Lightning Serenade

Chapter 105: Finale III

 "We need something to keep their hands busy, or I'm going to end up like Deku next," Full Throttle hissed backwards toward his companions in crime.

Razor's eyes locked on something shiny and purple and decided to enact the first of many demands. "Yo, Grape Juice!" he yelled, immediately getting the attention of the short hero who approached slowly, cautiously. "Give each of our hostages one of those," Razor demanded, pointing vaguely at his own head to show what he meant. "The conscious ones at least."

To their surprise, Grape Juice shrugged, pulled off two of the pop-off balls from the top of his head, and walked around the outside circle of the group, making sure to keep a comfortable distance while also being within a good tossing distance to get the intended object to the intended target. He didn't even try to "accidentally" miss and hit the villains behind the hostages instead. It was a little too easy if the villains had anything to say about it.

The little girl currently sitting on the ground in front of Full Throttle easily caught the ball, gave a hesitant little sniff and wiped the tears from her face with her arms without removing her hands from the ball, and then gave a wondrous little laugh that seemingly escaped her throat without permission. It would have been a very cute moment if any press were still around to capture it on film, showing the world how the villains didn't care who they took captive in their mission to tear the world down, including this cute, innocent, little girl.

Then the girl experimentally bounced the ball on the pavement in front of her.

Haze groaned. "What the f–"

"Language!" the old man hissed, already knowing what was coming.

What was his quirk anyway? Some kind of fortune telling, maybe? Probably not, considering all of the times they found themselves tied up with villains. Twice more than the usual person was the running tally so far, by Haze's count.

"Why isn't your quirk working?" Haze asked then, directed to Grape Juice.

"It is," Grape Juice said, a fine line of offense running straight through the words as he sniffed with indignation. "The stickiness depends on my mood."

Haze groaned. Of course it did.

"Well, we didn't know that!"

"Why would I make that public knowledge?" Grape Juice shot back.

"Why would we essentially ask for bouncy balls for our hostages?!" Haze argued back, exasperation clearly in his voice.

The old man watching the argument with amusement not well-hidden on his face wasn't helping.

"Well, our other option was UNO," Ingenium offered on his approach from his successful crowd-control mission if the now-empty streets were any indication, "so I thought it was very creative!"

"... What?" was Haze's intelligent response.

Full Throttle groaned. "Fork Brigade?" he guessed.

"Reporting for duty!" Uravity chimed.

"Put the poker chips back!" Ingenium demanded suddenly, sounding oddly like a disappointed father figure.

The villains turned to see an approaching Creati and Earphone Jack, the latter holding a silver box that probably had the said poker chips. Earphone Jack stopped in her tracks and made a vague noise of displeasure, but no actual words left her mouth.

Ingenium responded to the weird communication effort anyway, like he understood exactly. "She's a child! We're not gambling with a child!"

"Have you seen her acting skills?" Deku chimed from where he lay slumped in Razor's grip, eyes still closed, making Razor startle. "If we risk gambling with this child, we will lose. Her poker face will be unlike anything you've experienced before, I guarantee it. It's best we don't take the risk."