Showdown! The Best of the Best

Chapter Seventeen

Deku awoke to a metallic hand touching his face and a cold sweat on his forehead.

"Deku, wake up."

His eyes fluttered, but stayed closed. The fledgling hero's entire body ached for reasons he didn't know why. It was painful to move, and the air around him seemed even colder than the hand prodding his cheek. Even beyond that, he felt a distant feeling of dread creeping about him, like he was in a place he shouldn't be. The steely hand now grabbed onto his brutalized costume and shook him rigorously.

"Child, wake, now!"

Deku's eyes finally snapped open to stare into the glowing green visor of Genji. He took in so much all at once that he almost fell into unconsciousness again immediately.  The sky around them was not blue, but rather, a sickening green color, like mucus. On top of that, there were no clouds. Instead, peculiar, ethereal,  glowing forms drifted to and fro through the air. The rock that the fallen heroes lay supported on wasn't grounded to anything, merely existing as a floating island of earth, drifting in a void.

"Where are we?" He demanded.

"I do not know," Genji admitted, helping Deku to his feet. "When I awoke, we were here. The Kriegbots and the villains are gone, but here we lay. Perhaps it is another part of Kringle's scheme."

Deku's right side felt as if someone were stabbing him with needles all over, but he bit back the pain. Around them, the other six heroes were slowly getting to their feet. Deku noticed then that Danny seemed to be completely awake and lucid, hovering a few inches off of the ground with his arms folded, as if waiting for the heroes to recover. As the UA High student took in the ghastly injuries of his compatriots, he began to notice that this place where they were now suspended seemed to share similarities to Danny himself in its ghostly nature.

The other heroes took in the otherworldly landscape around them as Deku strode confidently toward Danny.

"Where are we?" He inquired confrontationally.

"This is the Ghost Zone," Danny replied without hesitation. "The flip side of my world."

Deku's eyes widened in a mixture of terror and awe. "You mentioned this place to Starfire and I."

Danny nodded. "If we had stayed in Kringle's Realm, the Kriegbots would have killed us. I had to get us out of here, and this seemed like the best place to go."

"Maybe to you," Boruto scoffed, interrupting the conversation. He was holding his left arm and wincing in pain, his blonde hair matted with blood. "But, to me, this place seems like pretty bad news, y'know!"

"I hate to say it, but I agree," Killua concurred. "Was it really a good idea to take us here, Danny?"

"If we had stayed, we wouldn't have survived at all," Toph shot back, coming to stand by Danny. "I'm glad he got us out of there. Maybe you guys should be a little more grateful."

That seemed to silence everyone for the time being.

"I get the feeling that you didn't just bring us here to escape, though," the Earthbender added. "There's something else, isn't there?"

Danny's eyes squeezed shut, as if he were recalling an unpleasant memory. Reaching into the folds of his costume, he fiddled about for something before pulling it out to show the group. Deku's brow furrowed in puzzlement. It was a large, decorative medallion, presumably meant to be worn as a necklace. Like Danny, it glowed with a ghostly aura, but there was also something inscribed on it. Adorned in the center of the medallion were the letters "C.W". 

"C.W.?" Boruto read aloud. "What the hell does that mean?"

"Clockwork," Danny explained. "The Ghost Zone is home to millions of ghosts, and it's infinite. But Clockwork is one of the most powerful."