Chapter 16 - Sudden Ambush

"A-An explosion?!" A student as many stumbled down to the ground. Some were hurt by the sudden explosion, causing slight burns and charred flesh to appear, but they weren't life-threatening injuries in this world where quirks are commonplace and healing technology has improved by leaps and bounds.

The pro heroes in the camp quickly responded to the abrupt threat, and a mystical barrier appeared all around the camp, stopping further explosions from erupting through the surrounding campfires.

Just as the pro hero—Shielda stopped further explosions from occurring, a strange dark purple wormhole appeared right beside her, and a silver marble the size of a pebble shot through, aiming for her head.

Even though it was normal, Shielda trusted her instincts and conjured a spherical barrier to wrap around the marble, stopping it in midair. And as she expected, a strange power seemed to have affected the marble as it rapidly expanded in size, forming cracks and ruptures on the barrier around it and threatening to enlarge and bury her.

But pro heroes are generally not alone, and as she opened up a small passageway on the barrier covering the rapidly growing marble, a bright orange arrow of flames shot from nowhere and entered the small hole.

Using her tacit understanding with her fellow teammates, she watched as the marble melted away into a pile of liquid metal, and she quietly placed her focus back on maintaining the barriers around the possible sources of explosions like the campfires in the camp along with helping the students escape into their safety bunker by creating safe passageways for them to walk through using her barriers.

As she did so, a beam of golden light flew up toward the sky, exploding just like a firework and shattering into countless shards of gold. As the flakes of light drifted down towards the ground, the students miraculously had their wounds healed as the light seemed to bathe them with warmth and comfort.

Then a shadowy blur moved throughout the entire camp, grabbing the students one by one as they were dragged away from any nearby danger and placing them inside the safety bunker that was designed for situations such as this.

"Guns! What's your situation right now?" Shielda tapped her ear as she surveyed the surrounding area from the ground.

"I'm fine, I'm helping the other students retreat back to the safe zone for now!" She heard his voice through the earpiece and she nodded her head.

A pair of forcefields appeared below her leg, and with her mastery over her versatile quirk, she flew up into the sky to observe the area from an areal point of view.

From her eyes, she saw terrified students running along the safe passageways she conjured while her fellow teachers helped them calm down and guided them to the safety bunker. Of course, there were also courageous leaders of each class to help others regain their cool.

But as she did so, she once again saw a dark purple wormhole open up in the space ahead of her and another silver marble shot forward, tearing through the sky as its body rapidly expanded.

'The same trick won't work twice!' Shielda's eyes glowed and a rectangular forcefield opened up in front of her, blocking the marble from hitting her and stopping its momentum. Instead, it rapidly fell down to the ground and its body continued to expand without pause.

"Guns! Hit the marble near me!" She shouted. If she didn't deal with the marble, and with the lack of intel, the marble may very well expand to the size of a meteor and deal catastrophic damage to the remaining students.

As her voice reverberated through the silent camp, a beam of flames erupted once more and accurately targeted the small marble gliding down the air.

But this was the villains' plan! With her attention now diverted to making sure the marble was taken care of, she didn't notice that the wormhole beside her was still open, and a small spark lit up like how a lighter starts a flame.

Boom!

A loud blast detonated in the sky as dust and smoke covered Shielda's figure that was flung far away from where she was. The other pro heroes in the camp responded in a clear and precise manner as the man named Springer, the pro hero with spring-like limbs and a body harder than steel, retracted his springy limbs and shot himself, and flew through the sky like a human bullet.

"Gotcha!" He grabbed Shielda's body and carefully landed on the ground as he made sure to not bring her any further damage. Right beside the place where they landed, he saw a woman wearing a white robe as she stared at Shielda with worried eyes.

"Shielda!" The woman wearing the white robe hurriedly approached her, and soft golden light was emitted from the palm of her hands and the wounds all around Shielda's body receded.

Feeling her consciousness return to her, Shielda blinked open her eyes and she felt her condition rapidly turn for the better.

"I'm fine." She groaned and Springer wordlessly placed her body down on the ground so that she can support herself and get accustomed to the rapid shift in condition.

Standing up with her legs slightly weak, she cracked her knuckles and explained in detail to her fellow heroes.

"One of them can create wormholes, another can cause marbles to expand, but we can't eliminate the possibility that they can expand anything with the required conditions, and another guy can cause explosions to occur."

"Their explosion seems to be able to occur remotely, but I think it's more so due to their wormhole that all of the campfires were able to explode."

"These villains aren't dumb, they know what they are doing." Springer tapped the object placed in his ear, "What about you two, Guns, Blitz?"

"I'm fine." A shadowy blur suddenly appeared right beside the trio as they turned to look at the man named Blitz.

"Me too!" A voice shouted from the sky as they saw a trail of flames fly towards them, and the man named Guns landed on the ground.

Just as they were about to speak with one another and examine their current intel, they were interrupted as in front of them, space itself diverged and a wormhole opened up.

From the wormhole, a group of cloaked figures walked out, with five of them exuding a dangerous aura that alarmed the pro heroes.

"Two, go support the others and deal with the students. Three, Four, Five, you know they're the toughest opponents we'll have to face yet, so you better be ready!" The cloaked man snapped his fingers as a small spark lit up, and the other cloaked figures shouted in unison: "Yes sir!"

"LET'S DO THIS!"

The supposed leader extended out his hand and a strange spark lit up. With a loud boom, a catastrophic explosion shoots toward the five pro heroes.

"DAMN VILLAINS!" Shielda clicked her tongue as she waved her arms and an arrowhead-shaped barrier appeared in front of them.

As the force of the explosion receded, she pushed both of her arms forward and made the arrowhead-shaped barrier thrust forward with fearsome might.

"Blitz! Go handle the students! Be attentive to our signal if we need your help!" Light converged around her feet as Lux flew up into the sky.

Blitz nodded his head and disappeared in a blur, desperately running towards the group of villains that were rushing to the safe zone where the students were huddled together.

Just as Springer was about to launch himself forward, a marble came flying towards him from nowhere and he forcefully flung himself into a different location to avoid the attack. As he did so, another cloaked figure appeared from the shadows.

Blood from the villains around them then gathered around their hands as a gun made out of blood soon appeared.

Bang!

As a bullet tore through the air and was about to hit him, Springer remained calm, and as he expected, a barrier appeared in front of him and blocked the blood bullet from hitting him.

Guns didn't miss this chance to launch a counterattack, but he didn't hide his anger, "You! You think you can defeat Guns Blazing in a battle of guns?!"

A sniper rifle made out of bright orange flames soon appeared in his grasp as he pointed it toward the cloaked figure, and pressed the trigger without pause.

From the barrel of the fiery gun, a bright orange bullet pierced through numerous villains along the way and was well on its way to shooting the cloaked figure.

But as the bullet was about to strike her, a strange armored figure appeared through a wormhole and blocked the fiery bullet from reaching the cloaked person.

Then, from another wormhole, a person wearing a black cloak walked out and stood right beside the armored man and the blood gun wielder.

All of a sudden, she grabbed the armored man beside him and muttered, "Expand."

…

As the group of villains rushed out of the wormhole and stared at the underground facility in front of them, they grinned maliciously and broke open the metallic entrance forcefully.

Then as they assigned themselves into groups, the others stood guard at the entrance while the others rushed through the maze-like hallways to try and locate the students hidden inside the underground bunker.

But as they ran through the numerous halls, they heard the sound of air and before they knew it, a shadowy blur knocked the daylights out of them and they dropped down to the ground.

The shadowy blur then stopped, and the person was none other than Blitz!

On one of his arms, there seem to be a deep wound, but he ignored the pain and was about to start running again to check whether the students are safe and sound.

Just as he was about to activate his quirk, his eyes suddenly lost their glow. From Blitz's view, a young boy with brown hair and green eyes outlined himself from nowhere as if he was previously invisible.

After confirming that Blitz lost his ability to think, the mysterious young boy took out a strange syringe from his pocket and carefully stabbed and injected the contents of the syringe into Blitz's bloodstream.

As the young boy recalled the series of instructions ingrained into his mind, he said, "With your worry and anxiousness for the students reaching an extreme, you would slowly feel that relying on a few outstanding students wouldn't be bad. Perhaps you can rely on your students for a while and learn to trust their abilities."

After that, the young boy snapped his fingers and the pro hero, Blitz, regained the glow in his eyes.

Acting as if nothing has happened, and ignoring the young boy standing right beside him, he activated his quirk and ran toward the place where the students are located.

The young boy turned his gaze toward the few unconscious villains in the silent hallway and took a deep breath. He closed his eyes, and as he pressed the volume increase button on his phone, he felt a strange power invade his mind.

When he opened his eyes, his entire aura seemed to have undergone a radical change. His eyes turned cold and apathetic, and his body language shifted to that of a confident and strong man instead of a meek kid.

With an indifferent gaze, the young boy walked toward the unconscious villains and crouched down on the ground. He extended his hand out and pulled up the hood of their cloaks, revealing their faces.

Some were young women, some seemed young men, others appeared to be teenagers and others were even children.

Remaining apathetic to this villainous act, his green eyes swirled like a pair of vortexes as he planted his hand on one of the unconscious villain's foreheads. Soon, a strange connection seemed to have been formed and both of their minds were connected by a mystical bridge.

…

As a young man with black hair and dark brown eyes sat on a golden throne, he shifted his vision and saw a bridge of light extend outwards into the dark void where numerous other "islands" and "worlds" can be seen.

With a flick of his wrist, the pale white sand on his island converged and transformed into numerous humanoid entities. And in the next second, those eerie humanoid entities seemed to gain consciousness as they rushed towards the distant island floating in the dark void.

Upon landing on the distant island, they soon plowed through its data and retreated back to their home base, with each holding a strange glob of white light.

Those globs of white light were the metaphysical manifestation of memories, and if one wasn't careful in extracting those memories, it may make the target forever lose their memories and receive brain damage.

"So what?" Dolian muttered and continued to make his avatars grab more and more of the target's memories.

If they were to gain amnesia, how would that implicate him? He was simply a young boy who has zero connection with the memory loss of a random villain.

As he grabbed one of the globs of white light, the scenery around him changed and he soon experienced the life of the random villain in non-chronological order.

But with years of her life's memories extracted and observed, Dolian managed to gather the relevant information and he mumbled, "A typical villain organization created by the man known as Leader."

"But unlike typical villain organizations, Leader is a smart man and seems to be kidnapping brilliant children not just in America but other countries as well and selling them. So he's a human trafficker."

"And they seem to be located in…"

As he listed out the gathered info one by one, Dolian squinted his eyes as he soon realized that an opportunity presented itself to him.

"Perhaps this is my lucky break to expand my reach into a grander world." He stared at the numerous other islands floating in the dark void and an ominous light flashed in his eyes.

AN: This chapter has 2364 words.

Damn, I pulled a fucking Kaleido with this story. If you read Infinite Realities: Re and picked up some of the foreshadowing I gave, then this is basically the same thing.

When you deal with a character like Dolian and give him the ability to control fate, the one who's suffering the most is ME!

If Arc 1 ended in such a complicated way, then I shudder at what the future arcs and volumes have in store.

(April 1, 2023 - 492nd day of writing)