had been in David's hands, Sam…., and then Wolfram's. Wait, did he destroy it? Surely he did; all that destruction and collateral in that prior bout had to have done it in, right?

No, looking back, in the heat of the moment, with his attention on the professor, he recalled seeing something white in the corner of his eye that could have only been one thing.

“Oh no…” Midoriya uttered, praying that the Villain hadn't used it, that he wouldn't come up as he turned and rushed to the hole in the floor. "Get to the entrance and stay out of sight!" He yelled over his shoulder.

His wish wouldn’t be granted.

As soon as he jumped, having planned to go down the center of the hole, he was metal spike straight through the shoulder, followed by another to the forearm, nearly tearing his arm off and a third to the chest.

"Kid!" David yelled as Midoriya's arm was violently torn off, his magna innards spilling out in clumps as the spikes, now nearly melted from piercing into his immensely hot body, wrapped around him like tentacles and threw him back into the roof, cratering it. Midoriya hissed in pain.

As he regenerated, they all heard metal groaning sounds before it all failed. Steel girders, support beams, wiring, and metallic piping tore free of whatever fixings they had, bending, contorting, cracking, and breaking apart only to reform into something new, something alien. They didn't just pick this up as the entire tower seemed to moan. Having reached the 200th floor, the rest of the group could feel the entire place shaking.

"What the heck was that?" Kaminari asked as he held onto the wall to keep balance. The lights flickered as warnings of a structure fault came through.

"We need to get to the top!" Vlad yelled. The steel holding window frames in place for the last five floors bent and twisted before being torn out by an invisible force. The windows shattered, sending shards of glass raining down. The concrete shifted and cracked as rebar and piping came bursting out, an unwanted mockery of the typical scene of the dead rising.

With Mellissa and Koharu, the snake was protecting her by wrapping her up in her body and holding the rest over her. It hissed as pieces of the room fell around them, the floor buckling under the strain of Wolfram's power.

"We need to get out of here!" Mellissa yelled. With so much broken, torn, and ripped out, even the security system designed with layers upon layers of redundancies and emergency lines and systems failed as the wiring and piping carrying all of it was shredded and dragged out of its place.

“It has to be that punk with the gun; why are you humans so complicated?" Koharu hissed in annoyance, not that Mellisa could understand here. Seeing that the path here was crumbling, she turned to the ceiling. "Well, their little building is already broken; what's more damage?" Koharu asked as she started breathing in air. Mellissa had to cover her ears as if standing next to a jet engine in a wind tunnel.

Back on the roof, the Villain was crackling as he appeared out of the hole, the device securely on his head, boasting his quirk to levels he never thought possible as all the metal he had gained control over formed into whatever shapes he wished, it didn’t matter if those were long, writhing tendrils, pillars, blocks and spheres-if he wished it, he could create it. The best part was that he was manipulating metal he wasn't even touching, allowing him to just leave things levitating around him as if he were the star of his own little solar system.

“Oh man, David Shield's genius lives up to its reputation. I can tell my quirk is growing stronger by the minute!" Wolfram laughed as the blue glow that typically only happened when his hands touched a metal service spread across the tower's top floors, pulsating like veins on the body. It was glowing brightly enough that people down below could see it, many having heard or witnessed parts of what was happening.

“This is bad,” Midoriya muttered as he took a deep breath, feeding his inner flame before he bellowed, "Boa Flame!” He made another fiery serpent, just as large as the last one, and aimed its burning vortex towards Wolfram, who now smiled as he casually waved his hand, manipulating some of his newly gained metal to block it; before it did, it smashed together and seemingly fused into a single wall of steel, copper, and tungsten that was well over 7 meters thick.

Midoriya's attack slammed into it, burning and burrowing, but to his shock, it could be a greater resistance. He was left stunned by what was left when the flames died out. “What?” There was a giant burnt-out crater in the wall, as wide as it was deep, but despite it still being glowing orange, it held. "What?!" That didn't make sense; he was sure he put enough force in the attack, so how was it stopped? Was…was this guy's augmented quirk holding the metal together, even as it melted?! Was that possible?

He wasn't given time to wonder about it as he saw two giant metal beams approaching him, planning to crash him into a pancake. Jumping out of the way, he was slammed back into the roof by a third he didn’t see coming.

As he struggled to rise, the damned thing determined to see him as flat as paper, Wolfram laughed. "That's it? Come on, you'll need more than that to stop me!"

As he spoke, more metal slithered up his sides, plants and straps weaving around his body like living amour. Below him, a stump-lie pillar of mangled metal he forged rose, its base rooted into the half-collapsed roof. Cords of handed cables lashed outward, further supporting him as he rode higher. The tower continued to moan and crack under the growing pressure as so much of its support and skeleton had been torn out only to be haphazardly placed at its very top.

Eventually, busting out, Midoriya leaped to the side, feeling his body repairing the damage. However, his attention was on how much metal was just floating around, more of it being torn out of the tower as time went on. Midoriya eyed how things were only getting worse as time went on. "This is insane. At this rate, he could take control of all the metal in the tower; it's barely holding together already."

“Midoriya!” Midoriya's head shot to the side, where Koharu was slithering out of another hole in the roof; when he asked her about that later, he focused on her being here, along with Mellissa. “Just what is happening? How’d the guy get this strong?”

“It’s the professor’s device. He managed to get it on and well…” Midoriya leaned against his snake as the floor buckled further, becoming unstable and treacherous. “This.”

“I had no idea he created something so powerful…” Mellissa uttered in awe. She knew that her father was a genius, but this was on a whole different level. And…and he wanted Uncle Might to get this?

Seemingly satisfied with his power, Wolfram smirked at the two brats and the overgrown snake. “Now, let’s take this for a little test run, shall we?” His voice sounded different as he ordered five metal pillars to shoot towards them.

“Mellissa!” Koharu quickly used Serpent's Fire Scales, keeping the blast to just the 5 smaller fireballs to try and counter the attack as Midoriya grabbed Mellissa and made a run for it. Koharu hissed in shock and anger when her counter did nothing to slow down Wolfram, forcing her to retreat along with Midoriya, plowing through the shattered battleground's obstacles as Midoriya, having switched back to legs, jumped to cover the ground.

"I know; he's stacking so much metal that we'll need larger attacks just to scratch it," Midoriya replied to Koharu's complaint as they stopped. Midoriya put Mellissa down as he turned towards Wolfram.

With his shoulders and forearms blowing up, he fashioned his arms into cannons, drawing in vast amounts of air as Koharu did the same.

“Hado Flame!” Midoriya yelled as he let loose the twin blasts of spiralling flames at the same time as Koharu used Boa's Flames. The three streams merged as they flew towards Wolfram, who decided to try and match them by merging two of his giant orbs together and sending them towards it.

When the two sides clashed, it was with an explosion of light and heat as the flames rapidly heated the metal and started to melt through. However, Wolfram, as Midoriya had suspected, was able to keep his metal attack together for longer while adding to it.

“Dang it…!” Midoriya growled, continuing the attack and adding as much firepower to it as he saw that half the metal was starting to glow. Still, it was holding strong while their spiral of flames was being compressed, risking losing shape.

“Haha, more! Show me more, kid! The more you struggle, the more I can charge for this!” Wolfram laughed as he increased the pressure. He could add this now: With the kid and his stupid pet handling just his one strike, he could send more after them or send another wave through the roof to mess with their footing, but he wanted to do this nice and slow.

Koharu let out a whine as she was running out of firepower. Midoriya was not doing better, even as he created another vent on his back to try and draw in more air. Still, he refused to give up. "I refuse…I won't let you get out of here, Villain! We'll keep burning, brighter, hotter-stronger until you've defeated!" He roared as he poured more flames into it, the spiral growing in intensity.

“That is the spirit, young Midoriya!” Midoriya, along with Mellissa and Wolfram, jolted at that. Only one person-

All Might came shooting up the side of the building, having taken the time to rescue people below and guide them back inside, else the glass hurt someone; he had launched himself like a rocket so fast that as he went up the side, he caused even more damage before he ascended past the tower, past Wolfram and looked down at the sight that awaited.

To Wolfram's annoyance and Midoriya and Mellissa's relief, All Might smiled.

"It's fine now. Do you know why?" All Might started his ironic catchphrase. “Because I am here!” Still in mid-air, All Might spun into a frontal somersault, gathering momentum as Wolfram sent 2 pillars against him.

“California Smash!” All Might called out as his first crashed into it, shattering through it. But instead of that being it, he saw another four heading towards him. "Not enough? Well, I have plenty more!” Flexing, he launched himself out of the way towards an empty spot on the roof. Turning to the coming threat, he punched while rotating his arm.

“Nebraska Smash!” His attack generated a small but powerful tornado from his fist, one that sucked up many of the loose, floating pieces of metal and even managed to pull apart 3 of the incoming attacks, but one still made it through and forced him to zip out of the way. “Still?”

“All Might, look out!” All Might turned, ready to strike the attack, but it was blown to pieces by a combined attack from Midoriya and Koharu, who rushed to his side.

"Young Midoriya-Mellissa, what are you doing here?" All Might hadn’t been sure when he arrived, but there was no way

"The tower's too unstable for her to get to a safer spot, so we must protect her as we fight!" Midoriya reported that despite having no facial features, All Might got the impression that young Midoriya was apprehensive. "Also…she knows."

Well, shit.

"It's true, Uncle Might? You…you're growing weaker?" Mellissa asked, the hero hating how she looked at him with worry. This was why he hadn't told her. He didn't even know how she found out. Would young Midoriya have said something? Maybe, but the boy didn't seem like the type.

All he could see confirm was that she seemed too out of it to pick up on young Midoriya's word choice, which heavily implied he already knew.

"Let's focus on the challenge at hand: who is this villain, and how is he so strong?" All Might changed the subject as the hero, student, and infernal snake looked towards their opponent, who seemed less like a man and more forceful of malice given form.

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Okay, some of you raised objections to the last chapter, and I won't pretend that it was my finest work. I've already stated that this part of the story will be weaker, considering how little I have planned.

That said, one thing I feel needs to be clarified is that Izuku chose not to break out earlier like he thinks to himself; he could have broken free much like he did back in chapter 3, but he feared that, like then, molten hot metal would be sent flying everywhere. With Mellissa being right there, you can see why he would be scared for her safety, especially as, again, he suspects that Wolfram could still control the metal, only now it's hot to the touch. As Koharu and him prove later in the previous chapter, they certainly have the power to match Wolfram once Mellissa is in the clear.

Now, with that said, this will NOT be the final chapter of the movie arc. As I said last week, I planned for that to be longer so that I could fit in a nice little celebration at the end. I WILL have that added stuff, as some of it is going to be some of the funny stuff I like adding before we get to the more…depressing stuff that's going to happen.