Chapter 39: The Emerald Sonic and the Falling Feather
Deika City was a fortress disguised as a quiet mountain town. From the rooftops, thousands of Meta Liberation Army soldiers—ordinary citizens by day, Quirk-supremacist zealots by night—watched the horizon. They were waiting for the League of Villains to stumble into their trap.
High in a central tower, Rikiya Yotsubashi—Re-Destro—adjusted his glasses, his stress-meter climbing with dark anticipation. "Let the League come," he murmured, his skin darkening as his Stress Quirk surged. "We will baptize them in the blood of the liberated."
On the outskirts of the city, Tomura Shigaraki stepped onto the main asphalt road, Gigantomachia looming like a mountain behind him. The League was battered, but Shigaraki's eyes were cold. "Dust it all," he rasped.
But the war didn't start with a decay wave. It started with a sound that tore the sky in half.
BOOM.
A massive, emerald-colored sonic boom shattered the windows of every building on the north side of the city. Tensei Iida—the Emerald Speedster—didn't just arrive; he impacted.
He dropped from the stratosphere at Mach 3, his internal engines roaring with a cosmic, radioactive green light. As he hit the ground in the center of the MLA's frontline, Tensei channeled the sheer kinetic energy of his descent into a localized shockwave.
The blast didn't just knock the soldiers back; it flattened three city blocks of MLA barricades in a single second. Thousands of soldiers were tossed into the air like autumn leaves.
Tensei stood in the center of the crater, his silver-and-emerald armor venting steam that glowed with a ghostly green aura. He didn't look like a hero; he looked like a god of momentum.
"The Vanguard is here," Tensei's voice boomed through his helmet, amplified by the Swarm's comms. "This city is under the protection of the Sovereign. Disarm, or be overrun."
"Kill him!" Re-Destro screamed into his radio. "He is one man! Destroy the speedster!"
From the rooftops, hundreds of MLA snipers and elemental-Quirk users unleashed a literal rain of fire, ice, and lead upon Tensei.
A few blocks away, the Vanguard's lethal blade, Giulio, was moving like a ghost. He was tasked with disabling the MLA's heavy artillery—automated laser turrets hidden within the residential chimneys.
Giulio danced through the shadows, his golden eye tracking heat signatures through walls. He swung his silver cane-sword, slicing through a turret's cooling line, but he stopped mid-motion.
The air temperature dropped forty degrees in an instant.
"You are fast, swordsman," a cold, melodic voice echoed.
Geten, the MLA's master of ice, rose from a nearby alleyway on a massive wave of frozen water. With a flick of his wrist, Geten commanded the entire city's sewage and water lines to erupt, freezing the liquid instantly into thousands of razor-sharp ice lances.
Giulio prepared to parry, but he knew the scale was too large. He was a duelist, and Geten was an elemental army. The ice lances launched, a wall of white death closing in on the Swarm's operative.
Flashed crimson.
Before the ice could touch Giulio, a blur of red wings descended from the clouds.
Keigo Takami—Hawks—slammed into the ground between Giulio and the ice wall. He didn't use a single feather; he used the sheer force of his wings to create a localized gale that diverted the lances.
Simultaneously, Hawks sent two dozen hardened feather-blades screaming through the air. They didn't hit Geten, but they sliced through the structural supports of the ice wave, causing the entire mass to collapse into harmless slush.
Giulio leveled his sword at Hawks's throat, his golden eye narrowed. "The Commission's pet. You chose a poor time to hunt us."
Hawks didn't turn around. He kept his eyes locked on Geten, his breathing heavy. He reached up and ripped the Commission-linked earpiece from his head, crushing it in his gloved hand.
"I'm not hunting you, kid," Hawks said, his voice carrying a weary, resolute edge. "Aoyama was right. I've been a bird in a cage for too long. If the Sovereign is really building a world where people don't have to be weapons... then I'm in. Consider me your aerial support."
Giulio lowered his blade, a small, dangerous smirk tugging at his lips. "Welcome to the Swarm, Number Two. Try to keep up."
The battle erupted into total chaos.
In the north, Tensei was a green blur, moving so fast that he was essentially in twenty places at once, disarming soldiers before they could even register his presence.
In the center, Shigaraki and the League were caught in the crossfire. "Who are these people?!" Spinner yelled, dodging an emerald shockwave.
"The ones who think they can stop the inevitable," Shigaraki snarled, his hand hovering over the ground. "But you can't stop the rot."
Suddenly, the sky above Deika City turned a deep, bruised violet.
A massive, starlit portal ripped open directly above the central tower. From the void, the Winged Sovereign descended. Nocturne didn't land; he hovered five hundred feet in the air, his cosmic wings spanning the width of the plaza.
Behind him, Rin, Shinso, and Aoyama stepped out onto the air, supported by Aoyama's Prismatic Flight platforms.
"Re-Destro! Tomura Shigaraki!" Nocturne's voice didn't just carry; it vibrated in the bones of every living person in the city. "You fight for the past. You fight for a liberation that only brings ruin. I am the eclipse that ends your day."
Nocturne raised his hand, and the violet butterflies on his cloak took flight, thousands of them swarming down like a glowing, cosmic blizzard.
"Vanguard! Students! Hawks!" Nocturne commanded. "Secure the city. The new era begins now!"