MHA: Horizon(Ope-Ope No Mi)

Chapter 229: (Meltdown)

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CHAPTER START---

Standing atop a small 6-story building. Normally a bustling hotel and restaurant but now entirely deserted, Law Matani looks out at the city of Kelto.

At the top of Japan's northern island, it was hours away from UA by conventional means.

Thankfully Law has access to things other than trains and boats.

Looking down at the city below, there were only a final few stragglers making their way out. The last remaining people before this city became a temporary ghost town.

Emergency service personnel were busy opening the manholes all across the city and entering, wearing full body protective suits, sealing them away from the leaked gas so they don't get killed by the fumes.

A few news drones could be spotted observing them, the heroic few entering the undergound systems to find the massive gas leak and contain it before the entire city explodes.

Law's eyes glow bright blue and begin releasing blue energy vapor as he opens a Room spanning 20km total, 10km in any direction from him.

SCAN!

He casually takes stock of anyone left behind by the evacuation services, noting that they did a thorough job, then focuses toward the edge of the city.

Where he could see the massive Kelto reactor resting on the coast.

Taking out his phone he gives Pro Hero 13 a call.

"Horizon, are you here yet?" Thirteen asks, he can hear the worry in her voice.

"I'm just double checking the city incase people got left behind in the evacuation, how are things at the reactor?"

"Not good, we have about an hour before this thing goes critical."

"Can we go in yet?"

"No," Thirteen says. "The engineers are still trying to flood the system remotely, if we open the doors the radiation will leak past the control room so there won't be any going back from that, this is their last chance before evacuating."

"Got it, so you can explain to me what the hell is happening then," Law says. "Modern reactors are made so well that its nearly impossible for this to happen. The fail safes should have shut it down by flooding it with water or by releasing the dampeners, how is this possible?"

"We aren't sure yet, but they can do a autopsy of this after we solve it."

SHAMBLES!

Horizon's Hero Costume appears on his body, and Scalpel is floating at his side.

Focusing on the reactor he senses some scattered paper beside 13 and swaps with it.

SHAMBLES!

He appears beside her, cutting off the phone call and startling her.

"Good, you're here, is the city clear?" she asks.

"All clear, now we just have to deal with this," he gestures to the massive blast doors in front of them. Looking back he senses the engineers in the control room, all wearing full hazmat suits as they stressfully work at the computers.

"You need a hazmat suit!" Thirteen says. "If we have to open these doors the radiation will be beyond lethal!"

"Huh, I thought you called me because I can handle radiation?"

"You can? When President Pantu and I discussed this she only said you'd be a good person to have around for this, she didn't get into the specifics."

"My Quirk is very good in situations like these, she made the right call bringing me in on this. Now, tell me everything you couldn't say over the phone."

"The reactor seals cracked, along with some of the gates containing the heat. That lead to a chain reaction of sorts that apparently warped the metal and stopped the failsafe protocols from happening."

"I thought that was impossible," Horizon says.

"On paper it should be, but I suppose someone did the math wrong."

"And the people?"

"A false gas leak has been reported, and president Pantu ordered Bubble Girl and a few others with Quirks that can produce certain odors to trick the people. The evacuation was necessary incase we fail."

"And the people in the city actually looking for gas leaks."

"They're wearing those suits for a reason, it'll give them enough protection to get out of the city should we fail. They'll be fine no matter what. But we needed them to also believe there is a gas leak, we need the media on our side for this.

If things go as we want, this situation will be resolved without anyone ever knowing we almost had a nuclear accident here. Japan is already under internal and external scrutiny on a global scale, we can't afford to be the first country in centuries to mishandle our reactors."

"I'm more concerned about what happens if the media knows I'm here."

"Why is that?"

"If they see I'm here, it would be logical for Shigaraki to attack UA, and if I'm here they can't stop Machia'. It'll be a slaughter, compound that with this reactor having a full meltdown...Japan will fall apart within a few minutes."

"And many Top Pros are at UA, so we wouldn't be able to handle the chaotic aftermath," Thirteen says. "That's why only the people here, Nezu, and President Pantu and her trusted agents are aware of this."

"I see," Horizon crosses his arms and doesn't speak for a moment.

"What is it?"

"Doesn't this seem too perfect to you? The most important day for me to be at UA, and this happens all the way at the other end of Japan, now I'm here and they're vulnerable."

"Not everything is about you," Thirteen says. "The villains couldn't know about your radiation abilities right? Its a fair assumption that you'd be here to evacuate people or in worst case heal people and rescue survivors, but that doesn't mean someone would do this just to get you away from UA."

"I hope you're right, so what's the plan for in there?" he gestures to the doors.

"I get to the nuclear material and use my Quirk, Black Hole, to destroy it. Disposing of that much energy rich matter will put me out of commission for a few weeks, at best, but its the safest way to protect everyone."

"Then I'll deal with the remaining radiation by shoving it into the carbon rods, alright, sounds good."

"Mhm," Thirteen nods.

"For the record, always knew your Quirk wasn't limitless," Horizon says.

"Oh yeah, what gave it away?"

"Well I have a brain, not to mention, if you could generate a real black hole, you'd be Mystery Class. Because we still don't know how those work."

"I always wondered about that, Mystery Class, is that true or is it a publicity stunt? Stanr and Stripe seems to be able to do a lot of things, like she has a hundred different Quirks. And you're similar, but 'Beyond Comprehension' seems like a stretch."

"Honestly, even as a Mystery Class and Quirk specialist, its difficult to understand but impossible to explain. Just consider it magic, that's all."

"Ms. Thirteen," the engineers announce over the internal PA system of the facility. "I'm sorry, but we weren't able to stop it, you'll have to go in. When we open the doors all radio wave communication will stop working, we'll watch from the cameras remotely but, you'll be on your own."

Horizon stays quiet, still not wanting the engineers to know he's her, incase one of them was a saboteur.

And only moments later the massive blast doors begin moving, and a wave of heat slams into both the heroes.

Horizon flinches as it crashes into him, feeling the radiation instantly attacking his body.

BOOSTER SHOT!

Blue energy vapor begins pouring off his body, healing him as quickly as the radiation was hurting him.

"Are you alright?" Thirteen asks, she sees him take a deep breath then shrug off the pain of his cells being irradiated.

"I'll be fine, but lets make this quick, the longer we take the further the radiation gets."

All of this happened while they could both hear Thirteen's Geiger counter in her suit constantly making noise.

"Follow me, and no warping," Thirteen says as she begins running forward into the hallway. "We can't afford to skip any of the chambers, so lets do this the old fashioned way."

Horizon is easily keeping up with the shorter woman, "how many Rads?"

"Right now, 7000, and climbing by the second as the containment material is melted away. If we fail it'll rocket past 30 thousand in an instant."

"That might be more than I can handle right now," Horizon admits.

"I'm surprised you can handle this many already, most people never fully recover from being blasted by 100 just once, but you're here walking as if its nothing."

"I'm more impressed by that suit of yours," Horizon says. "If it cracks you instantly die in this radiation, but you're completely unbothered."

"It was made to contain my Quirk back when I was training. If I lost control as powerful as I am now it wouldn't hold up, but its enough to handle this. Anything more than 12 thousand and I'll be in trouble."

After nearly a minute of running they arrive at the first chamber.

"Well?"

"One moment," Thirteen begins inspecting the seals. "This chamber is still perfectly fine, there are two more small ones like this to check, they're on the route to the big reactor core."

They begin running off again, and find the following two chambers are sealed.

Which only leaves one chamber left.

"Wow, can you handle that?" Horizon asks as they lay eyes on the main reactor core.

It was a glowing red sphere laying on the metal floor of what was a massive pool of water. Slowly melting into it, even this metal alloy that took almost two centuries of material science and clever Quirk use to create, and it was melting it.

"Too hot," Thirteen says as he begins pushing into the heat.

Her suit was built for moments like these, thanks to her Quirk and position as one of the worlds best Rescue Heroes, she's prepared for even nightmares like this.

Beneath her suit she was already drenched in sweat, her suit quickly losing structural integrity by the seconds.

Her boots warping the nearly molten metal floor with each step.

Behind her Horizon was in the doorway, his coat was already on the floor, burnt to ash.

Along with his vest, undershirt, tie, and even his pants.

All burnt away so quickly, leaving only his Body Glove in tact, but he could feel that falling apart as well.

BOOSTER SHOT!

For the first time he actively tries to draw out the energy vapor, calling it out to coat his body.

He gets small patches of it across him, protecting him from the heat and radiation.

"Ach!" he winces as the material of his visor begins melting and fusing with his skin.

BOOSTER SHOT!

His entire head is coated in the blue vapor, but instead of being blown away it clings to him like a strange jelly, taking the damage from the heat on his behalf.

Feeling surprisingly cool even here in the reactor core.

BOOSTER SHOT!

He coats his entire body with the energy liquid, trying to match the radiation as Thirteen uses her Quirk.

Standing directly in from of the basketball sized reactor core she raises her right hand, the removes the arm portion of her costume.

Revealing her slender right hand to be covered in black spots below the Hero Costume.

The skin immediately begins burning away and becoming black, dying.

"BLACK HOLE!"

She activates her Quirk at full power for the first time in over a decade, and all the black spots on her hand grow and fuse together.

It pulls in the air and the radiation from the room.

Horizon drops to his knees to avoid being easily pulled in, resting his hands on the floor to give himself more friction.

Thirteen pushes forward and makes direct contact with the reactor core, and slowly it begins to break apart and be absorbed by her Quirk.

The limit of matter and energy she can breakdown and absorb grows with mastery and experience.

But this object had trillions of calories, so breaking it down wasn't so simple.

The moment to outer shell cracks the Rads in the room jump to 18 thousand.

And Horizon feels his energy reserves take a massive hit, his Quirk instantly released more energy to match the radiation, and he felt hungry all of a sudden.

Looking up he only sees blinding red light, then 30 seconds later the entire room goes silent and begins cooling down.

He stops making the energy layer around himself and gets up, taking deep breaths, already exhausted.

And looks up to see Thirteen laying on the floor, her helmet and the front of her suit was torn up, leaving her body exposed and unclothed, at least in the front.

Both her arms were once again revealed, this time without the spots on this, showing her Quirk was unusable at the moment.

Short black hair and a cute face, reminiscent of Toru.

But as Horizon kneels beside her to Scan her body, the most noticeable feature are the eyes, pupils like event horizons, glowing golden and black, quite appropriate considering her Quirk.

"You're pretty cute," Horizon says as he Scans her.

Thirteen winces from slight pain as he touches her, then begins feeling a draft blow across her naked body, but is too exhausted to care.

"The radiation...rods," Thirteen says, her voice sounding frail.

"I'll take care of it, you just rest..."

SHAMBLES!

A pillow appears in her place, as he warped her into one of the room of the hotel he visited earlier.

END CHAPTER---

Happy 1 year anniversary to this story, we're about done with 45% of the plot, no idea how many chapters that means this will be but I hope you're enjoying the ride :)