Chapter 48: I-Island (Expo Day 5)

Summary: Sometimes, the villains really just should have stayed home...

Warning: Chapters 47-49 were posted back-to-back, make sure you don't miss any!

Chapter 48: I-Island (Expo Day 5)

The I-Island Gala was in full swing, important scientists and heroes from all over the world mingling and chatting throughout the grand ballroom and its attached lounges. Izumi had eyes for absolutely none of it as she and Momo swept around the dance floor. She'd already had entirely too much social interaction, even the hero nerd part of her just done with people by this point. She wasn't the type to be pulled toward crowds of dancers, either. Which might make one wonder why she was here at all.

The answer, of course, was simple. It was entirely about the utterly delighted and enthusiastic expression on her girlfriend's face as they showed up ninety percent of the people on the dance floor. Holding a happy Momo in her arms, in a very daring dress that had made Izumi want to rip it off her the moment she'd first laid eyes on Momo in it, was more than enough compensation all on its own. The fact that dancing tending to leave Momo enthusiastic in the aftermath, only made that fact triply true. Which is why, despite being absolutely done with people, Izumi was smiling almost as broadly as her girlfriend…intermixed with a periodic lethal glare that had caused several would-be cutters in to decide that their life wasn't worth the attempt of getting a dance with either of them.

They'd had one each with All Might and Jirou, swapping between them near the start, and Izumi had to admit that she'd been nearly as happy dancing with the adorably out-of-place Jirou as with Momo. All Might had been…oddly like dancing with a father figure. One who was surprisingly skilled at not stepping on feet. So she hadn't hated that either, and knew it was part of his ongoing efforts to draw attention to them without outright endorsing either of them as his successor. He'd danced with others, of course, mostly other heroines…and one hero that had ended in both of them laughing uproariously at an apparently old joke between them. Izumi was absolutely going to get the story about that one, later. But, for now, she was content wit-

Between one instant and the next, Hyper-cognition activated at its highest setting, the entire ballroom practically freezing in time as Izumi's mind pulsed with momentary disorientation. With her current speed of thought, even that moment was less than an eyeblink. 2B, the source of the violent activation, was already speaking in their metal link as she sorted herself out.

"Security breach! Ambush! Multiple Villains detected by mobile platform scan! I-Island broad-spectrum, total island security activated! Targeted on heroes! Escape required. Villain Disablement Required. I-Island Security Reset Required. Primarily threat, 7.3m bearing 206 degrees, same plane. Identification, A – Rank International Mercenary Wolfram Von Magdom. Metal Manipulation. Unknown Second Quirk Scanned. High Caliber Handgun."

Izumi's thoughts were a whirl as she processed 2B's clipped alerts. Despite her sheer ridiculous speed of thought, she could visibly see I-Island's famed defenses activating, albeit in slow motion. Glowing ribbons of some sort of hard-light construct are flowing out of the ground under every hero in the room. Three of them were moving, All Might and two she quickly categorized as Speed Quirk holders. Yet she could see all three would be too slow, having been caught totally flat footed in a way that Izumi wasn't. Or, rather, in a way 2B hadn't been.

Unlike Izumi, 2B existed in a permanent state like Izumi's hyper cognition mode. She was also, because of I-Island's security, currently restricted from many of the ways she usually used her excess relative time…and had thus been paying inordinate amounts of attention to the room and everyone in it. She'd requested a small mobile platform for that purpose, claiming she was going to keep an eye out for anything interesting. Unfortunately, that platform wasn't a Pod, and wasn't armed. Which meant the immediate reaction to this would be up to Izumi.

"Time to crack security?"

"Two minutes, 45 seconds."

Izumi winced at the reply. That was an insanely good response time for cracking security somewhere like I-Island…but it still left Izumi as the only one that could act within that window. Her first action, which her arms were already moving in pseudo-slow-motion to do, was to move Momo out of the bonds that were tracking her. Izumi wasn't in any of her high-speed forms, so she and Momo were both only going to get clear of that first grab by millimeters. But they would get clear, and she had already remotely triggered the wristbands on her girlfriend's wrists. Even as they both moved in slow motion, the rather stripperific pseudo-armor those bands would supply Momo was in the process of deploying, ripping Momo's costs-as-much-as-a-sports-car dress apart in the process.

Momo would have to look after herself after the first grab. Izumi needed to disable at least Wolfram before being forced to engage the defenses in full. The question was how to do that. The answers were…limited. She wasn't fully transformed and didn't have a weapon summoned. Transforming or summoning a weapon would take too much time for the initial opening gambit. She was still extremely strong and fast in her base form, but physical force was a poor option in the crowded room, doubly so with that unknown second Quirk. The very fact that this Wolfram had a second Quirk was informative, as it had All for One's fingerprints all over it. That also meant she had to assume said Quirk was dangerous. Possibly even intended to let the man fight All Might specifically.

Okay. No weapons. No physical force. That left just telekinesis. Brute force telekinesis, for the most part…which had the same problems as physical force. She couldn't just slam him into a wall without potentially catching other people. That left…the Forbidden Moves. She grimaced, knowing her PR people would probably have words about this with her afterward, but chose the less horrible Forbidden Move and hoped he didn't have telekinetic defenses. It wasn't likely, which is why getting into a fight with a telekinetic is generally a terrible idea, at least for humans who felt pain and suffering in a normal fashion. Something she was about to demonstrate once again.

Just as All Might was caught by the restraints and Momo's armor fully deployed, the two of them slipping the initial grab, Izumi's mental construct struck. Wolfram Von Magdom keened in completely unexpected agony as a pointed cone of telekinetic force struct upward from right below and slightly behind him. In a brutal violation of several commonly understood rules of engagement, that force breached his asshole with its tip, even as the entire cone of force slammed him upward into the ceiling. Whatever else he was, he was clearly durable and not yet unconscious, to his own extreme displeasure, even as Izumi lunged again. This time, she broke away from the hard-light constructs that were trying to reacquire her, even as she saw a startled Momo instinctively channeling One for All to do the same. Izumi had skipped right past any of her modes, going for a full transformation, and by the time she reached Wolfram that transformation was complete. A hard but carefully measured right jab took him in the chin, but didn't knock him out, his eyes actually managing to follow her. He was, however, in too much pain to force his body to react and her next, stronger blow to his temple did knock him unconscious.

Izumi grabbed him with the follow through of that blow and tossed him into the questing tendrils of the hard-light bindings still trying to capture her. They didn't close around him, but they were disrupted by his body hitting them, and she used the additional moments of freedom to telekinetically rip guns out of four more Villains hands. The guns reversed direction quickly, slamming into stomachs as those Villains went down…and then Momo was on top of two others and All Might had ripped his restraints apart. All three of them blurred as they built up to their full speed, villains and now-responding rogue security bots falling in the spaces between heartbeats. The villains were all down quickly and staying that way, but the hacked security bots began to pour in from everywhere as the three of them piled up their numbers into scrap. Another two minutes of wave after wave of that assault passed…and then everything abruptly reverted to normal as 2B managed to beat her estimated time and shut everything down. In the sudden pause as all the heroes were released, it was 2B's voice that came over the speakers.

"Lockdown ended. Security reset. Someone arrest Samuel Abraham along with the Villains. He let them into the system."

A spotlight pinned the scientist in the crowd and he moved to run…only to find himself face-to-face with a darkly unamused smile and narrowed eyes on All Might's face. Meanwhile, Izumi was coming down from the unexpected combat high and stuck between staring at Momo's violation of several costume laws, and glaring at a lot of others who were also staring at that incredible view…

... ...

An hour later, a deflated Toshinori Yagi was sitting with Izumi, 2B, and Momo as David Shield came back into the security lounge, looking like he'd gone three rounds with an angry politician. Which, given that he'd just finished talking to both I-Island security and an emergency meeting of its Board of Directors, was sadly accurate. He poured himself a coffee as they all stirred. Then, as he sipped it, he sighed and started to explain.

"First. Izumi, you should know that 2B isn't going to be in trouble, so long as she helps patch the holes Samuel deliberately created in our security. Thankfully, she identified and used those holes to get through quickly rather than trying to crack security the hard way, so the Board is still under the delusion they could have kept her out if she was serious."

The currently-child-sized form of 2B snorted at that.

"They haven't had any cyberpaths work on their systems. The security is as good as it can get without Quirks involved. But that wouldn't stop me for long."

David Shield grinned ruefully at that.

"I know that, and you know that, and I've warned them about that. But don't complain about getting off with a thank you instead of international hacking charges, yes?"

2B winced and nodded. Thankfully, the older man switched topics immediately. It's not like 2B was going to apologize for saving the day, after all.

"Aside from that, security got the point of the attempted raid out of Sam almost immediately. I'm afraid he was extremely unhappy that I pulled out of developing the prototype of the Quirk Boosting Device that I was originally intending as a solution for All Might. I sealed the mostly-completed prototype in one of the vaults here, and Sam intended for his villains to force me to release it so he could 'finish the job and get the recognition he deserved.' He was my assistant on the project and an old friend…"

He trailed off, causing Yagi to shift uncomfortably at the lost sounding tone in his friend's voice.

"You…won't be in trouble for it, will you?"

Shield shook himself as his friend leveled that question at him and quickly shook his head 'no.'

"No. Given the Board agreed with my decision to seal the device, and I didn't have anything to do with the attempt, I'm not in any trouble. They might have tried to use me as a scapegoat if the villains had succeeded and Sam got away. But with you three thwarting them and Sam on hand to blame, I'm in the clear." He chuckled, tone brightening just a bit as he added, "The fact that the security system actually managed to restrain All Might for a short period actually bought me some more credit with them, in point of fact!"

All three of them laughed at that. Even if a childish portion of Izumi's mind wanted to point out that it hadn't gotten her, thank you very much! Though it might have, without 2B being alert, so perhaps she should keep that comment to herself…

... ... ...

A/N: So, unlike the movie, I didn't draw the fighting out much, since we'd only just gotten out of the fight-heavy Finals arc. Also, frankly Wolfram just isn't the same level of threat to Izumi that he was to canon Izuku. During the movie, Izuku's still incredibly limited in his One for All usage and is honestly mostly carried by everyone else. Izumi doesn't need that. Also-also, I found my version funnier ;-). But that might just be me.