NOVEL NEXT CHAPTER 049(Built Different)
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CHAPTER START---
"Twelve million and counting," Horizon says while scrolling on his phone. Looking at the picture he just took and posted outside the stadium. He, Death Arms, Kamui Woods, and Mt. Lady. "I've already got more followers than those three put together...they really don't know how to work the sheep," he mutters.
"And now for the first match!" Midnight announces.
His head snaps up and away from his phone, quickly putting it in his pocket.
Standing in the dark tunnel leading into the arena he sees the now constructed cement stage built by Cementoss. The crowd is going crazy as the first round of the 1-vs-1 tournament begins.
"Let's start big, with...1A's Class Rep, already showing that he's a prodigy even among all our genius aspiring heroes, Horizon!"
Horizon steps out of the tunnel, full PE Uniform on, the shirt unbuttoned for everyone to see the body glove on his chest, his logo in blue atop the white fabric, just barely distracting people from how the fabric clings to his chiseled body and exposes his muscles. The same symbol is in black across the back of his PE Uniform for the competition to see.
He takes his time walking up to the stage as Midnight announces Monoma, stirring the crowd into a smaller but still absurd wave of chaos.
Eventually both students are standing opposite each other on the stage, looking around to see all eyes on them. One-on-one Horizon's size shows, standing 20cm -8in- taller than Monoma, the much thinner and lankier blonde contrasting greatly to Horizon's now bulkier build, still lean but muscles clearly making themselves known through his uniform.
"Are both of you ready?" Midnight asks.
Monoma nods.
"Actually," Horizon speaks up, surprising everyone. "Since your Quirk is Copy I'm sure you've prepared something for me, but I'm curious, would you like to copy my Quirk?"
"You would let me just, copy your Quirk? Just like that?" Monoma asks skeptically.
"I'm curious about what happens if a regular person tries it, since it is the most powerful Quirk in the world," Horizon shrugs as everyone just stares in surprise, never expecting such a blatant and seemingly outlandish boast.
"Well, if you insist," Monoma smiles sinisterly. "Since you're the main character here I'm sure I can use that power to win this match..."
Horizon chuckles and pulls up the sleeve on his left hand, separating the glove and sleeve of his body glove to expose the inner forearm of his left hand, where there were no tattoos, gesturing for Monoma to make contact.
The audience is at the edge of their seat to see what happens.
Monoma raises a brow at the sight of Horizon's watch. "You brought a Rolex to a battle? That seems rather careless..."
"Oh please, the USJ Nomu couldn't even hit me, how would any of you ever manage to break it?"
Monoma narrows his eyes at him and reaches out, touching Horizon's skin with his fingers.
Horizon feels a tingling at the back of his mind and shrugs it off.
"That's odd," Monoma says. "I felt it, but...it didn't let me Copy it."
"I rejected your Quirk, I just wanted to see if I could."
"You re---"
"For real this time," Horizon once again presents his arm, "no tricks."
Monoma looks equal parts annoyed and impressed, but can't pass up the chance to become the main character for a short while. Without hesitation he reaches out, and immediately feels his entire body tingling as the Quirk manifests within him.
Monoma shakes his head a bit and stumbles back, a wide smile on his face as he giggles like a madman.
"You ok?" Horizon asks, slight concern in his voice as he and Midnight watch Monoma begin to hop in place.
"I feel great. Like I could run a marathon. It's like a sugar rush. Is this how you always feel? It's incredible. What does your Quirk do anyway? Man this is great. Everything is all tingly." Monoma breaks out in another fit of giggles.
"Oh no," Horizon says, earning concerned looks from Midnight and the audience. "Ok Monoma, listen very carefully to me," he raises his hands gently to keep Monoma calm. "You need to cancel Copy on my Quirk, and no matter what, don't try to activate it, alright?"
Midnight immediately walks over to Horizon, ready to rip her costume to sedate Monoma.
Monoma looks confused, then with all the energy in his body, his fight or flight response kicks into overdrive, "why would I do that? This is a trick isn't it? You don't want me to win! But I can feel it, I can win, this feels great," he raises a hand and swings it at Horizon, "warp away!"
"Oh crap... I didn't think his body would react like this," Horizon says, and everyone hears through Midnight's mic.
"Like what?" she asks, now seeing Monoma frozen in place, blood quickly flowing from his eyes, nose, mouth, and ears. "Monoma!"
"It's fine...kinda," Horizon says, holding her back from rushing forward and approaching Monoma. "It's just my Quirk."
The entire arena is deathly silent as the scene unfolds.
Monoma collapses into Horizon's arms and he gently places him on the ground, immediately summoning his healing energy into his palm and placing it on the unconscious Monoma's head.
"Your Quirk?"
"He tried to activate it, so it started killing him," Horizon says. "My Quirk requires the user to essentially be superhuman in terms of how much energy is in your body and how much information your brain can process. His body tried to rapidly increase the energy capacity within it, hence the sugar rush, and his brain tried to expand, tearing itself apart, hence the bleeding.
But that isn't enough for my Quirk. You also need to be able to comprehend what you process...meaning he literally wasn't smart enough to sort and apply the sudden influx of information my Quirk caused, his body tried to adapt by ripping energy away from anything that wasn't his brain to force more growth."
"It tried to make his organs fail," Midnight mutters out in shock and horror. "What kind of Quirk does such a thing, how is that even possible?"
"My Quirk ignored the safeguards that Copy has built into it, I didn't even think he'd be able to copy my Quirk, figured it'd be a dud. He's a lot better than I thought. But he just isn't built like me, to handle this kind of situation..."
"Superhuman," Midnight says, recalling what Horizon just said. "Will he be ok?"
Horizon takes his hand away from Monoma, standing as the medical robots bring a stretcher into the arena, "he just needs some drips and sleep, he'll be fine in a few hours, but I doubt he'd remember any of this," he shrugs.
As the robots load Monoma onto the stretcher and haul him away only Horizon and Midnight are left in the arena, "that's some Quirk you've got there..." she says awkwardly, trying to get the atmosphere back in a good mood.
"Yeah, but it's not meant for regular humans, anyway I guess this means I win, right?"
Midnight nods, "Horizon moves on to the next round!"
The crowd goes wild once again, as if they didn't see a teenager almost die in front of them.
"Didn't even have to throw a punch or get him out of bounds... pretty easy."
Midnight rolls her eyes, "try not to do things like that to all your opponents please, you're not supposed to kill your opponent, you're training to be a hero remember," she warns him.
"Hey, I didn't know that would happen."
"Which is the only reason you aren't disqualified, but don't pull a stunt like that again," she glares at him.
"Gotcha," he says before walking off the stage.
Making his way back to his class's seats he sees Momo wave for him to sit with her and Jiro.
"So you always put people in the infirmary?" Jiro asks with a bit of edge to her voice as he sits on the other side of Momo. "I just got out of there after you tried to fry my brain and now Monoma's in there for pretty much the same reason."
"Hey you attacked me, and as for him, it's not my fault he isn't built to handle my power, but it's not surprising, mortals and divinity have a terrible track record when they meet..."
END CHAPTER---
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