Chapter Text
Sei groaned in pain as he forced himself to stand up. Ruika lay prone on the ground next to him. Forcing his battered body to stagger to his sister, Sei felt some of his tension dissolve at the sight of her breathing.
“Rui … Rui wake up.” He said, nudging her.
“Ugghh … five more minutes Mom.” Ruika whined.
“I’m not Mom, and you need to wake up Rui! We’re in dang …” Sei began.
“Identification please?” A mechanical voice droned.
Sei looked around for the source while Ruika sat up. Sei didn’t see anyone around, only a colorful bird perched nearby.
“Identification please?” The bird chirped.
Sei stood their stunned, before he could think of a response his sister spoke.
“Am I still dreaming or is that bird talking?”
“Voice key incorrect.” The bird chirped again.
“I don’t think that’s a bird sis.” Sei replied, dread coiling in his stomach.
The bird’s eyes turned blood red and it began to screech an awful shrill sound that pierced through the jungle. Clearly it was an alarm, which meant people would start looking for them.
The same people who shot down the plane. Who Mom said might try to kill them.
“Rui, we need to run!” Sei shouted.
“Where?” Ruika said, panic lacing her voice.
“Anywhere away from here! NOW!” Sei said, grabbing his sister’s hand and dragging her forwards through the jungle.
They didn’t get far before three flying machines surrounded them, whirring blades keeping them aloft and allowing them to cut through the dense jungle.
The machines hovered in the air as three masked guards dropped out of them and pointed rifles at Sei and Ruika.
“Rui, remember what Mom said?”
“Shut up kid.” One of the guards growled.
“Why?” Ruika whispered back.
“Cause it’s time for you to RUN!” Sei punctuated that last word by putting up a potential well between them and the guards.
Ruika paused for a moment, before taking off deeper into the jungle.
“After her!” One of the guards cried.
Sei saw two of the machines the guards came in fly off after Ruika, that left one for him to deal with before he could go and get help.
WHIZZCRACK
Sei panicked and threw up another field, having come an inch from death as the guard had made it around his first field to shoot at him.
His brain spun into motion as he realized that even beating a single villain was going to be a tall task.
Ruika desperately sprinted through the thick foliage, branches snapping against her as she sprinted through, grateful for the armored protection that Aunt Mei had put into her suit.
Unfortunately for her, she hadn’t had time to put her helmet back on, and wound up with a mouthful of mosquitoes as she ran through a nearby marsh, distracting her enough for her to trip and fall down.
This gave her pursuers just enough time to get close enough to see her, but Ruika’s Acceleration quirk let her change both her speed and direction incredibly quickly, so they couldn’t catch up to her.
At least not yet.
Unlike her parents, or her Uncle Tenya, Ruika did not have the benefit of years of Hero course training and even if she did, her quirk’s high energy consumption meant she would always be more of a sprinter than a distance runner.
So however this fight was going to go, it was gonna be fast. Which suited her fine.
Or it would have, if she had a clue how she could actually win it.
Still spitting bugs, Ruika juked to the left, sending her pursuers flying past her. She then sped as fast as she could, trying to break away and swing back to where Sei was.
It was too late for her to realize that she had run towards a cliff edge as she burst through the edge of the jungle.
Ruika felt her stomach flip as she began plummeting to her death.
She saw the ground rapidly approach and closed her eyes.
Except then she hit something that could not have been the ground, mainly on account of it not killing her.
Opening her eyes, she saw a very perplexed guard staring back at her.
The guard threw a punch which Ruika dodged easily.. She punched back, striking the guard before he could blink. Realizing that her speed made the guard unable to hit her or dodge her attacks, Ruika smirked, before launching a barrage of punches at the guard's face.
Her joy at this was cut short when she caught a glimpse of the cliff wall over the guard’s shoulder getting closer and closer.
Though in another stroke of luck, this pause gave the guard an opportunity to land a strike against her, which was powerful enough to send the girl flying off the copter.
Ruika heard the explosion of the machine crashing into the cliff as she crashed through the jungle canopy and landed roughly on the floor.
“HAHAHAHA TAKE THAT! I’M STILL ALIVE!” Ruika yelled.
This proved to be a mistake, as two more guards snapped their vision her way and drove their machines to pursue her, putting Ruika back into the same situation she had been in before.
The young girl raced ahead, but she felt herself tiring quickly and saw the machines gaining on her from the edges of her vision. Focusing on what was ahead of her, she saw another obstacle, a lake stretching as far as she could see.
Ruika pushed her Acceleration as hard as she could, going beyond what she had even been able to hope was possible.
Time seemed to stop as her feet hit the water.
And then kept running along it.
“Hahahahaha!” Ruika laughed in spite of herself at the sheer ridiculousness of her situation.
Pushing herself further she flew over the top of the lake with the guards on her heels, the awful whirring on the rotorblades hammering her ears.
RATATATATATATATATATA
Plumes of water spat up behind her as one of the guards fired a machine gun at her. Ruika broke to the left, spying a partially submerged cave at the other end of the lake. Racing into it, she heard the mechanical roar of the guards following close behind.
Spying light at the edge of the tunnel, Ruika gave a last burst of effort to make it to the end.
Only for her hopes to be dashed, one of the guards had flown over to the other end of the cave and was waiting for her. She rapidly turned the other direction as he entered to chase her down, only to see the first guard had caught up.
Ruika had nowhere to run.
So she didn’t.
In a stroke of luck or genius or stupidity, though most likely a mix of all three, Ruika stood still and sank into the water. The two guards' machines did not have the same ability to stop that she had, and they crashed into each other head on in a terrifying mangle of fire and metal.
Ruika blinked twice, and then rapidly swam to the edge of the cave before heading back to land. She’d lost too much time already, but it was better to be late to go help Sei than never, right?
If looks could kill, Melissa would be dead several times over by now. Eijirou and Kyoka’s glares bored into her back as she lead them through the labyrinthine halls of the Shield Industries complex to complete the first step of her desperate escape plan.
Secure her workshop and the two VIP’s trapped within it. Those two being Chargebolt and Creati, otherwise known as her former friends Denki and Momo.
Agamemnon had taken a particularly nasty shine to the two of them, specifically to the industrial capacity of their quirks. From their prison cells in Melissa’s main research lab Momo was forced to make an endless stream of complex and expensive components for the Proteus program and Denki was coerced into providing a majority of the facilities electrical supply, especially the torture machines Agamemnon took such pride in.
Melissa had tried to help! She thought there had to be some way that she could get them out, even just one!
But Agamemnon made it very clear what the cost of resistance was to those who defied him.
MONTHS EARLIER
The first time he tried to make Denki power that damn device was when Momo was captured. He refused and Melissa allowed a slight grin to come to her face, something resembling hope. That fled the second Agamemnon bid one of the guards to take out his baton and hand it over to Melissa.
“Hit her.” The words still echoed in her mind.
“What …”
“Hit her, or I can have Ajax do it instead.” Agamemnon gestured back to the guard, a hulking man
Melissa hesitated for another moment, but then her arm moved.
Crack
The horrible sound of aluminum hitting flesh echoed through the room. Denki’s eyes flew open, but any pleas he would have made were silenced by the guards holding him stuffing a gag into his mouth.
“You’ve already made your choice, hero, and now you can see the consequences of it. Miss Shield, if you could put some effort into this next strike please?” Agamemnon threatened.
Crack
Melissa hit Momo again, a fraction of a percent harder.
“This will continue until I AM SATISFIED WITH IT MISS SHIELD.” Agamemnon roared.
Crack Crack Crack
“It’s ok … I’ll be fine.” Momo whispered out, though Melissa couldn’t be sure who she was speaking to at the moment.
“AH, such a noble spirit Creati, though is it really heroic to lie to a friend like that? Then again, we both know Melissa isn’t your friend, after all, would a friend hurt you like this.”
Momo didn’t give him an answer, only a glare with her onyx eyes.
“Well Miss Shield, don’t keep the hero waiting.”
Crack
She had to
Crack
He’d kill her and Momo and everyone else if she didn’t
Crack
The torture went for hours, even after Momo lost consciousness. Finally Agamemnon got bored and allowed Melissa to stop, before having the guards grad Momo and Denki to their cells, and “escort” Melissa to her room.
That was the night she started drinking more.
PRESENT DAY
As she spilled the story out during the long, slow walk to the lab, her companion's faces oscillated between anger and sadness.
“I wondered why the food kept getting stopped.” Kyoka muttered.
That memory pained Melissa too, she didn’t have the heart to tell Kyoka how there was a video feed hooked into her cell that Denki and Momo were forced to watch as she was starved over any infractions they committed, real or imagined.
It was a horrible twisted trap that Agamemnon had planned over the years. It was him who had funneled the money to the anti-pro lawsuits in Japan and supported the politicians calling for an end to the pro heroes.
Then he had infiltrated the HPSC, the organization meant to keep the retired pros safe, and used it against them, isolating each of them from the others as best as he could. Everything from phone calls to email to birthday cards had to be routed through the HPSC according to the new legislation, for the prevention of vigilante activities officially. All it really meant was that the moles within the agency could shut off any selective communications between the former heroes to prevent them from maintaining the bonds they had forged.
Then, those same bonds that had eroded enough to make them desperate for a way back to their former lives were cruelly twisted against them. One step out of line, and their long lost friends would be the ones to suffer for it. And suffer they all did.
But not anymore. Not if Melissa Shield could do anything about it.
The lab doors opened with a satisfying whoosh as Melissa scanned her palm to get it.
As light flooded in, two more worn down figures turned to it, squinting at the light.
“I’m yay … I’m almost there I yay … just gimme a …” Denki stuttered, still worn out from running the power during Izuku’s interrogation earlier that day.
“Sheesh Jamming-yay, you still haven’t grown out of that?” Kyoka teased, though there wasn’t any bite to it.
Denki blinked again as his eyes adjusted.
“Kyo … Kyoka … it’s really …” He stammered.
“It’s really me, you idiot.” Kyoka said, before tears began running down her face.
Eijirou spurred himself into action, a hardened fist hammering open Denki’s cell and then Momo’s after it. Kyoka and Denki embraced each other as Melissa went to help Eijirou get Momo onto her feet.
The raven haired girl looked over her friends, before her eyes locked onto Melissa and she said.
“I told you … told you it’d be ok.”
Momo’s voice was only a whisper, but it still rang loudly in Melissa’s.
And for the first time in a long time, every soul in that room truly felt hopeful.