As it was, an explosion hit right to the side of it, bursting it to pieces, showering the entire battlefield left of where it had stood with acid, and the moment it hit the ground the concrete immediately began to disintegrate into smoke.
Mayhaps Shocker thought the plan had been to hit him with acid and hadn't hit it straight on.
...
That decision had saved Mina from learning whether the shield would have protected her at all.
Before Shocker could fire off another burst, this time at an entirely unshielded Mina, however, a burst of black web hit his visor straight in, instantly engulfing it and stripping him of sight.
Instinctually, the quilt padded man began to claw at it, trying to remove it.
That was a mistake however, as Izuku leaped towards him, and without the man being able to see him, he had no trouble landing a punch to his ribs.
The fact that his enemy was a quirkless, made Izuku pull his punches, and the blow would have simply cracked his ribs or so, or at least that was Izuku's plan.
Unfortunately, his enemy was wearing a piece of clothing made to protect him from shrapnel, and the blow didn't do more than knock him backward and knock the wind out of him.
Izuku wanted to press in, but instead, Venom forced him to duck, as a swing from Rhino came as if from nowhere, and barely missed his head. The grey horned titan had apparently made it back through the building.
He jumped back to put some distance between himself and Rhino, as the larger man swung again for his head.
As Izuku landed and got into an awkward stance, half hunched over protecting his broken hand, 2 things happened in quick succession.
The first was that a ball of Grey liquid hit one of Shocker's gauntlets, instantly making it's holder scream in pain and quickly unhooking the entire device, as the metal melted from the acid.
The second was that almost immediately afterward, the acid that had just been spread out over the street finished melting their way through the upper floor, and had seemingly hit some pipes, for a huge plume of steam burst into the air, making all 4 of them flinch, and hastily jump away from it.
Mina and Izuku both did so independently, whole Rhino grabbed Shocker and jumped out of the way of the huge plume of hot water vapor.
Izuku landed on the wall and instantly yelled down at Mina. Where the vapor had seemingly washed away the piece of Venom that had stuck to her head, making her begin to bleed again. Hopefully, that had been everything it had done.
"Are you okay Mina?"
"Y-Yeah, I'm fine!" She yelled back in a tone that made it clear she was in sudden pain again.
Shit. Shit, shit, shit!
The hell did they do now?
His gaze looked from Mina to Shocker and Rhino, where the larger man was helping the smaller one remove the loose pieces of the now destroyed gauntlet. The black goo hadn't left the visor thank God.
The steam made it hard to see, but thankfully, the steam began to let up, the pressure seemingly having seemingly lessened.
He glanced towards the hole into the ground, where he now realized the network of pipes ran in what seemed to be a tunnel. This sections equivalent of an oversized sewer apparently.
The underground of the park was interconnected he realized. The pipes that went beneath here either went to the water slide, or to the fire section.
He froze.
Maybe… Maybe he could…
"MINA! CAN YOU DEAL WITH SHOCKER ALONE?"
The pink girl's head shot up looking at him, confusion marking her blood-covered face.
It seems as if it took a moment before his question sunk in, and she finally replied.
"Yeah, sure! I'll do it!"
She trusted him. Now he just had to hope that her trust wasn't misplaced.
He jumped from the wall, and landed on the wet ground, fastening himself straight to the floor with webbing.
Then, gritting his teeth, knowing just how much this would hurt, he shot out two webs straight at Rhino's back. Then, with some motion, he formed the two coils into. One at his end, and forcing himself to grab the rope of black with both hands, his shattered fingers screaming in pain unlike any he had ever felt since he wrenched his foot, he WRENCHED Rhino off his feet and into the air, SLAMMING him down straight into the now open hole.
He didn't stop there though. He couldn't. Not if he wanted to actually win here. So, instead, his poor, poor hand still screaming in pain, he sprang after him and jumped down into the hole.
He landed straight on Rhino's back, toppling the giant who had just tried to rise, right back into the ground again.
The acid had seemingly evaporated at this level, and Izuku didn't fail to understand why.
The moment he jumped down, the heat washed over him, like he had just jumped straight down into an oven.
-We really, REALLY hope you know what you're doing Izuku.- Venom said in his mind, in a tone that was a strange mix between fear and curiousness.
So did he.
The tunnel wasn't exactly the largest thing in the world, but it was large enough that Rhino barely was able to stand fully upright, with his horn barely not hitting the roof.
This tunnel was made so that people were able to comfortably move through it to maintain the pipes, for whatever they were used for.
He rather doubted they were this damned hot during maintenance though.
"Man, I fucking hate sewer levels," Rhino muttered as he got back up to his feet.
"It's… It isn't a sewer. This is for the rest of the park!" Izuku replied.
Rhino frowned, beads of sweat beginning to form around his brows.
"What, this stuff goes to the fire zone?" He furrowed his brows, as he suddenly began sniffing. "Yeah, now that you mention it, I didn't think this steam smelled like water. What do you guys use for this crap anyway?"
"No… No idea." Huh. Izuku hadn't really considered it, but he didn't actually smell much when he had this mask in. That was of course completely logical, but he hadn't considered it before.
"Anyway kid, you really wanna have our glorious final bout here?" He motioned towards the pipelined walls.
"It's not exactly a glorious place. Not to mention your spider jumping and running around won't work here kid. Here it'll just be good old fisticuffs.".
In response, Izuku fell into a stance, this time forcing his broken hand up, and not cradling it.
"I'm sure. This will be where we finish this."
Rhino stared at him for a moment of silence, making Izuku thank him in his mind the longer this dragged out, the better.
"Damn, you're actually serious?"
Then he burst into a wide grin, looking like a mountain had suddenly taken a face.
"Man, it's been a while since I met a guy with convictions in his own stuff. You know, the boss actually wants us to recruit promising young spitfires when we meet them. I could go on and give you the traditional Villainy offer of you joining us, but frankly…" His grin turned serious." If you were the kind who would turn on his own, you wouldn't be much of a hero now would you?"
"No. I wouldn't."
"Excellent!" He rolled his arms in a windup manner, stretching his muscles.
"By the way, I just realized, you never did tell me your name."
"My… Name?"
"Yeah, your name. Not your birth name, your real name, the name you chose yourself. The name you want history to remember you by. What is it?"
The tone of the question was friendly and jovial, it was an honest question, by a soul who truly wanted to know.
For Izuku though, the question came completely out of left field. Who was he? He was Izuku Midoriya. He had been a shy weakling obsessed with heroism, who had made a bargain with a being from beyond the stars for power.
There was a name from that period of his life. One an old friend had labeled him with, not out of affection, but to put him down.
Deku.
He hated that name.
He remembered his childhood where he had proposed many potential hero names.
For a split second, he almost blurted out one of them.
But he didn't. Mighty Man, Captain All Might, or All Might Junior were the product of a child, and he wasn't a child anymore.
And even if he was, he wasn't all Might's child.
That was Uraraka, not him.
The idea of calling himself Venom briefly fluttered through his mind, but he didn't say that either.
He wasn't Venom. No more than Venom was him.
He thought for a moment, before just admitting the truth.
"I don't have one."
Rhino's face went into a comical shock like Izuku had just admitted something completely out of left field, he would never have imagined.
"You don't have a name?!" Rhino proclaimed in a tone that begged for him to add "Egads!" at the end.
"You gotta make yourself a name kid! Being a hero and a villain is all about remaking yourself into something new, something better, and superior to what you were before! And that journey starts with your new name!"
That… wasn't too far off from his life after bonding actually.
"Your name is important kid! It's your legacy, your mark in history, it's what makes you you! If you die here, do you think anyone is going to remember that random kid from Yuei that died in his first week?"
"I'm not go ing to die here."
Rhino suddenly pointed a finger at him.
"See? THAT is exactly what I'm talking about. You got guts kid! You've seen what I can do, and you're still willing to go toe to toe with me, Mano a Mano! That's more than half the American Heroes I've met. And yet you still plan to come at me intending to win! Win or lose, it's a course of actions that anyone can be proud of!"
"But instead of tying that glory to a name, a symbol, something larger than yourself, you remain in the world of common people! Never rising above the rest! You gotta have a name kid! Something amazing! Something spectacular! Something you can be proud to attach every single action you ever make to!"
"Okay, but… I still don't have one right now."
Rhino glared at him. Then sighed.
"Alright then, nameless hero. I shall remember you. One or way or another, despite your lack of name. Now… Let's begin-"
...
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