Viridian: The Green Guide

Chapter 30: Back in Action

Izuku could hardly contain his excitement as he ran over the rooftops. Yes, logically, he knew that he had technically got out last week, but he hadn't actually been able to fight, so it didn't really count. He had gone to the beach that afternoon to practice with his slingshot and he had gotten a little rusty, so he should probably rely on his other weapons for now, at least until his aim improved again.

It took hardly any time at all to find a group of four men cornering a woman in an alley just outside Amplifier's territory and it took even less time to find the hero herself. She had her back to him as she walked her patrol route, so Izuku threw one of his marbles to get her attention. She looked around for a moment before she saw him, but when she did, her eyes lit up and she immediately started running for him. Izuku was so busy wondering why she looked so happy that he didn't have a chance to turn around and run away before she had wrapped her arms around him.

"Viridian!" she yelled. "You're back! How are you? How's your arm? Eraser said you broke it, are you ok?"

"Umm..." Izuku stared at her in shock. Again, l ogically he knew that Amplifier and the other heroes had missed him when he couldn't go out, but it was just so strange to actually see it. Somehow, Izuku had thought that they wouldn't really care if he came back back, or that his virtual vigilantism would count as his return , so no one would really make a big deal out of it when he finally got back onto the streets. It was...Izuku wasn't ready to deal with this, especially not when there were people to save. "I'm fine, but, um, we need to go?"

To her credit, Amplifier let go of him immediately and let him lead the way to the alley he'd seen. Since he hadn't been fighting for the past month and a half, Izuku let Amplifier take the lead. He was just planning on shooting a few marbles to distract the villains and let Amplifier take care of the rest, but then he saw the smallest of the four give her the slip and start to head toward the victim, stretching his arms like elastic to try to grab her.

Izuku ran to them and grabbed his pipes, bringing one down on the villain's arm, then started twirling the pipe to wrap the arm around it like a noodle and trap him. He earned an elastic punch to the jaw for his trouble, forcing him to release his hold on the villain as he stumbled back. Izuku lowered himself into a fighting stance as he took a moment to regroup. Thankfully, the villain had taken his attention off the victim and was fully focused on him now, but that also meant that more attacks were going to be coming, and that first punch had hurt a lot more than a normal one, so the extra elasticity definitely gave his punches more power. So what could he do....?

Well, if the quirk worked like a rubber band, then there was a limit to how far the arms could stretch and they would turn brittle in the cold. He didn't really have access to anything cold right now, but if he could find the limit...

The villain reached to grab him, but Izuku dodged and started climbing up the fire escape. It was a risk, but he hadn't seen the villain use his quirk in his legs at all, so it was most likely limited to his arms, meaning that if he wanted to stop Izuku from getting away, he would have to stretch his arms to grab him. Of course, there was always the possibility that he'd think Izuku was simply no longer interested in fighting him, and he would try to fight Amplifier or hurt the victim, so Izuku would need to be prepared to get back down onto the street quickly if that happened.

He glanced down and smiled when he saw the villain reaching for him. He started climbing faster. If he could get onto the rooftop, then the villain would be reaching for him blindly and he might be able to find some way to use that to his advantage. He had to dodge the moment that his feet hit the roof as the arms grabbed for him, but he kept dodging and looking around the roof as the villain continued groping for him blindly.