Lightning Serenade

Chapter 84: Metro III

Neito and Razor quietly and quickly made their way through the tunnels, feet moving steadily, not getting tripped up despite the haphazard shadows the flickering overhang lights were throwing around.

Neito had started to feel like something was off, like maybe they were being followed, but before he had made a decision to either ignore it or address it, a figure had crashed down from the ceiling of the tunnel, sunlight streaming in through the newly made hole where there wasn't a hole before.

All three figures coughed from the newly disturbed dust as they dropped into defensive stances as they regarded one another.

Deku stood across from Razor and Neito, eyes glowing green with a determined grimace on his face as he braced himself further against the ground in preparation to strike.

One second, Deku was covered in a beam of light from the newly made hole above him, and the next second, no one could see anything, everyone's vision suddenly filled with an intense, thick, opaque, white fog.

When the fog started to thin, Deku tensed further, but eased his stance to stand more upright instead of moving into action, seeing another villain behind Neito who hadn't been there before with a blade against his neck.

With a quick glance over to Neito and Haze, Razor swore under his breath, wondering if everything had just gone from bad to worse.

"Let us pass," Haze demanded, his voice barely registering above a whisper, but the threat all too real with the blade hovering above Neito's skin.

"I can't do that," Deku said, shaking his head.

"I really don't have time for this," Neito grumbled, reaching up and grabbing the villain's wrist, shoving his hand away from his neck and stepping away.

When Deku made a move to get closer, to instigate the fight, Neito also held out a hand to stop him. "I don't have time for this," he repeated with more emphasis. "I've gotta get to Denki."

"That's why I'm here," Deku said. "To relieve you so you and Mindjack can get to Chargebolt."

"On Endeavor's orders?" Neito asked.

"Not in so many words..." Deku admitted, eyes still continuing to scan over the three in front of him, waiting for any movements that would indicate that he would need to jump into action.

Neito snorted. "There's a bunch of civilians who are heading that way," Neito said, gesturing with a lazy wave behind him, "looking for an emergency exit that hasn't collapsed. They're being led by villains who are helping," Neito rushed with emphasis when he saw Deku's eyes widen, "so I can get to Chargebolt faster. Looks like we're all on the same side here, for once."

Deku sighed, straightened completely, and rolled out his shoulders before shaking the dust out of his hair. "For once," Deku repeated under his breath.

"We're going to find Hitoshi and get the hell out of here so we can get to Chargebolt and cancel out whatever the hell Full Throttle did," Neito explained.

Deku nodded and bounced on his feet. "I'll go the way you came from and make sure there aren't any stragglers and that the one's you separated from found an exit. If they didn't, I'll make one," he said, gesturing vaguely to the Deku-sized hole above him.

"Yeah, just tell them that Phantom Thief and Razor sent you, and the villains should cooperate easily enough," Neito said. "Thanks."

When Deku was gone with a breeze and a flash of green glow, Haze asked, "just like that?"

"We're lucky it was Deku," Neito said. "Why are you following us?"

"I was trying to catch up," Haze said, raising his hands in defense. "We started walking in the other direction, like we planned, and with how dusty it got, I was able to use my quirk to purify the air. Then I thought that I better turn around and help you two out, especially because you'd have to go past the secondary collapse."