Showdown! The Best of the Best

Chapter Thirteen

The air seemed to crackle and snap as lightning lanced toward Danny, barely giving him time to weave and evade. In a tungsten flash, the bolt hit a tree behind him, shattering it. The earth shook as Deku leaped toward Azula, his powerful Quirk leaving a crater where he had jumped. Starfire and Vlad careened upward in an explosion of color, energy blasts flying back and forth between them.

"Danny, keep Azula pinned!" Deku shouted. "If you do, I can get some hits in!"

He nodded, his hands already glowing with ecto-energy, but his foe would not have it. Spreading her arms wide, Azula flung a wall of hideous blue fire toward Danny. Even with his incredible maneuverability in the air, Danny could barely dodge out of the way, and part of his black jumpsuit still caught fire.

"Ouch!" He screeched. Inhaling deeply, he breathed onto the scorched area, emitting a jet of cold to smother the flame.

"You're just full of useful tricks, aren't you, ghost boy?" Azula jeered, firing another bolt of lightning.

Danny managed to dodge this one as well, but failed to notice as it arced into a branch above him, severing it. He almost managed to dodge the branch as it came crashing toward the forest floor, but reacted moments too late. The branch caught him in the shoulder, sending him plummeting downward. Still, Danny managed to recover before hitting the forest floor, but felt a searing pain in his shoulder. He couldn't move his arm. It was likely dislocated, he thought with a grimace.

"Just because I can't fly," she teased. "Doesn't mean I should be underestimated."

"ONE FOR ALL:  FULL COWLING! SHOOT STYLE!"

Azula's head whirled toward Deku, her mouth barely forming into an oval of surprise as he came barreling down on her in a twister of sapphire bolts.

"MANCHESTER SMASH!"

Deku somersaulted down, the armored sole of his foot colliding with the earth. Azula leaped out of the way, but the impact of the teen's strike was immense and immediate, splitting the earth like a melon and creating fault lines that splintered the ground around the altercation and brought trees shaking down. Azula flew through the air with a grunt, flipping end over end before slamming sickeningly into a tree on the other side of the battlefield. 

She recovered quickly, standing up. However, before she could unleash another barrage of lightning, Danny stood in front of her. Thrusting out his hands, palms facing his foe, he let loose with a freezing blast of air. The ice around her limbs jittered and popped as it crawled over her, rooting her where she stood. Danny knew she could control fire, so he turned, locking eyes with Deku.

"Keep an eye on her," he cautioned. "She might thaw out faster than we'd like."

He jerked his chin toward the sky, where the sounds of Starfire and Vlad's battle could be heard.

"I'm gonna give her some backup." 

"Don't worry about Azula," Deku assured him. "If she thaws, I'll take care of her."

Nodding, Danny blasted off into the air.

Starfire seemed to be on fairly level footing with Vlad. Though Vlad could multiply himself, his clones were no match for the strength of the Tamaranian princess, and were swatted easily away. By the same token, Vlad's magenta energy blasts seemed trivial to Starfire, who either blocked them with her own Starbolt-enhanced hands or simply tanked the blows to her chest.

"Plasmius!"

Vlad's horned head swiveled down to where Danny hovered in the air, silently challenging him.

"Daniel, didn't your mother ever teach you that it's rude to interrupt?" He snarled, hurling an energy blast toward him.

Danny swooped wide, avoiding the blast and rapidly accelerating to hover across from Vlad. Seeing that he had joined the battle, Starfire gave temporary pause to her volley of bolts. The two hovered across from each other like two cowboys in a standoff at high noon. A wide grin creased Vlad's sinister visage.