S2 - Ep 9: AFO versus The Golden Guard - Part 1
Luz and the Golden Guard begin their fight and the former finds its not going to be an easy win. As Gravesfield is getting destroyed, Luz crosses more lines to gain an edge.
This chapter contains examples of:
- Ability Mixing:
- At one point, Luz tries to activate Multiplier and Limitless for a combo, only for the Golden Guard to cut the extra arms off.
- Luz twice tries to use an Enhanced Punch with combination of her Super-Strength, Springlike Limbs and Multiplier Quirks.
- Later she sends out a barrage of Spear Fingers enhanced by Multiplier, only for The Golden Guard to dodge them all.
- Accidental Murder:
- Luz accidently kills a teenaged boy while stealing his Quirk.
- The 2 Quirk users also accidently end up blowing up Luz's old school, killing everyone in it and nearby.
- Affably Evil: The Golden Guard makes polite small-talk with Luz right before he sends her flying across town with his attack.
- Armor-Piercing Attack: Hunter's Laser Blade is one of the few things that can cut through Luz's Forcefield Projection Quirk. He does so with a single swing.
- Armored Villains, Unarmored Heroes: Hunter wears a golden mask and his cloak comes with a pauldron, which obscures his visage, unlike Luz who wears regular clothes.
- Badass Finger Snap: Remembering how Sophia did it, Luz snaps her fingers, and turns the fired Red Energy Ball into Blue, giving Hunter his first Oh, Crap! moment throughout the whole fight as he almost gets sucked in.
- Bitch Slap: At one point in the fight, Hunter basically pimp slaps Luz through an entire block of houses with seemingly little effort. It takes all of the girl's willpower to not become Blinded by Rage by that.
- Blinded by Rage: Luz is trying to defy this trope as her fight with the Golden Guard doesn't go well, in order to reduce Collateral Damage.
- Blood from the Mouth: Blood comes erupting out from Luz's mouth as the Golden Guard gives her a No-Holds-Barred Beatdown in their fight by the school.
- Blow You Away: The Golden Guard's wings made of light are powerful enough to create enough force to make a shockwave that blasted away all the rubble around them with a light flapping.
- Body Horror:
- After sent sending crashing out side her old school, Luz's damage report includes Facial Horror, with her ribcage visible showing her heart and lungs pumping away, indicating she's still alive. No wonder many of the teen witnesses wanted to throw up. But its nothing her Super Regeneration can't fix up.
- Not long after she steals the "Flamethrower" Quirk, Luz's face and arms are already developing cracks from Quirk Overload.
- Broken Faceplate: Luz cracks the Golden Guard's mask with her Enhanced Punch, being unable to dodge it. He easily repairs it though with his Quirk.
- Call-Back: Luz recalls having the "Flame" Quirk and missing it, noting her new "Flamethrower" power is inferior to it, due to being less versatile.
- Casual Danger Dialogue: Shigaraki does this during Luz's fight, much to the girl's annoyance as he's not being as helpful as before.
- The Chosen One: By the end of the chapter, Luz has completely warmed up to the idea. It seems she’s starting to believe Shigaraki's lies.
- Clothing Damage: The explosion from their clash leaves Luz topless. Not wanting fight in the buff Luz mugs a hoodie from the boy she stole the Quirk from.
- Conveniently Empty Building: This trope is very much averted here again.
- Dies Wide Open: The boy Luz steals a Quirk from passes away with a terrified look on his face.
- Elemental Shapeshifter: Hunter can turn parts of his body in to photon particles to avoid Luz's attacks.
- Energy Weapon: Hunter can fire laser beams from either his hands with its power strong enough to blow up whole buildings with little effort.
- Facial Horror: After the two fighters clash and Luz is sent flying into the school, her injuries include having her face burned off showing her skull from the blast. Good Thing You Can Heal, girl.
- Fireballs: Luz can create basketball-sized ones from her new "Flamethrower" power that explode on contact.
- Godzilla Threshold: Luz steals another Quirk, making her one over her recommended limit, to give her an edge against the Golden Guard. Shigaraki warns her that this is dangerous.
- Half the Man He Used to Be: After closing the gap, the Golden Guard slices Luz vertically with his Absurdly Sharp Sword like butter, and not only did it do that, but is able to bypass her Pain Nullification. To Luz's credit, she's able to hold back a scream of pain as her Healing Factor kicks in.
- Hard Light: Hunter's Quirk lets him shape light into wings and weapons, like swords.
- Healing Factor: Not only does Luz have one but so does the Golden Guard, albeit inferior to the All For One user.
- Heroic Second Wind: Luz gains one at the climax of the chapter.
- The Hunter Becomes the Hunted: Luz at one point remarks that every opponent she had fought had fallen to her hands. Every enemy who was out to kill her had died by her hands.
- If I Wanted You Dead...: When Luz internally rants she has nothing to counter the Golden Guard with in their fight, despite having 15 different Quirks, Shigaraki decides to tell her he's been holding back the entire time. If he really wanted to kill her, he would’ve done so already. He's just testing her.Shigaraki: Every blow he delivers is restrained. If he really wanted to kill you, Luz, he would’ve done so already. I was right, he’s only testing you.
- It Gets Easier: While Luz expresses some remorse for her Accidental Murder of a former classmate, its more muted than it should be. Now this trope now applies innocents, not just her enemies.
- Just Following Orders: Hunter says this word-for-word to Luz on him trying to capture her for the Wittebanes.
- Lack of Empathy: Luz seems to be developing this. Case and point, Luz's first concern about accidently blowing up her old school in her fight with the Golden Guard was that there's no one left alive to dump off the excessive Quirk to, rather than have a My God, What Have I Done? reaction.
- Laser Blade: Hunter's "Lightbringer" Quirk creates a literal lightsabre.
- Light 'em Up: The "Lightbringer" Quirk gives him power over and turns him into photon particles.
- Lightning Bruiser: Thanks to the "Lightbringer" Quirk, he can practically teleport himself anywhere within sight, and his lightspeed attacks deal a lot of damage. This makes him Luz's toughest foe yet, as he has her beat in speed.
- Master Swordsman: Luz sees the Golden Guard as this and he doesn't prove her wrong.It was clear that, unlike Luz, The Golden Guard was trained in combat—Shigaraki had assumed as such. The way he followed up each swing one after another without tiring, and the way he seemed to command the fight was unparalleled to her previous opponents who were sloppy at best and unable to fight at worst—the only reason Luz was able to get those attacks in was because she had caught him off guard. Now, he was completely in the zone.
- Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: When Luz fires her Deadly Force Field at the Golden Guard, he cuts it in half again. Unfortunately, one half landed on top of the school, and the other half landed on a small group of other buildings. This results massive explosions that blow both parties back a bit, and when the dust settled, all that's left were 2 craters, killing anyone below. That's a lot of kids that won't be going home tonight.
- Oh, Crap!: Hunter has this reaction when Luz's Blue Energy Ball almost sucks him up like a black hole.
- Offscreen Moment of Awesome: According to Shigaraki, the Golden Guard's Lightbringer Quirk wasn’t that strong when he first gifted it to him a decade ago. He speculates he awakened it since then from training with it non-stop.
- Person of Mass Destruction: The Golden Guard's laser blasts can destroy several city blocks, like Luz's attacks. Even more unnerving is that he seemingly didn't notice the houses were occupied.
- Pet the Dog: When a badly injured Luz ends up crash landing at her old school, one of the students was about to call the emergency services to help her despite knowing who she is and what she's done. That is until her Healing Factor kicks in and freaks them out.
- Playing with Fire: The "Flamethrower" Quirk originally belonged to a male student that went to Luz's old school. The Quirk allows Luz to conjure crimson red flames from her hands.
- Psychotic Smirk: Luz gives a chilling one as she's about to steal another Quirk and hoodie from an innocent boy around her age.
- Power Floats: Luz uses Zero Gravity and Airwalk together.
- Purple Is Powerful: Luz steals a purple hoodie and is a powerful superhuman.
- Punched Across the Room: This happens to Luz more than once by the Golden Guard.
- Rapid-Fire Fisticuffs: Hunter does a variant of this on Luz. The fists are created out of Hard Light that overwhelms her Shock Absorption and sends the girl flying into the air.
- Required Secondary Power: Shigaraki explains to Luz that the "Lightbringer" Quirk's weakness is overuse and would cause the user's skin to burn. But because the Golden Guard has a copy of Super Regeneration, it negates that issue.
- Screw This, I'm Outta Here: To the other school kids acting as witnesses, Luz just straight up murdered their fellow classmate and friend for his clothes and powers. No wonder they run away from her, screaming.
- Shout-Out: Hunter's "Lightbringer" Quirk is very similar to Glint-Glint Fruit, which allows him to manipulate, create, and turn into the element of light. Luz even refers to him as a Kizaru knock-off.
- Sink or Swim Mentor: When Luz asks Shigaraki for more information on her opponents Quirks, her Evil Mentor refuses to divulge beyond the first 2 telling her she needs to Figure It Out Yourself.Shigaraki: Because if I did that, then what would be the point? Just because I’m your mentor does not mean I am obliged to give you all the answers. I can’t coddle you. If you are to be a true successor to All For One, you need to figure it out on your own. Just because you have a plethora of abilities does not make up for a lack of problem-solving. I didn’t get anywhere in the world without figuring out my problems for myself.
- Smug Smiler: Luz, to her frustration, could practically hear the smirk underneath his helmet as he No Sells every single one of her attacks.
- Spontaneous Weapon Creation: Hunter's Quirk also allows him to summon a golden sword made out of photon particles to compliment his swordsmanship skills.
- Strong and Skilled: Unlike the humans in Luz's realm that have had their Quirks for only over a month at most, Hunter has trained with his Quirks for about a decade and is powerful enough to challenge Luz as a serious Wake-Up Call Boss.
- Swiss-Army Superpower: Hunter's light-based Quirk allows him to move with Super-Speed, blast his enemies with lasers, sprout wings for Flight, create a Laser Blade and even fire a Sword Beam.
- Sword Beam: The Golden Guard cuts Luz's Forcefield projection in half again with this.
- Took a Level in Badass: Hunter did from the time Shigaraki first met him over a decade ago.
- Unskilled, but Strong: Deconstructed. Despite having multiple Quirks, Luz never really had the time to formally train with her Quirks in the month she has had them due to the Superhuman Registration Act. This isn't usually a problem due to everyone else in her realm being this too with her being much stronger by mainly mashing Quirks together for destructive combo attacks. This is a handicap when she fights the Golden Guard who is Strong and Skilled, as in he trained with his Quirks for a decade and is capable of dominating Luz, despite being slightly weaker than her. Not to mention that lack of finesse leads to a lot of Collateral Damage in her fights.
- Victory by Endurance: Luz plans to win by this at the end of the chapter with her Stamina Negation.
- Vocal Dissonance: During her conversation with Hunter, Luz notices how much colder voice has become since the supermarket fight, like it belonged to some else's. It seems All For One has changed her not just physically but mentally, too. She wants to question this more but has more pressing concerns.Had she been talking like that the whole time? She hadn’t noticed, and it had actually shocked her when she heard her voice. It sounded… distant, detached, and downright sociopathic.
- Wake-Up Call Boss: Hunter acts as one to Luz throughout this entire fight.
- What the Hell, Hero?: Hunter points out to Luz all the Collateral Damage her fights caused only for the girl to call out his hypocrisy as he contributed to some of it. He concedes to that.
- You Have GOT to Be Kidding Me!: Luz has this reaction the Golden Guard is able to avoid all his attacks with just one of his Quirks.Luz: ARE YOU KIDDING ME!? SHIGARAKI! YOU DIDN’T TELL ME I WAS FIGHTING A KIZARU KNOCK-OFF!!!
- Luz: Round Two, Golden Guard. And this time, I’ll defeat you.
