The Elders and High Father made a sort of circle around the 5 people.

It was kind of freaky. Like a magic circle.

Shine had her sword out and looked wary.

Mirko and Hawks were on edge.

Wally and Shigaraki both looked unconcerned, but Shigaraki never looked concerned, and this was just Wally's natural pose.

The High Father didn't make any introductions.

"Ah, Tomura Shigaraki," he said intently, "I've heard about you. Finally, we meet in person."

Shigaraki didn't like this familiarity.

"Am I supposed to know who you are?"

Hawks tugged his collar nervously.

"I suppose not.... Well, we don't really do names here," the High Father said, "I am the High Father of our little group of warriors here in this part of Japan. I'm called High Father or Excellency. These are my Elders."

The Elders, four of them to be exact, eyed the five of them unpleasantly.

"And who are your...companions?" the High Father said, "Though I believe I recognize Hawks... Such a shame about him."

He eyed Mirko. "The No. 5 hero is a surprise though. I didn't know you were a sympathizer."

"I'm not," she said warily.

"I wouldn't answer any questions," Shine hissed to her.

"Oh?" High Father said, "Well, ahem." He looked back at Shigaraki. "Interesting little crew you've gathered. I confess, I'm not sure why you're attacking your old allies so brutally. Our forces have been so generous as to ignore you ever since you disappeared...months ago.... Why the sudden hostility?"

"The League doesn't forget," Shigaraki said, "or forgive the atrocities you did to our members."

"You really don't let things go," High Father said, "All we did was necessary for the cause...though if it will help you, ReDestro's chapter has been disbanded from what I've heard. And we've been very cooperative... I don't see why we can't just bury the hatchet. You have no reason to fight us here today... Why are you even here?"

Silence.

The truth was...Shigaraki didn't really know. Why had the LOV agreed to do this? It did help them in a way, but the Metas hadn't been bothering them for a long time. Was there really a reason to stir them up again?

"And I don't know who you even are," the High Father said to Shine and Wally, "but why do you fight us? Unprovoked? You've destroyed our communications network, invaded our locations...all unprovoked, I repeat. And for what? What do you hope to gain? Is this even your fight? I see who you are... You're not heroes. You're not villains... Who do you work for?"

They were silent.

The High Father's eyes glittered. "Could it be...you're a part of a different group altogether? I sense your aura of power. That can only mean one thing... You have fully realized abilities, don't you? Something that Metas all yearn for, strive for, work for--hone our skills to unlock. It's impressive, at your age, especially," this to Shine, "Your training must have been something...or your Master... Your fights are from above, are they not? Just like ours. Don't try to hide it. It shines out far too brilliantly to be concealed."

Something about how he said that was unnerving, like he was trying to look right through them. 

Sort of how Shine did, but her gaze, while frightening, never made them feel as...violated as the look he was giving them did. 

Shine looked back with her same probing expression, and her jaw was in a thin line.

Wally was frowning too.

"I think you're some kind of priests yourselves, maybe," High Father continued, "of the--"

"Silence," Shine suddenly said, almost...normally, like it was just a statement.

The High Father broke off, stunned. "What?"

"I said silence." She leveled him with a look. "You know what I'm talking about. Knowledge is power--that is what you think, huh? But you won't say anymore about us. Look to your own soul. Someone should."

As usual, her very odd phrasing was rattling to everyone.

But it did throw the Elders off. They glared at her.

High Father recoiled a bit. "I don't know if there's any need to be so rude. I don't really think we're enemies, do you? We don't even want opposing things."

"That is something we pointed out too," Hawks acknowledged.

"Hawks!" Mirko hissed, "Shut up."

"I mean, I'm just saying. I don't get what's going on here either," Hawks said, "I'm glad you all tried to help, but how does this benefit if the LOV? And aren't you all in enough trouble?"

"Wally," Shine said quietly.

Wally grabbed Hawks and gagged him forcefully.

"Weak-minded imbecile," one Elder muttered distastefully.

"Do you think we cannot tell what you're doing?" Shine pointed her sword at the High Father, causing him to back up. "You're persuasion charisma is good, I'll admit. If I didn't know you were such a snake, I might almost fall for it...almost. I don't know what you paid in order to become so powerful and high up, here, but I'm of the belief that people who claw their way to the top and exalt themselves will only be humbled in the end, so you don't impress me. Anyone else impressed?"

"No," Mirko said.

"Not at all," Shigaraki agreed, feeling like he'd been half dazed, "Why stand here talking about all this? We're past negotiations."

"You...you witch!" High Father insulted Shine.

"Witch?" Shine repeated, "I'm not a witch. You might be. I don't know what you are. You're no priest, that's for sure, not of any order I'd recognize. It's highly offensive that you use that garb to try to hide your true nature...all of you. A bunch of sniveling, small cowards, aren't you?... But it's useless to insult people like you. I just want everyone else to realize the truth of the matter."

Suddenly, the Elders and the High Father did seem rather small and wimpy. They were eyeing her with hatred...hatred that was based on fear, if the heroes had to guess. They'd seen it before.

Shine seemed to gleam by comparison, though she didn't look glamorous at all after running around all day fighting, but her whole aura exuded confidence, while theirs exuded only the wish to appear powerful.

It was as if a haze lifted.

Hawks blinked. Wally let him go. "What...what is it with all of them? Why are they so afraid of you?" he said strangely.

"Their power comes from leading people who have nothing else to go on," Wally said, "I've seen it before... The poor sods go to them, and they devote their heart and soul to it. And these guys thrive off of that...but if you take that way, if you put them next to people who really believe in something...they look fake. Cults are like that. All the appeal is in mystery and hiding from people. Out in the open, look at them--they look ridiculous."

They glared at Wally.

"Don't you dare mock us!" One Elder raised a gun.

Wally knocked it out of his hand before he could even blink.

"Still, he's not asking us," Shine said, "You'll have to answer." She looked at Shigaraki. "I'd consider your words carefully. They'll twist whatever you say, so you need to really know what you mean."

Might as well ask a fish to fly. Shigaraki never knew what he really meant.

But in this case, he thought the answer was clear enough. These guys were pathetic.

"The LOV doesn't need to worry about kowtowing to you," he said loftily, "You're already going down. You can't even defeat the heroes without our help. I'll tell you why we're here, to ensure you never bother us ever again." 

He smirked very unsettlingly.

The High Father spat at him, literally. "You son of the devil!" He was mad now. "All of you, how dare you come here and try to overturn us? We've been around for decades! We've fought for the Liberation of the oppressed people all over the world, and you just feed into it. You support it! We offered you a way to actually make a difference in this world, and you just want to destroy it! This is why, Tomura Shigaraki, you will never amount to anything but a tragic footnote in history! You and your despicable, pathetic League of Villains! People will remember us! You won't stop us just with this paltry attack! We'll be back."

Smoke began to billow over the ground--might have been none of the Elder's quirks.

Wally ran in a quick circle and dissipated it. The Elders were going to vanish into it, but now they were just at awkward angles. 

They were not happy. 

"You clown!" the High Father yelled, "All of you! Smaller, corrupt perversions of society."

He shot out his wires before anyone realized he was doing it--they were hard to see--and latched onto Shigaraki before he could move.

"You think you've won! But you won't leave this island alive if it's the last thing we do!" High Father was livid now.

Pain seared over Shigaraki...and he normally didn't react to pain, but the meta ability of the High Father made it 100x more effective than normal.

Mirko angrily jumped forward. One of the elders shot out something, like a cloud that became solid. It hooked her and yanked her back, slamming her into the wall of the fortress.

Hawks flew up, and the 2nd Elder lifted his cloak and a swarm of...hornets? Giant ones flew up and surrounded him.

The 3rd Elder held up his hands and energy circles appeared on either side. Wally suddenly felt sleepy.

Shine slashed her sword through the circle.

The four Elders shot some kind of ball of energy or mass at the ground at her feet, and a void just appeared there.

Shine almost fell into it, but she caught herself with her sword, surprisingly.

The Elder stood over her. "It would be so easy to just make another hole, but I think this will be more fun." This was the only female one. She moved her foot to shove Shine off her sword.

Her sword itself seemed to gleam, and the woman suddenly yanked her foot back like it was burned.

Wally moved and grabbed Shine's arm, yanking her out, before the 3rd elder could form more circles.

Wally ducked and pulled a sword out of nowhere. "Think I'll need this instead of speed--you're right, Sunshine."

Shine smiled. "I gotta help Shigaraki. I'll be back."

"Right." Wally faced both Metas. "You too chicken to fight up close?"

They snarled. "We'll kill you in seconds."

* * *

It wasn't that far of a distance to the High Father, but he'd dragged Shigaraki away so as to not get hit by his own Elder's abilities.

Shigaraki was struggling to use his quirk to destroy the wires...but his quirk wasn't working.

"Oh, did I not mention that I can prevent using your meta ability?" the High Father gloated, "Yes, you see, that requires stimulus of some sort. And right now, you only have what I want you to have...but that's just the beginning of the fun of my meta ability. I'm going to show you why the Metas under me all fear me so much before I kill you. This is for all of the damages you caused us today...but really," the pain increased, "this is for you too, Tomura Shigaraki. I despise you."

Shigaraki wasn't just in physical pain--this was calling up all sorts of images out of the recesses of his mind. Stimulus was a terrifying quirk.

He couldn't tell what he was actually seeing and what was memory right now.

He didn't want to relive all of that again. "You..." he said, somehow... "you're...not here."

"But I am here," the High Father said, "not that you can tell the difference right now. That's one of the real fun parts... I must say, bringing people to their knees like this, it really never gets old." He seemed to be enjoying this in all the wrong ways.

"But I don't usually use it for so long on such high level threats... I must say, this will almost compensate for all the losses today," he leered, "That's right, writhe..."

Shine finally reached them. "Fiend!" Her sword reached out and sliced through the wires. At least, as many as she could hit. There were a lot.

But it did at least shock Shigaraki somewhat out of his daze to have them severed. He blinked. "What the h--- was all that...?"

"Oh, you're back." the High Father stared at Shine. "That's okay. I can do two people at once--makes it more fun for me."

More wires.

Shine deflected a lot of them, but the High Father was clever enough to send some from behind and catch her by the ankles.

Suddenly she screamed. She had no high pain tolerance like Shigaraki did.

She dropped her sword for the moment.

"Wow, she's very sensitive," High Father said, "This will be easy. I wonder what painful memories you have..." The wires snaked up more towards her head.

Mirko looked up. She'd almost passed out after that slam, but she was tougher than that.

Hawks was still cornered by hornets and yelling about it.

Too many people to help... Mirko saw the hero kids were watching. They started running that way to help.

"Ah, ah." The Hornets Elder turned to them, and the Smoke Elder cast more smoke. It solidified into a kind of barrier.

"She said if they win...you can't interfere until one of us falls," said the Hornets one. 

"Or you're forfeit," said the Smoke one.

The kids stopped.

"We can't just let this happen," Shoto said.

"We have to..." Bakugo said grimly, "This is their fight.... They asked us to."

"Wouldn't Shine say that was stupid?" Momo said, "Wouldn't she say that the rules right now don't matter?"

"No..." Bakugo said, "She wouldn't. These guys are no joke..."

https://youtu.be/bUuoYqyLw_k

[This song is from the web-series RWBY...which I no longer really like, but up to this season was really good. This song is so chilling but also inspiring...and it just kind of fits, if you don't take it too literally. Would be good for any of the villains in the MHA, really.]

* * *

Mirko saw that the Smoke Elder was distracted by them and knew it was her opening.

She was smart enough not to try to get Shine or Shigaraki away from the leader. Instead, she used her feet to launch herself into him like a bullet. She didn't have a weapon handy, or she would have used that rather than risk getting that close.

But the High Father was so focused on torturing the other two, he never suspected his Elder would have gotten off task and let her attack him. 

With a very undignified "oof!" he hit the ground and skidded.

Shine blinked as the pain faded. She pushed herself up somehow and grabbed her sword hilt. She stabbed it into the ground.

Shigaraki snapped out of it as the sonic waves went over him, shaking all of the Elders--also the High Father, but he also was dazed.

Mirko got up and pinned him down with one foot.

"Are you okay?" she addressed Shigaraki.

"What?" was his brilliant response.

"Are you okay?"

"Why would you--? Watch out."

Mirko looked down and kicked High Father again for a good measure.

But he turned, eyes blazing with unholy fire, and reached out, lashing around her limbs also.

Mirko tried to break the wires with a jump, but she was yanked down instead.

Shine stumbled forward and cut through them. She hadn't regained fully good motor control.

Mirko sprawled as she was cut free and landed a few feet from Shigaraki, who was trying to get up now. He was livid.

Shine somehow deflected more wires that were coming toward her-- a whole net of them.

The High Father had truly cast off all restraint.

"You will not defeat me!" he yelled at them, "Submit!"

Wires shot more... Shine dodged, but they lashed across her face leaving red cuts. She went down.

Shigaraki touched the ground in front of him, cracking it all the way to the High Father.

High Father didn't just stand there though. He pulled himself out of the way, landing behind them.

Mirko was up by now, watching.

The Smoke Elder formed a kind of pole out of smoke and hit her with it while she was distracted.

She fell forward--not out somehow, but jarred. She pushed herself up.

The High Father's wire reached out and grabbed her by the face. 

"I really, really hate Pros," he said, "Hey, I remember now... We staged a little attack... Hawks ruined it... I seem to recall you had a hand in that... Say hi to those other Pros when you see them."

Mirko screamed.

Shine looked around. Then she looked up, as if looking for help.

Clouds had blown in from the ocean in this short amount of time. Weather by the ocean changed very quickly.

The wind was picking up too.

Shine looked down again.

"Tomura," she said. Shigaraki was about to attack again. He paused.

"Don't aim for him. He'll only dodge again. Aim for that." She pointed at the fortress. "We must stop acting like animals. I'm going to try something."

Hawks finally broke free of the swarm he was fighting, as Wally kicked up enough dust to throw the hornets off.

Wally had managed to knock the Sleep Elder out. Turns out the guy didn't have that much fight in him if you just cut through his circles.

Shine waved at them and pointed up.

"Hawks, go get her," Wally said, "I'm gonna try to get Bunny girl."

The Smoke Elder turned toward him. "Oh?"

"After I take care of him..." Wally said.

Hawk flew overhead to dodge the Elder and scooped Shine up. Shigaraki was focused on the fortress like she said, grumbling about taking her orders, but still.

Mirko wasn't screaming now...but the High Father was still doing something to her. She was attempting to move her feet freely, but they clearly weren't cooperating.

"Shouldn't we get her?" Hawks said.

"If we try to yank her away she could go into shock," Shine said, "He was doing something to my mind too. I fought it...but it was really hard. We need him to drop her of his own accord, and he needs to be chasing us for that to happen. Go...higher." They were pretty far in the air now.

"Get his attention," Shine said.

Hawks shot some feathers down at the High Father. He looked up.

Shine gulped back her fear of heights and held out her sword threateningly. "We're going to smite you from above, you son of a snake! Any final words?"

"I'd like to know how you intend to do that." The High Father pushed himself up, wires extending towards her.

"Dodge," Shine said.

Hawks flew higher. The wires were kept sprouting, up, up...a whole pillar of them.

"You can't fly away forever," the High Father said. The wires were spreading out into a net now.

Mirko was dropped though. She blinked, dazed. "What...what was that?"

"Get up," Shigaraki yelled at her, "Move."

Mirko looked around and realized what was going to happen. She stumbled away from the High Father.

Hawks looked around. He could see lightning flashing in the clouds not that far from them.

"Uh, Likstar, this is not a good idea to be up this high. You have a metal sword," he said. 

"Uh huh," Shine said, as hair flicked her face, "and he has wires."

Hawks' eyes widened.

Shine looked up. "Any time now, please." She looked at Hawks. "We can call down fire from heaven, did you know that? Never tried it myself, but I'd say the weather is in our favor."

"Okay, yeah, but the odds of the timing being before he reaches us just because you said that are pretty slim--" Hawk stopped to dodge again.

The High Father was pretty high off the ground now. "You're running out of room."

His wires had a whole mesh net under them now, snaking upward like some kind of twisted tree.

[Anyone ever see a picture of a toxic thought tree? That's what I'm imagining here.]

Thunder crashed suddenly right over their heads.

Mirko covered her ears.

The hornet guy looked up as it started to rain, and his hornets all flew back under cover.

The smoke guy's smoke was getting cleared away too.

None of this mattered to the High Father, who was focused only on getting his prey back. And they were running out of room. Anywhere they tried to fly, more wire was springing up towards them.

The other Elders rushed for the doors of the fortress, not really noticing it was already partially decayed.

Shigaraki moved back, not really sure what he was supposed to do now if not kill the High Father.

Mirko suddenly felt her hair stand on end.

"Get back." She grabbed Shigaraki by the coat and leapt a good 20 meters away from the fortress.

Lightning shot out of the sky.

Hawks flew back from it... Shine's sword seemed to act as a deflector instead of an attractor. The lightning went all around them but didn't hit them once.

It split into 5 fingers, and all of them hit the wiring of the High Father.

Electricity sizzled over the whole thing and down into his body.

He yelled...

The wires lit up like a Christmas tree.

Then sizzled and disintegrated from the voltage.

Wally got back in time, dragging the void Elder, who had been KO-ed some time ago, with him.

Mirko had her ears down and her hands covered them as the sizzling continued.

But it was over in only a few seconds.

Everyone watched in shock as the High Father fell back to the ground.

He wasn't a charred husk, but he had electric burns all over and he was twitching.

The impact of him falling and his whole network with him sent the fortress tumbling to the ground, trapping or possibly killing the elders inside of it.

Everyone was silent.

The Metas who'd been watching all dropped their weapons.

The kids gaped.

Hawks opened his eyes. He'd closed them because he thought he was going to die.

"What...what was that?" he said.

"Fire from heaven..." Shine said slowly, "Can you put me down now? I really don't like being this high up..."

"Uh...sure..." Hawks lowered both of them to the ground.

Mirko was staring at them. "Did...did you do that?"

"Nah, it was the storm." Shine pointed up. "Which...is getting pretty bad."

The wind was howling. "And there's a lot of metal around here," Shine said,  "so I think we should, you know, get out of here."

"You got it." Wally gave her a thumbs up.

"Good job," Shine said to Tomura, "That went way better than I thought it would."

He stared at her, speechless.

"Are you sure you're okay after that?" Hawks asked her.

Shine tried to stand... "Uh...no, I'm not okay... Wally..." She fell forward.

Wally caught her. "All right, cowgirl, let's get you out of here. It's about to be a second flood with how hard that rain's getting. Come on, guys." He carried Shine away.

"Uh...did all that really just happen?" Hawks asked Mirko.

"You're asking me? That guy tried to fry my brain," she said, "If I'm not hallucinating right now then, yeah, that just happened."

"Sis?" Ren came in suddenly, "I'm having a terrible time. There's a storm going on right now... I don't know how long this wire is going to keep working, but I have the boat ready if you want to get out of here. The heroes are on the island. I saw lights."

"Okay, yeah." Mirko sounded dazed still. "Good idea." She waved at the others. "Boat's ready."

"What about us?" said the Metas.

"You're surrendering, just like she said," Mirko said. She stomped her foot. "Go over the bridge and surrender to the heroes. I wouldn't give them any s--- about it, if I were you."

They blinked.

She kicked the ground harder. "Go!"

They ran for it...and their lives, possibly.

"Wow...that was bada--," Spinner said.

"That reminded me of my mom," Bakugo said, not at all like it was a tender memory.

"For real?" Camie said, "Your mom must be cool."

Bakugo snorted.

"Come on." Shoto took Momo by the hand. 

Dabi pulled his jacket higher, as the rain was only getting worse, and shivered.

They all ran around the bank and towards the boat.

Ren had it waiting at a more sheltered inlet in the island.

"What happened to you?" he said when he saw Mirko, who was not in the best shape after that attack...though still better than Hawks, who had welts all over that were stinging like crazy.

"I..." Mirko was at a loss for words. "I...don't know..." She walked away somberly.

Kayla was still on the boat, but she'd seen the lightning strike from the deck, both her and Ren, and she didn't give them any problem whatsoever.

* * *

The sail back was awkward.

Wally and the kids all wanted to make sure Shine was okay.

She told them more about the High Father's effect.

"I could feel memory coming up. I think he could stimulate the hippocampus part of the brain," she said.

"Uh...what?" Camie said.

"It holds memories, episodic memory," Shine said.

"What?" Camie reiterated.

"Memory you relive," Shine clarified.

"Why do you know all this?" Shinso asked. 

"You'd be smart to look all this up, Shinso," Shine said, "I read a lot about the mind and healing. Do you think I don't study to be able to help people?"

Shinso didn't even know that was a field regular people studied.

"Did he make you relive trauma?" Shoto asked.

Shine was quiet a minute, then she said, "I started to see it... I experience memory like images I just watch, you know, not as if I was in it, usually. I don't know why...and I saw it...but I didn't feel anything. Honestly, it's...I think the pain has mostly gone... Sadness hasn't always gone, but the sting isn't in those memories anymore. They can't hurt me." She squeezed Wally's hand. "Even if they do, I know what to do. So I don't fear remembering the past."

"I want to get to that point," Shoto said.

"You will," Shine said.

Dabi picked at the edge of his coat. "So you're okay."

"I think I'll be okay," Shine said, "We'll see... I do feel wrung out... Is that how you felt, Monama?"

"Yeah," Monama said, "It's better now, but every nerve in my being felt jangled by that guy."

"I can't believe you held up under torture." Momo was impressed. "That's very brave."

"It didn't feel like holding up," Monama said, "I couldn't have done anything even if I wanted to."

He glanced at Silk, who was in one corner of the room.

The ship had lower rooms, though it was small. It was cramped though, with so many people in there, but it was too dangerous to be outside in the storm. As it was, Ren said they'd be able to get back to the mainland, but only because he could navigate without needing to be outside.

"What did you say to them while I was out?" he asked her.

Silk looked up, stunned he remembered that.

"I...I tried to get them to stop," she said slowly, "They didn't want to listen. I told them I would give them intel."

"What? Why would you do that?" Dabi said.

"I didn't know what else to say. I was going to lie," Silk said defensively, "but I got feeling I wasn't going to get chance. I didn't like the way they looked at me. Does it really matter now?"

They let it drop.

"Did we actually win?" Camie said, on a different tack, "I mean...seriously? Against all those Metas, we got away."

"He-- yeah," Bakugo said.

Shine looked at the window. "I don't feel like celebrating... Ibara is still gone...and they didn't say a word about her. That's really, really suspicious."

"It really doesn't make sense." Mirko suddenly kicked the floor. "Why not use that as leverage? Unless they really did just--" She broke off as Wally gave her a warning look.

Monama shivered.

"I'm sure we can find her..." Hawks said, not actually sure, "At least, for now, they can't really talk to each other--the Metas, I mean. You set them back for weeks, maybe longer. That's something to be happy about, though it's a shame about the girl, but she might turn up. She could have just been hidden somewhere in the area."

"Yeah...let's hope," Wally said.

"Only one casualty out of all of us would be pretty good," Spinner said.

He got glares.

"Not helping," Wally said.

Spinner sighed.