Chapter Fifty-Seven
"How the heck are we supposed to beat Pros, even two on one!" Sero cried out.
Nezu smiled. "You won't need to completely defeat your teachers. You'll have thirty minutes. In order to win, your objective will be to put these handcuffs on your teacher!" The chimera pulled a pair of said handcuffs from behind his back. They were oversized, compared to him, but the iris mechanism meant that they'd automatically fit everyone here, even All Might and Cementoss. "Or you can win if one of you manages to escape from the combat stage."
"So just holding them off isn't enough?" Kirishima asked. "I mean, if they were villains, wouldn't doin' that until help arrives work?"
"Possibly," the principal agreed easily, "But in that time any of their compatriots would have ample time to do whatever dastardly deeds they've set out to do. Realistically speaking, you should only have ten minutes, and need to fully disable your opponent instead of merely cuffing one arm, but you are just first years. Unless you'd rather fight using more realistic means?" the small mammal grinned, teeth showing in a way that made the gesture subtly threatening.
"N-Nah, I'm good!" the hardener said, waving away the option.
"But, is it really okay to just Jet?" Mina asked, holding up a hand. "Wouldn't that mean we're letting the criminals do whatevs?"
"Yep!" Nezu replied, giving her a thumbs up, and not explaining at all.
Cementoss took up the briefing, "This will be similar to actual combat. For today, think of us as villains."
Snipe chimed in next. "Assumin' you come across your enemy, if you think you can win against them, then fight. However. . ."
"In instances where you're outmatched," Aizawa stated, staring at us all, "it would be smarter to run away and find help. Todoroki, Ida, Midoriya, I'm sure the three of you understand."
"I won't make that mistake again," Tenya declared. "I will pass this test and prove that I'm a hero!"
"So we fight to win, or run to win," Midoriya stated, repeating what we'd just been told.
All Might grinned, "That's right! It's a test of your decision-making skills. But with these rules, you're probably thinking your only choice is to flee. That's why the support course made these super-clever accessories for us."
As All Might pulled out the metal wrist bands, festooned with a ring of black rectangles, Present Mic announced, "Behold! Ultra-compressed weights!"
As one, the entire class turned to stare at me. "C'mon, Ribbit," Asui rebuked them. "Just because Denki does Support things doesn't mean he-"
"They're not exactly weights, but, yeah, I helped make 'em," I admitted, cutting her off as the teachers put them on.
"These babies will add about half our body weight to our physiques. It's not much, but they will eat up our stamina and make it harder for us to move around," All Might continued explaining while we talked, not having paid attention to the us as he put them on. "Oh, Shoot. . . These are heavier than I thought."
Yeah, that's because yours are five times your body weight, I thought, as the man finished equipping the version Mei and I had designed for him, Since he was a power type who could jet around with ease. "We had a contest to come up with these designs, and Young Hatsume ended up winning it."
Power Loader sighed, "Not just her. Kaminari, you want to explain?"
"It's not actually a weight, or at least, not just a weight," I stated. "If that was it, all we'd do is manage to make All Might hit harder. There's also inertial dampeners built into them, to negate the momentum buildup that you could utilize from swinging around weighted limbs. Not enough to start producing anomalous effects, that'd require extra power and make things. . . weird, but the teachers will get all of the downsides, and none of the upsides of being weighed down. They're also tailored to the user so Midnight and Snipe have enough to mess up their finer movements, Eraserhead and Present Mic have a more moderate amount, and All Might, well, I'd say right now he's Half Might, so to speak."
Bakugo scowled, "You think we need that much of a handicap to win against you? When you're just askin' us ta cuff ya?"
All Might laughed heartily, but his glowing blue gaze was hard. "This'll be fun."
Some of the students split off to go prepare plans, but almost half the class gathered in the monitor room, a number of them having followed Deku and I as we'd made a beeline for the viewing gallery. I'd asked Shoto about strategies on the way, but he'd just shaken his head, and was now standing off to the side, lost in thought. Ochaco and Asui were nowhere in sight, but Midoriya was fidgeting, standing off on his own, and neither Mina nor Momo were around, so I walked over to him. "Hey, Izuku," I greeted. "Bakugo not up for team-planning?"
Deku grinned sheepishly, "Um, not really. Kacchan didn't seem like he wanted to talk strategy with me. How about you and Todoroki?" he asked, casting a glance at the boy in question.
I just shrugged, "It's Eraserhead, and we're both effectively emitters. We're gonna have to run fast, and hope one of us gets to the exit. How 'bout you?"
"It's All Might," the green-haired teen offered in return, and, to be honest, that's all that needed to be said.
I nodded, and glanced around the room. Recovery Girl was manning the monitor console, and everyone was just sort of milling about. Sero and Mineta were here, the second giving me a serious nod, which, not really sure what he meant, I returned.
Casting my mind back, I tried to remember how the fights had gone and. . . honestly, I hadn't remembered much actual strategy in these fights. The first one was bone-headed, but, as far as I could remember, all of the fights seemed to have strategies that were made up on the fly, from Momo's scarf-catapult, to Mineta's tape-mask, to Kouda's bug-rush. Hell, Bakugo's strategy boiled down to 'give Midoriya a bomb-gauntlet', as far as I could remember.
On screen, Kirishima and Sato got into position, facing off a man who could literally mold concrete to his will. It was a bad match up even if they were all equally skilled, a defense expert and a strongman lacking the capabilities to handle a battlefield controller, as they had no ranged options whatsoever. But these two against someone who'd trained his Quirk to the point it was almost art? And when the weights the man was wearing didn't impede his Quirk in the slightest?
"This is gonna suck," I sighed, knowing the outcome. I didn't know the specifics of Cementoss' Quirk, if he needed to see what he was working on, if it had a sensory component that he could use, like Toph from Avatar, to locate others from how their feet impacted the concrete under his control, and so on. The smart play would be to go high, as while the buildings were made of concrete too, getting off the concrete streets would help a little, as would the ability to break line of sight easily.
The computer announced the beginning of the test, and the screen expanded the image of the two of them running down a city street, Kirishima commenting that they'd get a higher score for capturing Cementoss than running. You don't know that, I thought, shaking my head, while cataloging the fact that anyone in the monitoring room would be able to hear what we said, though it was at a distance, and the audio didn't have the crisp clarity the show had had. Which, when it was from random cameras strewn about the place, made a bit of sense.
Beside me, Midoriya shifted as a rectangle of cement shot up in front of the pair, causing them both to jump back. About a hundred yards away, Cementoss had squatted down, his hands on the ground. Izuku started to say, "They still have a chance. If they-"
"Let's break through from the front and shoot for a high score!" Kirishima yelled, hardening his body.
"Aw, yeah!" Sato agreed grabbing a cylinder of sugar, which was labelled such in English letters for some reason, downing a half-cup of the stuff in one practiced motion.
". . . oh," Deku finished, frowning. The pair charged forward, breaking through wall after wall, but they did so almost randomly, punching down every wall in their way, not even concentrating their efforts.
"What're ya talkin' about?" Sero asked, cheering on the, admittedly, impressive looking swath of destruction the pair were laying down.
"They're not gonna win it like this," Midoriya disagreed. "Their Quirks are amazing, but there's a limit to how long they can use them. They won't last forever. I don't think Mr. Cementoss has that kind of limit, though. The more time that passes by, the more of a disadvantage they're at. It's like how I can use more power than I can safely handle, but doing so not only damages my body, but puts me on a timer. For a quick win, or when I really need it, that's good, but if I were to do nothing but pushing myself that way, I'd be more of a liability than asset."
Recovery Girl harrumphed beside us. "I'm glad you're not pushing yourself as hard anymore, boy, even if it's for the wrong reasons."
"Eraserhead said he picked these matches," I added. "That's why Todoroki and I, two emitters, are up against Aizawa. Why the people with sonic-based powers are up against a teacher who can override them. Why Mina and Tokoyami are up against someone that won't let them close to melee range. And why Midoriya and Bakugo are up against someone they can't use the strength of their Quirks to steamroll."
Deku nodded, "Yeah. To pass, we'll have to recognize our weaknesses. . . and overcome them."
"Exactly right," Recovery Girl agreed, and I noticed that everyone in the room was now paying close attention to our conversation, as Kirishima and Sato continued breaking down barriers, unable to see as Cementoss used his own Quirk to slowly move himself backwards on a disk of concrete. All the boys could see was the barriers in front of them, thinking they were almost there, not realizing they weren't even close. "So before it's time for your own final, you should think carefully about your compatibility with the teacher you're fighting."
"Already there," I smiled, shaking my head, getting an unamused look from the older woman.
Both boys ran out of steam less than a minute later, Cementoss reforming the concrete rubble, able to control even that, and enclosing the boys in what part of me couldn't help but recognize was a kill move, if Cementoss wasn't being careful. The manufactured stone fell on them like a grey wave in every direction, and when it was pulled off them, they were both battered and bruised, their costumes torn, and it was clear they could've been far worse off.
As the teacher instructed the boys about knowing exactly how far their Quirks could take them, given both were unconscious, I realized that he wasn't saying it for their benefit right now, but for when they reviewed the fight later, and to us in the monitoring room as well.
The horn blared, signaling the end of the fight, not even five minutes from when it'd started, and I had to shake my head.
"It's only the first match and I'm already needed," Recovery Girl sighed, getting out of her chair and heading for the attached medbay.
"Holy crap," Mineta muttered, eyes wide, walking over to me. "Um, Denki, you got any advice?"
I lifted an eyebrow. "Why do you think you're fighting Midnight?" I asked in return and the open pervert winced. "You know more about her than I do. This is your test. I'm looking forward to whatever you come up with."
The tiny boy frowned, before nodding. "Understood," he stated, seriously, walking back over to his corner.
It was only a few minutes later that Asui and Uraraka were in position, in an odd kind of open space, almost like a wall-less coliseum with several sets of balconies going up the cylinder of the room, the entire complex a series of these things. It was almost like a Greek forum, but with modern construction methodology, and I had to wonder why this place was built, other than to host fights, of course.
From our position, the monitor displayed not only the pair of girls, but also a map of the entire complex, as well as the exit on, not the room in front of them, but one behind them and to the right, adding an extra level of confusion and complexity. Then again, given how much smaller this space was than the arena that Kirishima and Sato had just fought in, that made a certain amount of sense.
"Where's Ectoplasm?" Uraraka asked, looking around.
"In order to escape, we have to pass through the designated gate, right?" Tsu reminded her partner, who nodded. "Which means the teacher's probably there waiting for us." The buzzer went off, and the girls nodded to each other, Ochaco using her own Quirk on herself as a white mist shimmered in front of them, forming into five versions of the Pro Hero they were fighting.
The man's appearance was odd, wearing a sleeveless trench-coat. And by that, it wasn't that his arms were bare, but, looking at the man, didn't exist, the tan material of the jacket draping over his shoulders and down his torso seamlessly. Furthermore the Pro was standing on what appeared to be two peg-legs, almost like stilts. I honestly wasn't sure what this man's story was, but, regardless, his handicapped nature would theoretically limit his combat capability to a vast degree.
However, as the man was a Pro, I knew that the teacher could fight, and wondered how this would turn out.
"Maybe You didn't understand," the clones spoke as one, "but we teachers are trying to crush you with everything we've got. No holding back."
More mist appeared from behind them, forming another five clones that were even closer, and Asui's panicked "Ribbit!" summed up my thoughts. Not only could he make them without line of sight, but could act through them perfectly, able to see what they saw to use his power even more effectively.
The lead clone tilted himself forward, to almost smile at them, despite wearing a full helmet, the tooth design on the mouthguard giving his face a skull-like quality. "Steel your nerves, and show me your resolve," they chanted in unison, charging forward.
Ochaco, weightless, leapt up into the air, but didn't use the thrusters I could clearly see in her suit as she yelled, "Let's go, Tsu!" Asui followed a half second later, leaping up past the girl, tongue shooting out to wrap around her weightless partner's wrist, dragging the other girl along.
The pair headed for a balcony, more clones already forming, but the frog girl leapt up higher, changing direction, another pair of clones starting to manifest, but they were too slow, the pair having blown past them as all but one of the clones deformed, more being created along the balcony the girls ran down. Asui whipped her tongue forward, Ochaco dropping her Quirk right before she kicked the lead clone in the head, causing it to burst into mist as she yelled out, "We're not holding back either!"
Both girls didn't stop moving forward, dodging and fighting their way across the balcony towards an exit. Asui, I knew was strong, and fast, but Uraraka's speed was surprising. It was nothing on what I could do, but given her only use of her Quirk was to either push a clone off the balcony, or on herself for a half-second to close on an opponent, she was doing surprisingly well. The two of them made it towards a hallway, ducking inside and running down it.
In the exact wrong direction.
The green hallway filled with more clones, not giving away anything and the girls nodded to each other and fought on, Ochaco using her Quirk to send clones drifting, while Asui would come in with a kick to send them flying down the hallway behind them in what was obviously a planned maneuver. When one of Ectoplasm's Clones saw that move coming, a second clone forming to try to get the jump on the frog-girl, but Uraraka was there, tagging him and grabbing the man's coat, sending him flying herself.
"That's good communication," Recovery Girl noted, entering the room, eyes on the screen. "They're talking to each other. That might not seem like much but it's important. I don't just mean having a sidekick or teammate that you know you match well with. Real heroes need to be able to communicate with anyone."
I glanced Todoroki's way, "Got a plan yet?"
"Not yet," the boy replied emotionlessly.
Midoriya shot a look my way. "You were talking about these finals, and how each student is supposed to be facing their weaknesses. What are theirs? I'm having trouble seeing Mr. Ectoplasm's Quirks is a bad match-up against theirs."
"Oh?" the old woman commented.
"It's not just Quirks," I stated, the nurse giving me a considering glance. "It's the arena as well. Asui and Uraraka are high-mobility fighters. Especially now. If they were to fight on the streets like Kirishima did, they'd win, easily. But in a smaller, enclosed spaces, neither of them can utilize their mobility to the fullest."
"The area does let Asui move quickly," Recovery Girl disagreed, the frog girl bouncing around, never stopping, "but you're not entirely wrong."
Both girls made it out of the hallway, leaping out into the main space of the cylinder, looking around. "Damnit, not this one. Left or right, Tsu?" Ochaco asked, as more clones formed, on every balcony, a denser cluster around Asui as she landed.
"Right! Ribbit!" the frog girl croaked, leaping back up as a few clones formed above the floating girl, dropping down to try and hit her. Asui's tongue wrapped around Ochaco's waist, pulling her away as the green-clad girl spun around, throwing her partner to the left of the room instead.
The nurse chuckled, "Smart girl." Indeed, more clones were already forming on the right side of the room, leaving the left side more sparsely guarded. Both girls made it down a half-green, half-yellow hallway, but the clone density was growing, and the students had started to slow down, obviously trying to conserve their strength for the final stretch.
However, this was a mistake.
The girls leapt across the space again, but hadn't seen the large cloud of glowing mist that had accumulated on the ceiling in preparation, growing with every clone they destroyed. Instead of streaking out into the air as fast as possible, Asui took a more parabolic arc, and let Ochaco float on her own instead of dragging her across. It was obvious she did so to clear the landing zone, but, in doing so, was caught off-guard when the rain of clones started.
"Look out!" Midoriya yelled, as if that would help, as Ectoplasm after Ectoplasm formed, dropping down. Ochaco tried to dodge but her thrusters had barely started before she was caught in a mass of clones that dragged her to the ground.
"Ochaco!" Asui cried out, turning back, as her teammate was captured, the clones making sure to not slam the girl down too hard, one taking the force of the landing and turning to mist, but the others pinned her to the ground.
The mass of clones moved off her, leaving only three keeping the girl down with their peg-legs. Uraraka's hands were pinned, palms down, a peg pressed down on the top of each, while a third clone had a peg on the small of her back.
The frog girl tried to jump down, tongue shooting out, but the other clones were there, one kicking away the appendage while the others closed in on her landing point, the teenager getting an arm up to protect against the kick that still sent her flying backwards.
"Go on without me, Tsu!" Uraraka yelled, and the other girl hesitated, dodging under a clone's kick, before nodding and leaping away, taking off for the hallway leading to the next room, obviously hoping that that would be the correct one, but it wouldn't be. She had two more to go, but, maybe she could make it.
Ochaco struggled, but Ectoplasm, despite not being able to grab her, with his peg legs and his lack of arms, held her still regardless. All of the clones but the three holding her down broke apart into glowing mist that quickly dissipated, reforming to fight Asui, but those three was enough to keep the student pinned.
"You're not getting away, no matter how hard you struggle," Ectoplasm told Uraraka, while Asui fought through literal hordes of clones. While the weights the teacher was wearing didn't inhibit his Quirk, I could tell they were severely limiting the man's kick-heavy fighting style, having had to strap them all to his legs instead of spreading the 'weights' out between his hands and feet. "Sacrificing yourself was noble, but without you, she is going to fail."
Ochaco still struggled, but there was no getting out, and the girl went limp, giving up. "She's. . . oh," Izuku murmured in realization from beside me.
"Would you like to share with the rest of us?" Recovery Girl asked, interested, and I nodded, since I had no idea what Midoriya had figured out. As far as I could tell, Ochaco was down for the count.
"I. . . you'll see," he told us. "Or I'm wrong. Either way, this is their moment."
All of us turned to watch, Asui taking hits but pushing through, until she found the large blue room where the real Ectoplasm stood, the cutesy exit gate behind him. Looking back, the frog girl inhaled and yelled, "Found it!" as loud as she could, the noise echoing through the structure.
Ectoplasm stared up at her, along with over two dozen clones, more forming to fight the girl, forcing her back as she rushed the gate and trying to dogpile her. The three on Ochaco all stiffened, looking down at the gravity nullifier.
Uraraka turned her head to stare back at them.
And smiled.
Twisting her wrists, her hands remained pinned, but that was enough for the sensors in her bracelets, which fired off their wires, the ends Mei had designed sticking to the clone's peg-leg. With twin pink glows, both clones were rendered weightless, freeing her hands to let twist and grab them, swinging them backwards and releasing the power to let their full mass slam into the last one holding her down.
Using her power on herself, she shoved her hands down, throwing herself up and out of the way as the clones tried to grab her once more, several of the ones fighting Asui dissipating to try and stop Uraraka, but the girl twisted mid-air, the falling clones missing her as she rotated, pointing herself back towards the hallway leading to the central room.
Pointing her hands and feet back, she opened every thruster in her suit to its fullest extent, blasting forward faster than the clones could react, shooting down the hallway as she called out, "TSU!"
"HERE!" her partner yelled, telling the flying girl where to go, as all of the clones the frog-girl were fighting dissipated at once, reforming into a twenty-foot-high Ectoplasm that opened skeletal jaws wide and lunged.
Asui tried to get away, but, with its head not weighed down, the mega-clone was too fast, and swallowed the girl whole, who was pushed through the clone to appear on its back, arms and legs still stuck in the clone's 'jacket'.
The clones trying to stop Ochaco all disappeared, unable to keep up, and a second Mega-clone formed, moving to catch the girl as she shot out the hallway, jaws open wide and waiting. Sure enough, the girl came flying out as if fired from a canon, and, seeing the gaping Maw, her eyes went wide, before her expression set with determination.
Clapping her hands together, she started to fall, moving fast enough that it was a fairly flat arc, throwing both hands out and shooting her wires into the mouth as it closed on her.
Rather than be caught, though, the mega-clone was thrown backwards like All Might himself had just bitch-slapped it, striking the wall so hard it exploded into a mass of shining mist. A pink flash could be seen inside, and Ochaco came hurtling out, thrusters to full again, one arm forward, firing out a wire towards the clone that held Asui.
This time we were able to see what happened, Uraraka releasing her Quirk's effect on herself the moment before she rendered the remaining mega-clone weight-less, slamming into it with enough force to send it flying, before negating the Quirk on it, meaning that it didn't bounce off the balcony harmlessly but hit with the full force the weight and momentum of something that size should have.
Ochaco re-Quirked herself, flying for the exit, clones already forming, and Ectoplasm himself tried to jump up to intercept her. Even with the weights, he kicked her away, but Asui, having pulled the large cuffs out of nowhere, went after him instead.
Ectoplasm twisted at the last moment, kicking her away too, dodging as she tried cuffing him again, but froze, mid-counter, when the buzzer rang. Turning, he stared at the exit, as Asui smirked.
Ochaco was floating, just on the other side of the gate, grinning smugly. "Gonna fail, are we?" she taunted. "I think not."
Chapter Fifty-Eight
The monitoring room broke out into cheers at Asui & Uraraka's victory, Ectoplasm giving the anti-gravity girl a grudging nod, the three all leaving to head back to the main building. Unable to help myself, I leaned over, and quietly commented to Deku, "Your girlfriend's really something, isn't she?"
The boy instantly blushed so hard he almost glowed, waving his hands in my direction as he stuttered "G-G-Girlfriend? She's not my girlfriend, not that there's anything wrong with her, she's kinda amazing actually, and I'm not, and I'm sure she doesn't even think of me that way, and-"
I clapped a hand on the boy's back. "Midoriya, calm down, I'm teasin' ya," I smiled, and the boy blinked owlishly. Right, he's used to Bakugo, I thought. "Though, and I might be wrong here," I shrugged, "I'd disagree with you on the not 'thinking of you that way' thing." I was. . . not the most socially adept of people, I'd easily admit, but the experience of two lifetimes, even if the first seemed ever more distant, let me pick up the fairly unsubtle indicators of interest both girls were dropping towards the green-haired teen.
The boy stared at me in disbelief, letting out a hesitant, "R-Really?" I nodded, and he started to smile, before he froze. "Um, we're talking about Ochaco, right?" he whispered, the room quieting down as the next pair of students got into position.
I just smirked. "Both."
And, once more, the panicked expression was back. "Both?" the boy croaked.
My smirk widened into a grin. "Both. Have fun with that, and remember that whoever you're in a relationship with gets just as much of a say in your relationship with them as you do. All three of you are tough, and doing things to try and 'protect' them, while nice, disrespects that."
"Indeed," Recovery Girl noted, and I winced, as I apparently hadn't been as subtle as I thought I was. Aren't old people supposed to lose their hearing as they age? "Ms. Ashido teach you that?"
"Ashido?" Izuku echoed, looking to me. "You're. . ."
I just shrugged, as my girlfriend got into position on screen, along with Tokoyami. "She's something special," I stated, not exactly confirming it. "Let's see how she does."
The pair in question were standing by, glancing about, waiting. "So, the Principal's, like, tiny," Mina said, looking around. "Is he just hiding? Do we need to hunt him down? 'Cause that doesn't feel right."
"The pursuing of those who fear justice, hiding in the shadows, is often a hero's duty," Tokoyami noted, everything neck-down hid under his full-body cloak, the boy looking around. "But with how large the battlefield is, this will be quite a difficult task."
"But, if he hides, why don't we just jet?" she asked, motioning in the direction of the escape gate. "So we can 'get someone whose Quirk is better for searching' and stuff?"
The buzzer rang, and both students looked to each other, nodded, and took off. Tokoyami ran, while Mina glided alongside, moving far slower than she could, but making sure to keep pace with her partner.
The sounds of distant destruction could be heard by the cameras keeping track of the pair.
Suddenly, without warning, the building to their side seemed to explode, the structure collapsing towards them as Mina threw out an arm, grabbed Tokoyami, and blasted forward, barely clearing the falling warehouse as it collapsed into rubble behind them.
"What was that?" the bird man demanded, looking back to the wreckage. "Did the principal cause such wanton destruction?"
"Looks like it," Mina replied, glancing around, "But how?"
On the screen, a second window opened up, showing the principal manning the controls of a wrecking crane with one paw, holding a cup of tea in the other. "Planning and physics!" the chimera noted, moving the crane, obviously listening in on their conversation. "I can cause chain reactions depending on what I destroy." The wrecking ball slamming into a building, which started to collapse, before exploding to the side, which destroyed another building, which destroyed another building, and so on. "Such calculations are as easy for me to make as a simple cup of tea."
Both students looked up at the sounds of increasingly close building collapsing, before taking off, trying to outrun the next collapse, but this time it happened ahead of them, cutting them off and forcing them to turn and run down an alley, the principal starting another chain reaction, getting to them just as they were about to start heading south towards the exit again. With no options other than backtracking the way they came or heading away from the gate, the two of them were forced north, trying to find a way out, Nezu chuckling as he started another chain reaction.
"Oh, they're certainly trying, but a genius villain can always win from afar!" The chimera announced, laughing maniacally.
The others in the room were visibly disturbed by the pronouncement, but Recovery Girl just smiled indulgently. "In the past, humans conducted horrible experiments on Nezu," she explained. "So, in times like this, he gets his vengeance."
It soon became abundantly clear that the mammalian chimera was leading the two around the area, like rats in a maze. "They're not gonna make it," I commented, looking at the timer counting down, half their allotment gone, and with them having made no forward progress in the last ten minutes. More than that, Nezu was running them ragged, setting building to collapse on them if they stopped and tried to rest, or slowed down too much. Both students were fast enough to get out of the way, but it was visibly tiring out Tokoyami.
I wasn't sure if it was Body Talent, or the training I'd done with her, but Mina was still fine, though the girl was shooting her partner increasingly worried looks as he wheezed, trying to keep up even a jogging pace.
Then, for a moment, the destruction stopped, causing both students to look around fearfully. "You should leave me behind," Tokoyami announced, causing his partner to glance his way skeptically. "It is obvious that you are faster, and my presence will only lead you to a dark and terrible end."
"Don't be like that!" Mina shot back, but frowned, "I am faster, but, but that's not right!"
The bird-headed boy sighed, "But such is the way of life. I am sure, had you been paired with Yaoyorozu, like you were in the sports festival, you would have already won. My failure need not harm you as well."
"What'd I say about talkin' like that!" the acid-user commanded, hands on her hips, before she froze, eyes widening. "Wait. . . the Sports Festival!"
"What about it? I was not even able to progress to the third round, while you-"
"Oh shut up!" Mina snapped, annoyed. "No, we shouldn't be like me and Yaomomo, we should be like Sparky and Mei!"
Asui, who had returned with Ochaco while we'd been watching, let out a questioning, "What?" as she stood beside Midoriya, who frowned, before realization dawned.
"That could work!" the boy smiled, "It'd be situation dependent, but. . . it could work!"
Even Nezu, who obviously was listening in, cocked his head in interest, as my girlfriend turned around, and crouching slightly, offering her back to her partner. "Hop on, Tokoyami! Time to ride the Mina express out of here!"
"A-are you sure?" the boy asked, hesitating, but the sounds of Nezu starting another chain reaction spurred him into action, jumping onto her back as she took off at speed, jetting down the only path they had left, as the wreckage next to where they'd been standing was hit by another falling building, forcing that wreckage to be pushed out, collapsing on where they'd just been standing.
"Yes!" Nezu crowed, the tea put down, now furiously working both levers of his crane, setting off multiple chains of destruction. "There's still a way out students. Come on, use your heads!" he commanded, voice becoming manic. "Think Carefully! Rack those hero brains!"
Mina was flying down the open paths, falling buildings coming down all around her as Tokoyami held on for dear life, finally outpacing the falling buildings to turn south, once more making progress for the exit, getting ever closer, but, on a third window, we could see the arching paths of destruction that were reaching out for her like grasping arms.
Sure enough, they reached her, cutting her off from the front, collapsing without even a hope of running through in time, another set of collapsing structures falling behind her, trapping them both.
Without missing a beat, though, she turned and headed for a multi-story factory building, commenting over her shoulder, "Dark Shadow works best in darkness, right?" The bird-headed boy nodded, and Mina grinned. "Then you'll carry me through this bit, partner. It's time to go high!"
Throwing an arm forward, Mina shot a concentrated blast of acid, wincing slightly, the high-pressure substance melting through the reinforced concrete in seconds, leaving a shadowed hole she leapt through, disappearing out of sight of the cameras.
Before she'd even let loose the corrosive substance, though, Nezu had already started another chain reaction, the area around him starting to look a little sparse on things left to destroy, this one making a bee-line to collapse the building both students had just entered.
We all waited with bated breath for several seconds, watching the coming ruination, and, moments before the factory building was hit, two thin streams shot through a wall near the top, almost making a complete hole, only the very top and bottom portions still intact. Two sets of shadowy purple talons, each as large as a person, pierced the cut sections, gripping tightly to the surround wall, which cracked from the pressure they were being put under.
With a sharp snap, the hole of concrete was punched out, Mina seemingly attached to the inside of it, as if she'd hit it with a flying kick. The girl grit her teeth, as an enormous Dark Shadow pushed her out, throwing her towards the goal, before instantly shrinking and pulling itself back under Tokoyami's cloak.
The pair flew through the air, and, as they started to descend, flipped the disk of concrete over, Mina tensing, acid flowing out of her boots, before she shot herself forward once more, using the disk as a launching platform to gain even more distance, closing in on the gate.
Nezu, meanwhile had not been idle, laughing uproariously as his paws were a blur, laying waste to everything around him and setting off dozens of chain-reactions that streaked towards the pair, trying to collapse the building where they'd land, trapping them right before they could escape.
"Now!" Mina shouted, pointing her hands upwards and shooting acid above them, concentrating as it expanded outwards into a shield.
But what is she shielding herself from, I thought, even as Midoriya gasped, "That's brilliant!"
As Dark Shadow pulled himself out from Tokoyami's cloak, it became clear that what Mina was shielding herself from was the sun. It was nothing close to what had thrown the pair out of the building, but the corrosive umbrella Mina struggled to maintain was more than enough for Dark Shadow to manifest enough to latch onto her and drag her forward, and, in doing so, carry Tokoyami as well.
It wasn't enough to fly, but it did smooth out their trajectory even more, the principal desperately trying to hit something else with his crane, but there was nothing left to destroy. Paradoxically, he seemed ecstatic, yelling, "That's how you do it!" as the pair hit the ground a dozen feet from the gate, Mina blasting through it on a wave of acid, winning their fight with less than a minute to spare, and the monitoring room burst out into a cacophony of cheers.
Ten minutes later, after the room had calmed down, Jiro and Kouda were in position, in the middle of the forest, facing off against Present Mic. "Oh, damn, I see what Eraserhead did," I commented, seeing aspects of the fight that I'd overlooked before. "This really isn't fair to Jiro."
"What do you mean?" Asui questioned, a finger to her chin.
Frowning, I explained, "Present Mic is kind of a one-trick pony. It's a good trick, don't get me wrong, but he has blowback-less sonic attacks. That makes him a wide-angle turret, and good suppression, but means he can't pull a Banshee."
"A what?" Minetta asked.
Sero, however, nodded. "Yeah, he can't." The others turned to look at him. "Banshee was in the X-Men," the human tape dispenser explained.
Deku frowned, "I haven't heard of that hero team. Are they American?"
I laughed, surprised. "I mean, kind of? They're not real." I knew Midoriya was a giant cape-geek, but for some reason I'd thought that'd extended out into fictional heroes as well, but apparently not.
It was one of the things that I'd noticed living here, specifically that turn-of-the-century media was still surprisingly popular. Hell, my girlfriend wanted to name herself after the villain from a movie from the nineteen eighties, which, considering that I had been born a few years later, was. . . odd. To me, the eighties were the distant past, the nineties little better, and I only was cognizant of what was going on in the 2000's, but to my classmates, the difference between those three decades was the same difference that the 1880's, 1890's and 1900's had to me.
Well, not quite the same, as the wealth of recorded fiction helped delineate the societal trends far better than the late 1800's, but the turn of the century, from 1900's to 2000's, was shortly before the dark century, where society collapsed and people focused more on surviving then they did creating new media. Even now, some of the things being made didn't quite measure up, so a large portion of the population focused more on things that were more popular back when I was a kid, close to two hundred years ago.
However, in retrospect, every comparison I'd heard Midoriya make was to real heroes, past and present, with nary a mention of the heroes I'd grown up reading about. Looking to the tape-hero, I lifted my hand, pulling my middle and ring fingers in to make the iconic gesture and asked, "Spider-man?"
"Spider-man," he nodded with a grin, turning to look to Midoriya. "Banshee had a sonic scream, but he could focus it. Using that, he could push himself back. That, and with a wing-suit, let him fly."
"But without any kickback, all Present Mic can do is blast away," I added, the buzzer ringing and the match starting. This time, instead of set cameras, a drone followed the two students from above as they ran through the forest.
The pro-hero in question let out an empowered, "YEEEEEEEEEAAAAAAAAHHHHHH!!!"
"Like that," I sighed. "Jiro's a scouting specialist, and has some strength, but her power is either close range destruction by plugging something in and shattering it with the right resonance, or her sound blast. Present Mic's range is insane if he doesn't have to worry about civilians, and he could overpower her even with his speakers limited at half their normal output."
"Then, how is she supposed to win?" Ochaco asked, frowning. "That doesn't seem fair."
"It isn't," Asui noted flatly.
Izuku, however, considered that. "Mr. Aizawa set this up, so we'd learn something. For Kirishima and Sato, it was not to rely on their Quirk to carry them. The same lesson he probably has for you, Kaminari," he stated, looking to me, and I nodded in agreement. "For Ochaku and Asu-Tsu," he corrected, the frog girl smiling slightly, "it was to fight even when you couldn't move as much. Or when you're fighting a lot at once. For Tokoyami and Ashido, it was to work together, no, she already knew that. Hmmm. . . Tokyami. . . he likes to use his Quirk to attack his enemies, so he had an enemy he couldn't fight, and Ashido likes to burn through things, so she was in a situation where she didn't have enough time to burn through everything in her way."
"Very good," Recovery Girl noted, before scowling and sighing as Jiro took her hands away from her ears, her gloved palms darkened with blood. "Oh, and I was so hoping I wouldn't be needed for this one."
Even with the benefit of hindsight, and knowing how these things would turn out, I was only starting to get what Midoriya was picking up right away, so I couldn't help myself as I asked, "And this one?"
"It isn't fair, you're right Tsu," Midoriya declared. "But it doesn't have to be. For Jiro, it's to not rely on blasting things to win. Her sonic attack is strong, but it's not all-powerful. But, but I think this is for Koda. His Quirk is actually powerful, but he rarely uses it." The boy in question recoiled from the insect Jiro offered him on screen, and Izuku nodded, "Didn't know that. But, if he's not using his power because he's scared, he has to get over it to win."
"Which means Jiro passing or failing depends on whether or not Koda can get his shit together," I stated, crossing my arms. The part of me that wanted to be a teacher rankled at that kind of unfairness in an exam, but, given that the 'punishment' was just night classes at the summer camp, not a denial of training, it wasn't that bad. But I still didn't like the deception.
Uraraka winced, "Yeah, that sounds like something Mr. Aizawa would do."
Watching, I could tell Jiro was in pain, but she was being a trooper about it at least, keeping a positive front as she tried to convince her partner to overcome his fears and actually help. Thankfully, after a few moments, he lunged forward, almost putting his face into the mass of insects Jiro had uncovered when she'd broken a small boulder, and started giving them orders.
Within moments, the mass of insects had disappeared, digging, and Jiro broke a few more rocks, Koda, with only momentary hesitation, commanding them as well. Another blast of noise came from Present Mic and, when Jiro tried to run forward, she almost fell over, her eardrums perforated and her equilibrium completely destroyed.
To Koda's credit, he didn't hesitate to pick her up, carrying her at first to the side, to get out of the brunt of Present Mic's blasts, and then ran right for the goal, having given the insects time enough to start to converge.
Sure enough, as he approached, the ground around Present Mic's feet cracked, unleashing a horde of insects that surged up the blond man's legs, covering his body as the announcer had a panic attack and fainted dead away.
"Oh, gross," Uraraka squealed in disgust.
"Wow, Koda," Midoriya whispered, "Harsh move."
Looking around, most of those present looked disturbed by the attack, while Recovery Girl just looked pissed. "He let a few bugs beat him?" she demanded, and from a more practical perspective, I could understand. All the man had needed to do was shout downwards, and, while he might bruise himself a little, he would've been fine, instead of freaking the hell out. On the other hand, without the man's apparent insect-phobia, it would've been a complete shut out, the powers just that bad a mismatch, given the objective.
"Team Koda and Jiro have passed the exam!" the announcer intoned, a buzzer ringing, and it was onto the next team.
The camera changed to show Momo, Ida, and Yuga all starting, not in a rocky area that I vaguely remembered, but a tightly packed street, almost to the point of being a ghetto. An overhead map showed the area to be large, with a several hundred-feet of seemingly empty ground right before the gate. However, more windows opened, showing autonomous turrets panning around, several robots, like from the entrance exam moving about, and one seemingly open street where hidden wires could barely be seen in the mid-morning sun.
"Please note," Principal Nezu's voice announced, "Given that there's three of you, we've given Power Loader half an hour to prepare to make things fair. Have fun!"
I blinked. "Oh shit," I swore, "they are screwed."
Midoriya frowned. "I'm sure Ida could-"
The buzzer blaredd, and several hidden turrets popped up over the edge of the rooftops, opening fire on the three students below.
"Oh," Izuku said, as a flashbang went off, temporarily blinding the cameras, and Momo's test started in earnest.
"Yeah," I agreed. "Oh."
Chapter Fifty-Nine
Arms and legs smarting from a dozen impacts, Momo Yaoyorozu ran down the city street, handcuffs bouncing from where she'd threaded them through her belt, flanked by her classmates, Tenya Ida and Yuga Aoyama. "We need to find cover!" she called over her shoulder, even as the windows of the buildings in front of them were broken, more robotic turrets leaning out.
Unlike the first ones, these didn't fire beanbag rounds, but blue pellets that hit the ground around them, exploding outwards into blooms of distinctive blue foam. "Right!" she called out, turning and running for the nearest doorway, even as all three of them were hit by the binding material.
"Understood!" Ida replied, blazing past her, stopping at the door, which wouldn't open. "It's locked!" he reported unnecessarily, and she nodded, already forming a block of iron around her clenched fist, like Armor Warrior had taught her. Throwing her full momentum into the blow, she struck the door just so, breaking it open and practically falling inside, her classmates quickly following.
As soon as Aoyama ran in, the sound of firing stopped, the boy looking down at his costume in distress. "How incredibly unshiny! I thought we were fighting Power Loader, not more robots!"
Momo focused on the foam on her skin, creating a single-molecule layer of carbon, so that the sticky material stuck to that instead, falling off her. Following a hunch, she created a bit of the counter-substance that Denki's friend Mei had created, applying it to the foam still stuck to her costume, only for it to turn into gritty blue sand.
"Ma amie, you have a way of letting me sparkle again?" the blonde boy asked, sudden very close to her.
"I, um, yes, of course!" she smiled, creating just enough to clean off the boy's armor, needing to conserve her reserves. It was as she did so that she realized the lenses on his shoulders had been blocked. "Can you use your Quirk through those?" she asked, trying to understand what her teammates could do.
'Understand your tools, and use them rightly. If you do, victory is inevitable,' Armor Warrior had said during her internship, and while her teammates weren't tools, their abilities were, just as much as her own Quirk was.
"Oui!" he smiled happily, with an unnecessary twirl, his cape tied down, two magnets pinning the material against the student's armor to prevent it from flapping about. "I can route the beam from my belly out through my shoulders and knees, or all at once, so I cannot be taken by surprise!"
"Unless they attack you from the back," Momo nodded, understanding it to be a distribution system. With their fighting multiple opponents, apparently, that would be an asset.
The half-French boy blinked. "Pardon?"
"Your lenses are all facing forwards," Yaoyorozu stated, clarifying, as she hadn't explained her comment enough. "You can turn around slightly," she mimed, twisting at the waist, "but your range of motion is somewhat limited. If you had another pair of lenses, perhaps on the backs of your hands, you'd be able to attack anything behind you." She held up a hand, as if to ask a question, closing it into a fist and jerking it back for emphasis. "But this is still an improvement."
"I, yes," the boy agreed. "This is merely the first stage of my costume, as I gain marvelous skill with my new use! The next set, will of course, include focusing lenses on the backs of my hands."
"And then your third will have one on your back," she nodded, understanding the boy's methodology.
"Have no doubt," Aoyama smiled, winking. "But. . . why do you think I would have it? So I'm certain we're on the same page."
Momo hadn't expected the quiz, but the answer was obvious. "For mobility! You used your Quirk to move yourself during our first day, with it on you back you wouldn't have the awkward positioning that caused you to fall."
"Tres Magnifique!" her classmate smiled, "As expected from our class president!"
Ida added, "My costume offers no benefit to my Quirk, other than making sure my exhaust pipes have air circulation. There is some defensive benefit, obviously, and it provides striking surfaces. Now, our plans are obvious no longer viable, as we are not fighting Power-Loader directly. Do you have any ideas? Also, could you remove the foam from my armor?"
"Certainly!" She smiled, mind working. She hadn't expected turrets of all things, but, from her discussions with Denki, the robots the school used were actually quite complex. If they could create attack robots en masse, they certainly could create turrets, which only required a targeting software, as opposed to programs to help them move. Well, move more than shifting their position from a stable base. A few swipes of her hand, and he was clean, then she took a step to the doorway, creating an emergency blanket, the requirements to make the super thin aluminized silver not even noticeable to her reserves.
A bit of hardened foam was packed inside, just enough to provide a weight, and she tossed it out. Sure enough, it was shot, but after a second and a half, and even then, two-thirds of the shots missed, hitting where the blanket was before it hit the ground and rolled.
That's it! She thought, smiling at the latency. "Aoyama, Ida, you'll need to be the ones that do this. Aoyama, could you shoot the targets?"
"Oui, ma amie!" the hero student smiled, with a little salute, which dropped a little. "But not in time to get all three before they sully my costume once more."
"Ida-" Momo started to ask, but the young man was already ahead of her.
With a clenched fist of determination, he promised, "I can carry Aoyama! Not a round will hit my teammate!"
It's not a round, it's a pellet, she thought, but that didn't matter, so she smiled as well, taking a step away from the door. "I'm counting on both of you!"
Both boys nodded, looked at each other a little awkwardly, before Ida turned around, Aoyama climbing on, piggy-back. "Let's begin!" Ida stated, getting an affirmative hmm from the other boy, and both blazed out, faster than Momo could hope to move.
Watching from the window, she waited nervously, hoping that she hadn't gotten her teammates captured. Aoyama focused, and bolts of shining energy leapt from his shoulders, hitting targets out of sight. Pellets were fired back, but Ida was several steps ahead of them, repositioning, but stopping long enough for his partner to fire once more. Four exchanges later, and the pellets stopped, both boys sighing in relief.
Walking outside, she saw the windows that the turrets had hid behind were blown open completely, wrecked, sparking metal inside. Checking the watch she'd created for this test, she saw they still had twenty-six minutes left. "Very good, but let's keep going!" she smiled, both boys smiling back, and they took off.
Fourteen minutes later, they were not as confident as they had been before.
When they were ambushed by turrets, and they were, repeatedly, they had a plan, but that was not the only trap their opponent had set. Motion-activated net-guns, capture foam mines, pit traps, pit traps lined with capture foam mines, pit traps with capture foam mines that then dropped nets on you, it kept going. They had learned that having Ida run ahead would trip the pit traps, only to discover that there were sticky invisible wires that had caught the speedster like a giant spider web, and they'd needed Aoyama to blast the boy free, Momo's tools unable to cut it, so to speak.
Then had come the robots.
So many robots.
Aoyama had held his own, while Momo had needed to create explosives to hold them off from the other direction, Ida jumping in to take any that she missed, the two of them together barely matching the blond boy's damage output. However, the ensuing nausea from using his Quirk had put him out of commission for two minutes each time, eating away at their allotment, Momo carrying the boy while Ida once more scouted ahead.
Had she over-relied on her Quirk, as she often did when she first came to UA, doing so would've slowed her down and fatigued her. However, her training, both with her friends, and with Armor Warrior, had shown her that her body merely was another tool in her arsenal, and one that needed to be honed beyond the point of no longer being a liability, but into a strength in of itself.
Ida turned a corner, only for the sound of turrets firing to come far too quickly, the boy running back around, armor half-covered with expanding bits of blue foam. Putting Aoyama down, Momo freed the boy of his still-forming prison, wincing as her reserves continued to dwindle. She had just over a third remaining, the tools she'd needed to fight the robots having taken large chunks, and the unending low-level drain of creating the anti-foam fluid a constant nibble on her stamina.
"There's over a dozen, and it's a tightly packed alley," the speedster reported. "We have to go around."
Nodding, Momo turned to one of the nearby buildings, which had been built so close together that they could be considered one structure, peering inside a window.
A nest of mines looked back.
Moving to another building, the windows were boarded up, but a prybar opened it quickly, only to reveal more mines. Trying the door of the boarded-up building, she found it, unlike so many in the area, was unlocked, but the mine placement she'd seen from the blocked window would've made them invisible from the entrance if you opened it and walked in.
"Clear the doorway," she requested, both boys nodding, as she made an emergency blanket shroud for the prybar, giving it enough movement to trigger the explosives. Tossing it inside, she took cover beside the door, as, with a collective, hissing bang, the mines went off, a bit of foam expanding out the entrance, which would've sealed the door had it been closed.
Trying to look inside, she was met with a mass of foam, making the space completely impassible without draining her reserves, making enough neutralizing liquid to clear a path. She'd been conserving it by only dissolving the point where the hardened foam had stuck to her teammates, but they were running out of time, so she couldn't try and conserve it by removing it in blocks.
Retreating further, she pulled the red flashlight she'd made after the second time they'd found wires, and shone it inside the next suspiciously unlocked door. Glinting inside, a spider-web of wires was revealed. "We've been funneled," she realized, with growing dread. What had I missed? She thought. We took the shortest path, whenever we found an intersection. Was that it?
It had to be, and they'd not bothered to look around, as focused as they were on their goal. How stupid I've been! she frowned, but shook her head. No, there's no time to focus on that. The other two looked to her, waiting, and she wasn't going to disappoint them.
She needed more information.
Moving up to the turn in the alley, she created a mirror and used it to look around the corner, only to have the reflective metal hit by a pellet, whose foam grew to encompass her hand, and she considered what she'd seen while she waited the two seconds for it to set. Two dozen turrets, staggered placement, but ground level, and with clear paths.
As she made a thin layer of material from her hand, slipping out of the hardened foam, she tried to think of what her friends would do. Denki would charge in, relying on his strength, speed, and alternate form to avoid the shots. Mina would cover herself with her acid, using it to take the hits for her, and roll over everything.
Could she. . . could she do both? "Give me a moment," she said, holding out a hand. This was going to be. . . difficult. She could create anything, but when one's palette was infinite, that made it infinitely easier to make a mistake. A shield as a base, she thought, pulling out her 'Yaoyorictionary', from its place on her back, the magnetically closed book springing open, and she quickly paged through her compiled notes on how to make anything she didn't already know by heart. The shield and neutralizing fluid she could make in her sleep, but they were discrete things, while this, this would be different.
Combining the two would be much more difficult. Well, just making the shield and covering it with the liquid would be rather easy, but that would only stand up to one hit. The pellet that had hit her hand had done so much harder than the previous turrets had, but she could use that to her advantage.
Balloons? Yes. But divided. Hexagonal? Her thoughts played out, as she tried to use the same kind of visualization that she'd trained with Denki, when he, bless his heart, had tried to teach her the blueprints for every Support Item he could, as skill she'd then refined during her internship.
If Mei's creations were novels, and Denki's chapters, what she required was a Haiku. Ease and depth in one, and all the harder for it, that's what she needed. Mechanical plans, not electronic design, pressure-based triggers. Aluminum cells, with fluid filled reservoirs, membranes holding fast.
Her arm glowed as her creation was produced, and she almost forgot the handle, fitting it in just in time, presenting the finished project to Ida. The hexagonal pieces on the front shifting slightly and clinking. "Use this," she commanded. "Charge the turrets. They focus on the closest target, unless you shoot at them, so after he's started, Aoyama, you start shooting, but only at the closest one." Arm glowing again, she made a second hex-shield. "I'll cover you," she promised, as the boy's accuracy wasn't one hundred percent, and a single close miss would shift the turret's focus.
"Ready?" she asked with a tired grin. They still had a third of the distance they needed to cover left, but the last fifth of the arena was an open field, which worried her.
Both boys returned with tired grins, Ida psyching himself with a shouted declaration of, "I shall persevere!" before running, as fast as he could, around the corner. The turrets opened fire almost instantly, but the boy kept running and the two of them turned the corner as well, Aoyama focusing his waist-laser, the one he was the most accurate with, and took out the first turret right as Ida almost reached it, the gun emplacement turning to shoot the speedster in the back.
It exploded in a shower of metal, and the blond boy's next two shot hit as well, giving Ida more breathing room, but his fourth shot missed, the turret re-targeted on the French-boy, whose eyes widened in fear. To his credit, he barely hesitated, firing, missing again, and Momo waited, watching the turret's barrel, and, as soon as she saw the end contract as it fired, she stepped in front of her teammate, the round hitting her shield.
The hex compressed, and the membrane broke, coating the shield with anti-foam fluid, causing the forming bindings to dissolve before it could fully expand. She stepped aside, Aoyama taking another shot, Ida slowing down just a little, and the turret was destroyed, the engine-legged boy resuming his charge, as the other two moved forward, following.
They kept going, the worry that this wouldn't be enough at the back of her mind, and when there were only four turrets left, Ida's membranes ran dry, and he started to accumulate foam on the shield, struggling to keep it up. When there were only two left, he stumbled, going down, and both turrets refocused on the remaining two students. It was up to Momo to try and block shots, moving faster than arrows, though thankfully slower than bullets.
Momo, blocking one shot as Aoyama took out one of the last turrets, saw she was out of position, and threw out a fist, catching another shot with it as her partner took out the last emplacement. Moving up quickly, she freed her bruised, smarting hand, and moved her shield over the now-bound Ida, hitting it with palm strikes to pop the remaining membranes, and pour the anti-foam fluid over the student, freeing him.
Less than a quarter left, she thought, having to make more fluid to fully free the boy. And six minutes left. "We need to move faster," she said as she bent down, pulling off her shoes to make the skates Mei had designed. "Ida, carry Aoyama. If we don't make this soon, we're not going to make it at all!"
The other boys nodded, jumping together, and the three of them dashed down the street, right into the jaws of another turret ambush, but this was the slower variety, and Momo took point, taking hits while covering herself with a thin coating of anti-foam fluid, making it drop right off her. They sped down another straightaway, turning the corner only to find Power-Loader working, holding some sort of gun, which he used to set up another sticky line. Several small, grey robots, moving in pairs and carrying turrets, looked at the heroes and quickly rolled away, and out of sight.
"Well, you're faster than I thought," the Pro commented blandly, even as Aoyama's blasts tore the network of wires apart, and Momo, with a sweep of her hand, used a thin layer of the same foam he'd been trapping them with to cover the lines, hardening in two seconds and providing a safe walkway.
"Have, have you been setting things up right in front of us this entire time?" Momo demanded. She'd been wondering how they had kept running into so much resistance.
Power Loader just looked at her for a moment, before nodding shameless. "Yes."
"But, how?" she demanded, and as the Hero waited a beat before he started to answer, she realized that the man was running out the clock. "Doesn't matter. Ida, Aoyama, run for the exit. It should be clear, but keep an eye out!" she ordered, both boys starting to run past them, Power Loader moving his bright yellow open-cockpit power armor to stop them, only for her to dart in, creating a taser and lunging for the shirtless man's chest, and forcing him backwards.
He swept an arm at her, with far more speed than she'd expected out of his bulky robotic suit, but she bent down, low, over it, spraying the man down with foam. See how he liked it. However, before it touched him, the fluid hit something and bounced off, splashing uselessly on the ground.
"Didn't think I'd use that on you without building in a defense, did you?" the Pro Hero asked, amused, as the other two students left the alley, turning and running off further down the maze of corridors. She tried to hit him with the foam again, noticing a low hum as the liquid base splashed, puffing up into foam on the ground. "Good," he complimented her. "Making sure it wasn't a one-off is smart, now-"
Holding out her left hand, she shot another jet of the blue fluid forward, keenly feeling her reserves dropping, even as she created something else with her right, throwing it into the stream, which hid it.
"It's not going to work a third-" Power Loader started to say. Whatever shield he was using to block the fluid, it only slowed her second creation, the flashbang leaping free of the stream of foam like a fish from a river. Its pin had a thin metal wire connected to it, which ran all the way back to Momo's palm.
"Oh," was all Power Loader said as Yaoyorozu closed her eyes, creating ear plugs already in place, as she pulled the pin, having created the device without any timing mechanism. Even then the flash still turned her vision red, and she could hear the muted explosion, opening her eyes to see her opponent struggling backwards, arms windmilling.
Yes! she thought darting forward, taser at the ready, and pushed herself to move as fast as she could, reaching the man and darting in. She made contact, but the second she did her opponent reacted, slamming into her with a robotic hand, hard, sending her flying back and through a wooden door, and for a moment her mind blacked out from the sudden pain.
But she forced herself to keep moving, clinically noting the sharp pain when she gasped for breath. Broken rib, she thought, getting up, her thoughts sluggish, but she was going to be a Hero, and something like this was not going to stop her. She'd kicked up a bit of dust, and she was thankful her opponent hadn't had time to seed this room with foam mines, or the fight would be done then and there.
She idly created a smoke grenade, set to start work as quickly as it emerged from her, the white non-irritating vapor giving her the cover she needed. Yaoyorozu knew that this would be her last move, with barely more than a tenth of her reserve left, and slowed by her injury as she was.
So she would have to make it count.
Unlatching the crosspiece of her costume, she shrugged off the top, as it would just get in the way. She couldn't consult her reference guide, but after her talk with Denki, she'd been practicing.
It was complex, and she had no idea if she'd gotten it right or not, but it took all of her remaining reserves to make, her Quirk pulling from the natural fats in her bloodstream to try and replenish itself, the enervating side-effect of over-using her Quirk enough to make her sway on her feet as she stumbled for the exit, only remembering at the last moment to pull up the top of her costume and re-attach the latch, so that Power Loader wouldn't notice anything amiss.
Both hands closed into fists, as she walked out of the smoke-filled room and back into the street, Power Loader having not moved, waiting for her. "Your helmet had a means of stopping my flash-bang, didn't it?" she asked, more for waiting out the clock than curiosity, every second wasted another second that Ida and Aoyama had to make it to the exit. They only had four minutes left before they ran out of time, but she had to have trust in her teammates, and do everything she could for them.
"Some," Power Loader agreed, no longer dragging his answers out. "Not enough to stop it completely. I am a Pro Hero, even if I work in Support. I still have my reflexes. That was very sneaky."
"When presented with a foe one cannot fight directly, one must fight subtly," she shrugged, wincing a little at the motion, and cast a glance backwards to the still smoke-filled room. Yes, the angle is right. "I must say, I have a fondness for canons," she said, seemingly at random, hoping this worked. "They have a certain beauty, simplicity, and elegance."
"Elegance?" the man echoed questioningly.
She nodded, "Everything, together for one purpose. My father thought it amusing. Until I got the ratios of the black powder correct," she smiled. It's not like he'd liked Auntie Himiko. And it hadn't escaped her notice that after they'd repaired the portrait of that awful woman, which she'd filled with holes, it'd been moved out of the hall and into the guest room her aunt used when she visited, so they no longer had to look at her every day.
"And, using them, one can secure victory in a single move," she stated, holding up her right hand to reveal a detonation switch, which she pressed.
From the window the shot came, shattering glass, even as Power Loader's eyes widened and he hunkered down, the low humming of his shield reaching a fever pitch as her shot streaked out towards him, then exploded into a ball of flame, the detonation rattling all of the windows around them, several cracking.
When the fire cleared, Power Loader stood, looking very unamused. "That wasn't a cannonball," he grit out. His skin was reddened, confirming her suspicions.
From her talk with Denki, after the Sports Festival, shields like what Mei had created could block anything but where very costly in terms of power. It was better to make a shield that could block out something specifically, like kinetic force, heat, or light, and making it variable. While more complicated, doing so extended its usability several times further. From the splotchy first-degree burns on the man's exposed chest, while it had blocked some of the heat, it hadn't been enough.
While she disliked injuring her teachers, this was a battle exercise, as her cracked rib could attest. Continuing their back and forth, buying more time, Momo couldn't help but grin wider, cocking her head in faux confusion. "Did I say it would be? No, while I prefer cannons, I have been learning to adapt." Three, two, one, she counted down, the smokescreen fading, revealing the multi-barrel rocket launcher she'd constructed, one tube out of sixteen smoking from the launch. "And as Denki says, sometimes what you really need is overwhelming firepower. Goodbye, Power Loader."
She opened up her left hand, revealing another detonator, and pressed it as the Pro Hero's eyes went wide, the other fifteen rockets firing in rapid order.
Even making another pair of earplugs, which hit her with another wave of tiredness, she watched as the first rocket hit, then the rest, the growing explosion shattering every window in the alley, the heat like staring into an open oven, and the force enough to send her stumbling backwards slightly, taking all her willpower to stay on her feet and keep the appearance of strength.
When the dust cleared, Power Loader was nowhere in sight, and the buildings behind him were gone, as were the buildings behind them, all collapsed into a mass of rubble.
The sound of concrete breaking made her turn around, where Power Loader dug up from underneath the street, breathing hard. She had no strength left, and wasn't the one with the real cuffs, the design too complex for her to create without a blueprint, and she turned a curious look her teacher's way. "What now?" she asked.
Power Loader just stared at her, shaking his head, idly putting a hand to his burns, having acquired a few more before he likely dug down to avoid the rest of her attack. "Kids these days," he sighed, as, distantly she heard the sounds of a canon firing, four muted fooms. "You lot never stayed in one place long enough for me to target you. Now you have. Good try, but not good enough to take me down."
"Take you down?" she asked, trying to eke out a few more precious seconds. "Whatever do you mean?"
The man gave the bright yellow handcuffs on her belt a significant look, which appeared to be the very cuffs that they were given to capture the teachers with, and shook his head again. "Whatever. I'll go get the others," he muttered, as she heard the whine of what sounded a bit like an incoming mortar shell, the man digging back underground.
Looking up, she saw it, along with a few more behind it, arcing through the air, the lead one thankfully exploding a hundred feet above her, showering everything with capture foam fluid. She was able to keep her face clear, but it covered her, as well as everything else around her up to her calf once it expanded. A quick calculation, if she was correct, would mean that four such shells would create a layer seven feet high, burying her completely in it. She could theoretically make the neutralizing compound to escape, but to get out would require a good seventh of her reserve, when she had, at most, one-hundredth of it left.
Thankfully, the foam was air permeable, and, with a sigh, she took a seat on the foam as the second mortar's load hit, covering everything in another layer, including her. Using her hands, and a microlayer of material, she still kept her face free, and closed her eyes with a sigh. "It's up to you now," she said, and settled in for a well-deserved nap.