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“Freya, Onaka, stick to the plan, we’ve got this” Ayane said as Darwin charged at them. His speed was already above average for a human, indicating that his quirk did still enhance his abilities before he took damage, but he was a far cry from the speed he’d displayed before after being hit by Serena.

Freya ran forward to meet Darwin head on, using her own enhanced strength and speed to match his as she met the punch he threw at her with one of her own. The blows slammed into each other and cancelled each other out, but Freya began to get pushed back by Darwin’s larger size and better leverage.

Onaka used her quills to propel herself up into the air, detaching herself from them at the right moment to soar over Freya’s head and land a flying kick into Darwin’s face, knocking him over and creating an opening for Freya to pull out her syringe gun and dive down to inject a tranquilizer into the man.

Ayane stayed at a short distance from the brawl as Darwin struggled to get Onaka and Freya off him, preparing sedative knives like the ones she’d used back at Serena’s house in case it looked like they were about to lose their grip on him. Their first plan was pretty simple, if his quirk was empowered by taking damage, the obvious solution was to sedate and restrain him without doing much damage. The other way to subdue him would be riskier, involving pushing him above the amount of punishment his body could take.

It seemed like the plan was working, Darwin’s struggles were growing sluggish, and while he’d received a minor boost in power from the kick to the face and the injection itself, he wasn’t much of a match for Onaka and Freya’s combined efforts. But then Ayane saw a hint of blood starting to spill out from his mouth. “Freya, Onaka, pull back!” she said, darting in and drawing one of her shock batons and striking Darwin on the side of the neck as the two girls quickly did as they were told and backed away.

Darwin grimaced in pain as the current flowed through him, but slowly stood up and grabbed the baton with one hand, clenching his fist around it until it snapped. Ayane jumped back a moment later as his fist crashed down towards her, narrowly missing and striking the ground with enough force to leave a small crater instead.

“What the heck Ayane, you just made him way stronger! What happened to sedating him before he got hurt?” Onaka complained

“Look at his mouth” Ayane said, gesturing to Darwin. Blood was now dripping from his mouth freely, and he turned his head to spit some out.

“What? I didn’t kick him hard enough for that!” Onaka exclaimed

“It’s probably a tool he had implanted, like a false tooth with a poison tablet or something” Ayane said “something to do just enough damage to his internal organs that his quirk powers him up to a point where most sedatives won’t affect him.”

“Tch… damn it” Darwin muttered “always hate using those damn tablets, so girls, who tipped you off about how my quirk works? You three ain’t anyone from my crew, and not even my dumbest minions would risk spillin that little secret.”

“The daughter of the woman you tried to murder yesterday” Ayane said coldly “she figured it out in her exchange with you and told us. We’re here on her behalf to put an end to you.”

“Ah… that redhead from the festival… I should’ve known… It’s a shame I had to leave when I did, I should’ve killed her before she had time to mull over what my quirk could be.” Darwin said as he began to approach the three girls. “I’m surprised though, she seemed the type to come after me herself, not send others to fight her battles for her.”

Darwin’s pace suddenly accelerated as he dashed towards Ayane “guess I’ll just have to draw her out by killing you three first!”

Ayane scowled as she stepped forward, ducking under Darwin’s punch despite how fast it was and moving in as the fists of her suit deployed spiked knuckles crackling with electricity. With a grunt she rammed her fist into the man’s gut, the suit amplifying her striking force immensely and managing to drive him back a few inches as the electrical current surged through him.

Darwin grunted from the pain of the attack he’d received, but powered on through it as he clasped his fists together to smash down at Ayane’s back. His attack was interrupted by a jab to the side of the face from Freya’s staff, which revealed it also contained electrical tips to provide an extra jolt on impact, making him stagger a few steps. Then two quills pierced his thigh, missing his major arteries but still forcing him to take a knee to pull them out.

Ayane made full use of the opening created by Darwin falling to one knee stepping in and throwing a series of jabs to his face, then backflipping away as he swung his arm at her. “Plan B everyone, keep at it.” She ordered as she produced a series of electrified knives and hurled them at Darwin. He blocked them with his forearm, but the electrical current still caused him pain and minor burns before he yanked them out along with the quills in his leg.

Darwin snarled as he watched the three girls split up to surround him, staying close enough together to support each other, but far enough away that he could only attack one at a time. He glanced between his potential targets and weighed his options. If things kept up the two he wasn’t attacking would keep pelting him with blows while the one he did attack focused on evasion, using those attacks as distractions to keep herself out of reach. So he needed to pick one that was easiest to bring down and overwhelm them one at a time before his body became too damaged.

After a moment of deliberation, Darwin made his choice and turned, dashing at Onaka, while Freya seemed the easiest target, this girl’s quills would be a problem if they started hitting tendons or arteries, so it would be best to dispose of her quickly and not turn his back to her.

Onaka backpedaled away from Darwin firing a few quick quills from her wrists at him to score some light blows before diving back to narrowly avoid a punch, and rolling sideways along the ground to avoid a stomp landing on her head.

Freya charged in with her staff, striking Darwin in the back of the knees with all her might to try and slow him down as Ayane pulled out several small orbs and hurled them as his back. The orbs stuck to his shirt and beeped for a moment before detonating, the explosions making the man stumble forward towards Onaka, who had rolled onto her belly and displayed her back to him. As he stumbled forward she made quills grow from her back all at once, creating a true porcupine defense and piercing him several dozen times before he could recoil away from her.

Onaka retracted her quills as quickly as she could, but Darwin was done trying to deal with her, instead whirling around and striking Freya with a backhand. The girl tried to block with her staff, but the man’s enhanced strength easily snapped it in two and crashed into her, sending her flying across the room and into a wall. She fell and crumpled to the ground, needing to regenerate most of her bones after the devastating strike.

“Freya! Damn you bastard! How dare you!” Onaka cried out as she rolled to her feet and used her gloves to form claw blades, darting forward and thrusting them into the back of Darwin’s knee and ripping outwards to either side.

Ayane hurled another handful of explosive orbs at Darwin, but he swung his arm with enough force to create a gale of wind that knocked them away, the explosions cutting off Ayane’s vision of him momentarily as they detonated in midair.

Using that moment of respite from Ayane’s interference he pivoted on his uninjured leg and planted the foot of the leg Onaka had just stabbed firmly into her gut, sending her flying across the room and into a wall. She softened the impact with the wall by growing her quills at the last moment, but still fell to the ground, coughing up blood. Her suit’s armor plating had dispersed the force of the blow as much as it could, saving her from an otherwise fatal attack, but she was still severely injured and couldn’t manage to get back to her feet.

“And then there was one” Darwin said, turning to Ayane as the smoke from the explosions cleared “you three aren’t pro-heroes are you, no, you’re too weak for that.” He said as he began to move towards Ayane. One of his legs had been pretty badly damaged, so he wasn’t able to walk properly, instead limping towards her, but his speed had been enhanced so much it barely mattered.

“No, you three must be mere students. Trying to take on a full grown adult like me is a bit more than you’re ready for.” Darwin sneered as he sprung towards Ayane with a punch.
Ayane shifted her quirk into its activated stage, further increasing her predictive ability, intelligence, and reaction time, then dove to the side, springing off the ground with her hands as she flipped back to her feet and Darwin’s fist crashed into a wall behind her, causing it to crumble. She fired a cable from her wrist, wrapping it around his arm and sending an electric current through it to shock him, but it didn’t faze him.

“You’re not even fighting like adults, using shock weapons meant for incapacitation instead of fighting to kill” Darwin spat, grabbing the wire and yanking on it to try and pull Ayane in. A failsafe device in Ayane’s suit detached the cord in time, but he unwrapped the cable from his arm and flicked his wrist, striking at Ayane with it like a whip and knocking her back several feet with the impact.

“That’s because we’re heroes, unlike you” Ayane said as she drew another shock baton

“You think heroes always use nonlethal force? When it comes down to it heroes using lethal force is frowned upon” Darwin said as he dropped the whip and began to approach Ayane again “but it’s far from uncommon, when it comes down to it a hero needs to stop the villains and save the innocent, sometimes capturing a villain alive isn’t a luxury they can afford. It’s certainly not one you can afford, yet you’re still using those little electric toys and weak explosives to try and bring me down.”

Ayane grit her teeth, she hated to admit it but Darwin did have a point there. At first she thought the damage from their shock weapons would be enough to wear him down, but at this point it seemed like they weren’t even fazing him. Her suit did have lethal options available… but was it really ok to use them here?

“Tsk, you’re nothing but a kid after all” Darwin spat, throwing a punch to launch a wave of wind pressure at Ayane, then charging in after she evaded it to catch her while she was still in mid dodge. Ayane used her air step devices to propel herself through the air and evade the follow-up attack as best she could, but Darwin’s other hand reached out and grabbed her before she could put any distance between them. She tried to swing at him with her shock baton, but he easily grabbed it and ripped it from her hands, tossing it aside as if it were nothing more than an annoying toy.

“I can see the thoughts running through you even through that mask of yours, plain as day” Darwin said “is it ok to use lethal weapons? I’ve never tried to kill anyone before. What if I really hurt him? That sound about right?” His tone was mocking, going higher pitched to imitate Ayane as he stated her thought process with a sneer. “Grow up kid, this is the real world, if you don’t come at a villain with killing intent you’ll never even manage to beat him, let alone do so in a way that lets you capture him.”

Ayane struggled to break Darwin’s grip on her, firing off all four of her air step devices at full blast to try and propel herself out of his hand, but the gusts of wind did nothing at all to free her, instead only seeming to irritate Darwin more. With a grunt he drew back his fist and slammed it into her, letting go with his other hand at the last moment so he could drive through with his blow and sent her hurtling into a wall with enough force to leave a crater in it.

Alarms blared in Ayane’s suit as she crashed into the wall, sparks of electricity jumped from damaged systems all over her body, red lights filled her blurry vision as she struggled to maintain consciousness from the blow. Had it not been for her suit’s defensive properties, she was sure that blow would have killed her outright. Even with the suit, she was in bad shape, the suit itself was reporting severe damage to most of its movement systems, with the hydraulics that enabled it to move at all only barely functioning.

“Tsk, to think three good for nothing brats barged in and ruined my chances of patching things up with my supplier” Darwin spat “this is too damn frustrating. If you’d been pro-heroes at least I’d have gotten a good fight and my losing her would’ve been justified, but you three ruined it by sheer luck.”

Ayane extracted herself from the wall and took a deep breath, then aimed her wrist at Darwin as two gun barrels emerged from it. “Fine… I get it… we’re not going to be able to stop you unless we’re prepared to risk killing you…” she wheezed. Then she opened fire, the gun was a low caliber machine gun, barely packing any firepower at all, but it was still a gun, and bullets tore into Darwin and made him cry out in pain.

“Damn kid!” he snapped as he launched himself at Ayane

The moment he committed to his charge Ayane made two compatments pop out of her shoulders, each one containing a micro-missile that fired out and collided with him, exploding in a blaze of fire and smoke. Darwin burst through the flames, severely burned and bleeding from many bullet wounds, but still coming at her full force. Ayane dove to the side, narrowly avoiding his attack as he made the entire room shake with the impact.

Darwin yanked his fist out of the wall in an explosion of pulverized rock and swung his fist, creating a large wave of wind pressure that crashed into Ayane and sent her tumbling.

“Been a long time since my quirk got this strong” Darwin said as he forced himself towards Ayane, he was clearly in a lot of pain now, those missile strikes having done a number on him. His shirt had burned away to reveal a chest as covered in scars as his face, though most of those were obscured by his burns and fresh injuries now.

Ayane tried to get back up to back away from Darwin, but as she got to one knee an alert flashed on her HUD that her left leg’s hydraulics had given way, it was just dead weight now, and the additional strain on the rest of the suit to try and move her without any assistance from that part of her body was pushing the damaged systems of her right leg to their limit. She was helpless now, any attempt to dodge another attack would immediately push her right leg over the edge and fail, possibly making the situation worse as the suit’s weight acted on her legs without any safety mechanisms in place.

“That attack… wasn’t half bad…” Darwin wheezed as she towered above Ayane, raising his hands and clasping them together to bring down on her head and crush her. He was wobbling a bit, the blood loss starting to get to him, but not enough to stop him in time.

Ayane closed her eyes and bowed her head. “Serena… I’m so sorry…” she whispered “looks like I’m breaking my promise after all… but… I’m going to take him with me!”

With a defiant roar Ayane drew a blade from her suit and turned on a vibration function similar to the ones of her shock batons from the festival. The edge of her blade glowed red as she prepared to thrust the blade forward to strike Darwin as he prepared to strike her.

Then Darwin felt several foot-long quills pierce his back and turned to see an exhausted Onaka being held up by a fully healed Freya. Freya had recovered and rushed to heal Onaka, completing the process just in the nick of time for her to fire off one last distraction and save Ayane.

Ayane didn’t waste the chance given to her by the momentary distraction, thrusting her blade forward into Darwin’s chest, piercing through first a lung, then his spinal cord as she ran him through.

Darwin stiffened as his lower body became immediately paralyzed, slumping over as his legs gave way and falling forward towards Ayane, driving himself deeper onto the blade as it emergerged from his back. His arms fell to his sides as the damage his body had taken became too great, and he lost consciousness.

Ayane slowly shoved Darwin’s limp body to the side, letting it fall to the ground as she fell back onto her rear, her suit’s legs giving out after that last push. She stared at the blood on her hands in wide-eyed horror, breathing quickly as she began to panic. “I-I… I k-k-killed… I” she stammered, the realization of what she’d done dawning on her. It had been in a moment of life or death, full of adrenaline and desperation, but as that faded away and she stared at the still warm blood that had splattered onto her, the horror of her actions sank in.

Freya ran over to Darwin, her medical training kicking in as she rushed to treat the most critical patient first. She wanted to take the time to check on Ayane, but her injuries and mental condition were not life-threatening. Grabbing the medical kit from her harness, Freya began to apply emergency first aid to Darwin. Using lethal weapons may have been necessary, but she was sure that it would be much better for everyone involved if they didn’t become killers here.

Onaka made her way over to Ayane more slowly, as her body had handled Freya’s regeneration more poorly, and was weakened from the process. She took Ayane’s hands in her own and reached up to remove Ayane’s facemask to look her in the eyes. “Ayane… relax” she said, trying to sound as firm as she could in her condition. “Freya is going to patch him up until paramedics can take over, he’s not going to die. You haven’t killed anyone. Just breathe.”

Ayane’s breathing was starting to escalate into hyperventilation, but Onaka’s firm grip of her hands and unwavering gaze got through to her, and she began to regain control.

“That’s right…” Onaka droned soothingly “deep breaths… In… out… In… out… just relax. We’re all ok, we won… it’s over now… deeeeep breaths now.”

Ayane nodded, following Onaka’s cues as she took slow, deep breaths in and out. Her panic was starting to subside, and she was able to think about things more logically. Her blade had a heated edge designed to cauterize the wounds she made and minimize internal bleeding. Darwin had likely only collapsed from being knocked out by the injury and the loss of his lower body. If Freya gave him a few blood transfusions and treated his most severe injuries, he ought to survive long enough to be brought to a hospital for surgery. If he didn’t, it wasn’t her fault, it was him or her, and she’d chosen him. She had to tell herself that.

Onaka soothed Ayane until she stopped shaking, checking to make sure she was calm enough to leave on her own, she shifted her attention to assisting Freya. “How’s the patient” she asked

“Bad, but relatively stable” Freya said as she used her syringe gun to inject some blood into Darwin “I’d give him roughly a 45% chance of making it normally, but his quirk appears to be working even while unconscious, so the extra sturdiness and strength that’s giving him probably ups that to maybe around 65%”

“Anything else we can do?” Onaka asked

“Message Law, get him to warp us out of here” Freya said “I’d do it myself but my communicator broke when I hit that wall… and Ayane is… indisposed”

Onaka nodded and accessed the private communication channel through Ayane’s communicator device “Professor Law, it’s time for extraction, directly to the hospital, the target is in critical condition.”

“Copy that” Law responded “good work girls.”

There was a flash of green light, and the trio of young heroes and Darwin were warped out of the ruined basement and transported to the nearest hospital, where a team of doctors was already waiting for them. Darwin was placed on a stretcher and rushed off to the ER while some other staff members worked to extract Ayane from her suit and tend to her injuries.

Freya’s regeneration quirk healed Ayane’s body nicely, but the strain of it proved too much and the girl passed out afterwards, so she was brought to a room to rest for the night, with an IV hooked up to supply her with key nutrients so she could recover from the rapid regeneration.

Freya herself was fine, needing only a healthy meal to feel as good as new, and Onaka was in decent shape, but was still brought to a room to rest overnight with an IV as well, just in case her condition was worse than expected after the adrenaline wore off.

Law arrived on the scene with a gaggle of tied up thugs not too long after the girls arrived. The police carted the minions away, as none of them were in such bad shape that they needed immediate medical attention, and Law was brought to a room to rest for the night as well, having been roughed up a bit in his fight, as well as enduring the strain his quirk had put on his body.

Freya was sent back to the school to keep an eye on Serena, as the sedatives were bound to wear off sooner or later, and it would likely be best for someone she knew to be there when she awoke. And so, she spent the night at the school infirmary, sleeping in a chair in Serena’s room so that she’d be close by when needed. The night went by peacefully, the battle was done, now it was simply time to rest and recover. The aftermath of their efforts could wait until morning.

Description
“Freya, Onaka, stick to the plan, we’ve got this” Ayane said as Darwin charged at them. His speed was already above average for a human, indicating that his quirk did still enhance his abilities before he took damage, but he was a far cry from the speed he’d displayed before after being hit by Serena.

Freya ran forward to meet Darwin head on, using her own enhanced strength and speed to match his as she met the punch he threw at her with one of her own. The blows slammed into each other and cancelled each other out, but Freya began to get pushed back by Darwin’s larger size and better leverage.

Onaka used her quills to propel herself up into the air, detaching herself from them at the right moment to soar over Freya’s head and land a flying kick into Darwin’s face, knocking him over and creating an opening for Freya to pull out her syringe gun and dive down to inject a tranquilizer into the man.

Ayane stayed at a short distance from the brawl as Darwin struggled to get Onaka and Freya off him, preparing sedative knives like the ones she’d used back at Serena’s house in case it looked like they were about to lose their grip on him. Their first plan was pretty simple, if his quirk was empowered by taking damage, the obvious solution was to sedate and restrain him without doing much damage. The other way to subdue him would be riskier, involving pushing him above the amount of punishment his body could take.

It seemed like the plan was working, Darwin’s struggles were growing sluggish, and while he’d received a minor boost in power from the kick to the face and the injection itself, he wasn’t much of a match for Onaka and Freya’s combined efforts. But then Ayane saw a hint of blood starting to spill out from his mouth. “Freya, Onaka, pull back!” she said, darting in and drawing one of her shock batons and striking Darwin on the side of the neck as the two girls quickly did as they were told and backed away.

Darwin grimaced in pain as the current flowed through him, but slowly stood up and grabbed the baton with one hand, clenching his fist around it until it snapped. Ayane jumped back a moment later as his fist crashed down towards her, narrowly missing and striking the ground with enough force to leave a small crater instead.

“What the heck Ayane, you just made him way stronger! What happened to sedating him before he got hurt?” Onaka complained

“Look at his mouth” Ayane said, gesturing to Darwin. Blood was now dripping from his mouth freely, and he turned his head to spit some out.

“What? I didn’t kick him hard enough for that!” Onaka exclaimed

“It’s probably a tool he had implanted, like a false tooth with a poison tablet or something” Ayane said “something to do just enough damage to his internal organs that his quirk powers him up to a point where most sedatives won’t affect him.”

“Tch… damn it” Darwin muttered “always hate using those damn tablets, so girls, who tipped you off about how my quirk works? You three ain’t anyone from my crew, and not even my dumbest minions would risk spillin that little secret.”

“The daughter of the woman you tried to murder yesterday” Ayane said coldly “she figured it out in her exchange with you and told us. We’re here on her behalf to put an end to you.”

“Ah… that redhead from the festival… I should’ve known… It’s a shame I had to leave when I did, I should’ve killed her before she had time to mull over what my quirk could be.” Darwin said as he began to approach the three girls. “I’m surprised though, she seemed the type to come after me herself, not send others to fight her battles for her.”

Darwin’s pace suddenly accelerated as he dashed towards Ayane “guess I’ll just have to draw her out by killing you three first!”

Ayane scowled as she stepped forward, ducking under Darwin’s punch despite how fast it was and moving in as the fists of her suit deployed spiked knuckles crackling with electricity. With a grunt she rammed her fist into the man’s gut, the suit amplifying her striking force immensely and managing to drive him back a few inches as the electrical current surged through him.

Darwin grunted from the pain of the attack he’d received, but powered on through it as he clasped his fists together to smash down at Ayane’s back. His attack was interrupted by a jab to the side of the face from Freya’s staff, which revealed it also contained electrical tips to provide an extra jolt on impact, making him stagger a few steps. Then two quills pierced his thigh, missing his major arteries but still forcing him to take a knee to pull them out.

Ayane made full use of the opening created by Darwin falling to one knee stepping in and throwing a series of jabs to his face, then backflipping away as he swung his arm at her. “Plan B everyone, keep at it.” She ordered as she produced a series of electrified knives and hurled them at Darwin. He blocked them with his forearm, but the electrical current still caused him pain and minor burns before he yanked them out along with the quills in his leg.

Darwin snarled as he watched the three girls split up to surround him, staying close enough together to support each other, but far enough away that he could only attack one at a time. He glanced between his potential targets and weighed his options. If things kept up the two he wasn’t attacking would keep pelting him with blows while the one he did attack focused on evasion, using those attacks as distractions to keep herself out of reach. So he needed to pick one that was easiest to bring down and overwhelm them one at a time before his body became too damaged.

After a moment of deliberation, Darwin made his choice and turned, dashing at Onaka, while Freya seemed the easiest target, this girl’s quills would be a problem if they started hitting tendons or arteries, so it would be best to dispose of her quickly and not turn his back to her.

Onaka backpedaled away from Darwin firing a few quick quills from her wrists at him to score some light blows before diving back to narrowly avoid a punch, and rolling sideways along the ground to avoid a stomp landing on her head.

Freya charged in with her staff, striking Darwin in the back of the knees with all her might to try and slow him down as Ayane pulled out several small orbs and hurled them as his back. The orbs stuck to his shirt and beeped for a moment before detonating, the explosions making the man stumble forward towards Onaka, who had rolled onto her belly and displayed her back to him. As he stumbled forward she made quills grow from her back all at once, creating a true porcupine defense and piercing him several dozen times before he could recoil away from her.

Onaka retracted her quills as quickly as she could, but Darwin was done trying to deal with her, instead whirling around and striking Freya with a backhand. The girl tried to block with her staff, but the man’s enhanced strength easily snapped it in two and crashed into her, sending her flying across the room and into a wall. She fell and crumpled to the ground, needing to regenerate most of her bones after the devastating strike.

“Freya! Damn you bastard! How dare you!” Onaka cried out as she rolled to her feet and used her gloves to form claw blades, darting forward and thrusting them into the back of Darwin’s knee and ripping outwards to either side.

Ayane hurled another handful of explosive orbs at Darwin, but he swung his arm with enough force to create a gale of wind that knocked them away, the explosions cutting off Ayane’s vision of him momentarily as they detonated in midair.

Using that moment of respite from Ayane’s interference he pivoted on his uninjured leg and planted the foot of the leg Onaka had just stabbed firmly into her gut, sending her flying across the room and into a wall. She softened the impact with the wall by growing her quills at the last moment, but still fell to the ground, coughing up blood. Her suit’s armor plating had dispersed the force of the blow as much as it could, saving her from an otherwise fatal attack, but she was still severely injured and couldn’t manage to get back to her feet.

“And then there was one” Darwin said, turning to Ayane as the smoke from the explosions cleared “you three aren’t pro-heroes are you, no, you’re too weak for that.” He said as he began to move towards Ayane. One of his legs had been pretty badly damaged, so he wasn’t able to walk properly, instead limping towards her, but his speed had been enhanced so much it barely mattered.

“No, you three must be mere students. Trying to take on a full grown adult like me is a bit more than you’re ready for.” Darwin sneered as he sprung towards Ayane with a punch.
Ayane shifted her quirk into its activated stage, further increasing her predictive ability, intelligence, and reaction time, then dove to the side, springing off the ground with her hands as she flipped back to her feet and Darwin’s fist crashed into a wall behind her, causing it to crumble. She fired a cable from her wrist, wrapping it around his arm and sending an electric current through it to shock him, but it didn’t faze him.

“You’re not even fighting like adults, using shock weapons meant for incapacitation instead of fighting to kill” Darwin spat, grabbing the wire and yanking on it to try and pull Ayane in. A failsafe device in Ayane’s suit detached the cord in time, but he unwrapped the cable from his arm and flicked his wrist, striking at Ayane with it like a whip and knocking her back several feet with the impact.

“That’s because we’re heroes, unlike you” Ayane said as she drew another shock baton

“You think heroes always use nonlethal force? When it comes down to it heroes using lethal force is frowned upon” Darwin said as he dropped the whip and began to approach Ayane again “but it’s far from uncommon, when it comes down to it a hero needs to stop the villains and save the innocent, sometimes capturing a villain alive isn’t a luxury they can afford. It’s certainly not one you can afford, yet you’re still using those little electric toys and weak explosives to try and bring me down.”

Ayane grit her teeth, she hated to admit it but Darwin did have a point there. At first she thought the damage from their shock weapons would be enough to wear him down, but at this point it seemed like they weren’t even fazing him. Her suit did have lethal options available… but was it really ok to use them here?

“Tsk, you’re nothing but a kid after all” Darwin spat, throwing a punch to launch a wave of wind pressure at Ayane, then charging in after she evaded it to catch her while she was still in mid dodge. Ayane used her air step devices to propel herself through the air and evade the follow-up attack as best she could, but Darwin’s other hand reached out and grabbed her before she could put any distance between them. She tried to swing at him with her shock baton, but he easily grabbed it and ripped it from her hands, tossing it aside as if it were nothing more than an annoying toy.

“I can see the thoughts running through you even through that mask of yours, plain as day” Darwin said “is it ok to use lethal weapons? I’ve never tried to kill anyone before. What if I really hurt him? That sound about right?” His tone was mocking, going higher pitched to imitate Ayane as he stated her thought process with a sneer. “Grow up kid, this is the real world, if you don’t come at a villain with killing intent you’ll never even manage to beat him, let alone do so in a way that lets you capture him.”

Ayane struggled to break Darwin’s grip on her, firing off all four of her air step devices at full blast to try and propel herself out of his hand, but the gusts of wind did nothing at all to free her, instead only seeming to irritate Darwin more. With a grunt he drew back his fist and slammed it into her, letting go with his other hand at the last moment so he could drive through with his blow and sent her hurtling into a wall with enough force to leave a crater in it.

Alarms blared in Ayane’s suit as she crashed into the wall, sparks of electricity jumped from damaged systems all over her body, red lights filled her blurry vision as she struggled to maintain consciousness from the blow. Had it not been for her suit’s defensive properties, she was sure that blow would have killed her outright. Even with the suit, she was in bad shape, the suit itself was reporting severe damage to most of its movement systems, with the hydraulics that enabled it to move at all only barely functioning.

“Tsk, to think three good for nothing brats barged in and ruined my chances of patching things up with my supplier” Darwin spat “this is too damn frustrating. If you’d been pro-heroes at least I’d have gotten a good fight and my losing her would’ve been justified, but you three ruined it by sheer luck.”

Ayane extracted herself from the wall and took a deep breath, then aimed her wrist at Darwin as two gun barrels emerged from it. “Fine… I get it… we’re not going to be able to stop you unless we’re prepared to risk killing you…” she wheezed. Then she opened fire, the gun was a low caliber machine gun, barely packing any firepower at all, but it was still a gun, and bullets tore into Darwin and made him cry out in pain.

“Damn kid!” he snapped as he launched himself at Ayane

The moment he committed to his charge Ayane made two compatments pop out of her shoulders, each one containing a micro-missile that fired out and collided with him, exploding in a blaze of fire and smoke. Darwin burst through the flames, severely burned and bleeding from many bullet wounds, but still coming at her full force. Ayane dove to the side, narrowly avoiding his attack as he made the entire room shake with the impact.

Darwin yanked his fist out of the wall in an explosion of pulverized rock and swung his fist, creating a large wave of wind pressure that crashed into Ayane and sent her tumbling.

“Been a long time since my quirk got this strong” Darwin said as he forced himself towards Ayane, he was clearly in a lot of pain now, those missile strikes having done a number on him. His shirt had burned away to reveal a chest as covered in scars as his face, though most of those were obscured by his burns and fresh injuries now.

Ayane tried to get back up to back away from Darwin, but as she got to one knee an alert flashed on her HUD that her left leg’s hydraulics had given way, it was just dead weight now, and the additional strain on the rest of the suit to try and move her without any assistance from that part of her body was pushing the damaged systems of her right leg to their limit. She was helpless now, any attempt to dodge another attack would immediately push her right leg over the edge and fail, possibly making the situation worse as the suit’s weight acted on her legs without any safety mechanisms in place.

“That attack… wasn’t half bad…” Darwin wheezed as she towered above Ayane, raising his hands and clasping them together to bring down on her head and crush her. He was wobbling a bit, the blood loss starting to get to him, but not enough to stop him in time.

Ayane closed her eyes and bowed her head. “Serena… I’m so sorry…” she whispered “looks like I’m breaking my promise after all… but… I’m going to take him with me!”

With a defiant roar Ayane drew a blade from her suit and turned on a vibration function similar to the ones of her shock batons from the festival. The edge of her blade glowed red as she prepared to thrust the blade forward to strike Darwin as he prepared to strike her.

Then Darwin felt several foot-long quills pierce his back and turned to see an exhausted Onaka being held up by a fully healed Freya. Freya had recovered and rushed to heal Onaka, completing the process just in the nick of time for her to fire off one last distraction and save Ayane.

Ayane didn’t waste the chance given to her by the momentary distraction, thrusting her blade forward into Darwin’s chest, piercing through first a lung, then his spinal cord as she ran him through.

Darwin stiffened as his lower body became immediately paralyzed, slumping over as his legs gave way and falling forward towards Ayane, driving himself deeper onto the blade as it emergerged from his back. His arms fell to his sides as the damage his body had taken became too great, and he lost consciousness.

Ayane slowly shoved Darwin’s limp body to the side, letting it fall to the ground as she fell back onto her rear, her suit’s legs giving out after that last push. She stared at the blood on her hands in wide-eyed horror, breathing quickly as she began to panic. “I-I… I k-k-killed… I” she stammered, the realization of what she’d done dawning on her. It had been in a moment of life or death, full of adrenaline and desperation, but as that faded away and she stared at the still warm blood that had splattered onto her, the horror of her actions sank in.

Freya ran over to Darwin, her medical training kicking in as she rushed to treat the most critical patient first. She wanted to take the time to check on Ayane, but her injuries and mental condition were not life-threatening. Grabbing the medical kit from her harness, Freya began to apply emergency first aid to Darwin. Using lethal weapons may have been necessary, but she was sure that it would be much better for everyone involved if they didn’t become killers here.

Onaka made her way over to Ayane more slowly, as her body had handled Freya’s regeneration more poorly, and was weakened from the process. She took Ayane’s hands in her own and reached up to remove Ayane’s facemask to look her in the eyes. “Ayane… relax” she said, trying to sound as firm as she could in her condition. “Freya is going to patch him up until paramedics can take over, he’s not going to die. You haven’t killed anyone. Just breathe.”

Ayane’s breathing was starting to escalate into hyperventilation, but Onaka’s firm grip of her hands and unwavering gaze got through to her, and she began to regain control.

“That’s right…” Onaka droned soothingly “deep breaths… In… out… In… out… just relax. We’re all ok, we won… it’s over now… deeeeep breaths now.”

Ayane nodded, following Onaka’s cues as she took slow, deep breaths in and out. Her panic was starting to subside, and she was able to think about things more logically. Her blade had a heated edge designed to cauterize the wounds she made and minimize internal bleeding. Darwin had likely only collapsed from being knocked out by the injury and the loss of his lower body. If Freya gave him a few blood transfusions and treated his most severe injuries, he ought to survive long enough to be brought to a hospital for surgery. If he didn’t, it wasn’t her fault, it was him or her, and she’d chosen him. She had to tell herself that.

Onaka soothed Ayane until she stopped shaking, checking to make sure she was calm enough to leave on her own, she shifted her attention to assisting Freya. “How’s the patient” she asked

“Bad, but relatively stable” Freya said as she used her syringe gun to inject some blood into Darwin “I’d give him roughly a 45% chance of making it normally, but his quirk appears to be working even while unconscious, so the extra sturdiness and strength that’s giving him probably ups that to maybe around 65%”

“Anything else we can do?” Onaka asked

“Message Law, get him to warp us out of here” Freya said “I’d do it myself but my communicator broke when I hit that wall… and Ayane is… indisposed”

Onaka nodded and accessed the private communication channel through Ayane’s communicator device “Professor Law, it’s time for extraction, directly to the hospital, the target is in critical condition.”

“Copy that” Law responded “good work girls.”

There was a flash of green light, and the trio of young heroes and Darwin were warped out of the ruined basement and transported to the nearest hospital, where a team of doctors was already waiting for them. Darwin was placed on a stretcher and rushed off to the ER while some other staff members worked to extract Ayane from her suit and tend to her injuries.

Freya’s regeneration quirk healed Ayane’s body nicely, but the strain of it proved too much and the girl passed out afterwards, so she was brought to a room to rest for the night, with an IV hooked up to supply her with key nutrients so she could recover from the rapid regeneration.

Freya herself was fine, needing only a healthy meal to feel as good as new, and Onaka was in decent shape, but was still brought to a room to rest overnight with an IV as well, just in case her condition was worse than expected after the adrenaline wore off.

Law arrived on the scene with a gaggle of tied up thugs not too long after the girls arrived. The police carted the minions away, as none of them were in such bad shape that they needed immediate medical attention, and Law was brought to a room to rest for the night as well, having been roughed up a bit in his fight, as well as enduring the strain his quirk had put on his body.

Freya was sent back to the school to keep an eye on Serena, as the sedatives were bound to wear off sooner or later, and it would likely be best for someone she knew to be there when she awoke. And so, she spent the night at the school infirmary, sleeping in a chair in Serena’s room so that she’d be close by when needed. The night went by peacefully, the battle was done, now it was simply time to rest and recover. The aftermath of their efforts could wait until morning.