Chapter 32 - Heroes Menagerie Part 3 (1/2)

This is another of those Core Chambers... but what do these cores control.'

Tsuyu crawled on the ceiling and looked down at the machine that was surrounded by a cage of thick glass, with a small crystal being placed in the middle of the machine... a small broken crystal. There was a powerful electrical charge that, just by being in the same room as the machine, made her hair try to stand on end. She mentally marked this place down, and noticed that there was a Hero Pod inside of here as well. The Hero Pod that was inside of this room seemed to belong to the hero, Ms. Joke, and there was the woman in her pod. Frozen in stasis until she was ready to be used, it would seem her power and popularity wasn't high enough to be placed with all of the rest of the best heroes in the Main Chamber. She had visited 5 of the 15 Core Chambers already, in the few hours that she had managed to slip through the bars, and she had noticed that so far, there was a Hero Pod in each chamber.

Were they guardians for the Core Chambers.

So far, the only Hero Pods she had seen in the chambers, contained Ms. Joke, Snipe, Kamui Woods, Mt. Lady, and Ingenium, all of which she noted down as having been captured heroes. Knowing she didn't have much time left, she started to crawl back into the direction of where her cage was. It was soon going to be dinner, and while she was in the cage, she was being treated moderately well. She was being given three meals a day, all of which came at the exact same time, and soon it would be dinner. He had told her this much himself, since she was suppose to survive the end of the world in order to be a reminder for the man. The fact the machines weren't looking for her was enough to prove that they didn't know she was gone yet.

This place was massive, how had the man managed to do all of this without anyone noticing over the years, and moreover, she had yet to see another living human being as well. The only humans were in pods, and all of the workers were robots disguised to look like humans. All of them looked exactly the same, and dressed the same though. She had yet to see the Man's face either, even though he had taken to dragging her around on a leash.

'I was the first to disappear, so somebody in my class might have put a connection there. If they can track me down, we might be able to destroy these cores... that might power this place down.' Tsuyu didn't know how the man planned on cleansing the world. If she could find where that machine was, then maybe she would be able to try and break it... or at least make notes on it. As it soon, she was crawling as quickly as she could to get back to her cage. She didn't have long now, and thankfully she was close to her cage.

”There are only 2 Pro Heroes on your list left uncaptured Boss.”

”Good-” Tsuyu froze and looked down at the room she had crawled in, and saw the Man walking with a robot following him. She held her breath, and she stuck herself to the wall, and closed her eyes. Praying that she could do this, she changed her body heat and the color of her skin. Using her Frog Quirk, she forced herself to camouflage herself to match the ceiling that she was on. It wasn't perfect, and her undėrwėȧr would give her away if anyone payed real attention to her. ”-and my machine, how much closer to completion?” The Man asked, and he sounded almost like an excited child.

The machine... she needed to hear this.

”Our earlier calculations were off. The machine will be ready by 4:30 AM tomorrow morning, but right now, it is slightly operational.”

”Good... Capture the last 2 good Pro Heroes, and prepare for a test fire. I'm going to announce to the world the end of days, and provide them with a little preview of whats to come. It will give them time to make peace with their end. There is a small abandoned island nearby has always been a stain to me.” The Man spoke, and with that knowledge, Tsuyu started to quickly and quietly crawl into the next room. She dropped down from the ceiling, and ran towards her cage, squeezing herself between the bars. She didn't have long, maybe a minute or two, but she had to get dressed again so she didn't look suspicious.

How was she going to relay this to her friends?

As it stood, it looked like the world, he family, her friends... everything she loved was going to come to an end. Tsuyu couldn't help as tears tried to escape the edges of her eyes, calm headed she was, but she had emotions like anyone. She squeezed her eyes shut and closed the tears out of them, wiping them from her face. Part of her wanted to give up hope, because if the world was destroyed, her hope would be destroyed with it. The rest of her was trying to deny that part of her, because she wanted to be a pro hero... and dealing with hopeless situations came with the job.

'He needs Naruto's... Hoshi no Tama thing to power that thing... if I get it, and break it... no, he mentioned something about a connection... I can't risk Naruto's life for a plan that might not work. If he releases the Pro Heroes on me, I won't get close anyway.' Tsuyu wasn't going to get close to the ball, and she knew it. She was starting to get an idea on how the man's Quirk worked though, after seeing him use it on several Pro Heroes, and she had seen several flaws in it. She didn't know just how he was able to control so many Pro Heroes at the same time, but the man never stood in front of a person he wanted to control for starters. He never let anyone see his face either, so one of those things had to be connected with a Quirk trigger.

-U.A. Hero Workshop-

'Still don't like her a lot...'

Didn't matter that Mei was currently their biggest lead to finding the Pro Heroes and Tsuyu, and it didn't matter that the girl was being so compliant with their demands... considering that Naruto had promised the girl a trip to I-Island AND had given her some super-high tech. It didn't even matter that, even Mina knew this, that both she and this girl had similar levels of enthusiasm about the stuff they liked to do. The fact this girl was so attractive, plus with how open she was with what she wanted and what she liked, finally combined with the fact she was kissed by this girl cemented her dislike. After this girl had kissed her boyfriend as well, and threatened to steal him if she ever broke up with Naruto.

”What do you have?”

”Well, I was able to trace the tracker in this coin... which I will dub the TPC... and I know where it will teleport things to. Also, with what I had in the lab, I was able to make 20 copies of the coin.” Mei spoke as she showed the stacks of coins. She had been able to remake them, without improving them like she wanted. It was easy now that she had taken the coding in it, and been able to replicate that.

Mina smiled.

”We can take the entire class to save Tsuyu!”

”Wrong! 5 of these coins will Teleport you to the Enemy Base... and 15 of them will Teleport you back here. You have 21 usable coins though, and my copy coins can only open portals for maybe 2 seconds... after one to three people crosses the portal, my coins will break.” Mei corrected her with some frustration. The coins she had made were inferior in quality to the originals. She had tested them by opening portals in her own lab, and broken quite a number of different coins doing it. Her TPCs were vastly inferior to the originals, and that angered her. Even with several hours of hard work, she hadn't surpassed this person's invention. ”If the Pro Heroes were captured... then only about 10 people can use the portal coins to get here... and maybe 45 will be able to come back through my portal coins.” Mei didn't like the limits of her own copy-inventions when compared to the damn originals.

Whoever made these was a frustrating super-genius, with a level of tech savvy that she couldn't even begin to compete with.

She loved the feeling of competition, and hated these feelings of losing.

”21?”

”The sound we started with... it can teleport there or back I take it. Mina, lets split up and get some people we can trust to join us, or we think will help.” Naruto told her with a nod in thought. They were going to need to build a small team, at least 3 fighters, and 2 people more geared towards rescuing. ”Can you get Ochaco? Her Zero Gravity is the best thing for safely transporting people.” Naruto's first thought was her. With her ability to negate gravity, their mobility would vastly improve, and if everything went south, she could be a good method of escape.

”Who?”

”Classmate of ours... So, her, and Bakugo and Todoroki?” Mina asked, since she figured those two would be better for battle roles than most of their other classmates, herself included. With her Acid though, she was a good fighter with both long and short range. Not to mention she was good for a variety of situation. Naruto thought about it for a second too, which gave her confidence in her idea.

He shook his head.

”They-”

The TV in the room turned on by itself, and it was completely static at first. Mei blinked in confusion, as did Naruto and Mina, when she reached for the remote and tried to turn it off, but it kept itself on. The static slowly started to vanish though, and instead of static, it revealed a man in a black suit with a white mask, standing on a boat with a view of an island behind him. The man's arms were crossed behind his back, and sitting next to him was a briefcase.

”Hello world, my Master wishes to relay a message to the world. Don't bother trying to turn the TV off, the signals are all being interrupted. My Master wishes all of you have been having a good day-” The Minion bowed to the camera slowly, and politely. His robotic-like voice lacked any emotion, showing on sincerity in his words.

”What the hell?” Naruto asked quietly, and he wasn't the only one.

”Total robot.” Mei pointed at the guy on the screen, and guessed. She was sure that man was a robot made to look like a person, his movements completely gave him away in her eyes. If the man had built a coin capable of bending space and time, then he was capable of building a robot that could seriously pass for a human in looks. ”What is that in the sky above that island?” Mei asked with some curiosity in her voice.

It was massive, visible from a distance, maybe the size of a western castle.

It started to fly down out of the clouds into frame, and it looked like a high-tech flying castle, with several flying rings around it. It had a massive cannon coming out of the bottom of the fortress, and it was unknown what was keeping this giant metal masterpiece in the air. If Mei had to guess, it would be some kind of Anti-Gravity device that was holding it up, with some kind of flight control built into those rings.

”As you've all noticed, your heroes-” The Minion spoke, and the screen switched to what looked like a view of the inside of a beautiful cathedral. Yet, letting the walls of the cathedral were display pods, pods showing some of the heroes that had gone missing, and in view were several of the Top 10 as well.

”That's Midnight, in her original costume... these guys were the ones who broke into her apart... and might have taken Tsuyu!” Mina shouted when she saw a brief glance at Midnight in a pod. The screen switched over back to the view of the Minion that was overlooking the island, and the massive mechanical fortress. With that one look at Midnight, it was easy to guess what had happened to her apartment. Those people had grabbed her original costume for some reason, which didn't make a ton of sense to her from an evil standpoint.

Mei grinned.

”Bring me back some of their tech.”

”-have been captured. Any Pro Hero that could have had any hope to stop us is gone, having been easily captured with my Master's genius planning. Now, before first sunlight tomorrow morning, this world will be cleansed.” The Minion spoke as the cannon on the fortress, the one hanging from the bottom, started to charge itself up. A blue glow started to escape the bottom of it, and the sky started to darken around the fortress. Lightning bolts tried to zap the fortress, but they were absorbed by the rings outside of the fortress. ”Now my Master wishes you to see a taste of what awaits.”

”What the-” Naruto started.

The island was a beautiful island, it was an old abandoned island with a city on it that had long since lost human contact, but nature had blended with it well. Suddenly though, a massive torrent of blue flames shot out of the cannon, and liberally coated the entire island in seconds. Plumes of smoke rose up high into the air, and large amounts of hot steam rose from the ocean as the flames made contact with that as well. For 10 seconds, the island was bathed in flames of blue, and for those 10 seconds everyone could only watch (across the globe) in shock as the flames were cleared away... to reveal nothing. Everything that had been covering the island was gone, melted to the ground, or turned to ash and glass. The city on the island, gone, reduced to nothing in the wake of the flames.

Mina's eyes widened, and she felt a sudden fear echo through her entire brain, and even Mei, the excitable girl, dropped to her knees when she suddenly realized what was going to happen to all of them.

”... We're going to die...” Mei was going to die without achieving any of her dreams.

Naruto grinned.

Now it all made sense... those weren't just flames... those were the flames that were produced by his Quirk. Tsuyu's disappearance, since she was the last person in possession of his Hoshi no Tama made sense now. She had refused to give it up, and had been taken with it to that sky castle. The heroes all vanishing, those who were worth anything or could stop this villain... this supervillain... it made sense to. The guy didn't seem to want to kill them, and was collecting them for some reason. The reason why he could feel his Hoshi no Tama always on the move, and why the GPS on the coins were saying their portal location was always moving. The flying fortress was in the air, above the clouds, so naturally it would always be on the move.

”Everything we've done... it's for nothing...” Mina had tears form in her eyes.

”By the time the sun rises tomorrow, this world's cleansing will begin.”

The screen went black, and then a doomsday clock appeared on the screen, counting down until the start of the end.

”You're... grinning?” Mei asked with a shocked look on her face. Mina's head spun and looked at Naruto in shock, before he placed his hand on top of their heads. Mina didn't know why, but she could feel as if some of his confidence was flowing through her.

Naruto pointed at the clock.

”Now... our enemy has revealed himself. We know what he plans to do... we know where the pros are. After all, now we can focus on a single goal. Mina, go get everyone in Class 1-A! If he thinks there isn't anyone left to stop him since he has the pros... lets show him what students can do.” Naruto grinned wide and proud. With the final boss in front of them, they had a goal and a target finally. They weren't just searching around for clues anymore, and they had a time limit for when they would lose. Everything had fallen into place.

Mina looked at him with wide eyes.

”You have a plan?”

”You think we can win?” Mei asked over Mina, and Naruto slammed his hand on the table. The two of them both jumped in shock, the fear they had been feeling was gone. They could only look in his blue eyes, and see nothing but confidence.

”Mei, I need you to track where that Fortress is going to start, what part of Japan he's going to start his cleansing... right now, I'm sure the air force and navy are going to try their best to fight, and the pro heroes that weren't captured will be helping them... I have no doubt in my mind they won't be able to do anything. You want to go to I-Island right Mei, then you better hurry!” Naruto pointed at her. Her eyes widened in shock, before she nodded and opened up her computer. She plugged some wires into a coin, and she started to look over the GPS coordinates that were constantly changing.

She could track the fortress, it was possible, meaning that Naruto might have a plan.

”The fortress will reach land at this spot... I'll send the coordinates to your phone.” Mei typed away as fast as she could. Naruto heard his phone go off, showing she sent them to him. She worked as fast as she could, and slowly a smile worked it's way back on her face.”You're not going to use the coins?” Mei asked with a confused look when she saw Naruto preparing to head out.

He grabbed a single coin from her, the original coin.

-The Beach (3 Hours Later)-

”Are you sure anyone is going to come?”

Mina stood with Naruto as the two of them looked at the fortress in the distance, and it was a distance away from them now. They were watching as jet fighters tried to fight against it, only to be shot down out of the sky. Naruto saluted the fallen men in the sky, since their sacrifice was a noble one. Trying to defend the lives on not only their own nation, but also the world. Sadly, this wasn't going to happen without a loss of life this time, and Naruto wanted to make sure these brave men were honored for their sacrifice... honored by victory.