-Gilded Green-
-Welcome to Midoriya Industries: Ch5-
The sun rose, and with it came another dreaded morning. It was a fearsome foe that required the strongest weapon forged of pure coffee beans to stand against and always came back no matter how many times you overcame it. And today it had decided to come with its most vicious henchmen.
A hangover.
Bakugo grumbled under his breath as he made his way through the headquarters of the Atlas Guard, a large and dull building made of mainly reinforced concrete. He’d gotten a little bit carried away yesterday under the shield of anonymity, mainly because he’d vastly underestimated just how alcoholic that stupid orange drink was. He hadn’t blacked out by any means, or even gotten to the point of it majorly impacted his judgment, but he’d had to wobble back to the wall more than a little tipsy.
And now he was in a pissy mood until the headache medicine kicked in.
Wonderful.
A pair of large metal doors hissed as they slid open, and the two guards on either side of the door snapped into a panicked salute as Krieg stomped into the observation deck in his full combat gear.
It was a small room, with a few terminals, and a small group of men in lab coats overlooking the CSA (combat simulation arena) below, through a mostly transparent hardlight barrier that acted as a full wall window. Off to their right, doing her own thing on her Mpad, was Melissa.
“Ah! S-Sir Krieg!”
All of the staff snapped to attention, and some of the Japanese members even bowed as he entered.
They, just like all of the upper districts, knew Krieg as a superior, they respected him, they feared him. He was the unflinching right hand of Midoriya, and to invoke his wrath for the wrong reason could spell doom to your career.
He had never and would never receive even an ounce of this respect without the mask. Without the mask he was Katsuki Bakugo, the mut that was allowed to live in the shadows of the upper district out of pity, because he was the boss’s childhood friend.
“Progress report.” He demanded as he stomped towards the scientists, in no mood for small talk.
“Y-Yes sir.” The lead scientist eagerly nodded and gestured for Bakugo to follow him to the window. “Her most recent implants have integrated flawlessly into her combat systems, and the upgraded software package we gave her has increased her mental processing speed by up to 12%. She’s always scored incredibly high on the tests we give her, but over the last few months her performance has been statistically flawless.”
Down below, the girl the doctor was speaking of flew across the training field like a reaper of death, her white hair flowing behind her like an icy wind. She ducked under metal fists, used her opponents as shields from one another to avoid rubber bullet fire, and systematically dismantled the small army of droids in a morbidly beautiful display that looked more like a dance than real combat.
She backflipped over a droid to avoid a strike, pirouetting while upside down, and cleanly cut off its head with a lazy swing. She landed gracefully, rolling to avoid a fake rocket, and then kicked the head at the shooter, as it fell to the ground.
It was a display that showed just how much control she had of herself, and how completely overwhelming she was to her current opponents.
Krieg’s eyes narrowed.
It was also incredibly inefficient, and proved she wasn’t taking this seriously.
“You’ve managed to bore her, doctor.” He grunted. “I would call it impressive, if it weren’t such a blatant waste of time and resources.”
“That’s what I’ve been saying, but they won’t let me use any of my new battle bots.” Melissa finally chimed in, walking over with a smile.
“M-Miss Shield, please, I didn’t mean to offend, but you said yourself that those are all untested! And they’re armed with live ammunition!” The scientist jumped to defend himself, but withered like a dying leaf as Bakugo turned to look at him. It wasn’t even a glare, his helmet covered his face completely, but just his attention had the man shaking in his boots.
“What do you say, big K?” Melissa elbowed him in the arm, as she made fun of his fake name. “Wanna test your brat against my newest toy?”
He considered it for a moment, before shaking his head. “No. I will deal with this myself.” He walked forward, each motored step of his armor echoing in the small room. “Turn off the droids, and power down the observation force field.” He commanded as he passed the scientist.
“S-Sir?”
“Did I stutter?”
“N-No Sir!” The man saluted and hurriedly began typing a command into the terminal.
Down below the girl paused in confusion as the remaining droids slumped over.
Two red eyes glared daggers as they turned up at the observation deck, the right one visibly adjusting as its mechanical iris rotated to refocus, and then they ballooned in shock as Krieg slammed down in front of her, denting the metal floor from the impact.
The girl gawked at him, before lighting up like a christmas tree.
“Commander!” Eri cheered as she skid to a stop in front of him and snapped up an eager salute. “I’m so glad you came to visit! I mean, I know you sent that message, but you’re so busy I wasn’t sure if you had the time. Have you seen the scores I’m pulling in on these training bots? I’m doing really good, and sticking with my training, I promise I-”
Bakugo sighed inaudibly behind his mask as he let the young woman ramble.
She was an odd sight, only 18 years old, pushing on 19, and yet she had so much cyberware built into her that she’d be a walking felony in most developed countries- and that’s not counting the fact that it’s all military hardware, either.
Five and a half feet tall, with long white hair that dropped to her lower back, and wearing the guard’s dull gray flak gear which was doing its best to hide her implants. But even with her pants tucked into her boots, and a long sleeve shirt that left basically nothing exposed it was obvious she wasn’t normal.
Oh sure, she might be able to pass as it from a distance, but once you got close the little things started to add up. It was the skin on the left side of her face had a plastic shine to it, the soft whirring of motors as she danced around, the way one of her eyes rotated in its socket like a camera lens, and how her knuckles would open to reveal metal joints when she closed her hands.
“-nd it’s just been the same test over and over, please please pull rank and put Melissa in charge of things for a little while! It’s always so much fun to work with her, and she always gets everything done ahead of schedule. I’m going to go insane if I have to fight anymore of these security droids! They can’t even be bothered to change the formation they send them in!”
This narrative has been purloined without the author's approval. Report any appearances on Amazon.
“I agree.” He said to her surprise. “You need an actual challenge.”
“Really? Awesome! You’re the best! Oooh, I wonder which of the bots she’ll pull out of her shop? She has so many cool prototypes that look like they would be awesome to fight against.”
“Melissa will not be in charge of things today, I will be. And I’m going to test you personally.”
Eri looked up at him in surprise, and two seconds was all she had to prepare before his fist rocketed towards her face. Luckily two seconds was far more than enough to someone with her upgrades. She easily ducked under the fist, and used the opening to stab her sword upwards towards his chin.
Krieg tilted his head, caught the blade as it stabbed past him, and clenched it in his hand, shattering it like glass, before forcing her back with a swing that displaced a rush of wind.
Eri grinned as she somersaulted away, and couldn’t help showing off as she did a flip in the air before landing on her feet. She swung her sword up, and traced her left hand along the part of the blade that was missing. A spark of blue lighting traced her weapon, and the pieces of shattered metal on the floor disappeared in a flash, reappearing in their proper spot on the sword, as if it had never been broken at all.
She flourished her blade and took up some over the top style pose that looked like she’d picked it out of a fighting game. She then smirked and wagged two fingers in a “come here” motion.
Bakugo rolled his eyes behind his mask, suddenly feeling much older than he actually was. Why was she always like this?
Instead of rushing her like some brute-for-brain anime hero, he reached his arms under his cape, and pulled a weapon off his back.
Eri’s eyes widened in alarm as the metal blocks unfolded, and jumped to the side just in time to avoid a magnetically propelled metal slug from a hand cannon. A sizable chunk of the reinforced wall behind her exploded from the impact, and provided all the incentive she needed to kick into gear and bolt as fast as she could to avoid the follow up shots.
The advanced motors in her legs propelled her at blinding speeds around the room, fast enough to easily run horizontally along the curved walls. Her footing exploded behind her, the mini-railgun shots missing her by inches.
Then she jumped, kicking off the wall and sailing overhead towards Krieg.
“Foolish.”
Bakugo titled his gun up and fired a shot at the sitting duck who lacked a way to adjust herself in the air.
But to his genuine surprise Eri swung her sword down with the strength, precision, and speed necessary to catch the round mid air. It shattered the blade into a hundred pieces as it was deflected to the side, but that didn’t matter, with a flash of light Eri was falling on him with a perfectly untouched weapon once more.
Krieg’s eyes widened in shock but he didn’t let himself freeze up, this was combat. Instead he chucked his empty gun at Eri, forcing her to knock it away, and triggered barrels one two and three on his right gauntlets.
A brief but intense explosion slammed into his apprentice and sent her flying backwards. She hit the ground hard, tumbling over pieces of destroyed robots. She stabbed her sword into the floor, bringing her progress to a halt.
Eri struggled to her feet, synthetic skin ripped away to reveal damaged motors and mechanical joints. Another flash of blue light filled the room, and not even a second later she was as good as new, the only sign she had done anything at all was how she was desperately panting for breath.
Using her quirk almost seemed to take more out of her than any damage she actually received.
Eri wiped some sweat off her forehead and looked at him with a wide grin, before crouching down and blitzing forwards again.
Bakugo narrowed his eyes and… did nothing.
Red eyes widened as Eri realized he wasn’t moving, and at the last second she desperately jerked her arm to the side, skidding the blade off the edge of his chest armor in a shower of sparks. Bakugo’s way of saying thanks was slamming a fist into her chest as she crashed into him at max speed.
Eri screamed and fell backwards, clutching her chest as her synthetic lungs folded in on themselves.
“You’re not taking this seriously.” Krieg said aloud as he stopped over her broken body, wires and electrical sparks falling from the hole he had punched in her chest.
“I am! I really am!” Eri coughed out as she used her quirk to repair the damage. “I just didn’t want to hurt you.”
“I am a meta wearing the most advanced personal armor in the world. It would take more to hurt me than a single stab with a sword, especially not by someone who’s more interested in flips and spins than landing a lethal blow.”
“I-”
“This is combat, this is dangerous.” He snapped in anger. “You cannot afford to hesitate for even a moment against opponents with a quirk factor. You’re treating this like a game.”
“I’m not! I promise! You hand trained me in combat, you know I usually don’t do that stuff!” Eri protested. “I just- I just was showing off because I wanted to impress you…” She said as she fidgeted under his gaze, embarrassed.
Bakugo sighed as he looked down at her, and was eternally grateful that his mask hid just how bad he was at hiding his emotions. He was harsh on her when it came to training because he knew that if he coddled her, and she eventually got hurt on an actual mission because she wasn’t prepared, he’d never be able to forgive himself. But sometimes it was hard to remember, that the most dangerous killing device to ever come out of Midoriya and Milissa’s lab, was still just a girl who wasn’t even fully out of her teens yet.
“...You did manage to strike a small railgun shot out of the air, that is most impressive. Your swordplay has improved. I will have to see to it that Chizome is fairly compensated.”
“Well it wasn’t all me, Mr Midoriya always hires the best teachers.” Eri said with a shrug that did absolutely nothing to cover up how she preed and blushed from the praise. “‘Course it does help that I’m a super badass cyborg.”
“Who has a flair for theatrics. Your pain receptors are heavily numbed, the screaming might give a normal opponent pause, but anyone who knows what you are will not be fooled. Do not count on mercy and hesitation to give you an opening.”
Eri sweatdropped and sheepishly scratched the back of her neck. Yeeaaah, she probably should have reenabled that feature once the commander dropped down… The bots were just so boring though, they had needed something to spice them up.
“You were weak when I found you, unable to fend for yourself. Now you are strong, but inexperienced. It is clear that these lessons will not be able to prepare you anymore than you already are.”
“Does that mean I finally get to go on an assignment!?” She blurted out, her eyes sparkling in excitement. “One that’s more than just following Mr Midoriya around and looking scary!?”
“Indeed. The company board has decided that our previous efforts against the New Dawn group have been far too passive and have proven inadequate. We did not understand the true scale of the threat before it was too late, but now that they have revealed themselves to us, they have signed their own death warrant. It’s time to crush these terrorists before they can do anymore damage. You will be commanding the Guard in my stead to raid outposts and track down supply hubs, meanwhile I go on a classified solo mission given to me by Midoriya himself.”
Externally, Eri was a perfect model of professionalism. Her face was stalwartly neutral, her pose was straight, and her salute was crisp.
“Sir, yes sir!”
Internally Eri squealed, elated that she was finally going on a major mission, and simultaneously fangirling over the idea of the commander going on a solo spec ops mission. Her thoughts were running wild on all the cool things he could be doing. One man night raids to eliminate enemy commanders. Defusing WMDs that could sink the entire island, and having to go it alone all stealthily so the bad guys wouldn’t see them coming and detonate it preemptively.
Whatever it was, it must be SUPER important!
-Gilded Green-
-Many Hours Later-
Bakugo slumped down on the same ratty wobbly barstool he had yesterday, in an admittance of complete defeat after having found absolutely nothing for the second day in a row.
“What can I get for you today, sir?” The bartender asked.
“The biggest glass you have available of that horrible Orange shit. I’ve been craving it all day.”
“Of course, sir.”
As the bartender walked away, Bakugo dropped his head onto the bartop. But it didn’t stop that same infuriating green woman from the other day smiling at him smugly from two seats over, and giving him a sarcastic wave.
“Welcome back to the low levels blondie. So how many women did you get turned down by today?”
“Shut. Up.”
-Chapter End-