Lightning Serenade

Chapter 82: Metro I

No matter what it looked like to the general public, saying Phantasm 'escaped' wasn't exactly correct. It was more like she was forcibly taken out of the pan and thrown into the fire, actually.

"No!" she screamed, her voice cracking with the effort. "Just leave me here! Why are you doing this to me?"

"Just go through the damn warp gate," Dabi commanded, shoving a rough hand through his hair, ignoring the staples snagging on some stray strands. "It's almost like we're doing you a favor!"

"I don't want your favors!" she insisted, breathing heavily with panic. "I just want to be left alone! I'm sorry about the whole Chargebolt thing, okay? Just please—" her voice cracked again, and she stopped to take a breath. When she continued, she was much quieter, and Dabi had to strain to hear her over the alarms blaring overhead. "Just leave me here."

"Not a chance, cupcake. Come on! Up you go!" Dabi chanted with synthetic cheer as he hoisted her to her feet.

He was forceful, sure. He had to be because she wasn't coming willingly. Not only that, but she was putting up one hell of a fight.

Phantasm didn't let herself dwell on the fact that Dabi was as gentle as possible while still succeeding in his goal of getting her through the portal. She didn't have a single scrape, bruise, or burn as she stood, surrounded by the League of Villains on their own turf. Did it matter that she was unharmed in that moment when they were sure to do much worse to her before the day was out?

Out of all of the things she imagined, though, it wasn't this.

They had directed her back the hallway and into a side room that seemed to be an entertainment room with a television, various game systems, couches, and beanbags scattered throughout.

As soon as she was led to the room, Phantasm had done an excellent job of backing herself into the corner, but Full Throttle wasn't there to protect her like he always was, so it was probably poor judgment on her part. To be fair to herself, she really didn't know what else to do.

When they all started piling in, Phantasm didn't know what to expect. She was initially wondering if they were going to interrogate her, but why would literally everyone in their base need to pile into the room to make that happen? Hell, even Hawks was there. She'd heard the surface rumors of him going AWOL from the hero scene but didn't stick around anywhere long enough to know the details. Seeing him there among the League of Villains caused more questions than it provided answers.

"I'm Toga," the blonde, bubbly girl with the sharp smile had introduced, getting way too close for comfort. "This is Spinner, Mr. Compress, Shigaraki, Dabi, Hawks, and Twice. And you saw Kurogiri out in the main room, but he won't be joining us in here."

Phantasm looked around the room at the intimidating villains as Toga introduced them, but they were talking among themselves rather than focusing all of their attention on her. It was relieving to not be the center of everyone's attention in one way, but in another way, it was extremely frightening for them to be going against everything she expected of them.

They didn't even seem to want to try to frighten her, so their interrogation tactics weren't the greatest if that was what their intentions were for her. Hell, after dragging her through the warp gate, Dabi had changed out of his villainous attire and was just lounging around in sweatpants and an oversized T-shirt with two weird vertical slits in the back. No one else seemed to have had to make the change because everyone else was already in loungewear when Phantasm first arrived.

"Dabi said that you said that you didn't mean to target Chargebolt—"

"We didn't," Phantasm insisted, shaking her head frantically. "We didn't know that he was under your protection."