[h2]Zone 1[/h2]
[@Delta44][@ShwiggityShwah][@Scribe of Thoth][@Stern Algorithm]
[hider=Pixel Boy and Thunder Thighs vs The Mastermind: Stop the Runaway Bus!]
[center][color=ffff00][h1]Haruishi Mari[/h1][/color][b]Staying in Zone 2, chasing after the now moving bus[/b][/center]

As Mari noticed the bus start rolling away, she kept pace with the door, banging on it occasionally. [color=ffff00]"Hey. HEY! We had a deal! The other heroes have left! Now you have to leave the bus too!."[/color] At the time, she wasn't sure if she was negotiating with a 'teacher' or a 'villain', but now she was sure that he had villainous intent from the beginning. She chided herself for leaving a villain alone with a large group of civilians as she kept pace with the bus. As the bus accelerated, so did Mari as she kept looking for any sign the villain was going to comply. Still, as long as he had to focus on driving, he couldn't harm any civilians so easily. Mari decided to pick up speed, hoping she still had Kaito's boost. Soon she began to outpace the bus, as she headed towards rubble, looking for an exposed rebar she could pick up and use as a weapon. Ideally, she would pick up to three metal sticks, if possible.

Shun perked his head over the rubble as he heard the bus start moving, subtlety be damned. Of course! The villain sent the driver away so he could hijack the bus. Disregarding his earlier plan, Shun rounded the rubble and took off at a panicked sprint while the bus was still moving slow enough for him to catch up. When he was nearing the side of the bus, his stride turned into a leap; his body rapidly disintegrating into miniscule cubes before disappearing entirely. His quirk reassembled him on top of the bus near-instantaneously, where he dropped to all fours and frantically scrambled for something to grab onto before the acceleration caused him to slide off - an extended exhaust pipe or raised light on the roof's surface, anything he could get a firm grip on.

With the bus's own speed hampered by the driver's caution, Mari was easily capable of keeping pace with the bus, her legs pumping up and down, accelerating until she broke off from it to the nearest pile of rubble: that of a collapsed building. To the side, there was an uprooted stop sign that she may be capable of wielding despite its obviously unwieldy appearance. The chunks of rebar stuck in concrete appeared to be easier to grab, but rather than the slim poles she would have preferred, they were more squarish bits of concrete with bits of rust-coated rebar sticking out. More promising were broken plumbing that could be torn off the wall with some effort, but they ranged from plastic to copper and were definitively hollow. Mari could search more, but behind her, the bus was already turning elsewhere, the wheels turning faster and faster in order to avoid driving towards her, if nothing else.

If this was a public school bus, he doubtlessly would have fall off the moment he shifted onto the vehicle, but Shun was fortunate enough to grab onto a protrusion above the bus, where the rooftop emergency exit laid. It taxed his arms greatly whenever the bus made a turn, and his legs scrambled against nothing occasionally, however his small size worked to keep most of his weight ontop of the bus rather than off it. Now if only he could force open one of the windows or the exit, he'd have the small crack he needed to pixelate inside the bus.

But how would he do it?

[center][color=ffff00][h1]Haruishi Mari[/h1][/color][b]Staying in Zone 2, intercepting the civilian bus, attempting to stop it with a makeshift concrete-rebar hammer[/b][/center]

[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BVZqIPoiBO4[/youtube]

Noticing that the bus was starting to pull away Mari abandoned her initial plan of finding three or four rebars, and instead opted to just grab one that still had a chunk of concrete stuck to the end, holding it like a sledgehammer. This might prevent her from reaching her top speed, especially now that Kaito's boost had worn off, but she could at least reach 75%, so 45 mph, probably. She began accelerating after the bus, hoping to cut off its escape. As she passes 30 mph, her back starts to emit arcs of electricity like normal, different from earlier when she had still had Kaito's boost. A puzzling detail that she would have to think about later. Her plan now is to overtake the bus, and then to run at the bus from the side, where the engine was located, as fast as she could and swing the concrete-rebar hammer at the engine, letting go of the hammer just before impact and peel off so that she doesn't receive any of the shock. In this way, the speed of the thrown object should create a collision powerful enough to destroy the engine.

Shun squirmed forward as he dangled from the exit, uselessly kicking his feet against the slick roof as he attempted to pull his body weight closer to the protrusion to reduce drag. These things don't open from the outside, do they? This was a pain. He didn't want to risk something crazy like trying to slip into the bus through an AC vent either, lest he end up recomposing himself in a dangerous position due to lack of space to travel through. But he also couldn't risk trying to pry open the exit with the bus swerving like this. Not that he'd likely be able to anyway. Shun peeked over the edge at Mari, who seemed to have picked up some kind of weapon. Possible solution. [color=2EFEC8]"Hey, break a window with that, yeah?!"[/color] he called, hoping to be heard over the hum of the engine and wind in his face. Except, she didn't look like she was aiming for a window. In fact, she looked like - was she aiming for the engine?!

Though the sockets of her arms protested against the sheer strain that accompanied building up centrifugal force for the hammer throw she had in mind, Mari's legs were more than up to the task, lightning arcing through the fog as she ran towards, then past the runaway bus. Twisting at the last second, she tossed the chunk of concrete like an oversized ninja star towards it.

The effects were immediate, both to the bus and to Shun himself.

Having seen what Mari was planning on doing from the rearview mirrors, the man in the too-small suit clicked his tongue and pushed on the brakes immediately, killing the engine as soon as possible. Above, that sudden shift in momentum took Shun by surprise, the side to side motion suddenly pushing him forward instead. Wrenched onwards, the wiry youth found himself tumbling over the protrusion, rolling over and over and over until he fell off the front of the bus.

At the very least though, they seemed to have stopped the bus from moving at all, a mass of heat blooming from the damaged engine from which a chunk of concrete remained embedded in.

Shun let out a yelp as he was flung from the front of the bus, curling up in a not-so-graceful attempt at a roll to cushion his fall. He rose to his feet unsteadily, both from the shock of the impact and the jitteriness brought on by the adrenaline rush he was currently hopped up on. He stretched his tired arms a bit as he flanked toward the door, keeping his eyes pinned on the front windshield to try and see what the villain was planning now that his transportation was disabled. The boy moved to wedge his fingers in and pull the bus door open from the outside just a crack, enough to let him pixelate inbetween the villain and the dummies. [color=2EFEC8]"Give up, you're cornered and outnumbered. Those hostages won't save you this time."[/color] He put on his best hero voice, but he really didn't look the part. He looked more like a child playing pretend as All Might.

Mari couldn't hear Shun over the din of her thunder and the bus' engine, but she did see him tumble off the front, causing her to reailze for the the first time that he had been on top of the bus. [color=ffff00]"Datari-san?!"[/color] She watched as he pried the bus door ajar and teleported in to face off against the large man inside. She needed to go in and help him. Kicking the car earlier helped Mari come to the conclusion that she needed weapons and tools to be effective, since her own body couldn't handle the force of her own high-speed collisions. She checked to see if her 'hammer' was stuck inside the engine, or if perhaps the concrete head had shattered on impact, liberating the rebar. If the hammer, or just the rebar, could be removed she would pull it out and either attempt to smash the bus door open with the 'hammer', or pry it open with the rebar.

In front, Shun's body reformed almost instantaneously, multi-colored dots of light translating themselves into the form of a young, spry land. Behind him, Mari was able to force her way into the bus as well, smelling of the smoke and exhaust-heat that was released from the decimated engine. After the heavy impact, that makeshift hammer had broken into more manageable bits, leaving her a piece of slightly-crooked steel the length of her forearm to wield. It certainly did seem as if the jig was up, and in the back of the bus, the proctor raised an eyebrow at Shun's declaration.

[b]"Alright, alright,"[/b] the large man said, unbuckling himself from the driver's seat, [b]"I suppose two against one is far better odds than what it was to begin with."[/b] And, with one smooth motion, he pulled a gun out from behind his belt and fired twice into Mari's chest.
[/hider]
Two loud gunshots sounded through the fog as Kuuki, Hiroki, and Azukina deliberated on their actions, the violent burst of noise ringing over the general din of chaotic screams. Though the Beast that laid before them did not stir at all, their attention were simultaneously drawn down the road, where the fog lights of the bus still shone, much closer than it was before.

Between fully securing their current villain and investigating this new development, what would the trio choose?
[h2]Zone 3[/h2]
[@AdmrlStalfos19][@Lugubrious]
To say that it was a gross place was an understatement. Though there was no longer any human refuse flowing through, that terribly disgusting stench still lingered as Umi dropped into the sewers, her only proper source of light coming up from Goro’s warm gaze. The water that flowed through was murky and untreated, but as long as there weren’t any dangerous liquid components inside, she could certainly absorb it, at least temporarily. The dummies within were a boon as well, their voices echoing through the tunnels but all of them being relatively nearby. Three total, two children and an extra-large adult.

The greatest boon, however, was that parts of the metal rungs that must have been broken off by whatever disaster struck this part of Kirisama still remained, jutting out in a haphazard collection of somewhat-plausible foot and handholds. Though it would be completely unfeasible to reach the surface with this, perhaps she get high enough up that she could lift the dummies to a position where Goro could pull them up the rest of the way?

Before anything could be decided upon, however, something fell on Umi’s head.

Something black. Something wriggling. Something hard. With a scritchscratch, it moving its little legs around frenetically, chittering all along as its wings flicked, flicked flicked.

A cockroach.

A cockroach had fell on her, and soon, the sewer water and the whimpered cries for help from the dummies became wholly insufficient to mask the sound of other denizens of the sewers. Gods above, this place was [i]infested[/i].
[h2]Zone 5[/h2]
[@TheWindel][@Sho Minazuki][@zelosse]
Before the Ruler could launch off into another speech to try to coax SOME sort of reaction out of the poor, terrified kid before her, another attack came from the fog, this time twin beams slicing through the fog and striking her right in the side. It seared through her thick fabrics and elicited a cry of pain (faked or not, you decide!) from her lips before she wheeled away from the path of the beams, her expression turning into overexaggerated wrath.

[b]“So that’s how it is? Is this how you heroes deign to fight, as cowards hiding in the mist, launching off attacks at a distance? This disgrace shall not stand! Very well, if you lack the fortitude to stand in my presence, then [i]I[/i] shall be the one to hunt you down! As the Apostle of the Apocalypse, Queen of the Lands of Shadow and Sin, may this awe-inspiring countenance be the last you see before being sent to the tainted waters of the Styx!”[/b]

With that, she left Kaito where he laid, her thick skirts and high heels and open parasol doing nothing to impede her mobility as the brunette sailed through the fog like a scepter, approaching Houki’s hiding spot quickly. The laser-shooting student would have only a few seconds to steel her resolve before the villainess was upon her.

Hopefully, that amount of time was enough.