Strings (BNHA x OC) [Rewrite]

46 || Regret

It hadn't taken Hawks long to decipher why the heroes had attacked. It wasn't for him, no, getting him would be a bonus to their efforts. They were after Puppet.

When he had last looked at Puppet's case file, he remembered her having a recorded 137 murders to her name. Police had undoubtedly missed several homicides on top of that, so there was no telling what the true number was.

Puppet had been committing murders, whereas Hawks wasn't. She was a villain who had been left to her desires for too long; he was a former hero who had no overarching ill-will towards society.

They'll kill her.

There was no doubt in Hawks' mind that if it came down to it, they would, in fact, kill Puppet. All heroes are trained to kill if there is no other option — he knew because he'd been trained the same. He knew that Puppet certainly fit the bill of who to kill. She was powerful — too powerful to be left alone, not to mention the fact that she escaped out of Tartarus.

"Hawks!" Endeavor's voice was as loud as ever.

Right. Puppet had been launched away from Endeavor before she'd even landed a hit. There was too much dust and smoke clouding the air, so he didn't know where she was now. All he could hope was that she was managing without him.

Hawks circled Endeavor, staying hidden in the thick dust and smoke that was still lingering. He had his visor, so he didn't worry about anything getting in his eyes while flying.

"Hawks! I know you can hear me!"

Hawks' brow furrowed. He never thought that he'd end up like his senior colleague, but here he was, fighting back against top heroes to keep a villain—a villain that he loved no less—out of harms way.

Looking back, he knew that he never should have met Puppet. If he hadn't, they wouldn't be fighting against Endeavor's agency. But, life tends to have a funny way of not going as planned.

"Hawks, you can hear me and you know why I'm here!" Endeavor yelled. "Stop resisting and come quietly!"

"Yeah, I hear ya, Endeavor!" Hawks called back, quickly changing his flight path so that he wouldn't be in the flame hero's line of fire if he decided to attack. "But I can't do that!"

Hawks knew that Endeavor had his sidekicks nearby as backup, and he also knew that with the huge cloud of dust, the hero couldn't see any of them. That meant that he couldn't shoot off big bursts of flames and risk hitting anyone on his side.

Hawks could hear yells coming from the dust cloud, each of them sounding pained. Puppet was to blame for that, he was sure.

Hawks slid his coat off and placed a few of his feathers into it. He flew the jacket around in the dust near Endeavor as a decoy so that he would believe that the winged man was still circling around him. The cheap trick wouldn't buy much time, but it would buy some time nonetheless.

Hawks quickly left and flew in the direction of the yells. He dove into the dust, but before he got too far, he had to quickly dodge back and away from black strings that sliced through the haze. They missed, but more came his direction. He swiftly cut them with a swing of his wing before diving towards the origin of the strings.

He quickly came upon Puppet, appearing in front of her. He speedily grabbed her hands, making sure she didn't use more strings to slice him to pieces.

"It's me, it's me, it's me," he said quickly.

"Hawks." Puppet let out a heavy, relieved exhale, pulling her hands away.

Behind her, Hawks could make out several people—likely corpses—on the ground. Some of them were badly dismembered, others only lying motionless. He had seen details of her crimes in files, they were to put it simply, gruesome, but seeing blood pooling under severed body parts in person was horrific.

Hawks noticed that Puppet looked roughed up, her outfit stained with dirt and some blood, but it didn't look to be from an injury to her.

"We need to move." Hawks grabbed Puppet's arm and pulled her into his arms, flying up into the air and away from where they were.

"Mirko's down, she won't come back into the fight," Puppet said as they flew.

Mirko's here too? Just how many top heroes came? Hawks hadn't even known that the rabbit hero was present, so there was no telling what other top heroes might have shown up. He swallowed and a bead of sweat rolled down his temple. This is no joke. We need a plan.

"Endeavor's still up and has barely used any of his quirk," he said. "You can't take him on alone like that, he'll burn you to a crisp. My feathers aren't of much help against him either; they'll be turned to ash in seconds."

They had little information and not enough leeway. There were very few options for them in this situation, but they had to choose one, and quickly too, otherwise they'd be done for.

Hawks quietly cursed under his breath. He swooped to the ground, placing Puppet down.

She's gonna hate me for this...

He looked at her with sorrow, his wings diminishing as he sent his feathers to Puppet and attached them to her back.

Puppet quickly realized what he was doing and grabbed firmly onto his wrists, preventing him from moving away. "Don't you dare," she growled lowly.

"Sorry, Puppet," he apologized, "but I can't let you get killed."

After most of Hawks' feathers were at Puppet's back, all at once, he wrenched his wrists from her grasp and sent her up in the air. In an instant, she was being flown back, the feathers quickly carrying her away.

Puppet's long hair whipped into her face from the wind, making her face sting. She fought against the vermillion feathers, throwing her body around erratically. When that didn't work, she tried to slice at them with her strings, but the feathers parted each time to avoid the attacks.

Oh, how she wanted to scream, to angrily yell at him for sending her away, but she knew that doing so would do nothing but draw attention to her. She was concealed enough by the smoke and dust that she couldn't easily be seen; she couldn't risk giving her position away.

She knew that Hawks was doing his best to get her to safety, no matter the cost to himself — and she hated that, she didn't know why, but she did. It may have had to do with the fact that he was acting like a hero, or just because he was forcing her away from him. Regardless, she couldn't do anything. All she could do was let Hawks' feathers carry her to safety, and hope that he would follow suit.