Chapter 77: The Attack (II)

West side of the forest

"Pleased to meetcha, UA students!! We're the league of villains' vanguard action squad!!" A man who looked like a lizard shouted and laughed loudly.

"League of villains...?! How'd they find us?" Ojiro frowned and took a martial arts stance. Even if he wasn't allowed to engage, it would at least serve as a way for him to protect himself and not drag the heroes who were protecting him down.

Another man with sunglasses, shoulder-length hair and thick lips started grinding Pixie-bob's head with his long, thick pole.

[A/N: Indecent? Not my problem.]

"Should I go ahead and crush her pretty little skull? Should I? What do you guys think?" He asked while continuously grinding his pole into Pixie-bob's head.

Tiger narrowed his eyes menacingly,"As if I'd let you..."

However, just as he was about to pounce onto the duo, the lizard man hurried stepped forward and prevented him from doing so,"Wait, wait. Don't be too hasty, big sis Mag! You too, Tiger. Calm down."

Smirking, she said,"Holding power over someone's life is everything! Or don't you believe in following Stain's tenets?!"

Tenya and Mineta looked at them in horror and Tenya muttered,"Stain...so these are his followers..."

The lizard man didn't deny it,"Yep! We sure are!"

Placing his hand on the sword hilt behind his back, he introduced himself,"Let me introduce myself. I'm Spinner. And I intend to make his dreams come true."

Unsheathing his sword, he revealed a large blade. Rather, a bunch of swords and other sharp weapons joined together to form the shape of a fan-like structure, held together at the hilt.

"Woah..."

It was a very...unique weapon, to say the least, and Izuku had never seen one of those before.

Tiger, on the other hand, didn't seem bothered at all by the intimidating weapon(s),"That's all well and good, but...that woman lying there, Pixie-bob...lately, she's started to worry about getting married. Hoping to find some happiness as a woman in this world..and at this age, trying very hard..."

Tiger's face was contracted and formed an extremely angry expression. His eyes were purely white (well, they're always white) and his make-up made him look like a demon.

"How dare you scar her face like that...and stand there yapping away like it's nothing?!"

Hearing his words, Spinner grinned wildly as he rushed towards them,"So heroes really do dream of finding ordinary happiness in life?"

"Tiger!! I've broadcasted the order! Shido and Ragdoll will make sure that the other students. It's our job to hold them back here!!" Mandalay instructed with a serious expression,"Get going everyone!! And remember...no fighting! Lead them, class president!"

Tenya heard her orders and immediately replied,"Understood! Let's go!!"

The students were about to leave when Izuku suddenly paused,"Mandalay! I...know where he is!!"

Mandalay looked at him with worry before eventually nodding.

"Fine! But stay safe and do NOT engage." Emphasising on the 'not', she replied before turning her attention back to the incoming villain.

"It's selfish wannabe heroes like you...who are the targets of our purge!" Rushing towards Mandalay, Spinner swung his blade horizontally from the right, but was distracted by a telepath message by Mandalay.

'Hey, Spinner. You're pretty cool for a villain~ And handsome to boot~'

"Huh?"

Taking the opportunity that Spinner was momentarily distracted from the flirt, Mandalay slipped past towards his left and managed to sneak in a claw attack, slashing Spinner's mid waist as she dashed past him.

"What the...that was dirty! You flirt!!" Spinner complained.

Mandalay was about to continue her onslaught against Spinner when she suddenly felt herself being pulled towards the man with thick lips.

"What?!"

"Come to me, kitty cat."

The man with a thick lip was about to smash her with his long, thick pole when suddenly, Tiger arrived and landed a punch on him.

CRACK!

"You won't pull off the same trick twice!!"

"Gack!"

"Kenji Hikiishi. Villain name, Magne. Nine robberies and assault charges. Three murders. Twenty-nine attempted murders."

"Ooh, so you've heard of me - NGH!" Magne was in the middle of her speech when she was suddenly punched on the face.

"So what'd you come here for, criminal?" Tiger wasn't feeling very kind, but Magne was as strong as him to be able to block his punch head-on without flinching in the slightest.

Mandalay, who was recovering, realised something weird while Tiger was trying to restrain Magne.

"Tiger!! This is weird...! Still no response from Ragdoll. She's usually quick to make contact...!"

Magne overheard their conversation and leered ominously.

Tiger saw his leer and felt that something was wrong. He immediately punched, only to be blocked by a palm. He punched again, only to be blocked by another palm. He punched and punched and punched, using all his strength behind each and every punch, but it was all either dodged by a small margin by Magne, or completely nullified by his palms..

"Tenacious..." Mandalay commented as she tried her best to deal with Spinner, who was dashing everywhere, trying to find an opening on the cat girl.

"Alright, that's enough." Shido's familiar voice suddenly resounded.

""Huh?"" Both villains were shocked at the presence of Shido.

"No! This wasn't supposed to happen!"

"Isn't he busy in the east?!"

Both villains immediately discarded their pride and retreated the moment Shido arrived in complete fear.

Shido observed their panicked actions and realised that there was a plan to lure him towards the north side.

Too bad for the villains, they didn't know that Shido could create temporal clones of himself, allowing each clone to use either none, one, a few or all of the original's quirks if the original wishes to do so.

"Well, if you are here already, why leave so suddenly? Care to join me for tea?" Shido said jokingly as Rafael came out.

With a lance on his left hand and a pendulum on his right, Shido looked very intimidating.

"El Na'ash!"

The pendulum on his right hand immediately shot out towards the two escaping villains and wrapped around both of them.

"Shit!"

Spinner was about to jump out of the surrounding pendulum when the pendulum suddenly constricted, tightly restraining him such that he couldn't even freely move his legs.

Magne was more of a strength orientated fighter rather than a agility orientated fighter, so he couldn't even dodge the restraints, resulting in him completely tied up together with Spinner.

"Damn..." Magne cursed under his breath.

Their plan had obviously gone wrong. The commotion in the east had clearly not managed to lure Shido over to the east and instead, he came to the west.

Everything was planned out. The villains even waited for Shido to reach the north-east before starting the commotion. It was less than five minutes since everything started, and not only had he not gone towards the east, which was closer to Shido's destination, he even managed to arrive in the west within five minutes.

Little did they know that Shido had not only managed to solve the commotion at the east, saving Ragdoll from being captured in the process, he even managed to solve the person who was producing sleep-inducing smoke everywhere.

"So...do you mind telling me of your plans? I'm very interested in them..." Shido squatted down and faced them at eye level while smiling.

"D-Don't think I will tell you anything!" Spinner shouted desperately,"Even if you torture me, I-I won't give in!"

Shido blinked in surprise before laughing,"Haha...please...I'm a 'hero'." He said sarcastically before continuing,"I don't 'torture' others. I only help them speak their minds openly."

"What?!" Magne suddenly realised something Himura had told them.

'Shido has a hypnosis quirk. Always wear your earplugs in the presence of him and don't ever get captured."

Well, they had obviously failed the second instruction, and now their entire plan was going to fail.

"Sigh, whatever, let's just get on with it." Magne gave up and started telling him everything. At least he would get a reduced sentence if he spoke honestly, rather than a longer sentence if forced by hypnosis.

"Very good, let's hear it then..."

*****************

South side of the forest

"Crap!" Katsuki swore as he covered his nose and mouth in an attempt to prevent himself from inhaling the smoke.

"The gas must also be the work of a villain. I'm worried about the others, but we've gotta press on." Shoto spoke as he continued trudging along the path while carrying an injured Kosei Tsuburaba,"We'll go around the goal and head straight to camp. Ragdoll was at the midpoint, so she can handle this area."

"You're ordering me around...?" Katsuki narrowed his eyes and spoke, but didn't do anything else when he suddenly noticed an anomaly in the middle of their path,"Hey. Who's supposed to be up ahead...?!"

Shoto paused for awhile as he looked at the man kneeling down and replied,"Tokoyami and...Shoji...!!"

Shoto didn't have the chance to continue before the man started murmuring,"Pretty. So pretty. No. This is work. So alluring. But no. Can't...."

The man was admiring something on the ground; a severed arm. However, the villain realised that he has work to do and cannot afford to be distracted by the severed arm.

"Pretty flesh. Gah! So enticing, though..." The man slowly stood up and turned his attention to Katsuki and Shoto.

"...gotta do the job." The man finally turned his face towards the duo and saw a disturbing scene.

Even compared to most of the adults they had seen in their life, the man was a fairly tall man. He has fair skin and black eyes. Most of his physical body cannot be seen because the suit he wore encompassed his entire body.

He donned a black straitjacket that only left his mouth exposed. The suit was held together by black restraints decorated with red spikes. These same restraints connect to metal clamps that cover his head and keeps lips open, often causing him to drool. Other straps go across Moonfish's torso, waist and the top of his boots.

At this point, a sudden telepath message from Mandalay came, announcing the target of the villains: Katsuki.

Katsuki realised that this villain was there for them and started grinning.

"It's okay...to fight back, huh...?!"

The man's teeth started to elongate, pushing himself up to the air and wobbling unstably mid-air.

"I have to endure...I gotta do the job...aaa...ahhhhhhhh...."

"Don't charge in recklessly. Didn't you just hear that?! They're after you." Shota dodged a tooth aimed towards him and warned Katsuki at the same time.

"Yap, yap, yap, inside our damn heads...what did that little freak Deku go and do now? First it's don't fight, now it's fight. C'mon!"

Katsuki yelled as teeth immediately rushed towards him. He immediately bent backwards in hope of avoiding the teeth, but unexpectedly, the teeth immediately changed it's direction and turned up instead.

"Whoa!"

Crack!

Sharp ice was immediately produced by Shoto's feet and separated the two fighting, barely blocking the teeth that were aimed at Katsuki's head.

However, the man didn't seem fazed at the ice and continued using his teeth as an anchor to swing himself from tree to tree, branch to branch, moving about nimbly and flexibly.

"Tch!" Seeing that his ice did nothing to stop the man in his tracks, he clicked his tongue in annoyance,"He's making great use of both the terrain and his quirk."

"Even though that jerk looks like a real weakling...!" Katsuki gnashed his teeth as he faced the man who was currently backflipping throughout the area.

The man was an escaped convict, Moonfish. He was originally a death row inmate, but had managed to escape with the help of Kurogiri.

"Show me...flesh." Moonfish's teeth on his bottom jaw extended into various tentacle-like things that helped him balance in the air.

"If we set any big fires, they could spread and get everyone killed. You get that?" Shoto was about to continue explaining when he felt a breeze and noticed a tornado in the middle of the forest, quite close to where they were.

"Alright, that's enough playing around. The three of you, get into my shadows."

"Huh!?" Katsuki instinctively replied to the voice that suddenly came out of nowhere when he realised whose voice it belonged to.

"Itsuka-sensei..."

Katsuki didn't seem very pleased to see his teacher's face, but he did not take any action against him. Firstly, he was an ally this time, so no matter how much he disliked him for constantly meddling and looking down on Katsuki, he was not going to mess up during important events. Secondly, he was just too weak for Shido to actually become serious when fighting him.

"Hello, I see you guys are struggling with this guy. Not a surprise, honestly..." Shido muttered but when he looked at his students, he saw that they were frowning.

"Not that you guys are weak, but he's just too strong, even in Pro heroes' standard. After all, he once wreaked havoc in an entire city, murdering fifteen pro heroes who were trying to pin him down." Shido quickly explained in case their self-esteem got destroyed from being called 'weak'.

"Ooh? Another....piece of...flesh?" Moonfish saw the entry of Shido before his eyes widened underneath his straitjacket, though nobody could see it.

"S-Shido! What happened to the bait at the east?" Moonfish lost all his usual bearing and immediately used his teeth to dash away from Shido, heading towards the East.

"Oh? You're escaping from me as well? The other villains were also running from the other clones." Shido frowned and muttered.

He was wondering why the villains attacked even though they knew that Shido was there and they had no chance of winning.

'It seems as though he is escaping in a random location, but he's actually luring me towards the east? What is so special there that they had so much confidence in taking me down over there?'

Shido didn't think much about it and just followed him, but not before swallowing Shoto, Katsuki and Kosei into his shadow realm despite their resistance.

"Yoshinon, freeze him."

"Hai!"

Yoshinon gave a simple reply before a huge blast of ice came out of his mouth, essentially creating a kilometre of ice with that one breath.

Shido's eyes twitched at that overpowered breath but didn't say anything before collecting the ice popsicle.

*****************

A/N: I have mental blocks...writing totally out of canon is so hard, and it's not like I can just time skip all the way to canon...more fillers, I guess...

If you want to support me or/and want 14+ chapters in advance, link:

https://www.patréon.com/spirits_everywhere